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11 Feb 2008 @ 13:40, by vector8. Spirituality
Begin quote...
We had noted during all our journeys with these people that none of their clothing became soiled. We had remarked about this a great many times but had received no reply until this evening when, in answer to a remark made, our friend of the records said, "This may seem remarkable to you but it seems far more remarkable to us that one speck of God's created substance adheres to another of God's creations where it is not wanted and where it does not belong. With the right concept this could not happen, for no part of God's substance can be misplaced or placed where it is not wanted."
Then, in an instant we realized that our clothing and bodies were as clean as theirs were. The transformation, for to us it was a transformation, had taken place instantly to all three alike while we stood there. All fatigue left us and we were as refreshed as though we had arisen from bed and had our morning bath. -- The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East, Volume 1
End quote... More >
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10 Feb 2008 @ 09:42, by johnjoseph. Sexuality
Homophobia is Destroying Your Planet
All over the world the battle lines are drawing up between those who can accept themselves and others, and those who have a morbid fear of Difference, of the Other. Make no mistake, saving our planet is not about technological fixes like burying CO2 or recycling, but rather dealing with the problems of consciousness which have got us and the world into this perilous situation. The ecological crisis is primarily a crisis of a fractured consciousness, and as I will demonstrate, a crisis of our consciousness of the Other, and the Other within ourselves.
One of the first things I learnt in an advanced psychology group is that “ we relate to other people in the same way as we relate to alienated parts of ourselves”. In other words all the games, alienated transactions, processes and institutions which cause problems between people in society, have their roots in our relationship with ourselves. We relate to others in exactly the same way that we relate to ourselves. Our morbid fear of the Other; the black person, the homosexual, the muslim, the feminine woman, the disabled person are all problems we have with those parts of ourselves.
As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the soul is more or less infinite, and the human personality while finite is vastly complex and manifold. Whether one talks in terms of Jung’s archetypes or Assagioli’s subpersonalities and identities, all human life is found within each one of us. It is up to us which ones we choose to embrace and nurture, but it is definitely a huge mistake to see certain of them as “alien” and to deny and reject them in ourselves and even try to destroy them. For inevitably, as we “alienate” these identities within us, we will inevitably “alienate” ourselves from their human counterparts outside ourselves in society. The macho man’s mistreatment of women is grounded in a terror of the feminine part of himself. The homophobic woman has a terror of the bisexual or gay identity within herself. It is not for me to say which identities other people should accept and embrace, I’m just warning people of the great dangers of rejecting and alienating these parts of oneself. It will dehumanise and brutalise you and turn you into an oppressor if you can’t tolerate these parts of yourself.
It is interesting that the most repressed and rejected parts of ourselves are usually the identities connected with our sexuality. I have speculated elsewhere that our alienation from nature, surely the cause of climate change , led to man’s alienation from woman ( sexism), then other men (homophobia) and even God. In there somewhere, already alluded to, is the immense rejection of “disturbing” identities and subpersonalities within himself. Nature is a huge Other, and the insane attempts by people and society to control and dominate it, point to an incredible morbid pathology existing in them. I have speculated in some essays I wrote for the Gandhi Foundation ( of London), that our sexuality, as a part of our identity, is Nature itself within us. It’s as fundamental as that. It’s clear to me that the almost obsessive, fanatical attempts to control Nature are a direct mirror-image of similarly unhinged attempts by Church, State and Public Opinion to control our sexualities and expressions of sexual difference. Nature and sexuality are opposite sides of the same coin representing the Other.
As I said above, the battle lines are drawing up all over the world. Those who believe only in technological fixes, will only create more and similar ecological problems, whatever the outcome of their “fixes”. The solution I propose is not materialist but rather Spiritual/psychological and is one which addresses the underlying problems of the crisis of consciousness.
Traditional spirituality talks about meditation as a way of reaching enlightenment. It is the mystical union with the One, the Divine. But there may be other ways. Many people have predicted, over the centuries, the coming of what they have called Cosmic Consciousness, SuperConsciousness, Universal Enlightenment and what Teilhard de Chardin termed the Omega Point. This is the whole world attaining a new level of spirituality, a new awareness, a new consciousness.
There is a connection here with the discussion above. It is possible that by accepting and integrating within ourselves the manifold identities contained in each one of us, particularly the common identity of sharing in the Godhead, that universality will ensue. Certainly, this is the purpose of Psychosynthesis, Assagioli’s form of psychotherapy, at the level of the individual. In his teaching, the individual becomes a whole person by integrating into a synthesis, these sub-personalities and identities.
