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 12 Dec 2004 @ 04:20, by nemue. Spirituality
I wrote recently about the potential risk to our culture and the impact of political correctness. My attention was drawn to the lack of celebration of our Christian heritage and the impact of the moral minority in sanitising our demonstration of who and what we are. Merry Christmas replaced by Seasons Greetings for fear of offending. The complete lack of outward show, no decoration (or limited decoration) and often NO outward show at all.
I am pleased to say that people power won the day in a small way clearly showing that we could all celebrate each other’s differences and enjoy the experience of doing so. In Sydney, hundreds of people wrote to the papers, rang radio stations and emailed people voicing their concern. I was one of those people. It wasn’t just Christians who wrote and rang but Muslims, Jews and the like. Their voice was united and those of different religious beliefs stated we love Christmas and we want to celebrate with you, we are not offended.
In fact in one of our larger shopping centres where a sizeable Lebanese Muslim community shops many, many small Muslim children had their photos taken with Santa Claus. I have never seen my suburb so colourful before. Many houses festooned with lights and messages of goodwill. Merry Christmas emblazoned for all to see. There are still some who resist but change is happening and whilst this year things started a little late, next year will be even better. That said, the ‘wake-up’ call did prompt many to act so the Christmas message is alive.
So you see, people can make a difference. It is just a matter of tolerance, goodwill and the joy of sharing. Whilst in the4 scheme of world events this is a little win, it is a win nevertheless so remember - speak up for what you believe in, you can make a difference. Do not allow those with a mission to divide to win the day. We don’t need wars to change things only those willing to speak out in peace. How is that for a wonderful Christmas Message?
Peace, love and goodwill to all. You CAN a difference. More >
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11 Dec 2004 @ 18:39, by bushman. Spirituality
God gave himself AIDS, when he created man. Look what we do to his creation. Humans are no different than an oxident, slow burning the creation with an eternal flame, making toxic emissions and spewing toxic fluids that ooz all over everything. Just take a look around, God has an immune defficiancy. The eternal flame will finaly go out when theres nothing left to burn. More >
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 5 Dec 2004 @ 02:04, by i2i. Spirituality
“Saturn devouring one of his children” (1821-23), Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain)
Hannah Arendt, in her ground breaking book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, discovered what she least expected and least wanted to face. During multiple interviews with Eichmann, the German Jewish author discovered that he was not a monster. He was not even an anti-Semitic maniac or twisted, distorted demon of a man. Eichmann, she said was a man who simply wanted to get ahead, to succeed in life, to please his superiors, to be respected by his peers, to do his job well, to be patriotic, devoted, and responsible.
Since the ovens of the concentration camps and the mushrooms clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mankind seems nowadays to have managed to industrialized evil to the point where total madness and collective evil can now be perpetrated with no intention at all.
Are we increasingly becoming participants in a system which progressively has been turning ordinary citizens into “willing but intentionless death dealers”?
So asks Joan Chittister in a timely article published in the December 2004 issue of Spirituality & Health:
"Today, the breadth and depth of human complicity in mass murder knows no end. We have assemblyline systems that crank out sheet steel for bombs in one state and warheads for bombs in another, fins for missiles in a third state, and delivery systems of trains and ships and packing crates in the next. The profits of this system, reaped on Wall Street, leave us all innocent, all intentionless, and all guilty at the same time." More >
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 14 Nov 2004 @ 20:31, by scotty. Spirituality
(painting by S. Dali - I think !)
Life is a paradox. It exists through the paradox; that's its very way of existence. the moving wheel moves on and unmoving axle, and at the very center of a cyclone there is silence. At the very core of life there is death. This is how things are, existence is through contradiction.
Existence continuously contradicts itself, and out of contradiction is born the energy to live. Out of the tension between the contradictions is this whole play, the game. This is the dialectics -- the thesis and the antithesis. And the constant conflict between the thesis and the antithesis creates energy, generates energy. Out of the friction the energy is created.
You can look around, and everywhere you will find contradiction functioning -- between man and woman, between day and night, between summer and winter, between success and failure, between birth and decay. Continuously, everywhere, the game is based on the very foundation of paradox. If you don't understand this, you will live a life of misery. If you don't understand this, if it doesn't get deep into your heart and become a luminous understanding to you, you will live a life of anguish. Because you will never be able to accept this contradiction -- you will never be able to see that this contradiction is not really a contradiction; the opposites function as complementaries.
Once seen in that light, life becomes enlightened. Then you are full of awareness. Then you know that there is nothing wrong in death -- not only that, you know that without death life will not be possible at all.
So life owes its all to death. Then death is not against life; it is not the enemy, it is the friend. Seeing this, the fear of death disappears. Seeing this, anguish disappears, anxiety disappears. Seeing this, a great rejoicing arises in your being. Not seeing this, there is conflict. Misunderstanding is what your misery is. Understanding is bliss, misunderstanding is the cause of misery.
