Post from: New Age Vibe

Music comes closest to meditation. Just beyond music is meditation: one step more and you are in meditation. And music is the most beautiful door. Listen to music so totally that the listener disappears in the listening, that there is only music and you are not, that you are an emptiness and the music fills you. There is no observer even, nobody to appreciate, to judge. Listen to music without judgement, without evaluation, and it will become your deepest meditation

More on Sex-Guru:

Some how Osho seems to have been stuck with the image of being a sex guru . But it’s the stupidity of the sex obsessed mind itself that brands him to be so.Which can’t look beyond.

While I call him sex-guru in this post, I must acknowledge that it is used as a mere eye-catching phrase. Some how the market-value of this term helps in spreading the real message of Osho. If you are interested, you can read on Osho here, here and here (wiki).

Post from: New Age Vibe

Entry forms for the 55-Alive! Battle of the Boomer Bands are now available on the 55-Alive! website. The Battle of the Boomer Bands is an online competition featuring musicians born before 1964 who will compete for prizes and fame. Musicians may enter as solo artists or as a band.

“The Battle of the Boomer Bands gives talented but largely unknown boomer and pre-boomer musicians the opportunity to build recognition and have fun battling it out for the title of the Best Boomer Band,” said Kelly Lantz, president of 55-Alive! LLC. “All competitors will have a profile on 55-Alive.com where their entry video will be featured and voted on by our online audience.”

“The Battle of the Boomer Bands is an exciting continuation of our commitment to enrich the lifestyles of boomers and those over 50,” said Ms. Lantz. “This competition is a fun way for our members and the online community to interact.”

Entry forms for the Battle of the Boomer Bands are available at http://www.55-Alive.com. To enter, solo artists and bands should complete the online entry form and submit their music video to 55-Alive! Online artist/band profiles can be created to develop a fan base and increase exposure of each artist or band’s music. Throughout the competition music videos will be featured on 55-Alive!,and musicians and the 55-Alive! online community can interact.

The deadline for entries is October 15, 2007. Specific details on the competition are also available on 55-Alive!.

Sponsorship for the Battle of the Boomer Bands is currently underway. Companies interested in becoming a Battle of the Boomer Bands sponsor may contact Kristyn Hutzell at Avalon Communications at telephone number 512-514-6045.

About 55-Alive!

55-Alive! is a comprehensive and trusted online magazine and community for baby boomers and those over age 50. 55-Alive! provides news, lifestyle, health, recreation, and financial information, dozens of featured columnists, an interactive community, and 55-Alive Romance!, a place for baby boomers and those over age 50 to connect. Membership to both 55-Alive! and 55-Alive Romance! is free, and members can create online profiles, blogs, and photo galleries, and can join the many 55-Alive! groups. 55-Alive! is headquartered in Lake St. Louis, MO. 55-Alive! can be seen at http://www.55-Alive.com.

Post from: New Age Vibe

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

So says Steve Martin. Mido, What shall I do? Shall I accept this? If so, I need to bid Adieu to this blog, sit lazily and think over the eternal question ‘What Next?’. I can’t. Neither can I accept that I’m “dancing about architecture.”

Just for a minute, imagine what would be if,
Everyone talks on talking
dances on dancing
writes on writing
composes music on music…..

If this is the world, I’ve a special name for it: it starts with A and ends with M and are inhabited by people who are honored by the name MOONSTRUCK. Guessed it right, Mido? A thesaurus comes handy if not.

Moreover, only when you talk about something inexplicable, something that cannot be ‘usually talked’, the real poetry comes into life. Victor Hugo somewhere says,

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

That’s a beauty of music and that’s the poetry on music by Hugo.

Talking, in my case, Writing, about music is a very creative work and at the same time a good exercise in critical thinking. I write on music that fills me with Silence:

Blissful Silence which creates no more desire
Yet the Silence is so FULL that I desire to write on it.

