Where Do We Go From Here?

If you're not in my general Facebook circle, you might not be aware of how my last 2 blog posts literally started a massive fire on Facebook. I think we're now approaching 300 response posts. If you haven't read the blogs, you can find them here and here. Please read them before you go any further. Here is the link to most of the Facebook responses.

As happens on Facebook, after a while, it gets difficult to follow and keep track of things. The conversation often veers off on tangents, and sometimes the original thought is lost. For the most part, this stayed on track and presented a very valuable and needed discussion.

The journey is long, the path is never ending.

So where do we go from here?

People who play Gongs and/or Singing Bowls in a group setting—whether it's called meditation, therapy, or healing—need to hold themselves to a higher standard. There's much too much misinformation and sleight of hand out there. A lot of this misinformation is perpetuated by instrument sellers, often out of ignorance, often out of a desire to sell product. This also occurs with practitioners presenting sessions for people. Many of them just don't know what is right or wrong, and thus perpetuate the spreading of misinformation. And as in all things, there are opportunists who see this as an easy way to make a quick dollar/Euro/ruble. 

It's up to you to educate yourself! 

Since there is no one governing body, or standard, it's up to you to continually educate yourself. You can't just buy a Gong or Bowl and think that's enough. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know I've often written about the person who takes a weekend class then proclaims themselves a Gong Master. This is irresponsible and needs to stop! It does a great disservice to all of us, especially those who have put in years and years of continual study.

It's also up to us to police ourselves, keeping our standards up, as well as continually learning. This never stops! There is always more to learn. There are new ideas and new discoveries everyday. Don't settle or cheat yourself (and others) out of a better experience.

Keep studying.
Keep learning.
Keep exploring.
Keep seeking the truth

Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)—they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown  neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else-) to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars,—and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and scattered noises. And it’s not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are they nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves—only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst goes forth from them. 

From THE NOTEBOOKS OF MALTE LAURIDS BRIGGE, by  Rainer Maria Rilke

~ MB

Chop Wood / Carry Water / Play Gongs™