Apologies. Number 6, again. Critical review, saving Paradise, Parker and Brock. Free download archive.org

Pps 2/20. Apologies, of A Sort, or regret maybe? Not that I wish I hadn't done it, I wish it didn't happen. This thing I have with several recent books where after first listening, as the vehicle and I travel, I am so euphoric and by the end of the process of deep study including annotation of the written text, I'm so disappointed. this was true of spiritual Evolution, George vaillant, and this saving Paradise, Brock and Parker. I am not sorry that they came to my attention and receive my deep study. I am profoundly grateful for that. I am not sorry for bringing them to your attention. I am sorry for us all that they in the end come up so terribly short. We are blessed by the maybe even Giant Steps that they give us, vaillant, by giving us back the most important part of our nervous system, the limbic system, soul, Parker and Brock by giving us back the truth of early for the first 1,000 years Christianity that it was 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, about entering Paradise in this life on this earth now. But so many landmines, so many creation destroying weapons of mass destruction mixed in with their words, no discredit to them.

Anyway, I guess I was so discouraged and disappointed with the end of saving Paradise that until last night I neglected the first point number six, mid article below, until last night when I added it. It was the reason for my initial Euphoria and it is reason for euphoria, Parker and Brock giving us back the fact that for a thousand years Christians believed that paradise was to be found, entirely and only in this life on this Earth. And that is one trillion percent correct. It is 1 trillion per cent incorrect that it depends on, or ever consists of, establishing a physical Paradise, it never has, it never will, it never can, although a physical Paradise can tremendously increase the odds of finding the only Paradise there can ever be, the kingdom of God is within you, as Jesus lived, died, preached, and taught. and as pointed toward by the dozens of greatest Souls that have ever been Among Us many spoken of here LSGIABeing.com inhabited every moment that the individual, or group, For Joy serve those poor souls, in solidarity.

PS 2/19. Crucial note. If you read the earlier version of this please skip to the very bottom to number 6 below. A crucial Omission in the original submission.

2/18. Saving Paradise, Parker and Brock. Preliminary review.

So you are never going to see the Sistine Chapel, in this example. This analogy. You will never see a picture. But I have just recommended to you a description by two very well intended very bright Scholars that describe it. The best description I know of. Brilliant. But I know of two major flaws in these well-intended Scholars that even they are unaware of. Do I tell you? I do.

If I know they have severe color blindness, and severe astigmatism, I tell you, and I try and help you understand how that impacts their otherwise useful work.

The brilliant work of similarly afflicted psychiatrist dr. George vaillant, spiritual evolution, summarizes for us the indisputable studies of the last decade highlighting The crucial existence and value of the previously denigrated and ignored third brain, the mammalian brain, the limbic system, what I understand to be the soul. This research summarized by him in very real terms gives us our soul in material location. This is profoundly useful. Such a cruel irony that one writing about the soul is limbic system crippled, limbic system, Soul, the only thing that can grasp the essentials of soul. But if this is understood his work is tremendously valuable.

And similarly Brock and Parker. They write of the quest of the Soul, Paradise, Heaven on Earth. And I find their scholarship tremendously helpful. And also a terrible Minefield, terribly crippled by the fact that they cannot see the essence about which they write, Affairs of the Soul, but they write from that which they have, highly developed cerebral cortex, that anatomically cannot grasp the soul.

I'll share ways that the book, their work, is profoundly helpful to me. And it may be of no use to those who have done and or read the scholarship of others of this last four thousand years of religious development, culminating in so-called Christianity of the last two thousand years.

You may laugh, retch, disconnect at this point, take your pick, but so far I know of no one beside myself, zero credit to me, that is grasping where Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad and others were unknowingly pointing toward, almost reaching, go in the case of Jesus may be reaching, and definitely living. Joy, one of the Myriad alternative states of consciousness, is Paradise, stimulated or discouraged by external factors but never an external Factor , state, or condition, it is only a personal internal phenomenon enabled by our DNA and crippled by the time we are three or four in all but one in a million in the cultures of the last 7000 years. The formula for activating it, and it can be inhabited every breath, is: for Joy, serve those poor souls, in solidarity. Not only are you welcome to disagree, this is all a waste of your time if you don't task yourself with deciding whether what is being stated here is worth reading any further.