Now try to penetrate into your innermost core and see how things are there, and what you are doing with them. If man looks withinwards he finds there, at the very core, just pure nothingness. That's why people don't look withinwards.
Socrates goes on saying, 'Know thyself.' The Upanishads go on shouting, 'Go within! Withinwards is the journey.' Buddhas go on persuading you to go in, and you continuously go out. You don't bother what Buddhas say. Even if you listen, you listen only with half your ear -- you listen one moment, you forget next moment. Because deep down you know that to look withinwards is to look into nothingness. There is nothing. And that is scary, that frightens.
At the very core there is nothingness. The wheel of all moves on that axle of nothingness. So, afraid of the inner nothingness, we go on rushing into the world. The fear of one's own non-being takes you on a thousand and one journeys. That's what Zen people call 'the world of a thousand and one things'. You go on rushing into this direction, into that. You have to rush, because if you don't rush you will stumble upon your nothingness... and there is fear. You are frightened of that -- you don't want to see that you are not.
Your being is non-being: you are not ready to look into it, to accept it. You are death living. Death is there, and at the very core of your being there is just emptiness -- what Buddha calls anatta. There is no self, there is no being, there is no '1'. And somehow everybody knows it -- hence nobody goes inwards, everybody goes outwards. Outwards you can befool yourself, you can deceive yourself. You can create a thousand and one games, you can play with those games -- they are not going to help, but still you can pass your time with those games. You can become so engrossed in them that for those engrossed moments you can forget your inner nothingness.
But this inner nothingness is not like an accident. It is not accidental, it is your very being. So you cannot escape from it, do whatsoever you want to do. Nobody has been able to escape from it. You can go on postponing, you can go on delaying that experience, but one day or other, that experience has to be gone through.
And that day is the day of great blessing, when you come to know your inner non-being. Because with that experience all fear disappears. When you know you are not, how can you be afraid -- of what? for what? And WHO can be afraid? When you know you are not, where can desire exist? with whom? for whom? from whom? Tanha disappears, becoming disappears.
When you are not, how can you become somebody? Knowing one's non-being, there is great rest. The seeker has disappeared, the desirer is no more, the becomer has not been found. So the foundation has disappeared -- and the whole palace made of playing-cards simply shatters to the ground.
Unless you come to know this inner non-being -- anatta, non-existence, or death.... Zen people call it 'the great death'. It is no ordinary death. Ordinary death does not make much difference -- here you die, there you are born immediately. You leave one body -- you have not even left it, and already you are entering into another womb. It does not make much difference.
The real death is when you come face to face with your inner non-being, the abyss. One gets frightened, one wants to go away from it. One wants to keep it at the back, one wants to fill it. That's what people go on doing.
SANSARA, the world, is nothing but an effort to fill this inner vacuum. Fill it with money, fill it with women, fill it with men, fill it with power, fill it with anything -- big houses, fill it with fame -- but fill it. Go on throwing things into it -- so one day you can feel you are not just nothing, you ARE somebody, you ARE something. But it never happens, it CANNOT happen. Because the abyss is bottomless -- you can go on throwing things into it, they go on disappearing.
There is a very famous Sufi story...... More >
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 13 Nov 2004 @ 07:13, by ashanti. Spirituality
I found a fascinating article concerning the nature of "good" and "evil" and the forces shaping our world today. It is called: The Advent of Ahriman - An Essay on the Deep Forces behind the World-Crisis. To give a summary of the theme of the article as a context:"ABSTRACT: A powerful spiritual being, called "Ahriman" (or "Satan"), will incarnate in a human body. The terms "soul" and "spirit" have clear meanings. Earthly/cosmic evolution is an outcome of the deeds of the Gods. The central event of earth-evolution was the Incarnation of Christ. Spiritual powers of opposition are active: Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorat. Ahriman is the inspirer of materialistic science and commercialism, and permeates modern culture with deadening forces. Ordinary scientific thinking is only semi-conscious; we can, however, make thinking conscious. The spirits of opposition are necessary in the Gods' evolutionary design. Ahriman manifests especially at 666-year intervals; the contemporary is 1998 AD = 3x666. Goethean science is a life-positive alternative to Ahrimanic science. Ahriman-in-the-flesh will likely present himself as the Christ. The Christ does not reappear in a physical body, but in a super-physical, ethereal form. Ahriman may incarnate "macrocosmically" in our computers. Mankind will acquire new faculties of thinking-consciousness and clairvoyance. Ahriman seeks to pervert these faculties, and to divert mankind and the earth from their destined paths in the Gods' evolutionary plan. Ahrimanic secret societies influence politics, finance, and culture. A false "Maitreya" is "emerging" as a false Christ. An epistemology of conscious thinking supports the expansion of consciousness to the perception of spiritual truths."
