Could this answer your question "what do the good people get as a reward from being good?" They get an understanding of the following kind of things, and if the Heaven is generous, they will get to know life as the great panorama of natural music. The evil ones will get nothing of this since they are not compassionate, not emotional and typically don't value atmospheres, maybe do not value even music and dance expression.
TOWARD NATURAL COMMUNICATION AND MUSIC
Adding a description of ways of doing to a fact discussion
Getting rid of the harmful side effects of being used to written language,
getting rid of the flattening of the use of language because
the written form doesn't contain all shades of meaning
The fact that all people like music,
means that something like music is a natural part of human life
and is useful in some way, as an aid in survival,
in living and in the functioning of a society.
Music is connected to feelings, atmospheres, to rhythm,
ways of doing, what something feels like, experience and one's thoughts.
Tones of voice in normal everyday speech and ways of speech
also reflect these kinds of things.
We are by nature interested in hearing other persons' thoughts,
knowing their feelings and hearing about their experience in life.
In thoughts we are usually interested in things that touch our own life in practise,
what it feels like to do something. Which things matter in life and how.
Our feelings when we talk about such subjects,
reflect how important these things are to us on the practical level, in our experience.
By hearing from others about their life, their experience,
we can learn things that matter in our own life.
The level of facts is not the only thing that matters, if we want to do something.
We want to hear also, what it is like to do such things. Does one get tired easily?
Is it motivating, and in which respects, how and why?!!
If we express our emotions by a tone of voice and so on, while we talk,
we communicate information of these other kinds to others.
We are all human beings and share many similar things
in ways that we do or can do things.
So also things that have to do with the fact that we are human beings,
are often objective in their own way.
So atmospheres, feelings and the like
should get enough room in objective discussions.
Only so we communicate all the information we need
if we want to discuss something objectively
MUSIC OF SOCIAL LIFE
Music maybe corresponds to a natural form of social perception
in which one sees and senses empathizingly
the emotions and atmospheres in the state of the body
of another person and of one's own body.
Each emotional posture corresponds to a tone of voice,
each movement to a rhythm (action) with a tune (emotions),
and all movements are born out of emotional reactions, motivation of some kind
or are expressions of an emotional kind of state of mind,
i.e. expressions of the human functioning.
The emotions and action being intertwined, a web of life.
The human side of action and the conrete easily perceived practical action.
The functioning of humans and the things done.
An ever changing social situation,
a situation of a group in action
and the situation of one's own life.
(See these as divisions with which to perceive the practical reality.)
THE GREAT SONG OF LIFE
All people love music. That means that something like music is a part of the human nature.
Some few know how to compose music. They see or hear the life as music. We ourselves when we dance can see the connection of movement and music and sometimes when listening to music the connection of music and feelings � but the other way than those who compose music.
Dance is important: the body is the central part of a human being, via it we live, regardless of how intellectual or spiritual we are. Via the gesture langauge we express what we feel and communicate with others, via the body we do everything that we do. Our state of mind is reflected to how we keep our body and how we move.
When one is relaxed and understands the connection of the body and mind, one can see the body as music of life: our whole life is reflected in our body, in its gestures, and the body sings as sensations in our senses � as sensations which we can express by voice. The tones of voice express different kinds of states of mind.So each feeling or sensation is like a sound, like music which we can hear. And from the song of life we can choose a partial theme to be communicated by a song: a melody.
The song of life in us is what life is to us. It is in other words what we observe, what we experience. The body just expresses it as music.
The songs of life of other people we can hear if we emphatise completely RELAXEDLY with their body like is usual in sports hobbies.
Ordinary music pales from the road of this natural stimulus. The whole living world becomes an enermous panorama of music, the great song of life.
ART, NATURAL COMMUNICATION AND THINKING
If we remember something well,
it is the things that touch us, are important in our lives
� of which we need lots of information to survive well in our life.
And as all human beings are alike in many, many respects
(and because we are pack animals),
that kind of things interest us also in the lives of others.
(So we need lots of ability to compare our own life to those of others.
Read my texts about my picture of humans: they offer such a comparison.)
So those things are ones that we like to hear about, what art consist of,
what really good communication consists of, and
what is the ideal base for thinking, created by the natural evolution,
toward as perfect thinking as possible: sensory perceptions (sure knowledge)
together with an idea of how important those things in our life
are to us as feeling and thinking creatures, in practise,
and the role each thing has in the whole,
and in which ways it affects our life at the level of experience.
