I love this completely absolutely, so wonderful!!
Professor : You are a Christian, aren’t you, son ?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, you believe in GOD ?
Student : Absolutely, sir.
Professor : Is GOD good ?
Student : Sure.
Professor: Is GOD all powerful ?
Student : Yes.
Professor: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to GOD to heal him. Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But GOD didn’t. How is this GOD good then? Hmm?
(Student was silent.)
Professor: You can’t answer, can you ? Let’s start again, young fella. Is GOD good?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Is satan good ?
Student : No.
Professor: Where does satan come from ?
Student : From … GOD …
Professor: That’s right. Tell me son, is there evil in this world?
Student : Yes.
Professor: Evil is everywhere, isn’t it ? And GOD did make everything. Correct?
Student : Yes.
Professor: So who created evil ?
(Student did not answer.)
Professor: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All these terrible things exist in the world, don’t they?
Student : Yes, sir.
Professor: So, who created them ?
(Student had no answer.)
Professor: Science says you have 5 Senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Tell me, son, have you ever seen GOD?
Student : No, sir.
Professor: Tell us if you have ever heard your GOD?
Student : No , sir.
Professor: Have you ever felt your GOD, tasted your GOD, smelt your GOD? Have you ever had any sensory perception of GOD for that matter?
Student : No, sir. I’m afraid I haven’t.
Professor: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student : Yes.
Professor : According to Empirical, Testable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says your GOD doesn’t exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student : Nothing. I only have my faith.
Professor: Yes, faith. And that is the problem Science has.
Student : Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Professor: Yes.
Student : And is there such a thing as cold?
Professor: Yes.
Student : No, sir. There isn’t.
(The lecture theater became very quiet with this turn of events.)
Student : Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don’t have anything called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we can’t go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it.
(There was pin-drop silence in the lecture theater.)
Student : What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as darkness?
Professor: Yes. What is night if there isn’t darkness?
Student : You’re wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light. But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called darkness, isn’t it? In reality, darkness isn’t. If it is, well you would be able to make darkness darker, wouldn’t you?
Professor: So what is the point you are making, young man ?
Student : Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?
Student : Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there is life and then there is death, a good GOD and a bad GOD. You are viewing the concept of GOD as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, Science can’t even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism, but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.
Death is not the opposite of life: just the absence of it. Now tell me, Professor, do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?
Professor: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, yes, of course, I do.
Student : Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shook his head with a smile, beginning to realize where the argument was going.)
Student : Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor. Are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?
(The class was in uproar.)
Student : Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor’s brain?
(The class broke out into laughter. )
Student : Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor’s brain, felt it, touched or smelt it? No one appears to have done so. So, according to the established Rules of Empirical, Stable, Demonstrable Protocol, Science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect, sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?
(The room was silent. The Professor stared at the student, his face unfathomable.)
Professor: I guess you’ll have to take them on faith, son.
Student : That is it sir … Exactly ! The link between man & GOD is FAITH. That is all that keeps things alive and moving.
P.S.
I believe you have enjoyed the conversation. And if so, you’ll probably want your friends / colleagues to enjoy the same, won’t you?
Forward this to increase their knowledge … or FAITH.
By the way, that student was EINSTEIN.
Art and Expression in Creation
Short Bio and thoughts on Art and Expression for New Visual Art Website www.yasmeensongart.com
Having grown up in a Waldorf school, i was blessed to have been surrounded by beautiful paintings and art. Shepherded by teachers forced to expose their artistic faculties as a means to teach, and often accompanied for years by the same teacher everyday illustrating beautifully each subject we learned.
I learned Goethe’s color theory without knowing it was his color theory, things were made less academic, skills and knowledge were offered in such a way that the heart and mind and hand yearned to understand, we learned most essentially wonder in the world around us. I can’t really say enough for Waldorf education it is one of those things that is so close to my heart.
Later I studied fine art individually with a student of a student of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Mick Marrisson he was is more a sculptor, but taught me visual applied art in painting and drawing, he was my toughest teacher by far, and I probably learned most of my more serious and critical skill from him. Later I studied fine art at the Victoria College of Fine Art, in BC.
I believe in the study of art history, where refined artwork originates in the schools of fine arts and culture during the Golden Age of the Middle East, where each art (including portraiture),(text illumination) science, philosophy and craft was cultivated as an act of surrender and worship, enriching the culture of mankind and did in fact give birth to the Renaissance in Europe. I believe in the mystery schools as such and the enlivening of mankind by way of absolute law as offered to us by the Divine that does in fact make room for us to grow in the most beautiful and harmonious ways possible, the perfect offered space for real knowledge culture diversity and inspiration to grow and enliven all the real gifts of mankind.
