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 16 Mar 2008 @ 11:12, by jazzolog. Spirituality
I know what the great cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.
---Henry Miller
Wonderful! Wonderful!
New Year's morning
in the house where I was born.
---Issa
For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river.
---Ghalib
I thought Friday was particularly black. I envisioned it being called Black Friday someday. The bottom was dropping out of the American and world economy. Had anyone even bothered to construct a bottom for it? To save the day the Fed was starting to bail out greedy banks again...and using our taxes to do it. China was killing the marchers in Tibet. Bush overruled the Environmental Protection Agency, even in its pathetic weakened state, to benefit coal-fired power plants and other industries that emit ground-level ozone that gives us smog. I sent out and posted Tom Toles' cartoon for that day showing Uncle Sam in bed with a barrel of oil and oozing extra excitement at how expensive "she" was. It was a black day dawning.
I began to get replies to the cartoon from resonating friends. Reid Sinclair, a lecturer in management systems at OU and active Episcopalian in Appalachian ministries, sent me a copy of a letter from his brother-in-law in Houston. It so happens the man is none other than the esteemed Rolfian analyst Nicholas French. He was sharing the dour forecast of a close friend of his named Jim Swayze. I thought if these guys can feel bad too, I must not be completely out of synch. More >
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16 Mar 2008 @ 09:50, by erlefrayne. Spirituality
Many writings were already elaborated in the past regarding ‘evolved souls’, notably those released by the founders of the Theosophical Society (Blavatsky, Hodson, Q. Judge, Leadbeater, Bessant). Many other mystics and masters who came after them also made substantial contributions to the subject. In some previous writings of mine, like the ones about freethinkers, individuated psyche, free spirits, I did present a synthesis of the thoughts of previous thinkers about the matter (please see my previous articles in my blogs: [link], http://raefdargon.mysticblogs.com).
To simplify the subject, we begin with Blavatsky’s thought that we all go through three (3) levels of evolution that take place simultaneously: spiritual, mental, physical. As we progress in the material and mental dimensions, so should we also evolve in the spiritual dimension. Not only our physical-etheric and mental bodies but also our souls do evolve. It is ‘soul age’ that is the true measure of one’s age rather than the chronological age which is a mere analytical devise that is replete with illusions.
Following the ‘law of uneven development’, we better note that not all souls progress at similar paces. There are those souls who were very lackadaisical in the Path, were so slow in absorbing the wisdom lessons, and have lagged behind the more fast-paced ones. These souls we mystics call the ‘laggards’ or ‘evolutionary laggards’. More >
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15 Mar 2008 @ 15:20, by vector8. Spirituality
I don't believe in supporting any causes or raising awareness for any charity. I used to but then I discovered my awareness was creating more harm than good. In other words, I was attracting more of what I was focused on. Here are a few examples:
At one time I was very interested in raising awareness about child abuse. I even went to a rally against abuse at Trafalgar Square where I shared my own experiences. It was the first time I'd ever spoken in front of so many people. Because I was so focused on raising consciousness about child abuse, all of my friends at the time were survivors of abuse. My best friend was not only a "survivor", she was a psychologist so that's all we seemed to talk about. I was very angry against men. One day I "woke up" out of that experience and realised I wasn't a survivor or a victim, I was me. My survivor friends soon melted away from my experience. More >
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 12 Mar 2008 @ 17:14, by bapty. Social System Design
Anybody wishing to understand the thinking that lies behind the following short article is invited to read my website www.humantruth.org or, if they prefer, to read the new edition of my book The Wrong Reality (560 pages) shortly to be published by CheckPoint Press, Ireland. More >
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11 Mar 2008 @ 16:39, by vector8. Spirituality
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." -- John 6: 63
Can one live on love?
Well, the sceptics might say love is not enough.
You have to be practical about life, you know.
Love cannot put food on the table.
Love can't make you feel better when you're not feeling well.