For me the work of Brock and Parker is monumentally important.

1. They are showing me what I had little if any idea of, there have been historical figures in the last 2 thousand years of the otherwise malignant cancerous organism called Christianity, individuals that in fact have been close to showing us Paradise, as were Jesus and the others I mentioned  above, founders of other religious traditions. This is profoundly useful to me and I will be digging in and writing of it soon I hope.
2. And actually, it may be that people considering themselves Christians as a group for the first Thousand Years we're largely not far off. This is going to take more work on my part to understand, completing a detailed annotation of saving paradise, and then digging deeper, this because of the color blindness and astigmatism, cerebral cortex dominance, Soul crippling, of Parker and Brock. But for certain a large group of early Christians we're much more on the path or close to it than I had any idea and this is quite encouraging. Why? Salvation of Christianity? No one with a soul, no credit to them, could care less about Christianity, or about any other religion per se. They care about those who are examples of the soul in charge. And what they want, and what I want, and what is needed, what we are dying for, is examples, and in the two respects I just mentioned Parker and Brock have brought to me many more examples than I realized existed, within Christianity, and before. A tremendous contribution to us.
3. There are brief passages throughout this book but particularly in the last two chapters that are cerebrally brilliant, and terribly useful distillations of key issues in human development, cultural development, political development, developments within America that have great pertinence to what's going on today, not only in Christianity, but especially in Christianity. Breathtaking glimmers of Brilliance, cerebral though they may be.
4. And in contrast to the examples of souls striving for life over the last four thousand years, striving for freedom from dominance and decimation by their own personal head and Flash, and the head and flesh, cerebral cortex and hypothalamus, of others and systems in general, government Etc. In contrast to these examples they also provide a brilliant and tremendously useful look at the inexpressibly evil corrupting factors, maybe no discredit to themselves, that have attacked, perverted, killed, ended, stopped the hopeful shoots that have emerged from time to time throughout history and especially within Christianity, the focus of this book. How extraordinarily useful and important to be brought Closer by Parker and Brock to seeing these examples and hopefully moving toward an understanding of these corrupting factors and how they work.
5. And certainly there are other tremendous benefits of the work of these two but this will suffice for this preliminary review.
6. They establish with historical Clarity and Authority is that for the first Thousand Years starting with Jesus Christianity was about establishing Paradise on Earth. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.

As to the analogy, severe color blindness, severe astigmatism, in Parker and Brock? By the way, just for emphasis, if someone has color blindness, to mention it, to someone whose work you otherwise recommend, is that a slender? It is not.