I became formally a painter or artist after a very long, gently evolving period of time. At Some point I began to be asked by teachers in the Waldorf School to illustrate for them. Small pictures for each child’s cubby or stool place in kindergarten, blackboards for certain subjects, as I grew people commissioned portraits or designs for their business. And more through my music and very loving kind people, my artwork becomes slowly more well known.
I paint because I want to share beauty and gentleness in the world; I especially love children’s illustration and am a mother myself of three children. When I illustrate and write I try to convey the wonder and simplicity, the delight of childhood, imbuing each painting with warm gentle light and expression, hopefully an inspiration of the care of beautiful living.
For my figures and expressive pieces, ultimately I would like to work with non-toxic oils and canvas, but seem to be able to afford acrylics at this time. For illustration, I work with water color, water color pencil and graphite, archival ink, and heavy papers, I will also work with acrylic on canvas and will sometimes edit in Photoshop for logos or other elements of design. I really believe in the absolute highest quality brushes, and try to move from dark to light in expressive pieces, moving from light to dark with illustration.
Walking into sound painting by yasmeen amina olya
I also work in other mediums, I love to knit and sew and enjoy making patterns of traditional clothing for my children, as they are more comfortable and suited to the child. I am thinking of posting some of my other work in fabric as I go along.
Again all my work, my music, my artwork, writing, and work in fabric is meant to contribute to the overall wellbeing of the human being by way of inspiring love for beauty and knowledge, enjoining care and love for others, while spirituality and clarity and calmness of thought is clearly important to me and I pray will be recognized and accepted in my work.
When I feel a painting I made is really successful, it is when it feels as though I did not make it then I can enjoy looking at it, to wonder at it as a passerby wonders at a painting by another artist, and forget all those strokes I made. Most often the best pieces happen the most quickly, then you really feel you didn’t make it, and it is always better. I repeat, in my music it is the same, for each creation it is the same. It is like with writers block, sometimes you can create and sometimes you cannot, sometimes it flows quickly and sometimes if becomes so slow you just have to take a break and come back another day…
This is clearly the case with my music as well, as I play music that comes out of me, when I am inspired, it is improvisation, or composition, most composers will tell you the same thing. A good example is Ludwig van Beethoven with his famous deaf ear… hearing the music as he went for walks in the parks and gardens and then coming home and banging away at his piano.
In fact people are shocked to know I almost never listen to music, my husband can attest to this, although I don’t mind when others do and I can enjoy listening for sure, I love the silence, the sound of nature and my children and life, I love listening to the silence.
When you are composing a piece of music, you are listening to the silence and the motion and energy of the day and space and nature and life, in it you will hear a melody… and the melody is what you sing or play… it comes to you, you don’t create it. It is my belief that the failure of some of the greatest artists and musicians, comes from an egoist obsessive, kind of intoxication with self, where you become convinced through pride and flattery that it is you who has created. It is very difficult not to become intoxicated by peoples praise and is especially difficult in a civilization where individualistic thought and the pursuit of individual ambition is so encouraged, where we truly become convinced that we are succeeding by ourselves providing for ourselves, separatist ideological thinking, separate from the rest of creations reality.
You become very tested in this state of having created something people admire, first you are tested because your ego experiences pleasure from peoples praise, second you are tested because people want more of what you supposedly made, then you have to duplicate your work, sometimes the paintings flow and sometimes they don’t, sometimes the music flows and sometimes it doesn’t, but how and why are you creating now, are you creating for more praise, and are you finding the free flowing form that opens up so that you can create beauty, or are you pushing to make more that people will buy, praise, be distracted by, more and more…..
How many times has it happened in artists lives, that they create something one thing, one painting, one song, that is excellent and makes them famous, or even their physical beauty, but they can never make the masterpiece again, it was once, and slowly it fades just like youth and beauty. Nothing in their career can be compared to that one work. And they are left empty and lonely for that certain time. But who should be praised, who is it really who creates? Who is it that gives ideas and where do they come from? Our dreams our visions our GIFTS!