Love can't protect you. More >
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 9 Mar 2008 @ 14:01, by jazzolog. Government, Public Sector
Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing, and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations.
---Sogyal Rinpoche
Awareness of emptiness brings forth the heart of compassion.
---Gary Snyder
Simplifying our lives does not mean sinking into idleness, but on the contrary, getting rid of the most subtle aspect of laziness: the one which makes us take on thousands of less important activities.
---Matthieu Ricard
In the photo, President Nixon greets released POW Lt. Commander John McCain, future U.S. Senator, upon his return from years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, 1973.
We were sitting out Saturday afternoon, trapped in our house by the storm that buried the Ohio Valley in rain, flood, sleet, hail, ice, inches of new snow, and a whopper of a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Only emergency vehicles were allowed on the roads. We were putting off clearing the driveway yet again and hauling more wood for the stoves...maybe until the power went down as the final stroke of doom. But the electric stayed on for some unknown reason, so Dana was on the computer hunting the blogosphere for news of potential Diebold corruption of primary results. There had been increasing rumors through the week about this, and everywhere I went the buzz was Republicans crossing over to vote on the Democratic side. Some were doing it because they were fed up with their own party, but others were trying to screw the results so that Hillary will go up against McCain. I figured who knows who is who...and it's hopeless, and I was trying not to think about it.
But I also knew Diebold was being mentioned again, the company that makes the legislatively mandated voting machines. The business suffered such colossal blowback from corruption charges after 2004, that they changed the name to Premier. But what, if anything, was done about it? Some states, like California and Ohio, got busy and started throwing them out. But was Diebold at work controlling who wins? Blogs were saying it was Diebold and not the voters that delivered Tuesday's results to Clinton. The satirical site www.theonion.com got the biggest laughs of the week, claiming Diebold accidentally leaked the results of the '08 Presidential race. The New York Times combined its story of the spoof with the news that mighty defense contractor United Technologies is trying to buy out Diebold. [link] If the military runs the elections, what do we have? And is there any significance in the fact Hillary's chief pollster is CEO of the public relations company that Diebold uses? [link] So what have the bloggers come up with? More >
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9 Mar 2008 @ 13:08, by erlefrayne. Spirituality
Let me articulate at this juncture the last of the 7 Ray Lessons that I wish to stress: Serve God and His Creations! I will begin with some reflective notes on the sociological ‘law of reciprocity’ which the masters made known to us through the ‘golden rule’. I will incorporate in the discourse the reflective notes on libertosophy that I elaborated in my book Libertosophy and Freethought: The Path of Illumination for Libertarian Freethinkers.
Sociologists and anthropologists alike discovered the ‘law of reciprocity’ across cultures. In philosophical sense, this law is an axiological standard and is at the core of ethical teachings. On the positive sense, it is stated: “Do for others what you want others to do for you.” In the negative sense, it is stated: “Do not do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.”
In libertosophy, I outlined three core principles regarding the liberation project: (1) to be able to attain liberation, one must liberate others; (2) only the free can set other people free; and, (3) liberation must be done within the context of the social world (never in isolation from people). They are all inter-connected and mutually reinforcing. More >
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 7 Mar 2008 @ 09:59, by jazzolog. Environment, Ecology
Energy efficiency---using improved technology and operations to deliver the same energy services with less fuel---is the foundation on which all of our other recommendations are based.
---Sierra Club Energy Policy Statement
When you do something, you should burn completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.
---Shunryu Suzuki
My religion is to live and die without regret.