1. They are highly religious, extremely degreed preachers, theologians, and each comes from from long family histories of that as I understand it. That is not a slander or a denigration. It is said that the fish are the last ones to discover water. It seems that the water they know is religion. To them the problem has been religion, but the answer is proper religion. These are not fundamentalists. They are extremely accomplished cerebral Scholars, but it is as though they cannot imagine that religion is not the answer. And it is not. A larva becomes a butterfly, fulfilling its DNA, not because of some religion. As does a seed. Does the environment matter? Tremendously. But in nurturing that is within, not imposing from without which is always crippling.
2. As cerebrally dominant soul atrophied limbic system crippled, they absolutely cannot grasp the substance, the nature, of what the little bit of good religion is grasping toward, dominance of the Soul, the soul in charge of head and flesh of the individual and the group.
3. If you know, and you do not do, you do not know. Anonymous. From a cerebral perspective, they brilliantly and in such useful instances reveal how the White supremacists and the like, unwitting though they might be, pervert their own perceptions such that whatever they do is good and whatever anyone else does is not. And they express this in specific useful ways far better than I just summarized. And yet these poor souls, Parker and Brock, are exactly there. They are so much of the unintended perversion of what the great religious exemplars tried to show us, and they don't see it. Their academic elitism. Their American Supremacy. Their intellectual Supremacy. Their material Supremacy. And on and on and on. It's heartbreaking. Why? Why heartbreaking? Because we need work of the caliber of theirs without these hidden landmines! Yes, they're doing the best they can, and what a tremendous contribution to me.
4. I'm quite sure, though I need to read the text carefully, I'm quite sure that either it is certain to Brock and Parker, or they are extremely biased toward, a view that paradise is not as I say and more importantly Jesus says, the kingdom of God is within you) totally and only an individual's psychological State, influenced by external factors but never of them or determined by them, if as I say that is correct, it may well be that Parker and Brock are exactly of the opposite view, that paradise, Heaven, yes on Earth, of this life not some afterlife, they are right about that, is primarily if not entirely external circumstances both of natural environment made healthy, and physical community made loving.
5. And our greatest example and teacher in history, the man Jesus, not the blue eyed white guy, the brown-skinned Palestinian guy, they distort, obscure, corrupt that man by never distinguishing in all their work that I could see, never distinguishing the real man, and the roughly 20% of the verses attributed to him in the four gospels, they never distinguish between that real man and the fiction written largely by John but also appearing elsewhere in the New Testament. They comment in their notes that Dominic crossan early on in Courage their work. And then they quickly add that others checked their scholarship. But not Crossing. I suspect this is the reason. It is shocking that they seem to have totally ignored the work of the Jesus seminar that has helped us determine those 20% of the verses attributed to Jesus that Jesus likely actually said.
   
6. Jesus said, in vain do they worship me, preaching as Commandments the doctrines of men. For 2,000 years the so-called Church, and then relentlessly, relentlessly, without exception that I see, done again by these two otherwise fine and certainly well-intended authors!!!! Teaching as Commandments the doctrines of men!!! As mentioned in the point above, not only do they totally ignore the indisputable scholarship that in the gospel only 20% of the verses were actually spoken by Jesus, maybe another 30% by people that got him, not only did they totally ignore that, but no where in the book do they bring Christianity back to his simple teachings!!! He said, do unto others all things whatsoever that you would have them do unto you, on this hangs all the law and the prophets!  and of the other 20% of the words in the gospel attributed to him that he actually spoke, all of them contribute to this and none of them diverge. For 2,000 years, including this book, we have had his teaching, we have had his religion of do unto others all things whatsoever, and for two thousand years including this book we have looked for the answer every place but where he told us to find it!!!!!

I expect to continue and complete at high priority my personal annotation of the written text, saving Paradise, mining it for the positive and negative aspects just briefly pointed to above. This will be a tremendous value to me. Whether any of my further results will be shared in a more detailed review remains to be seen. It's quite possible that my duty to you, as someone who has been highly recommending this book as I have, this summary may have to suffice in my duty of warning to you. People with individual questions if they have done their homework my detailed annotation would put me in a position to provide some specific replies.

James

Review, spiritual Evolution, George vaillant. An invaluable gold mine in a deadly minefield.

Review, spiritual Evolution, George vaillant. An invaluable gold mine in a deadly minefield.

The gold, the life-saving truths found throughout this book are extraordinarily important. But the book is laced with landmines and unless one procedes carefully they will do themselves permanent damage.

George is an extremely useful probe for us, the right person at the right time to observe important developments in the realm of psychobiology. And thank goodness for that. But whereas he has a lifetime of observation he has little or no personal experience. By way of analogy , he has spent countless years observing those who climb sheer Rock faces and communicates that to a population who has never seen it. But not being a rock climber himself fatal it would be for his readers to proceed to the rock face on just what he says. And also it would be a mistake for the would-be rock climber to ignore what he does share.