Art, naturality, things that touch us, noticing the essential and communicating it,
thinking clearly.
Natural emotional motivation supports natural functioning of the individual and of the pack, which leads to a better survival in life, says the theory of evolution.
UNIFIEDNESS OF HUMAN FUNCTIONING AND OF THE FUNCTIONING OF HUMAN GROUPS IN "SONGS"
About my interest in shamanism and its connection to unified ways of doing things:
communication:
song and sound
sound and hearing
hearing and the sense of direction, rhythm, ways of doing
and what is done
and the idea in doing
the body connecting all these to the sources and to the recipients:
idea, intentionality and action
intentionality, emotions and picture of the world
entities in the world and natural reactions to them
language to shamanistic intentionality:
entities in the world and intentionality
entities, intentional action and expression
intentional action includes the picture of the world,
emotions and the body, the level of practise
LEARNING THE GREAT SONG OF LIFE
Learning the great song of life: I have only a slight grasp of it but I have a live interest in dance and world music and in the connection of the mind and the body (natural communication, emotional expression, gesture language, buddhism, chakras etc.) and in the philosophy/wisdom of life. I am also interested in the skill of composing: I used to flirt with a man with the skill to compose songs (I didn't believe it before...) and once I managed to get a grasp of that skill for some hour or two. It might be that composing is a skill that just about everybody could learn if we just had our natural capacity and natural ways of learning - which we most unfortunately do not nowadays have. Relaxedness is a major prequisite for emphaty and consequently for sensing the song of life in the bodies of others and even in one's own body. So practise sprots too. Meditation in motion might be connected to this too - I learned it from parctising karate and aikido, Japanese sports that one concentrates well into.
There is something easy in the song of life too: the low drum beats corresponding to the heavy movement of the feet like in African music and dance, and the high tones corresponding to the head, to the sense of sight, to the sense of beauty and to ideals. The rythm of the song of the bodyin action or in being social and experiencing life is quicker than the pace of feelings usually described in western songs. The "ding dang dong" of the South-East Asian music described the sifts of relaxed attention in a warm climate, of the sense of sight, if I have understood right. So listening and dancing to world music might increase one's musical social understanding about the connection of voice and the state of the mind, body and feelings. Sincre expression might have something to do with this skill too: how could one otherwise learn natural expression and the tones connected to it: the natural way that our experience is a song?!
It seems that the song of life fits well together with my model "healthy versus broken" and a way of life according to feelings and instincts: the healthy parts sing, the broken parts do not, and the melody of the song is that of the of functioning according to humans' natural ways of functioning. If one has a grasp of the flow of life in one's own veins, one can see the flow of life also in others, so healthy happy ways of living according to the nature of humans are the ground for the song of life.
Read John Steinbeck's short story the Pearl: the song of the family on it.
The song of life is the healthy form of social life, so normal healthy social life in a friendly atmosphere is important for learning it.
The song of life is connected to the usual kind of social perception via one's own very relaxed body of the body of the others. There just seems to be some component lacking, so that what is seen doesn't necessarily form a sound. Maybe imagining a singer in the radio as seen via the sound would help to recognise how the sound connects to the state of mind. Or then dancing - or what, I do not know. But it should be possible quite easily for those who already have the correct natural kind of social perception. Maybe listening to tones of voice, how they connect to the state of mind and consequently to the state of the body would be needed too.
HYV�LAATUISESTA TEOREETTISUUDESTA
Suomi on j�rke� arvostava kansakunta, jonka valtaenemmist� kuuntelee mielell��n musiikkia. On siis v�li� sill�, miten usein �lykk�in� pidetyt taiteilijat ajattelevat, soittavat ja laulavat.
Hyv�laatuisessa teoreettisuudessa kuva vastaa todellisuutta ja kunkin oma havainto varmentaa yhteis�n totuuksia. Asia on ajatuksissa kuten havainnossa - tuntemuksineen, tunteineen ja tunnelmineen. Ajatus ei ole muistettu ja koulumaisesti ulkoa luettu vaan itse omakohtaisesti ymm�rretty. (Huomaa t�ss� ero suomenkielisen ja ruotsinkielisen kulttuurin v�lill�: suomenkielinen kulttuuri edustaa todellakin hyv�laatuista teoreettisuutta ja ruotsinkielinen ulkokohtaisuutta, joka ei tuo niin varmaa kuvaa asioista.)