This is one possibility, there are many others. Whatever happens, it will be our consciousness being healed, our willingness to love ourselves and everything else, particularly the Other, which will play a major part.
More >
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 8 Feb 2008 @ 10:55, by jazzolog. Environment, Ecology
There is neither heaven nor earth,
Only snow,
Falling incessantly.
---Hashin
Life is fleeting.
Gone, gone---
Awake.
Awake each one!
Don't waste this life!
---The Evening Gatha
On the day you were born, you begin to die. Do not waste a single moment more.
---Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
In the striking photo by Roger Braithwaite of the UNEP, a stream of melt water cascades off the Greenland Ice Sheet.
I'm afraid my pun in the title shows poor taste. There is nothing appropriate to laugh about as the United States finally begins to realize the facts of The Warming. Just last week I still was being mocked by 2 industrial tech teachers at my school, but surely even they are beginning to wake up. Disasters like the tornadoes across the South the other day are the kinds of things it takes in this country to get something done. But even then we'll try to rationalize and put it off. It looked to me as if CNN was broadcasting hours of live coverage of the devastation yesterday, but did any news anchor introduce a segment on violent weather we can expect from Climate Change? We aren't much for preemptive action...unless it's shock and awe somewhere else based on "bad intelligence."
My wife sent out a heads-up on Wednesday that actually provides a bit of optimism, despite the frightening aspects of the report. What cheered me up is that it came from MSNBC, where Americans are not used to seeing this kind of thing I think. It speaks of Nine Tipping Points that we grimly approach with continued carbon emissions at our increasing rate. We learn that "tipping" no longer can be taken lightly. The report begins~~~
Nine 'tipping elements' for warming listed
Arctic sea ice and Greenland are top 'candidates for surprising society'
MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 10:00 a.m. ET, Wed., Feb. 6, 2008
Concerned that humans might push Earth into major climate shifts, a team of experts has published a study that lists nine "tipping elements," or areas of concern for policymakers.
Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet, both of which have shown significant melt, were regarded as the most sensitive tipping elements with the smallest uncertainty.
"Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change," the scientists at British, German and U.S. institutes wrote in a report saying there were many little-understood thresholds in nature.
"The greatest and clearest threat is to the Arctic with summer sea ice loss likely to occur long before, and potentially contribute to, Greenland Ice Sheet melt," they wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The experts coined the term "tipping element" to describe those components of the climate system that are at risk of passing a "tipping point," which was defined as a critical threshold at which a small change in human activity can have large, long-term consequences for the Earth’s climate system.
"These tipping elements are candidates for surprising society by exhibiting a nearby tipping point," the authors added.
"Many of these tipping points could be closer than we thought," said lead author Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia in England.
"Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under human-induced climate change," he added. "The greatest threats are tipping of the Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland ice sheet, and at least five other elements could surprise us by exhibiting a nearby tipping point."
[link] More >
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8 Feb 2008 @ 10:46, by erlefrayne. Spirituality
Asian Seekers, behold the Light coming forth from your inner spaces!
I know that you’ve been looking everywhere for teachers or gurus or ‘not-so-usual’ people who can perhaps help you ascend the heights of your Path, but few are available in your own backyards or so it seems. Believe me, there are many teachers in Asia, even in your own country, but they make their presence in so non-descript or low profile a manner that you may not even realize they are gurus when you encounter them face-to-face.
Please note the differences in styles and methods of teachers from the East and West owing to the cultural differences they’ve been exposed to. In the Philippines, as in Asia, the sayings goes that “mas malakas ang bulong kaysa sigaw” (whisper is more powerful than shout). This is the opposite in the West, where people are accustomed to articulate what they think and feel in a rather ‘noisy’ or highly noticeable manner as much as possible. More >
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7 Feb 2008 @ 17:45, by skookum. Ideas, Creativity
there are no blooms on my dogwood this year... More >
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7 Feb 2008 @ 14:02, by vector8. Spirituality
Life is a dream.
Whether I'm having a "pleasant" or a "painful" experience it's still a dream. Naturally, I prefer to experience wonderful dreams of love and joy and wonder.
Now the problem with dreaming is I can get so caught up in a dream that I can forget that's it's only a dream, which can be changed or dissolved at any moment. This leads to my thought of today with a little help from my friend, William Shakespeare.
To dream or not to dream? That is the question. More >
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 4 Feb 2008 @ 19:45, by quinty. Politics
Has anyone seen John McCain on TV recently? He becomes violently passionate when he discusses "Islamo fascism," claiming the US under his presidency will never accept "defeat." He even beat his chest in one performance. As the piece below describes he still even thinks we should have 'won" the Vietnam War.
