Ron's recipe for surviving the holocaust

Ron as a young boy

This is Ron Leaton, born 1929, he survived the holocaust in Matthausen Concentration Camp.  He went there when he was 12 years old and was liberated when he was 15.  He is now 85 and there aren't many survivors left like him. He took Grandpa to the Holocaust Memorial Day in London today.  He told us that one of the things which kept him alive, a boy growing into a young man was seeing the beauty and hugeness of nature
one particular time when he saw that there was something pure and good beyond the horror.

Ron Leaton

In his own words: "I existed from day to day. My body was skin and bone after almost three years of starvation, but I remember one day in particular when silently standing huddled with a group of prisoners. I happened to look up and see beautiful mountains in the distance, covered in snow, and forests also covered in snow, all in beautiful sunshine (the temp was at least -20C). Looking, I realised that irrespective of our pathetic personal state, this is the truth, the true beauty of nature which exists permanently! I know now that this insight allowed me to survive the trauma.  
Nowadays, if I am asked what advice I can give to people, it is always to look at the positive, there's a lot of it about!"

what to do when someone lobs a rotten tomato at you!

My meditating friends the BK's who cultivate pure thoughts passed on this one to me the other day: when someone defames you, garland them with praise.  I am trying to put this into practice because the advice they give is always worthwhile.  So, oh my meditating friend or my friend who might meditate one day, this is a recipe I am trying out as there are a glut of tomatoes about in my life at the moment and my aim in meditation is to clear the mind of the passata of punishment.

 

When someone lobs something unpleasant at you, say a rotten tomato, quick as a flash you have to reply with something good...Try this.."your aim is soooo straight" or "how that tomato red suits you" or "thanks for thinking of me" or "where did you get those lovely tomatoes you are throwing at me?" "Did you grow them yourself?" or there is "That really is a great speech, you should maybe consider going into politics or the Church with a delivery like that."
Anyway, you get the idea, you send the tomato back as quick as you can so it doesn't stick on you!

I am definitely something but am I Charlie?

Akhendadi Das 

Listen to this thought for the day from BBC Radio 4 yesterday.  Don't miss it and send it to friends who think the same and who are searching for the words to say it.  Akhendadi Das tells us who we are!  Today there is an atmosphere of FEAR and many of us are wondering how to help bring harmony.  It is quite understandable that those who feel outrage at the terrible events at Charlie Hebdo want to show that they share in the identity of those who have suffered.  In some countries now people are wearing the words I am Juif, Jew in the same way. This is simply to show that we have a shared identity even if we have our own national or religious identity, we want to show that our real identity is universal, we are that universal underlying One Being, we are that, and as Akhendadi Das says...That Thou Art.  Let's take this to heart and grow into One understanding of One another.

Taking out insurance

All of you above a certain age have insurance.  If you own a house or a car or if you are lucky, jewellery and gold, you take out insurance.  Some people take out medical insurance and some people take out holiday insurance in case their holiday is spoiled by illness or an hotel which closes down or has a roof which leaks onto their holiday clothes and precious cameras.  You can take out "life" insurance which is really about death! and some people now take care to have pre nuptial arrangements in case their marriage goes wrong.  All of these insurances deal with this life and are based firmly on the idea that you and your body exist and are subject to difficulties.   This is sensible, it is as sensible as not drinking if you are driving if you don't want to lose your licence.  But have you thought about what happens to you when your body not only becomes rather old and doesn't work as it used to, but what happens when that body stops and stops dead.  What ARE you going to do then?  You  may think that that will be the end but you may also find it isn't the end and then if you don't have any idea of what has happened to you, you will be searching around for something to hang onto and you may not like what you get.
Wise people take out insurance and very wise people take the trouble to get the map of what happens when the body stops, so would you like to know what will happen to YOU?
Would you really like to know?  You CAN find out from a SPIRITUAL teacher who will have studied this particularly and who will have heard it from his or her teacher.   People before there were insurance companies or Google needed reassurance about the moment when someone they loved dropped out of sight especially someone they loved dearly.  We aren't really any different but we just think we have got insurance for this life and it will go on forever.
If you want car insurance you can find people who can provide it just by googling car insurance/best deals!  And if you want to insure your jewels or your holiday or take out medical insurance you will find plenty of people to do that for you.  But I have just googled "who can tell you what happens when you die?" and the answers I found are only about what happens to your debts or they remind you to tell the DVLA (how they think YOU can do this when you die is a mystery!)  There is advice from the government about what to do when someone dies and you can be sure that this is because the government are going to gain something from your departure when you tell them you or someone you know has popped their clogs.  BUT there isn't much to tell you about YOU and YOUR dying or afterwards and that is because whatever lasts has nothing to do with either the government or the DVLA or your money or your lack of it.  It is all about YOU and who you really are.
I have heard that I am not this body or this mind or this conglomerate of elements which I call I and which dreams of fishfingers and spends time blogging about meditation.  I have heard that the part of me which doesn't change, which is still the same as it always was, which I sometimes glimpse or feel in meditation is the only way to learn about what happens and about what I really am.  Meditation I have been told is the only insurance or assurance or reassurance that is available and the great teachers have told me and they will tell you if you want to know that this is the TRUTH!

Here is a picture of Adi Sankara, a Teacher from 800 AD, he told people not to worry too much about their bodies but to take care of their spirit.

Beyond this, Beyond that and Beyond Fear

I often write about the Brahma Kumaris because they are some of the spiritual treasures of today.  If you came to St Martin-in-the-Fields on November 26th to Just this Day you will have heard Sister Jayanti or you may have viewed the film? If not, here it is. 

If you would like to hear Sister Jayanti speak about harnessing the power of Silence to banish fear, she will be in conversation on January 14th with Paul Palmarozza, author and Director of If I Can and a tutor in philosophy at School of Economic Science and Lynne McTaggart, author, lecturer and journalist.  Why not go along at 7.00 pm to the welcoming Global House, UK centre of the Brahma Kumaris, Global Co-operation House, 65-69 Pound Lane, London NW10 2HH 
To register for this event click on this link

fishfingers creep into meditation at Christmas time

Cheerio cousins

Fishfinger dream

Have you heard of the theory that all this life is a dream?  In ancient texts there are stories of how Kings discovered this through the  experience of finding themselves in a dream propelling  them through whole lives with dramatic twists and turns. They may end up killed/crowned/married and then just as the axe is about to fall or the bride walk up the aisle, they wake up and find that only a few seconds have passed.  Well don't you find that Christmas is like this: you get started on December 21st,  stocking up for the Christmas seige with the giant pack of Cheerios, party poppers, satsumas, extra potatoes, stocking fillers, turkeys, sausages, breadsauce and fishfingers too.  You make up the beds, wrap up the presents, decorate the tree, hang up the mistletoe, polish the floor, the furniture and everything else in sight including Grandpa! Then you open the door and in they come and the fun begins and goes on with paper and string and games and little snoozes for Grandpa and the occasional film on the telly and you try to keep up your meditation practice.  But then the dream creeps into your meditation and suddenly in place of the proper focus of your attention being a mantra or a silent presence, you forget you are free of all care and think...fishfingers will do the trick tonight...and your peace dissolves into planning the fishfinger supper.

We are about to say goodbye to the last visitors and take down the holly and the Christmas tree and the dream which was Christmas 2014 will disappear just as the fishfinger dream disappeared.  Lucky for this dreamer that Grandpa will still be here to say that the dream was good fun and to help with the clearing up dream which is next.

Is that Grandpa in the corner