Tunteet kertovat kunkin asian merkityksellisyydest� el�m�n kannalta. Tunnelmas�vyt ovat luonnollinen ja tarkka havainnonteon muoto. Tunelmallinen maisema sis�lt�� kokonaiskuvan, jossa on tunteiden avulla otettu huomioon kaikkien maiseman ilmi�iden merkityksellisyys el�m�n kannalta � tunnelmat ovat siis erityisen hyv�laatuista ajattelua.
(T�m�n tied�n oman suuren ajattelukokemukseni perusteella, jota on niin tieteen, k�yt�nn�n alojen, filosofian kuin tekniikankin alalta.)
SINGING AND MASTERFUL SKILL
Each one of us has one's own way to do things and to live. That is the natural base of all our actions and one can reach that by observing: by feeling, experiencing, sensing. When one's skill has developed far enough, one can see a form like the learned form (tune, way of singing, rhythm - or whatever!) in that web of life, and so one's way to do things gets real base when its rhythm is no longer artificial like a drum machine but life's own rhythm and tune. A beautiful sound comes from those parts which touch the heart, sincerity, right healthy natural way to be and to do, to be happy and to live.
The BASE OF THE GREAT SONG OF LIFE
So, the great song of life correcsponds to the usual Finnish European extremely compassionate way of seeing and sensing via one's own body the states of mind of the other one in her/his own body. These social sensations is what the song of life consists of. It is just that we do not always translate them to a "heard" song.
And how to reach this type of social relationships? An easy advice is to follow the rule "Live and let others live." and to demand it also from others. In addition one should be compassionate and carry responsibility about all important matters, whether one's own, those of others or of the large scale.
SENSING THE BODY AS MUSIC
This skill may be born out of social life via the gesture language and emphaty and out of an interest in non-erotical (!! - otherwise one's attention is diverted) performing dance which may express all kinds of things in human life, also erotical attractiveness but not in the way of being a sexual affair like pair dance often is, i.e. an interest in dance expression.
TEACHING THE GREAT SONG OF LIFE
Yesterday evening (Sept 2007) I was on a pair dance course and tried as I danced with my pair to teach the song life to them. The end result was: it might be possible to teach it in that way for example but would demand some practising from both parties and the primary problem is their ability to remember the lesson. I tried the following way: as we dance with our pair we automatically socially copy some of the ways of miovement and of the perspective to life of the other person if we are in friendly terms. So if I as we dance take as a starting point the ways of living of the other one and conceive via them what would be the right way to conceive things in order to experience one's own body as music, and adobt myself ways that lead to or are just such ways, the other one can get to know the song of life just by being social with me. Unfortunately my own ways of living are not at the moment sporty and art oriented enough to serve as a good example for others. Still, I think that it is possible to teach some part of that skill or some perspectives which lead to the right direction. The song of life demands that you move and keep your body relaxedly, so it is not as easy for all to learn. For example with my boyfriend I have managed to teach some part of the skill but not the whole thing, not even as well as to some of my dance pairs yesterday. The problem is that I didn't have a chance to talk with the pairs about this, so maybe they will just bypass the whole thing - or learn it like any other thing in the dancing course...
LIFE IS A SONG
Whenever we use a machine and it makes a KRAAH sound, we know that we have made something wrong. It is the same with humans. And when our senses sing, we know that we have done everything right!
It is our nature to see life as a song, as a great panorama of music. That's why we love music: its sound is in our nature, the natural stimuli that we used to hear all the time.
In the natural life in a natural environment a long time ago we were immersed in beauty, much like we can admire the sight of nature even nowadays. But then, a long time ago, it was every side of our life that was so beautiful.
Like with the fracturelessness of nature, beauty is a charachteristic of full health. And since the healthies is the most well functioning, the natural world full of the beauty of full health is the source of miracles in the eyes of us who are used to the fractured world with all the artificialities. The untouched human nature is so well functioning in every respect that it looks miraculous in our eyes. So it is also with our perception of life as a song: it is natural perception about the essentails of human life, about the well funcrtioning and healthy and healthily beautiful in our lives.
My Favorite Web sites
The body and dance
Learning (in the context of sexuality)
The rationality of feelings
Enlightenment and meditation in motion (Read this too)
Life is all that matters
Beauty of the world