Luca Merlini

What would happen if all of us would stop once a day for 30 minutes to focus all of our attention on finding and strengthening our inner awareness and amplifying the light within us? What if it were a governmental policy and the president would also be obliged to do so? How much would that effect our consciousness individually and as a whole? How much easier and flowing would the days be? By how much percent would that effect violent attitudes, stress and misunderstandings?   Read more...

I went to our weekly meditation and contemplation session on Tuesday and this time there was a newcomer. He shared his lessons learned from several difficult years in which many diseases pestered him. He suffered from various serious infections, going practically blind and more. He believed firmly that behind all great, and so called random, challenges in life there is great meaning: they are there to force us into changing for the better or to parish. At a point in his life, when he felt broken and dependent on others in his blindness, he went inward. In his words he was forced to become humble, thankful for all that others give and all that existence brings. While waiting for others to do this or that for him he realized that things happen when they are supposed to happen. Nothing bad happened if he had to wait a little.

We are so accustomed to force our will onto everything and everybody: we can't even wait a little in peace and acceptance of the other. All we are busy with are our egoistic worries, our money, our image and other so called needs.   Read more...

By many alternative thinkers starting your own business is associated with capitalism, ambition, materialism and "success". This certainly has a lot to do with it but there is much more to it than that. I can confirm as I've been working on my own startup for over a year now. We are making a web site where users can recommend web sites within their self defined area of expertise.

It should have been ready several months back, but we're not there yet. I can assure you that it is a challenge and that your self esteem, your ideas and values, your courage, persistence and mental and emotional stability are being tested. See some of the spiritual issues I faced:   Read more...

"Happiness does not come from success, success comes from happiness" - Buddha

I do that. I have a concept of success in my mind: business man, spiritual, no negative thoughts and feelings, no fear or complaining, confident, loving, beautiful and strong. I believe that if I have that I'll be happy. I'm regularly not happy because of it.   Read more...

We already have all the proof, all the info and all the resources. When will we do it? We don’t need to learn anything extra to accomplish it. When will we, collectively, stand up and say YES, TODAY WE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD FOR GOOD AND FOR ALL!

There are so many examples around to show that it can be done. That all our problems are self invented and self undoable. We don’t need BMW’s, iPods and Armani jeans. We need cheap green cars (only a matter of scaling), more people playing the guitar and singing on the streets and hemp trousers. These are all sustainable, higher in “enjoyability” and cheaper. We need decent education where children are not condemned based on their grades, but stimulated to discover, create and be bold. We need natural and healthy foods, sports, meditation and a holistic health care system for all. It would mean a happier planet, with about a fifth of the medical costs.   Read more...

Todai is anothr day in our "fast moeving" world. Todai most pieple woked up and desided to do a lot and to therepie realize themselvez.

Why?   Read more...

The current financial market troubles have led me to look more closely at our economic ideas and rules. Capitalism is based on so called growth, which means the economy is stuck if you don't grow or if it grows too slow. In a certain way it makes sense: if you sell more you can enjoy more material things, which generates more spending and therefore more money for others as well. That way a huge amount of people benefit from those 100 USD that you spend. Even if you just put it in the bank it contributes to society because the banks can't stand the temptation of writing a loan to the first person who wants to buy anything ... even an overvalued house.

Here's the problem with investments: If the market for cars will grow 10% next year as the economy is going well (this is not now by the way) and every car maker wants to own those 10%. For that they need to invest heavily in marketing, production, etc. So as everybody is investing to grow faster than all the others, the market has to grow 20% to justify the total investment made by the sector ... so big surprise ... many are going to loose money. That's capitalism: everybody borrows money in the wave of positivity and greed and then ... what a surprise, the growth wasn't sustainable!   Read more...

I've always had a problem with my thoughts and emotions. I identified with them, as 99% of us do, and that brought a lot of worries, frustration, desires and fears. It was practically my whole life. Through time I learned that what they said was wrong and then I learned to fight with them, which wasn't much fun either, but in general it meant an improvement.

Now I believe I'm doing the next step: not fighting...   Read more...

I found something very interesting, true and straightforward on Tim Ferris's blog (the guy who wrote The four hour work week - I highly recommend it by the way.). He quoted a speech that Martin Luther King gave and i believe it to be very inspiring. See the quote below, enjoy ...

By the way, i decided to not write "i" anymore with a capital letter unless it's at the beginning of a sentence.

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren't fit to live.
You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You're afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you're afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice."