The author of this review, James, for reasons no credit to himself, has spent a lifetime practicing, studying, exercising the capacity for unselfish love, living with the soul in charge, which is at the heart of what vaillant shares with us. To this lifelong practitioner, James, the gold nuggets throughout this book are invaluable to the extent that he has spent months studying what vaillant provided. But also months agonizing over the extraordinary errors also laced throughout the book.

Although it will seem that James has some desire to speak negatively about vaillant and the book this is not at all the case. The Nuggets that vaillant provides to us are so extraordinary valuable to the life of every individual, that the poisons that he also unintentionally introduces are that much more consequential and must be flagged.

Throughout the book vaillant authoritatively identifies the extraordinary intellectual failure that the field of psychology has been and continues to be, as evidenced by the recent vital progress being made by a few in the field and related fields of Neuroscience, ethology, primatology, cultural anthropology and the like.

Imagine that the field of psychology had ridiculed and even more so denied the human capacity for lust, anger, violence, intellectual Pursuit…. Flesh and head respectively. How incredibly bankrupt, correct? It has done the equivalent, not the equivalent, infinitely worse. It has violently denied the human capacity for unselfish love, Soul in charge, demonstrably the most important capacity to the survival of the human species over the Millennia and into the future. And the solitary source of the ultimate human emotional state, Joy. It has violently, violently, viciously denied, belittled, ridiculed the existence of such a thing.

George does us an invaluable service of laying out the studies in a variety of disciplines that indisputably indicate that in the human limbic system, the mammalian part of our brain, the inbuilt capacity and orientation to unconditional love is inbuilt not only in our species, especially in our species, but also to varying degrees throughout the mammalian Kingdom.

This aspect of the book is beyond invaluable. More than any other book I know if everyone read and grasped this aspect of the book it would change the world. No, that won't happen, but if it did, it would change the world.

But as the book stands if the book were read without supervision it would change and hence the futile effort of this review. In one sentence George brilliantly presents the truth of unconditional love, and then three sentences late later conflates it we lust, selfish love. And this pattern repeats itself over and over and over and over.

George does not grasp the importance of those gold nuggets. And he is willing to dilute his presentation trying to appeal to too many audiences and too many goals, particularly the religious communities around the world. He has the right, it is understandable, but we are out of time as a species, and each living individual is out of time to get it right.

At some time in the future I would like to have the time to present the detailed notes and analysis paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter that I have agonized over these last weeks. And one on one, if asked, I could do so. But for now the following will have to suffice, a quick assessment chapter by chapter of highs and lows.

Chapter 1. Positive emotion. George opens with a Majesterial encapsulation of the gold Nuggets that he strews throughout this book. It is a magnificent true story and the bottom line for him of the story is this: “Unselfish love (soul, heart) had conquered both Darwinian “selfish” genes and Kantian pure reason (flesh and head respectively). The transformative power of positive emotion had interceded. Positive emotions—not only
compassion, forgiveness, love, and hope but also joy, faith/trust, awe, and gratitude—arise from our inborn mammalian capacity for unselfish parental love. They emanate from our feeling, limbic mammalian brain and thus are grounded in our evolutionary heritage. All human beings are hardwired for positive emotions, and these positive emotions are a common denominator of all major faiths and of all human beings. Thus, this is, in some respects, a revolutionary book. I shall argue that thepositive emotions are not just nice to have; they are essential to the survival of Homo sapiens as a species.”

Had George tightly adhered to this in every paragraph of this book it would be the most important book on earth. Truly. Sadly, this is not the case. But the truth that human kind or the human individual needs to understand is in the quotation above, often substantiated throughout this book, most importantly with the scientific advances in the last 10 or 20 years richly documented here in. Substantiated most importantly by finding the organ, if you will, previously unknown, Limbic system, mamalian brain, the most important part of the triune brain. Most important organ for the human species survival past, present and for the few that will survive what a world dominated by head and flash, cerebral cortex and hypothalamus respectively, is in the final stages of destroying.