So you see I wish so honestly and pray, that one day artists, thinkers, scientists etc can be seen for who they really are, a catalyst for Divine inspiration, should not then that gift be cultivated with the same respect and humility that we worship, meaning with the utmost care and with the most excellent of teachers? If everything is done with excellence and for the betterment and the good, then it is indeed an act of worship and prayer, in meditation on excellence we find that the more we study excellence and perfection and the more knowledge we have the more we know we are not perfect, not excellent, and know so little. The more we surrender ourselves, and become the empty canvas for the occurrence of wonder the more harmonious and happy we are. And it is this act, this ability to realize humility that is sooo essential, especially for the artist, or for the gifted.
It is your ability to surrender to Divine will, you surrender and the sound comes through, you become quiet with the pencil and poof an inspiration, a picture arrives, a song in your mind, in your feeling….
If this is indeed the way we create, then should not the viewer also have a different perspective of viewing the artwork and the artist….?
So as the viewer… when we see the piece of artwork it is sooo beautiful, we immediately look for the artist, who is she? Who is he? Oh that’s him… and you look.. And he she looks to be fairly normal… But who are you looking for? Are you looking for the person who created that? I am suggesting you are actually looking for something else… you are looking for absolute beauty, for the originator, you are actually attracted by way of your innate desire for absolute beauty and harmony, but there is only One who possesses those qualities and the One is closer to you than your own heart is.
Wonder of creation and the absolute Creator, and how He enriches mankind, with his creation of the diversity of people and their gifts, and He is the Greatest and He loves Beauty, because He is the MOST Beautiful.
I pray I may be guided so that my work does not fall into the depravity of the raging Artist, and I am not even sure I am one, it is just that I have to write this artists bio for my paintings. I who can barely remember yesterday, cannot say anything assuredly about tomorrow or anything for that matter. I am your sister on earth, if you are my sister or brother, I am learning and struggling and being tested just as you are, and I pray I can stay true to the Creators’ will, because He knows best, and He serves and cares for all, and I know nothing truly, I am only learning so forgive me if I have said something that offends you, and share with me what you know, I am only learning and I am here to help you if you need help, to serve you if you are in difficulty, to console you, to be a friend to you in any way I can. I pray to be guided and to learn and to become more real and more humble and good every day.
I pray that when people see or hear or experience my work, that they be inspired to be kind and good to others, to live in harmony, to learn the knowledge of real harmony and fulfillment, and to feel inspired by the wonder and beauty and majesty manifesting in every moment all around us.
That they may be inspired in gratitude and happiness and peace with what they have had, what they now have and what they will be given.
Contact Yasmeen Amina Olya
by email info@yasmeensong.com
you can follow Yasmeen on
http://www.facebook.com/yasmeensong
Calling within Peace
My Secret Garden Story and Music
http://www.yasmeensong.com My Secret Garden Story and Music -Heart Waldorf Illustration and Sound, written composed and performed by Yasmeen Amina Olya, harp and song
The Full Song Rosa, from Oceans Rising CD
A new video live at home :)
I wanted to write a little in response to the growing concern over raising children in our ever changing sensationalistic culture, I would like to share with you all because I love and highly esteem all the children we walk with, we share existence with, those we are so blessed to be parents and caretakers of, those who are our friends our companions, the next generation.
Recently I was on the phone with a long time friend, and she was speaking to me about many of the difficulties in her life as of the present, my heart went out to her, and soon I began to realize that not only had the difficulties influenced her as a parent, but that her children were also a part of the ongoing discussion of them, and that they were listening to her speak to me on the phone. Necessarily, we as parents must express and dialogue about our issues with other adults, yes, it is essential to have sounding boards. I know at times I feel, that “Oh, he will just be in his child bubble and not feel what I am feeling or speaking about, and it wont bother him ” Other times I rationalize myself further away from my responsibility as a parent, thinking “Well he needs to experience healthy adult dialogue so he learns himself how to be deal with difficulty.” However through out all the books I have read on child development, specifically within the framework waldorf education, like Rahima Baldwin and others, the way children carry the heaviness of the modern world and adult culture is very interesting, they do not carry it the way that we as adults do.
I will try to bring this to a conclusion quickly. (I did not succeed in bringing it quickly to a conclusion)
The child is best when he is certain of his life, 100% certain that he/she is in the right place, that everything is in its right place, that the universe is moving beautifully and perfectly, and cradling him.