---Milarepa
Coastal ice melts in the city of Longyearbyen, in Norway's Svalbard Islands, on Feb. 27, 2008. Record-high temperatures have left people here wondering whether the melting ice is all a fluke in the fluctuating weather system, or a troubling sign of a warming world. (AP Photo/John McConnico) Full story here [link]
The March-April newsletter of the Appalachian Ohio Group of the Sierra Club is out. A feature article in Footnotes From The Foothills this time was written by my wife to describe weatherization work she initiated on our house last summer. It was a major operation, employed 3 different workcrews (sometimes all at once) and cost a lot. There's a teeny tax credit you can get for this stuff, but mostly we did it to reduce our footprint and hopefully save money in the long run. More >
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3 Mar 2008 @ 12:50, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Problem 3: How to bring fresh water from a nearby river to a small Chinese town.
This example is given by Joseph Needham in his book Science and Civilization in China as illustrating the main differences between Confucianist and Taoist approaches to doing things. The problem is how to provide fresh water to a small town from a nearby river. The Confucianist approach would be to divert water from the river at a convenient point well below the town and then use much man-power, mechanical devices and expense to lift it up again to the level of the town and so distribute it. This will solve the problem while generating employment, circulating money, aiding the invention and perfection of mechanical devices and generally keeping everybody busy. The Taoist approach would be to divert the water at a convenient point above the level of the town and using the natural tendency of water to find its own level, that is to run downwards, create an aqueduct to lead the water to the village or town and so distribute it. This method uses nature’s properties to move the water rather than human effort, creates much less employment (a one-off aqueduct rather than constant lifting of water), circulates less money and does not need inventions or mechanical devices.
This example clearly reveals that Confucianism is a social philosophy, and its solutions to problems are designed to benefit society in creating wealth, employment and invention. The Taoist method is one which is based on the individual, addresses the essence of the problem rather than appearances, and is in tune with nature. Instead of expending effort in lifting water upwards after we have allowed it to run downwards, we just divert it at the right point to run by its own momentum (with gravity’s help) into the town.
Conclusion
Clearly, there are simple, easy ways to solve problems and there are difficult, tedious ways. It seems very much the case that civilized society, with its obsession with externals, appearances and irrelevant details prefers the difficult way to do things. This is in keeping with its greatly over-yang nature. Over-Yang means giant, mechanical, crude, external, superficial and so on but most importantly, over-masculine. There is a clear link between the problems in our society and problems in our psyches concerning sexuality and gender. The solution must be to redress the balance and level-off with an equal emphasis on Yang and Yin values. Yin, after all, represents the small, the inner, the subtle, the essence and naturally, the feminine. If we are in harmony then society is in harmony.
It is my belief that every problem, whether it is Fermat’s Last Theorem, or CERN’s accelerator, or getting cheap energy through FUSION, has a simple solution as well as a difficult, complicated one. But our society’s obsession with doing things the Confucianist way, in order to create wealth and employment and inventions, means that people have forgotten, to a large extent, the ancient Taoist (and universal) approach that seeks simple, easy and cost-effective solutions to difficult problems. People just don’t believe that there are simple solutions to many of these problems. If the experts can’t solve them then they must be impossible, they think. But maybe the experts are looking in the wrong place, and the wrong way, and from the wrong perspective.
I am not asking people to abandon completely the Confucianist approach, which is so engrained in all of us, particularly men, by our upbringing and education. All I ask is for the imbalance to be less completely one-sided and total.
Ideally we should use both techniques to solve difficult problems, both the Yin and the Yang, both the ‘left brain’ and the ‘right brain’, both Taoist and Confucianist. More >
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1 Mar 2008 @ 16:56, by rdbunston. Communities
I'm assuming that most of this audio radiance is living in cities. My sympathies. This backwoods memory from abdicated Mennonites and mongrel Mohawk farming families was displaced by the exponential growth of cities over the last 50 years. That was further swallowed up by the green revolution with all of the reflected madness of agribusiness. My programming comes from a world that no longer exists.
In memory it held many of the elements of sustainablitiy that we seek now in the "new age". It was a sustainable, environmentally and culturally symbiotic culture. Perhaps we're also some bit of our grandmother's bones..a homeopathic element that can rebuild in an awareness of the unfolding civilization in a multidimensional reality. More >
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