Once within the article, in particular, I found this passage intriguing:"The Occult Meaning of the Computer
A very interesting theory (by David B. Black) interprets the progressive mechanization of culture not only as an Ahrimanic influence, but as the actual "macrocosmic incarnation" of Ahriman: This is being brought to completion through the development of the electronic computer. Black traces the milestones in the evolution of the computer as reflections of the spiritual events in the heavens. For example, in the 1840's, around the time of Jehovah's abandonment of human blood-bound thinking to Ahriman, Boolean algebra was developed. The year 1879 -- the time of Michael's accession as Time Spirit and the final expulsion of the "dragon" onto earth -- saw the publication of Frege's Begriffschrift, a great milestone in the development of "formal logic": the separation of logic from the spiritual "Word". Also in 1879: Edison invented the electric light (light is separated from the sun and plunged into the "sub-earthly": "Electricity is Ahrimanic `light'."); Trotsky and Stalin were born; Merganthaler invented the Linotype machine; Bessemer introduced the hard-steel process; and the US Census Bureau hired Herman Hollerith, who developed the first large-scale punched-card tabulating machine. -- The Christ's "coming in the clouds" in the early 1930's was reflected on earth by the publication of Gödel's "incompleteness theorem", which demonstrated that a truly-thinking machine is impossible, but which also led to the development of "recursion theory", which is the essential conceptual framework for "artificial intelligence" and "artificial life". Also in 1930, by a fortuitous comedy of errors, the planet Pluto was discovered. Pluto, of course, is the god of the underworld, and the discovery of "his" planet was a synchronistic harbinger of the unleashing of the sub-material "powers of the pit" upon earth: later transits of Saturn and Uranus to Pluto's discovery position marked the bombing of Hiroshima and the explosion of the first "H-bomb". -- As is well-known, the development of the electronic computer proceeded exponentially, from von Neumann's development of the "stored program" to the desktop and the laptop. A lesser-known development was the "Josephson effect", which allows the construction of semi-conductors from superconducting materials. Thus, electrical circuits can operate without "Luciferic" heat, and Ahriman, whose nature is "freezing cold", can completely enter into electrical devices. As superconducting computers become more common, Ahrimanic beings higher than "elementals" might actually incarnate in them, since no physical energy is consumed in a superconducting circuit. (Ahrimanic "elemental spirits" inhabit our artificial machines, just as normal "elementals" [or "nature spirits": gnomes, undines, sylphs, salamanders] work in and throughout the living processes of Nature.) Black sums up: "Sunless light and Wordless logic intertwined, and out of them came the computer." Thus, while Ahriman incarnates "microcosmically" in a human body, we might also face the "macrocosmic" literal incarnation of Ahriman in our machines. Wow. Food for thought there. I have often pondered the effect on our consciousness of going into cyberspace. In some cases, interaction with interesting, innovative, intelligent people is so fantastic. In other cases, cyberspace just seems to suck out our souls. We pour so much of ourselves into it, and it goes nowhere - has a deadening effect. Or there are the flame-war fests - maybe great for getting out inner angst, but not really going anywhere either. Some incredible connections take place through cyberspace - but in many cases, I have watched these connections, over time, become perverted and collapse. Not in all cases, but definitely in some. I have often wondered as to the cause of those collapses. I know perversion/collapse occurs out there in off-line human social interaction as well, so this is not to propose that the phenomenon only occurs in cyberspace - but it somehow seems to be exacerbated. This essay certainly gives an interesting take on it all.
All very intriguing. Shared here for the benefit of those interested in deeper meaning, esoteric Cause, and so on.
More >
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 10 Nov 2004 @ 03:22, by i2i. Spirituality
Photo: Laura Bush (Republican Convention, 2004). "Even as her husband courted social conservatives, Laura Bush lulled moderate voters into believing that the White House is not really in the clutches of the extreme right. The First Lady, as well as the women appointed to the inner circle of the President's Cabinet and sub-Cabinet, provide an alternative facade. They are cast as harmless, moderate, irrelevant or benign, and their well-spun image taps into familiar stereotypes."
Right wing political ideologies, including some of the most extreme or unfamous ones, like Mussolini's Italy or Franco’s Spain, have all always been keen on including "family values," (the gentle face of fascism) in their political programs. More >
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 7 Nov 2004 @ 11:45, by jazzolog. Spirituality
The painting by Andrea Del Sarto is of Christ realizing He is Risen.
I heard the unblown flute
In the deep autumn shadows
Of the Temple of Suma.