A good example is as follows, there were twin girls and both their parents had passed away, they were being cared for by their uncle and by their grandmothers, it was discovered that the uncle was sexually abusing them, one of the young girls went to one grandmother and the other went to the other grandmother. The first grandmother responded as most of us will respond, “Oh my God! I cant believe he did that, what kind of mother have I been oh my God!! You poor poor thing, this is terrible!” She was crying and just in the depths of dispair, the little girl was crying. The second grandmother, had heard on the phone of what had happened, she had had a deep cry herself prior to her granddaughter arriving, when her granddaughter arrived she took her in her arms hugged her and told her firmly and lovingly. “Come lets go and wash.”, she gave her granddaughter a hot bubble bath, she washed her all clean, put clean clothes on her. “It is all finished now, we are so so safe now, everthing is well, lets read your favourite story, and then we can have lunch.”
The first girl grew up and became further abused, she never had children, and suffered many situations of difficulty, namely prostitution and abortions, tragically she died young.
The second girl, grew up, went through high school and university became successful in her trade and married, she had 3 children of her own, and is happily living to this day.
For me when I heard this from a teacher who had been actively involved in these girls lives, I not only felt myself like crying, but something deeper. It is my limited experience that the world as it seems to us, is full of what we might term as scary or difficult, but that within that there is an immense and incredible harmony, that we can be observers wondering in the incredible experience of the chaos and harmony, and remain safe within, and what is more share that with our children, the strength and safety in the certainty that everything is as it should be and everything is changing, peace is coming after hardship and hardship is met with nobility of character, strength and peace.
When the culture in multitudes of different ways (news, sex, music, advertisements, consumerism) shows to us human smallness, it shows us simple vulgarity, minamalist and limited, deluded and fleeting superficial fantasies of sexuality, or power, the posturing of the egos gratification as the ultimate success, sexuality and power as a commodity, which is in fact demeaning of the real human reality and condition.
We are invited to become part of that with the distraction of our thoughts, our feelings, and we can choose to let that influence us in fear or worry or we can choose to see that we are given this wonderful opportunity and that we are in fact not touched by it, we are powerful in the beautiful array of countless moments in which we can teach our children to feel good and victorious in and of themselves.
In a world of media, where deeper focus on and promotion of; even the glorification of the ugly aspects in sexuality exists, and becomes more and more immediate and unavoidable when we venture out shopping driving… etc. It is essential that we realize that it is really not this that is most important, the more that we realize and understand that this is only distraction, and affirm this, having no fear of it, the more we realize the superficiality of it, and our children will too.
The term sexualized media, is scary, but sexuality is not, that sexuality is beautiful and good, and a noble characteristic of human existence, something to enjoy and rejoice in as it grows and naturally occurs in us, each one of us differently, some sooner than others, the more we are comfortable with that the more the child naturally feels no sensationalization of his/her maturation.
quick mention, when i had my first period, my mother gathered all the women she knew together, they made a feast, they brought roses, and had made me a beautiful white dress, they sang songs, and washed my feet, they braided my hair, and told me things they wanted to be told at the time of their coming into womanhood. I was very uncomfortable with all the attention, but it was thus I felt that this womanhood was something to be deeply treasured, regardless of the immediate pressure to become the ultimate bimbo, and give in to sexualized medias.
And so I will try to conclude in saying that it is my experience, that when the child is listening to us, we are its experience and we are its certainty, the child is interpreting everything through us, our upheavals and difficulties are not something the child understands, or even can process and rise above, they are forming their bodies and thought patterns, and we are the organic matter with which they are creating. If we can be happy and content matter, certain and nourishing, the child will grow into the being that we can see within them and we know is there, shining and overcoming all difficulties with ease and calm. We as adults can find special timing away from children to expand and let ourselves go, to ride the currents of our heavy emotive and difficult realities, in adult space in adult time, coming through it, finding solutions, being renewed through the transformation of the burden being lifted, and meeting the children again within the certainty that everything is meant to be, that we cannot ultimately change what is coming toward us, but we can meet the events with our gifts, these gifts and their development being so essentially the major proponent of the reason for waldorf education, creativity, resourcefulness, all the protective virtues, certainty nobility patience, love and so much more.
please forgive me for this being so long, as you can see this issue is very dear to me. The children are so dear to me, and the space they have to be children so so dear to me.
If I have offended anyone or if what i have written does not seem right to you, please forgive me, and i would be happy to learn more, I am young and still have alot to learn.
peace and light and all good things
Yasmeen, a Mama
