While the New Year progresses Llolyd a.k.a Young Goldie is continuing to make strides toward making 2010 his biggest year yet.
In a recent interview with HipHopWired the soulful singer spoke on his plans to do just that and while not divulging details on any new releases, Lloyd says his ultimate goal for the year is “to live more in the moment.”
“My goal is to live more in the moment, to capture more moments that I live in. To take advantage of more of the opportunities that are in front of me and really learn how to really be in that moment.”
Keeping in line with his new goal, Young Goldie’s been busy in the studio putting together arrangements and making new hits.
His latest concoction is a remix of his soon-to-be Young Money family’s current anthem “Bedrock.”
Calling it “Bedrock Part 2”, Lloyd blesses the track with a new spin on his vocals in between verses from Lil Wayne and Drake.
via HHWired Exclusive: Lloyd Drops “Bedrock Part 2”, Speaks On Goals For New Year.
“The goal is to live a happy life. It’s never been about money. The goal is to be passionate about what I do and I think it’s going to show in my work.”
“People and time to myself inspire me. Reading a book or meditation or meeting people who I do and don’t agree with inspire me to do different things.”
“If you are truthful about being original, not copying someone else or biting someone else’s style, then you are being true to who you really are and it shows and prevails in your work, dance and other outlets in your life.”
Matt and Dave, 2 members of Adelaide band Monkey Puzzle Tree joined Chrissy and Casey to talk about their upcoming performance at Womad, their upcoming album Villanelles, and their previous performances. Airdate: 28/01/10
I work intuitively and use materials and narratives that carry over from one piece to the next. I want to be free and just concern myself with making something challenging, intriguing and interesting to be around and not have to worry about conceptual constraints. So the work becomes more about the activity of making and how something physically evolves. I think of this process as a metaphor for how narratives exist in time and space.
Misti Rainwater-Lites: I revise as I go along. But sometimes, not often, I revise poems years later.
A.D. Winans: Most of my poems are spontaneous and require little if any revision, but as I have grown older, I find myself going back over old poems and revising them. It’s most dropping lines or maybe adding something, or changing line breaks, things like this.
Hosho McCreesh: I hand-write or type the first draft; I make changes on that draft; a few days later I go back to it &, if I still like it, I re-type it into the computer…making changes or cuts as I do; I look at it one last time before I start submitting it…so what goes out is a 3rd or 4th draft, I’d say. I try not to stray too far from the original thrust though–& don’t believe in heavy re-writes after long periods of time. If the poem doesn’t get accepted somewhere–I either retire it, or scrap it–saving only the strong lines I like. I’d rather try to write the same poem 5 times then work & rework the first version into spoiled milk.
Chris Toll: I can easily have 15 to 20 revisions. After the first 5 or 6 revisions, I’m usually just changing a line or a few words. Or I’m scrapping the whole thing and only saving a line. I’ve reached a point in my writing where my poems “talk” to me and tell me what they want. For instance, I’m working on a poem and then the poem “says,” “No, no, no! The woman has to be happy at the end.” So the woman is happy at the end.
Father Luke: Well, that’s a good question, because you see I revise. A lot. But once I am done with it, I never look at what I wrote again. I don’t read my own stuff. Or, when I do, I cringe because I know where I would correct things, and so revise it. I was talking with chris cunningham. I’ve come to enjoy his work a great deal. chris wrote to me and told me that, yeah, once he pulls the paper out of his ‘typer that’s it. It’s a done deal.
I let it all stand, because if I were to go back and revise everything I would never write again.
People grow in their writing. Over a period of time no writer is the same as they were a year ago. At least I hope not. Maybe it would work for some, but it doesn’t for me. So, to go back and continually rework would retard that growth. Write it – work that whore as best you can – and it’s done. Simple.
Howie Good: Generally a lot. Every once in a great while, a poem will just appear almost fully formed, but most of the time it’s fight, fight, fight to discover what I want to say and how I want to say it.
Eugenia Hepworth Petty: Not a lot. I am not entirely of the Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche/Ginsberg School of “first thought best thought”, but I do agree with the writer’s law of revision that states that “revision succeeds in inverse ratio to the amount of time passed since the work was written.”
Alan Catlin: Depends on the piece. Generally, not all that much. More now on older pieces I didn’t revise enough.