Proceed with this book if you can keep in mind, and measure every passage by, the quotation above which strikes right to the heart of the truth. The reader who does so will find the gold Nuggets richly strewn throughout this book and avoid the land minds. Otherwise, do not proceed.

Over all chapter one is fabulous, extremely constructive. But George can't seem to help himself. He clearly does not see with his limbic system what thank goodness his cerebral cortex has brought to us in this chapter as he blunders into, “If readers will permit me to define pleasure as the result of positive emotion rather than mere hedonism, then…” WTF? And George nowhere in the book evidences that he sees the centrality of this horrible deadly error. Pleasure is the neurological psychological reward provided by the nervous system when it senses that we are pursuing what our hypothalamus, our Reptilian Brain, our selfish brain wants. Joy being the exact opposite reward, when the nervous system senses that driven by our soul, our heart, our mammalian brain, our limbic system, we are attempting to serve those Among Us in need!

Chapter 2. The prose and the passion. With this chapter George gets off to a pretty wonderful start, “Only recently have scientists discovered that the compassion, joy, and unselfish love so important to religion and to the Neolithic mind are not irrelevant to science. You see, the
Neolithic (hunter-gatherer) mind that “natural selection built” was more like that of a four-year-old—all images, animism, magic, and emotion—than like that of a modern, highly educated adult. Dependence on the written word and the use of the scientific experiment to verify imagined cause and effect were still far in the future by the time that natural selection had completed the “hardware” of the Homo sapiens brain. Moreover,ever since our invention of new “software” like the printing press and the scientific method, we have had less and less respect for the superstitious, mystical brain that natural selection built.” Bravo! Except for the troubling mistaken quote from EO Wilson with which he begins and then goes back to after the quotation above. “Only recently have scientists rediscovered that the compassion, joy, and unselfish love so important to religion and to the Neolithic mind are not irrelevant to science. You see, the
Neolithic (hunter-gatherer) mind that “natural selection built” was more like that of a four-year-old—all images, animism, magic, and emotion—than like that of a modern, highly educated adult. Dependence on the written word and the use of the scientific experiment to verify imagined cause and effect were still far in the future by the time that natural selection had completed the “hardware” of the Homo sapiens brain. Moreover,ever since our invention of new “software” like the printing press and the scientific method, we have had less and less respect for the superstitious, mystical brain that natural selection built."The task of a thoughtful future humanity must be to correct the “misalignment” between our scientific and our emotional brains.” because he and Wilson think that somehow the cerebral cortex and the mammalian brain are equals in a successful human life or humanity is a species. But Time After Time After Time the wonderful examples that he introduces in this book are no such thing, they are the soul in charge, the heart, the limbic system, the mammalian brain in charge of the cerebral cortex and hypothalamus, Reptilian Brain. Nowhere does George evidence that he sees this although his examples scream it from the rooftops. And his examples are exactly correct.

A profound value of this book is that it brings us such important revealing research from the last 10 and 20 years. But our research is conducted by those like George who worship their cerebral cortex in charge so quite possibly never the available instrumentation will be used to reveal what the likes of Abraham Maslow saw so many decades ago. That the mammalian brain, now clearly identified, when activated brings to Bear the full spectrum of white light, all of the positive emotions, activated and put in charge in addition to things he does not speak of, wisdom, Vision, which he speaks of tangentially, creativity, inspiration which he says is of the cerebral cortex but it is not it is primarily with the limbic system in charge.

With few exceptions this chapter 2 is helpful and extraordinarily so in many cases. He courageously lays out the anatomy and existence of the limbic system. There is little to be careful of in this chapter except for where he says, “Emotions, like the smooth muscle of our viscera, cannot be controlled by conscious will.” So incredibly blind, and wrong. And almost by his own words, elsewhere in the book. Where he speaks of the capacity to focus, and by being self-aware, self-monitoring, and focusing on what we look at and how we conceptualize it we are choosing which part of the nervous system, head, flesh, or soul, to activate. How can he be so blind? He is cerebral man. It is.

