Sunset over Cormorant Lake

Astavakra Gita

Three Aspects of the Absolute by Bulaki 1923

You are not made up of earth, water, fire, air or space. You are not the body. You are not a particular name or form. You are not a member of a particular family or tribe. You are not connected with any nation or culture. You are not in any way related to the things of this world. You are not perceivable by the gross or the subtle senses. You are the witness of these. You are the immortal self, the universal consciousness.

Concepts of right or wrong, vice or virtue, doing or enjoying, pleasure or pain are all of the mind. They are not of you.

The root of all misery is duality. There is no other remedy for this disease except the realisation that all objects of experience are unreal and all that there is is the one, pure consciousness.
The rising of the wind in the mind produces the multifarious waves of the world. With the calming dawn of knowledge they again vanish without a trace. In me, the boundless ocean, the waves of individual selves with countless names and forms arise, strike each other, play for a time and disappear, each according to their own nature. I the ocean am not affected.

The ego trades in good and bad fruits and acquires profit and loss through endless comings and goings, using the ship of the world to carry on his trade; but when the mind disappears and the illusion of the world is destroyed, the ego is completely obliterated.

Know that all the objects of the world are but combinations of the five elements. Whether you consider them to be beautiful or ugly, whether you desire them or dislike them, all phenomenal things are made up of the same stuff, the impermanent elements. Desires alone make up the world. Look upon friends, lands, wealth, houses, wives, presents and other such marks of good fortune as a dream or a juggler's show, lasting only a few moments. The three goals of ordinary life, desire for kith and kin and sensual enjoyments, worldly rewards and prosperity and the attainment of a reputation for performing good works are your enemies; they are attended by mischief and misery. Only by non-attachment to the world will you attain the constant joy of the realisation of the self.https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/ashtavakra-gita.html

Favourite Poems - Edna St Vincent Millay - Eight Sonnets V

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,I have forgotten, and what arms have lainUnder my head till morning; but the rainIs full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sighUpon the glass and listen for reply;And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain,For unremembered lads that not againWill turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:I cannot say what loves have come and gone;I only know that summer sang in meA little while, that in me sings no more.
Edna St Vincent Millay - Eight Sonnets V
See also this beautiful poem - Love Is Not All

The Distant City

The Gold Coast from Mermaids at Burleigh Heads. Click the heading for more photos. There is also a live beach cam here

The Gold Coast feels like the beginning of everything; the sharp, clear light has touched nothing for a thousand miles until this sandy promontory merges with the ocean at Burleigh Heads. Here Mermaids, my favourite beach bar in all the world, draws people for its awesome views and superb wine, food and music. Sit outside with your feet in the sand with a glass of Vasse Felix or Cullens, or inside beside the unbroken slab of mermaid-green glass which serves as the bar, and watch the surfers take the last waves and know that you are in one of the finest places on earth.

December 2011 Update: Sadly, it's no longer so special, and is renamed Meech's. But the view remains superb!

Walk

Lake Taupo and Mt Ruapehu

 
Lake Taupo, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Mount Ruapehu, an active volcano which last erupted in 1996, lies on the further shore. And after spending the day sightseeing, head for The Bach, one of my favourite restaurants, next to the lake.

Click here for a photo into the mouth of Mount Ruapehu, taken on a flight from Taupo to Wellington

Stop Press 2009: The Bach has closed as its lease has expired

Favourite Writings

No medium has yet been devised for the translation of life into language, nor can any words recall the dazzling fluidity of days. Single yet fixed in sequence, they fall like the shaft of a cataract into time and through it. Letters give the most faithful picture, because they are fragmentary and concerned only with moments as they pass and are alive through intimacy, as are the funeral stele of the Greeks that choose the littlest and easiest things of life by which to remember their dead.

Freya Stark - Beyond Euphrates

Sunset at Varsity Lakes

Varsity Lakes, Gold Coast

UK Club's 125th Anniversary 1994

The UK Club was founded in 1869, in the same year as ships first transited the Suez Canal and Japan opened to the West. Thomas Miller became the manager in 1885, operating from Great St Helens. By 1899, the year the first Pooling Agreement was signed between the then six Clubs, the UK Club was the largest, having approximately 25% of the insured tonnage. Today, the thirteen Club's making up the International Group (ie who pool their claims together) insure 95% of the world's ocean-going fleet and handle and settle all the major casualties and accidents that occur on the high seas and in thousands of ports. To operate immediately in every port in the world, the Clubs appoint approximately 800 local firms as Correspondents. The  Clubs operating together on a pro bono basis also act as an industry knowledge base and think tank, discussing hundreds of technical and international issues.

For the UK Club's 125th Anniversary, a history was written by a professional historian, Peter Young, and copies sent to all Members and Correspondents. This important work drew together for the first time the full story of the Club's history, its development and how it operates today. The book is available online here.

The Club also held a dinner at the Guildhall, London in January 1995 for 300 Members and other guests, with Lord Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, as the principal speaker. Dinners were also held in other centres, coinciding with Directors' Meetings.