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the sermon "But, If Not" delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church on November 5, 1967.

Life shows “me” that “Eyes” and “Me’s” don’t really matter. What so called individuals want isn’t what happens, what needs to happen and what makes us happy. Happiness seems to fall on to people, in unexpected moments, in unexpected ways and certainly not when worked on by “I’s”.   Read more...

First of all ... congrats for Obama! I would have been happy with Clinton running for president, but I always felt Obama had more to offer. And let's face it, the states need a decent president. I have faith in Barak, but that scares me a bit as well. Because we know what frequently happens to charismatic leaders that want and are able to do too much positive change: they get shot by some individual lunatic that has no connections whatsoever with others (that's hard to believe isn't it?!).

But for us all, I hope he wins and changes the world for the better. I hope he can rise above the fear and temptations and make us proud of being humans and that he restores faith in politics.   Read more...

I have been thinking about what to write next for Ode. I have been playing with several things I have experienced or seen recently. But when trying to write something I found myself lacking a specific conclusion or goal in the story. The writing seemed a blurry, messy thing without direction, something not well defined. Which I, and most others, find annoying to read.

One focused message that I was able to draw from this mess is that the mind always asks us for a conclusion, a message or idea of what is true. It has to be short and easy to remember so that the world makes sense. This is kind of contrary to what the world actually is, the world isn’t fittable in a two sentence formula. Unconsciously we always let ourselves be run by a theory (or feeling, which is basically the same) and if one is not convincingly there we feel totally lost. We are addicted to theories and think we are right and important and in control if we have one that we believe in.   Read more...

I saw a great movie yesterday (again). The peaceful warrior. For those who don't know it, it's about a student athlete preparing for the Olympics qualifiers. He is just like most people, a thinker, restless and plagued by ambition and the fear of not being able to reach his goals. He finds a master in the gas station clerk, which he calls Socrates because he won't tell him his name. He shows him the way of living in the here and now, beyond the thoughts and feelings that trouble us and blind us. The gymnast is still quite rebellious and challenges Socrates ideas.   Read more...

I went to visit some friends this weekend. I live with my girlfriend in Campinas, Brasil, it’s an 1.5 hour drive to our friend’s house in Sao Paulo. There are three of them living together, two girls and a gay guy, right in the middle of this enormous city. It’s always great to go there, the atmosphere is really relaxed. When I visit I always get a specific feeling that I also got in the Netherlands when visiting another gay friend there.   Read more...

I decided I want to be more social, make more friends and be less ego-centric. I notice that I don't feel good when if I

I had a very good experience this weekend. I went to a spiritual event where people drink Santo Daime and enjoy the inner journey together. Santo Daime is, as far as I know, a collective name for several plants/teas that have similar effects. They are all aimed at opening you up, letting your soul/cells talk to you and letting you know what you need to proceed in life. It isn’t meant as a party drug at all and is known not to work well in crowded and loud environments like raves.   Read more...

I heard a nice story a few days back about a doctor turned entrepreneur in the North East of Brazil. This region is known for coconuts, great beaches, relaxed/lazy people and a lot of poverty. The doctor bought a small handicraft company with a social focus. The people who made the handicraft did so at home and got a decent salary for a day of work. They were making R$ 50,- a day, which is R$ 1000,- a month (500 USD). Minimum wage is R$ 400,- , which is by any standard a shitty salary. So the money that the women at this company were making was not so bad, but no luxury either. If they would be the only breadwinners in their households they would need to turn around every cent to get kids to school and food on the table. It’s not a salary that sustains a “western” lifestyle.   Read more...

I did a great course last weekend. My girlfriend’s uncle was the trainer. He is Dutch but is in Brazil for the holidays and offered us a free 2 day course. The course was built up mostly from the material of Tony Robbins (Awake the Giant Within) and Stephan Covey (The 7 Habits). It was a great course. It offered a lot of information that I already knew but now much completer, linked, and whole.

I found a lot of practical ideas to put into practice in daily life. One of the things I really liked was the explanation that we consciously register only 1% of the impulses that our body receives. There is just too much info for our brain to calculate. Our brain of course filters, distorts and denies a lot of important (probably the most important) information that we are receiving.   Read more...

A bit more than a month ago I wrote about a tantric seminar that I went to and how amazing I thought it was. I came close to and felt real love and acceptance for others (people I barely knew) and came closer to myself. And I wanted to get involved more with tantra. So last weekend I was at a 2 day tantric seminar in a eco-hotel in the Brazilian mountains.   Read more...