But with this chapter George gives us back Far and Away the most important part of our nervous system, that which makes us human, that, when in charge, gives us joy, and Hope For The Individual or group that keeps it in charge. Thank you George.

Chapter 3. 3 evolutions. For the most part a lot of very helpful material. Useful to highlight three types of evolution important to humanity, genetic, cultural, the software if you will, and the individual aging, maturing process.

There are some significant landmines in this chapter however. Among overprivileged people like George, the elites that he views as the healthy human beings, probably the opposite is true, he assumes that mature morality comes with age. That may be correct. But more likely it is a reflection of the sickness of our culture, and structural changes. How much easier it is for his Elite study subjects in their Advanced age to be moral, when they have structured their Financial Security earlier in their years.

And what of a young Rachel Corrie? Still, like virtually all of psychology, the unhealthy population is studied for its extremes and the most positive of the unhealthy population is held up as the optimum. This is crazy. When will we start with the healthy individuals, like young Rachel, or young Greta? Maslow did.

And then this. “As developmentalist Carol Gilligan points out, we have no self to give “selflessly” away if at first we are not “selfish.”” What kind of culture-specific, unexamined, superficial garbage is this?

And in the final several pages of this chapter there is quite a bit more garbage. Be careful you don't step in it.

But it ends on a positive note. “what human evolution is all about. Over time, just as evolving humanity is better shielded by science from capricious famine and infant deaths, just so its faith traditions—once dependent on the protective but negative emotions of abject fear and righteous anger—can give way to the positive emotions of faith, love, hope, joy, forgiveness, compassion, and awe—the positive emotions whose biologic underpinnings will serve as foci for the next seven chapters.”

Not that his attempt to save the religions should be lauded, it should not. They are cancerous Corpses and should be allowed to die.

And does George even realize that he is not speaking here of connecting the prose and the passion, but rather having the soul, the heart, the limbic system, the mammalian brain in charge?
.
……. Creator willing, to be continued......

January 3rd, 2019 note. The plan was to complete this review weeks ago. But it will be several weeks s till until it is ready to go. Higher priority than completing this has been assumed by attempting to basically master the invaluable work of Karen Armstrong in, the great transformation recommended in George's book. Also, work is being undertaken to internalized, grasp, and even memorize certain of the passages that scholarship indicates were actually said by the man Jesus 2000 years ago. Roughly 20% of the words and sayings and examples actually attributed to him.

Video log update. Gladly captive in Lone Pine.

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.

Of the many many dozens of crucial books informing my life this is Far and Away the..... >>

Of the many many dozens of crucial books informing my life this is Far and Away the most important. My business to suggest it to you, yours whether you read it. I'm on my fourth reading. Absolutely I suggest you give it a try.

Barring unforeseen catastrophe, the mission is really settling in, and study most of the day long is now what is happening, having books read to me while the travel continues, and then rereading and annotating the book while..... >>>

Barring unforeseen catastrophe, the mission is really settling in, and study most of the day long is now what is happening, having books read to me while the travel continues, and then rereading and annotating the book while





stationary.... eating, resting, studying. Virtually all of my posting is now happening at my blog. I hope if at such time as you like you check in there. Anyone that does will see that I am on my third reading or more of the most important book that I know of on Earth and I know many important ones, spiritual evolution, by psychologist and scientist George vaillant.

To understand love, the usually helpful resources—the ancient Greeks, the poets, and the psychologists—all fail us. They become preoccupied with lust, which even reptiles are capable of manifesting.... Vaillant

To understand love, the usually
helpful resources—the ancient Greeks, the poets, and the psychologists—all fail us. They become preoccupied with lust, which even reptiles are capable of manifesting.