This is a scary guy. One whose finger on the button would make me very nervous since it appears he may actually use it. We live in a time of much fear and paranoia. McCain, I think, will only heat things up.
Yes, old mild mannered John McCain becomes quite violently passionate over the existential threat the Muslim hordes present us. And appears to genuinely believe "if we don't fight them there we'll have to fight them here." More >
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 2 Feb 2008 @ 20:35, by koravya. Environment, Ecology
Nobody knows how fast the ice will melt or how much of the ice will melt,
but if the methane hydrate factor is in fact a valid concern,
then the prospects for a desertification of all land north of Patagonia
are perhaps rather good.
And if that scenario unfolds, then the last outpost for humanity
will be whatever of the Antarctic land mass remains above water.
History of course shall continue to be written,
and the relics of ancient knowledge shall be scattered across the barren landscape.
Many forms of life will have been decimated.
Who can tell who those will be who will be the last ones?
What do you see when you walk down the street in your neighborhood?
*_-*-*-_*
[link]
JA More >
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2 Feb 2008 @ 13:50, by vector8. Spirituality
It's all very well wanting to bless others and be a blessing to the world; I believe that the greatest blessing I can offer to the world is to both bless myself and recognise that I am blessed at all times.
Quite recently as I was lying on the sofa watching television, I felt my right foot seizing up. It felt like I was about to have a cramp not only on my foot but around my calf. I wasn't looking forward to it at all. Then I had an idea: why not simply thank your leg and foot for doing such a grand job? So that's exactly what I did. I thanked my feet and legs for always supporting me. Then I thanked my body for being the perfect tool to express myself. The moment I did the symptom dissolved and there was no cramp. More >
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 2 Feb 2008 @ 12:59, by jazzolog. Spirituality
"This series of maps shows how much the landscape of the eastern United States changed between 1650 and 1992. The maps depict canopy height, the height of the tallest continuous layer of vegetation. In 1650, before colonization, most of the eastern United States was covered in tall forest, shown in dark blue-green. During the next 200 years, the forest disappeared, particularly in New England, the mid-Atlantic, and parts of the Midwest. By 1920, the tall forest was entirely gone, replaced by cities and farms. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the forest began to regrow, but the overall canopy remained much shorter than it had been before 1650. The images are based on a reconstruction of land cover made from records ranging from 1850 census data to modern satellite measurements." [link]
If one could understand a flower as it has its being in God---this would be a higher thing than the whole world!
---Meister Eckhart
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
---Kahlil Gibran
The sound of water says what I think.
---Chuang-Tzu
Are there too many of us? If the world's population of humans has doubled within just a portion of my lifetime, is it cause for alarm? Will God provide? Will Nature take its toll? If great masses die---and continue to die...and are predicted to die, do I shrug in hiding or subconsciously with the thought "There are too many anyway"? Do rich men plot war, famine and drought to eliminate dangerous overpopulation? Who dies? Who lives? Who decides? Does money decide?
Surely I'm not alone in finding discussion of every major problem we face in this country and in this world eventually boils to how many of us there are. George Monbiot wondered in The Guardian on Tuesday why we don't talk about this, and a great flurry of comments has followed. "I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Programme is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word? According to its most vociferous proponents (Paul and Anne Ehrlich), population is 'our number one environmental problem'. But most greens will not discuss it." [link]
In my opinion, we're silent because it's a moral question. And there's been silence for 50 years...except for occasional explosions about abortion and birth control. Laws are passed and opposed with vigor, but no resolution in the mind of the world. Take it from me, who works in public schools, a great war has been waged in the US over what to teach kids about sex and how. Without much opposition the people who teach sex in the classrooms, and during Bush with federal threats of funding cuts to enforce the morality, have frightened students with huge slides of sexually transmitted diseases. They've referred to a few fertilized cells in a woman's body as a "baby," and they refer to that woman as Mother. They've shown figures from textbooks on an overhead projector that could grow into anything from a stringbean to a gorilla, and they've said, "I know it doesn't look like a person, but that's a baby just like you and me."
Young American adults in their 20s were taught since grade school that if you're pregnant but not ready to parent for the rest of your life, you have it anyway and put it up for adoption. No mention has been made of terminating the pregnancy...and under Bush, again, with threats about funding. My daughter, who is 16, was taught "sex education," and one year in middle school in 3 different classes in a single semester, and not once was she told about birth control...except wait until you're married. How many movies came out this year, and very good ones, about pregnancy and having the baby anyway? And that's in the United States. What do young people learn in Kenya, in Iran? More >
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