Well worth a repost: a wisdom nugget from that maestro of Sufi Islam, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi:
‘In Baghdad, dreaming of Cairo’: a Rumi parable.
A man who had no money, who had inherited everything and squandered it all, kept crying out: ‘Dear God, help!’
Finally, in a dream, he heard a voice: ‘Your wealth is in Cairo. Go there to such and such spot, and dig.’
So, the man left on his epic journey from Baghdad to Cairo, and his back grew warm with courage.
But, Cairo is a large city and he could not find the spot. Wandering around at night, he was seized by the night patrol.
‘Wait!’ said the man. ‘I can explain–I am not a criminal and I am new to Cairo.’ He narrated the dream.
The night patrol said: ‘I know you are not a criminal. You are a good man but kind of a fool. I have had that dream before! I was told that there was a treasure buried on such and such street and at this house in Baghdad. But, I didn’t do what the dream asked me to do. And look at you, all fatigued and wandering!’ He named the man’s street and house.
Thanking the cop, he returned to his Baghdad home and dug around–sure enough a huge treasure buried under his own house.
He said: ‘What I was longing for was in my own house in Baghdad.
But, I had to travel that long way to know it.’
—Jalaluddin Rumi: The Essential Rumi tr. Coleman Barks (abridged and edited by Raj Ayyar).
Comment: There is a Jewish Hasidic parable retold by Martin Buber, that is structurally identical with this Rumi post. In it, a rabbi from a Polish village who is flat broke goes to a bridge in Cracow and gets advice from a Captain of the Guards. He rushes back and finds a huge treasure buried beneath his stove. The Rumi story is also very similar to the one about Mulla Nasrudin searching for his house keys in the gutter outside. All the great spiritual traditions of the world teach us that the ‘Kingdom’, the treasure of joy and love, is within, not without. The man who ‘inherited everything and squandered it all’, invites comparison with the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke.
—Raj Ayyar

So often, esp. in South Asia and elsewhere, madness is seen as a stigma, a permanent condition of an unfortunate few that are not ‘normal’.
‘Madness’ as a construct, rather than a hushed-up essential condition of some humans: Michel Foucault, Thomas Szasz, R.D. Laing and the sociologist Erving Goffman have taught us that ‘madness’ is a function of power relations and discourses (Foucault), that it is a ‘deviant’ dramaturgic performativity (Goffman), that madness is ‘manufactured’ (Szasz), that the ‘mad’ ones are the really sane escapists in a schizoid, fragmented world (RD Laing).
The Cheshire Cat in Alice prefigures all these critiques of ‘madness’ vs. ‘normalcy’.
—Raj Ayyar
‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, `lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’

It is all the same to him. Man or woman, Good fortune or bad, Happiness or sorrow. It makes no difference. He is serene.

– Ashtavakra Gita 17:15

Some rarely used English terms

1. The space between your eyebrows is called a glabella.
2. The way it smells after the rain is called petrichor.
3. The plastic or metallic coating at the end of your shoelaces is called an aglet.
4. The rumbling of stomach is actually called a wamble.
5. The cry of a new born baby is called a vagitus.
6. The prongs on a fork are called tines.
7. The sheen or light that you see when you close your eyes and press your hands on them is called phosphenes.
8. The tiny plastic table placed in the middle of a pizza box is called a box tent.
9. The day after tomorrow is called
overmorrow.
10. Your tiny toe or finger is called minimus.
11. The wired cage that holds the cork in a bottle of champagne is called an agraffe.
12. The ‘na na na’ and ‘la la la’, which don’t really have any meaning in the lyrics of any song, are called vocables.
13. When you combine an exclamation mark with a question mark (like this ?!), it is referred
to as an interrobang.
14. The space between your nostrils is called columella nasi.
15. The armhole in clothes, where the sleeves are sewn, is called armscye.
16. The condition of finding it difficult to get out of the bed in the morning is called dysania.
17. Unreadable hand -writing is called griffonage.
18. The dot over an “i” or a “j” is called tittle.
19. That utterly sick feeling you get after eating or drinking too much is called crapulence.
20. The metallic device used to measure your
feet at the shoe store is called Bannock device.

You prided yourself in your command over English language, didn’t you? . Eat your humble pie and share this, von’t you?

A deeply engrossing blog on Plitvice Lakes, by an irrepressible and ardent adventurer.

https://www.kavity.in/2019/04/plitvice-lakes-croatias-most-fantastical-national-park/

Thought is the brain of the cells and units of Life Force present in every particle of bodily tissue. Hence, a disease thought upsets the entire government of the Life Force in the cells, whereas the thought of health corrects any disorder in the cellular system.

It must be remembered that I am speaking of the concentrated Divine Thought which can heal and not of the fanciful thought of imaginary people. In order to move Divine Thought, the ordinary man must know the relation of thought, Life Force, and body without denying the existence of the body thought. The body is the frozen thought and frozen energy of God. Nevertheless, man cannot realize this until he knows that thought is frozen into energy and energy is frozen into the body of man

– Paramhansa Yogananda

https://youtu.be/HJ1UH6U4l9k

A wise man works modestly toward the hereafter while a foolish man follows his low desires yet expects blessings from Allah.

– Hadith The Prophet Muhammad

Today