Jack Henry: When you say revision I will assume rewrite or changing more than say 25% of a piece. So none. Don’t think I am bragging, I’m not that good. But I find a poem will work or it won’t, and if it works you will see it without having to do a massive rewrite. If you do revision greater than 25% that becomes a rewrite. The poem is no longer the same thing. Give it a new name, don’t call it a revision and move on.
Jennifer Blowdryer: While I’m reading a piece out loud, I automatically fix it, then I try to cross out the words that didn’t flow, or were extra. I just know. I just had to revise something for a small writing job, and the woman was correct who asked me to make a transition work more clearly, explain something a little better. She wasn’t asking me not to be unique, crazy, or poetic, and I had no problem tinkering with this free form prose rant and sprucing it up a little.
William Taylor Jr.: From time to time little poems will pop out of me pretty much in a finished state, but usually there is a week or so of pacing about the room reading the lines out loud.
to myself and hammering away at them until they feel right.
Christopher Robin: It depends on the poem. Some come out easy in one try; others will go through ten or twenty revisions, at least.
Bradley Mason Hamlin: Punch it until it’s tenderized, add spice if necessary.
F.N. Wright: Some poems take very little revision while others will go through several stages before I am satisfied with it. I could probably find something in most poems I’ve had published that I might change, add to or remove. That’s why I don’t read much of what I’ve written (including my novels) because of that fear which I think all writers and poets probably share.
Advaita is the traditional and stepwise teaching of nonduality. If you’re looking for a brief book about Advaita that you can fall in love with, get Dissolved.
Dissolved is a delightful-to-hold-in-your-hands, attractively designed 90 page book. It is a dialogue between a seeker and a sage.
Dissolved is a gently told Advaita: a study of mind; a question of illusion; an enquiry, “Who am I?”; a surrender to the Guru, to the Self; a dialogue on spontaneous action, pre-determination, fearlessness.
This is an easily received Advaita, too: a questioning of the world of duality and reactivity; a confession of living in the world when established in the Self; an addressing of pain and sorrow.
Dissolved is a practical Advaita: impermanence; the nature of happiness; renunciation, diet, helping out the world, alcohol and drugs; all these topics enter the dialogue and are crisply addressed.
Dissolved is a full Advaita: in the end there is the dissolution into Self through surrender to the Guru and via self-enquiry.
Dissolved is filled with stories and metaphors, some of which you may have heard and all of which are heard freshly once again.
In the following fragment, the Guru plays the role of seeker and the seeker Vivek plays the role of Guru; this is done to test Vivek’s knowledge, or perhaps the reader’s knowledge, or perhaps it is a pure demonstration of the play of Self:
Guru Ji: But still how can [the Self-realized being] meet people, who give him hatred and abuses, with love?
Vivek: What happens when one throws a stone in the ocean?
Guru Ji: Water gets splashed.
Vivek: Does the ocean splash back stones in return? No. The ocean only has water to give. No matter what you throw it, it will only throw water back. Similarly, a Self-realized being is an ocean of love. He has only love to share. No matter what you throw in, you will only get love. There is nothing else in there.
Guru Ji: Still … How is this possible? I know, you will say they don’t see anything separate from them, they see only the Self, etc., etc.
As the dynamic between Vivek and Guru Ji plays out, the reader eventually joins to make a trinity. Sometimes the reader takes the attitude of seeker, sometimes the sage. In this way, the reader eventually becomes another character, merging with, dissolving into Guru Ji and Vivek, so that all three characters become one.
In the beginning, the seeker Vivek asks his Guru for help in understanding who he is. In the end, there is dissolution into the Self, into consciousness. Dissolved, therefore, is a full-cycle, concise version of the teaching of Advaita.
Whether the reader dissolves into Vivek and Guru Ji, or dissolves into Self, or sits back with a cup of tea and dissolves a spoonful of sugar into it, this book serves up many levels of rewards.
Perhaps you are seeking a beginning education in Advaita, or further practice of self-inquiry, or maybe you only want to enjoy the dialogue, the stories within, the story at large, the teaching, the expression. In only 90 pages of gentle dialogue, poetry, and storytelling, Dissolved offers all this, all you could and could not imagine.
~ ~ ~
Preview “Dissolved” on Google Books
Purchase “Dissolved” from any of the following places:
Amazon.com link
A1 Books – India
Parimal Publications
Interview with Tarun Sardana
Photo: Tarun Sardana
How about a brief bio?
I was born in May 1979. I stay in Delhi, India with my parents, my wife and my two and a half years old son. I started my career as a software professional in year 1999 and was working as a project manager with an MNC before KnowI was founded.