I want to tell you about me and my mother. Today is her birthday and I want to stand still for a moment and see all that she has given to me and what she means to me.

She was there to love me, feed me and clean me when I couldn’t even say my own name. She brought me to school, nurtured me and taught me how to ride a bike so one day, when the time would be ripe, I could cycle proudly to school on my own. She stimulated me to grow, praised my talents and my interests and wanted me to succeed in life. As all mothers do, she had a time in which she might have wanted me to be more than I had to offer (for the moment). She was there for me to give me hope and keep the family going when I lost my father. She was always ready to reflect on what she could do better, do differently or stop doing for my well being in a phase when I didn't give any attention to my or anyone else's well being. She was there to accept me as I was, while I didn't and it was so easy not to. She was there to talk to me and show me her love in a time when I couldn't let anyone near (she was so persistent it got quite annoying)...

Today bloggers all around the world are going to write about nature, conservation, the need for a more sustainable environment. I don’t need to explain to you that this is necessary, because you read and hear the sad news each day. You see things that might make you angry, sad or helpless. But life goes just the way it’s supposed to be, we are always in the situation that we are supposed to be in. There is always something to be learned and an almost immediate solution. Doesn’t mean that when we go for the solution all the done damage will turn itself around in a second, but the way to sustainability is here, it can be instant ...   Read more...

I had a great experience yesterday. I went to a one day retreat where we did mostly tantric yoga exercises. Your thought; “that’s sex, right?” My thought; “More like sex between your and the others soul”. It’s about celebrating life and learning to open up to and love people just because they are people. You don’t need to really know them, don’t even need to know their names and you can still feel a strong love and openness for them (when you do tantric exercises together).

The exercises that we did can seem weird at first. But don’t worry; you don’t take of your clothes and there’s no nipple biting (as far as I have seen). The big advantage of this weirdness is that you are more or less forced to look at your thoughts and feelings when you are in a vulnerable situation, so close to a person you don’t know. You get all kinds of negative ideas about the other person, yourself and the situation, even if one of your usual values is respecting (and loving) all people you can see all the prejudices you’re still stuck with and live with in daily life. It took me a few hours to let go of those thoughts. Thank god we started at 10 in the morning and ended at 3 that night, I had plenty of time to realize and change important things.   Read more...

With the internet has come an enormous amount of possibilities. We can find a huge amount of information, we can connect to people with specific interests and knowledge from around the world, we can express ourselves (virtually for free) on our personal blogs and be read in every corner of the world, we are offered numerous services for free or at almost no cost which used to be expensive and there are many other great solutions that the internet offers.   Read more...

I have a question for every one who reads this blog. Does living in a community have a huge future?

When most people think of living in a community they usually think of people with a specific belief (fanatics), living more or less detached from the world, sharing everything, no privacy, living a life of low economic standard, sharing everything but their underwear. More or less traditional communities still exist and will keep existing more or less in the same way. The benefits that I see for living in such a community are:

I realized I was facing a classic dilemma today …

Should I strive to do great things? Think of things like founding a company that will have an IPO in 5 years, creating a solution for world poverty/world peace/global warming, doing everything to become as attractive as possible for the opposite sex (work out, learn to dance well and how to make intelligent jokes, get a penis enlargement, break my nose and pray that it will grow straight this time, learn how to look really confident, etc),   Read more...

This is my second day at home (Campinas, Brasil) since my trip to San Francisco. I had the opportunity to go because I participated in the competition that Ode organised. They rewarded the best proposal, by readers/fans, for the new Ode site with a plane ticket to SF. I got to meet the people behind a magazine which I have admired for several years and take an eleven day vacation! To be honest I'll never know if the editors thought my plan was the best, of the hundreds of entrees, or if it was just the least bad of two entrees. But I guess that's OK.

I always wanted to go to SF and I really enjoyed it. One of the most interesting things I did was attending a Gospel/Spiritual concert. There were three groups performing. I remembered 'the black voices' and 'the black heritage choir' because their music was most impressing. The thing I found most moving was the way they sang. They were full of energy, rocking their bodies, their faces took on every possible expression as they sang words of joy and of sorrow. They sang with their souls, with everything they had and weren't afraid to show it. They were open and showed their passion and love for what they were doing. They sang without fear. They weren't trying to be perfect, they were being themselves, accepting who and what they were (the good and the bad) and letting their passion rise from within and pour into the world trough their voices.   Read more...