For those few serious human beings, indescribably important.

On my third reading now, beginning a detailed annotation and digestion.

If like Karen Armstrong you are a great spirit, International scholar on the world's religions, unlike me, then this book is not important to you.

If you do not have an undying Agony over the pain in the world, Unstoppable for most, but not for all, then this book is of no importance for you.

If you think that so-called spirituality, religion, is either just a personal choice or something to fight over, this book is of no value to you.

But Armstrong clearly sees it differently by implication, and I'm finding it Beyond invaluable. She understands that the giant founders of the world religions were creative Geniuses, inventors, regardless of how they thought of themselves. They created Solutions to improve upon the Life of human beings and all of creation, by creating a vision, an understanding, of how to be that was a less painful, more joyful, less destructive, integration between the truth of our human being, and the physical and cultural environment in which we live.

I do not know of a more important book, or body of information to study and go beyond, in this 2019 world for the serious human being needing to personally grow to be of Greater service to creation.

It is legally free for download here.

https://archive.org/details/ArmstrongKaren

Often I have thought of myself as that character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, driven mad by a vision that grasped him that he did not understand, in his living room sculpting he knew not what. Armstrong's understanding is not new to me, but the exhausive scholarly insightful underpinnings are. It is gasoline on my fire.

Almost exactly a year ago an iteration of that Fire Within Me, The Vision Within Me, took a large step forward, much larger than I realized up until this moment, I'm seeing now, here. We have all got a lot of work to do.

LSGIABeing.com]

Video log update. Gladly captive in Lone Pine.

Most important book in the world, the other one. Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong. I'm on my first of

Most important book in the world, the other one. Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong. I'm on my first of what I expect to be several readings. Slowed by my arduous first priority of writing a review of the other most important book, great because it is not as toxic as the other books of psychology, spiritual evolution, George Vaillant.“The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. Ifyour understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God’s name, it was bad theology. Compassion was the litmus test for the prophets of Israel, for the rabbis of the Talmud, for Jesus, for Paul, and for Muhammad, not to mention Confucius, Lao-tzu, the Buddha.…. “

Joy is the solution to life, Goodness, Flourishing, Parenting, Optimal Experience, Personal trauma..... [species flourishing].....>>>

Joy is the solution to life, Goodness, Flourishing, Parenting, Optimal Experience, Personal trauma..... [species flourishing].....

40 years I've been living on the basis of this Theory. As an executive leader in the high-tech industry it was my guiding principle. As a parent. But not blindly, nothing blindly.

My initial base of information was observing my father who did this in my view, and through him the person Jesus, and Gandhi, and King, Teresa of Calcutta and many since.

To say that joy is the answer is to say that the cure for individual or Collective cancer has been found. This Theory may be incorrect but that is the import of what it asserts, far more important than the Cure of cancer which only kills the body.

Instrumentation is beginning to exist to prove or disprove this Theory within the human nervous system but what is lacking is scientists with their hands on these instruments that have any knowledge or experience of joy in their lives so the best I can hope is that they will slowly approximate and I'm afraid like George vaillant, spiritual Evolution, totally misinterpret and Missapply the results.

Were any of the individuals I just mentioned in on this conversation they would be saying, yes, James, the above is exactly right.

If I did anything right as a father it was realizing pretty much on the day of the first one's birth, that joy is what I wanted for that child and then the second one, more than anything else. And that therefore as a father I owed to that child more than anything else that there be joy in my life as my example would be the most powerful influence I would have on that child, those children. I was quite sure that was true then, all of my study, practice, experience, life everyday since has indicated that it was.

Where does Joy come from? It is the reward provided by the nervous system when it thinks we are devoting our very existence to do something really really important for others who are in dire need. The best formula I've come up with is serving the neediest from the soul in solidarity.

[It was the solution to species survival and flourishing, but it is too late for that. But it will always be the solution to the individual flourishing even on the sinking Titanic, every breath.]

Every breath that I am given my highest priority will be on substantiating the above for myself through exhaustive study of the most scholarly information, practice, and sharing that in how I live and in what I write as best I can.

The most substantiated book on psychology in this vein is George vaillant, spiritual evolution. I'm on my 5th reading and struggling to keep my head from exploding with how much he got wrong, but he got Nuggets right that the horrible insane field of psychology has gotten wrong for so long.

At his recommendation I'm also reading Karen Armstrong, the great transformation, which among other things brilliantly presents the history of the Great inventors throughout history for ways of being individually and collectively to optimize experience, so-called religions. They have been relative failures, but there is much much much much to be learned from what they have done so that some of us can figure out how to go beyond, how to invent what was really needed.

Suicide, drugs, mountains of material things, alcohol, marijuana, wallowing in regret for depression or guilt, sex addiction, do not occur with the individuals devoted to a life of joy, see LSGIABeing.com. it doesn't happen. Inconceivable. People who are trying to be good? Yes, these things happen. But those pursuing Joy by whatever conception or none, no, it doesn't happen. These are the equivalent of the Buddhist ideal who have refused Nirvana to stay and serve.

The Charter for Compassion The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels ....

The Charter for Compassion
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect. It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism......

https://charterforcompassion.org/english