How did you stumble into Truth? Any childhood stories?
My Grandmom and mom are spiritual followers from as long as I can remember. They used to go to the satsangs every Sunday and would also take me along with them. We had a scripture at home called ‘Satvastu ka Kudrati Granth’ which means ‘Sacred scriptures of Satyug as revealed by the nature’. They used to read it daily and share with me and my younger brother their spiritual experiences. That was how I was initiated to the truth. While in school, we were taught the history of Sikhism as part of our curriculum as it was a Sikh school. The curriculum was about the ten Sikh gurus, their encounter with the truth and their brief biographies. The biographies really interested me. I always wanted to understand what is ‘that’ which every scripture points at. I used to lock myself for our hours in a room meditating and seeking that truth, seeking God until one day when I came across one of Ramana Maharishi’s article on web which changed my direction of the search from finding God to finding the one who is seeking God.
How did Dissolved come about?
‘Dissolved’ is a book that came as a spontaneous expression as part of my own spiritual journey.
What Advaita teachers do you recommend?
I believe all the teachers are good, it really depends on the seeker which pointers suit his temperament the best. My introduction to Advaita was through Shri Ramana Maharishi’s and Nisargadatta Ji Maharaj’s teachings. Though, I have not met anyone of them in person. I did visit Shri Ramana Maharishi’s ashram in Tiruvannamalai back in 2007.
Why did you write this book as a dialogue?
Before the silence takes over, this is how a conversation happens in one’s mind – in a dialogue form. Therefore the book was written in a dialogue form.
How do you create an effective pointer to truth?
Usually the truth that one experiences is inexpressible in words, so to communicate one tries to relate it with the closest example from life. It happens as a spontaneous expression rather than a thought out one.
On your website, www.knowi.org, you speak about workshops and trainings. What are you offering or planning to offer? How would Dissolved be used in such an offering?
KnowI has been formed to serve as a platform to facilitate knowing the “I” through various mediums like publications, articles, workshops, talks… etc… Dissolved plays an important role in such offerings as it covers most of the aspects of the so-called spiritual journey.
I don’t think you use the word “surrender” in Dissolved and yet this book is certainly about surrender. Why did you decide to describe surrender rather than speak directly about how to surrender, as you did with self-enquiry?
‘Surrender’ is the only way to the Self. Surrender means admitting one’s powerlessness and this can only happen when one clearly sees its powerlessness. And self-enquiry does the same. It reveals the powerlessness and non-existence of the mind separate from the Self and thus leading the mind to surrender. Therefore, the book talks about the Self-enquiry, letting the mind to see the truth and thereafter surrender to follow naturally.
How did you want the reader to respond to Dissolved?
As the book says, “Dissolved is the result of every Self-enquiry, which is dissolving of the non-existent ego-self in the Self.” The book expects the same to happen. Dissolved moves as a journey from Vivek (a character in the book) to no-Vivek. If while reading they can make the same journey, the book will achieve its purpose.
What are you doing to change the educational system to a transformational institution founded in truth and awareness?
The current education system is being followed and practiced since ages. The employment sector and everything else is completely based on the present education system. Therefore, sudden transformation of the system may not be possible. Realizing that, KnowI has started an initiative called KnowI Education, which attempts to provide a supplement to the current education system i.e. not making changes in the current education system but providing a supplement to what lacks there.
More details about KnowI Education can be found at: www.knowi.org/knowieducation.html
Dissolved
by Tarun Sardana
Preview “Dissolved” on Google Books
Purchase “Dissolved” at any of the following places:
Xildhibaan Maxamed Qanyare Afrax, ayaa sii kulul u weeraray Gudoomiyaha Baarlamaanka DFKMG Sheekh Aaden Madoobe, Qanyare oo Waraysi Siiyey Idaacada BBC-da Laanta Afka Somaliga ayaa sheegay in Gudoomiyaha Baarlamaanka xiligii u ka dhamaday isla markana aay Baarlamaanku Gudoomiye cusub dooraan doonan 
Dhegeyso, Isaga oo Sidoo kalena Meesha ka saaray Dalab Xildhibaanada uga yimid Sheekh Aaden Madoobe, waxana u sheegay in Aaden madoobe uusan u wici karin Xildhibaanada Baarlamaanka DFKMG oo u yahay shaqsi aan xiligan wax xil ah u hayn Baarlamaanka Somaliya