Will any of my Midos quote this saying…. Shankar said somewhere….?

lol…  lol… lol…

Post from: New Age Vibe

* 3 iPod Shuffle
* 3 MP3 players with preloaded MusicIP software
* 3 iTunes Certificates (worth US$25 each)

How To Win:

Step One:
1) Check one or more of our new Music blogs and choose one topic that appeals to you. Create a 3-song playlist relating to that topic. For example, if you like the Crooners, pick your Top 3 Crooners songs and share it on your blog.
OR
2) Blog about one (or more) of our new Music blogs in your own blog. Do a review. Give suggestions. Write about the topic with tips, lists, etc. Or simply offer a welcome.

Step Two:
Submit the permanent link to your blog entry through the comments section of this blog entry or email them to shai@b5media.com with the subject line: MUSIC CONTEST ENTRY. You will receive a confirmation of your email entry. If you don’t receive a confirmation email, please feel free to resend your submission.

Step Three:
Watch out for the list of eligible entries in the next few days. If your entry is eligible, then you will see your entry in one of our highlight posts.

Step Four:
b5media will hold a raffle draw. Prizes will be assigned randomly to those who get picked during the raffle. Winners will be announced on the b5media blog and each one will be notified accordingly.

Basic Rules/Guidelines:
1) Make sure you include the correct link/s to the b5media blog/s of your choice in your entry.
2) One blog is eligible for one entry only. If you have multiple blogs, you can enter each blog accordingly, but duplicate posts will not be permitted. You must create an original entry per blog.
3) Please make sure that you can be easily contacted via email. If you win and we can’t contact you within 7 days, you forfeit your prize.
4) Blog entries should be no less than 75 words. There’s no maximum length.
5) b5media bloggers and Channel Editors are not eligible to enter this contest. We have our own internal contest!
6) Gambling, adult, and illegal blogs will not be eligible to enter either. Sorry.
7) Winning entries are final and winners should claim their prizes by confirming their mailing address within 7 days. If there are unclaimed prizes, we will draw more names from the eligible entries list until we give all of them away.
8 ) b5media reserves the right to make reasonable amendments to contest proceedings and outcome.

NOTE: If you submitted an entry and you don’t find yourself in the ‘eligible entries list’, please make sure that you followed all the guidelines/rules above.

A total of nine (9) prizes will be given.
All winners will be announced on or before the 25th of July.

*Special thanks to Music IP for donating the MP3 players.

Post from: New Age Vibe

If you are already aware of the Darfur issue, you probably know what appealed to my heart. If you aren’t, you can know that in detail from here and here. For a quick say, this is it: Darfur is a region in Sudan, its people a victim of the ALL POWERFUL (Mido!, I am not referring to any mute God here, nor am I intoxicating with any religiousness.) Darfur people, men, women and poor innocent children, suffer and die with the least dignity of being born human or even worse, die without any dignity being a living thingy. And the culprits (whatever nicer name, they name themselves) who play gods are the ALL POWERFUL. I know, Mido, that I am going astry from my blog…. but it’s no fault of mine: I made it clear in the beginning. You say keep on track (with some pun intended)…. Yes, I am back on track, a track by Big&Rich. I like the lyric and the voice that accompany these lines:

Nobody told me there’d be days like these,
Nobody told me there’d be days like these,
Nobody told me there’d be days like these ,
Strange days, indeed, strange days, indeed.

This lyric appealed very much to me. My friend Relic has written a wonderful post on the album with some sarcastic punch and thoughts most needed for our times. A sample follows, read the full version here.

Y’see, there are thousands of decent souls bein’ tortured, murdered and starved every day in the senseless fighting (is there any sensible war?) goin’ on between the Janjaweed and SLM in the Sudanese province of Darfur.

Reading about Darfur reminds me of Arundhati Roy’s writing on Nuclear Weapon in her essay The End of Imagination:

Who the hell is the Prime Minister to decide whose finger will be on the nuclear button that could turn everything we love – our earth, our skies, our mountains, our plains, our rivers, our cities and villages – to ash in an instant? Who the hell is he to reassure us that there will be no accidents? How does he know? Why should we trust him? What has he ever done to make us trust him? What have any of them ever done to make us trust them?….

If you are religious, then remember that this bomb is Man’s challenge to God.

It’s worded quite simply: We have the power to destroy everything that You have created.

If you’re not (religious), then look at it this way. This world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million years old.

It could end in an afternoon.

Sure enough, Darfur conflict needs many-fold daring voice of Roy-like people.

Post from: New Age Vibe