---Basho
Heard melodies are sweet,
but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore,
ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but,
more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
---John Keats
W.'s presidency rushes backward, stifling possibilities, stirring intolerance, confusing church with state, blowing off the world, replacing science with religion, and facts with faith. We're entering another dark age, more creationist than cutting edge, more premodern than postmodern. Instead of leading America to an exciting new reality, the Bushies cocoon in a scary, paranoid, regressive reality. Their new health care plan will probably be a return to leeches.
---Maureen Dowd, November 7, 2004
Garrison Keillor went even further on his Prairie Home Companion show last night. He proposes, of course in irony, a Constitutional amendment that bans born-again Christians from voting. He bases his proposal on the fact Evangelicals obviously are not citizens of the United States, but rather of Heaven. They no longer believe in our basic American values. Their health care plan is an opportunity for a closer walk with God. More >
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4 Nov 2004 @ 20:54, by craiglang. Spirituality
"It has begun..."
-Ambasador Kosh
(On witnessing the destruction of the ship carrying President Luis Santiago - in the Babylon 5 season 1 conclusion: "Chrysalis")
The day after election day was one of what I call the "cellar" days, in which you feel that you are at the bottom of the canyon. I found that on several occasions during that day, I had to fight back tears. A deep blanket of sadness seemed to smother my heart.
I wondered at the road that we have collectively chosen. How could we get it so wrong, yet so many people come to that conclusion at once? And I wondered even more, where will this road take us? And the only answer I could provide was "Into the abyss", Or, to quote the title of Greg Bear's novel of apocalypse, "The Forge of God." More >
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 28 Oct 2004 @ 14:03, by scotty. Spirituality
"Compassion is where peace and justice kiss," says the psalmist...We're divine, start acting divine--that means start acting compassionately. It's not very complicated.
"Please Call Me By My True Names" by Thich Nhat Hanh
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a catepillar in the heart of flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the
surface of the river,
and I am the bird, which, when spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the
clear water of a pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who,
approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly
weapons to Uganda.
I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee
on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after
being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with
plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his
"debt of blood" to my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes
flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it
fills up the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughs
at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion. More >
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26 Oct 2004 @ 21:57, by swanny. Spirituality
The Now Vision
I have just had a vision of sorts as to the direction
for the planet.
I was sitting here thinking that the way we are
treating ourselves and the planet seems somewhat
criminal and vainglorious. We are a species
obsessed and preoccupied with ourselves and
our own cleverness yet we are not clever at all
but petty and cruel. We do not live in harmony and
quality with one and other but make it an occupation
to cheat and outdo one and other. We are vain, petty, obsessed,
excessive, one big new Roman orgy it seems.
So in this vision I was casting out for the purpose
and point of life. It occurred to me that we have got
it all wrong. Nature is not base and simple, Nature
is complex.and diverse... We are the simple and mechanical
ones because we call the kettle gray and do not
see our own blackness and speed is not better
speed is speed. We say nature is ignorant
and useless yet it seems the truth is that whatever
nature is we are part of it and we in my estimation
are a lesser part because we do not understand
nature in its complexity and therefore pooh pah it.
Yet I suspect we would gain a greater insight into
our true potential if we were to understand and follow
the ways of nature for we are nature in many ways.
We are the simpletons. All our cleverness is no
match for nature and our obsessions with ourselves
is proof of that. Nature gives us the Grand Canyon
and we give us..... the daytime soap operas.
There is something very wrong with that picture
because one is real and the other a clever deversion
and illusion that we eagerly and carelessly
buy into hook line and sinker. Yes we have made some progress
and yes we are certainly somewhat clever yet
it occurred to me that for all our savy ..... the truly superior
humans we have had a tendancy to wipe off the face
of the planet..... the Gandis, the Lincolns, the Jesus's
the Native populations, the indegionous people, yet to
me they are the superior races and humans, I know it may be difficult
to understand how a race or person we have vanquished
can be superior but it is somewhat egnigmatic in its understanding
There lack of resistance of evil and acceptance of the process of death is
what essentially makes them superior not because they have
died but they have lived and continue to live somehow
true to their nature and nature
herself.... We may defeat them.... natures peoples but
we will never defeat nature...... for we would have
killed ourselves off long before that could occur such
is our baseness, vexation and abomination.
So the vision I had is the merger of the societies of today
and those of the old native traditions . If we wish to live properly and humanely we
must adopt the methods of the old native ways. I'm thinkin
most specifically of the West Coast tribes in British Columbia.
If we could somehow mimic and merge are methodogies
with some of their ways of old and create a kind of
synthesis or sycretis of civilization then perhaps there is hope
and promise for the future. If we were to learn of the
effective medicinal herbal remedies and if we were to embrace
the concepts like the just society, the humane market place,
the sustainable environment and the organic agrarianism
then maybe? But why should I care?
I suppose because I care enough about me to care about you.
Alfred More >
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