In more neurobiological terms, it is our affectladen hippocampal memory of past attachments that helps to make us feel real... Vaillant

In more neurobiological terms, it is our affectladen hippocampal memory of past attachments that helps to make us feel real

You cannot be taught love; you can only breathe it in and absorb it. Love, you see, is limbic, not intellectual.... Vaillant

You cannot be taught love; you can only breathe it in and absorb it. Love, you see, is limbic, not intellectual.

Vaillant.... The Buddha taught, “As with her life a mother cares for her own, her only child, so in your hearts and minds let there be boundless love for all creatures great and small.”4 That was the faith that the Buddha spent forty-five years of his life trekking the length and breadth of India to share with all he met.

The Buddha taught, “As with her life a mother cares for her own, her only child, so in your hearts and minds let there be boundless love for all creatures great and small.”4 That was the faith that the Buddha spent forty-five years of his life trekking the length and breadth of India to share with all he met.

Vaillant... Good lawyers and charismatic cult leaders with their clever arguments make us believe; good mothers, saints, and positive emotion help us to trust. Belief is so exact that we think we can add up the bill. Trust always involves casting bread upon the waters with its return being only a matter of faith, not contract. “Believe what I say” stands in stark contrast to “Don’t trust what I say; trust what I do.”

Good lawyers and charismatic cult leaders with their clever arguments make us believe; good mothers, saints, and positive emotion help us to trust. Belief is so exact that we think we can add up the bill. Trust always involves casting bread upon the waters with its return being only a matter of faith, not contract. “Believe what I say” stands in stark contrast to “Don’t trust what I say; trust what I do.”

... Vaillant... Although Graham gained comfort from helping people, he did not wish to take credit for the healing process. Rather, “it is important that people know I don’t do it. I say to them, ‘Don’t thank me…go and praise God.’” He could have just as accurately said, “Don’t thank me…go and praise unselfish love.”

Although Graham gained comfort from helping people, he did not wish to take credit for the healing process. Rather, “it is important that people know I don’t do it. I say to them, ‘Don’t thank me…go and praise God.’” He could have just as accurately said, “Don’t thank me…go and praise unselfish love.”

God, Allah, Yahweh, and the awe induced by experiencing unselfish love may mean the same thing.... Vaillant

God, Allah, Yahweh, and the awe induced by experiencing unselfish love may mean the same thing.

Depending on the culture, the poet, the dreamer, the shaman, or the religious mystic sometimes retains the capacity to regressto the mind of the three-year-old and thus retrieve early nonverbal creative powers from domination by the leftbrain rational prose. These literally visionary individuals help us to understand more fully our tenuous place in the universe.... Vaillant.

Depending on the culture, the poet, the dreamer, the shaman, or the religious mystic sometimes retains the capacity to regressto the mind of the three-year-old and thus retrieve early nonverbal creative powers from domination by the leftbrain rational prose. These literally visionary individuals help us to understand more fully our tenuous place in the universe.

Loevinger asks us to focus on three sequential adult stages: the conformist, the conscientious, and the autonomous. In Loevinger’s... >>>

Loevinger asks us to focus on three sequential adult stages: the conformist, the conscientious, and the autonomous. In Loevinger’s conformist stages, morality is evaluated in terms of concrete externals rather than in terms of emotions. You love a woman if you give her an engagement ring. You can be trusted to have a child when you have a valid marriage license. You were admirable if you enlisted in the United States Marines in January 1942. Russiais “the Evil Empire,” and the American
flag is emblazoned with colors that don’t
run. Most laws and most religious
dogma work at this level. So do the
minds of a lot of devout patriots in all of
the world’s nations. If you are not with
us, you are against us.
As individuals mature, they reach
Loevinger’s conscientious stage. Love
means you put your mate’s needs above
your own lust. You can be trusted to
have children when you are able to care
for them properly. You learn to entertain
the possibility that a man might still have
been admirable if in 1942 he preferred
jail as a conscientious objector to killing
other human beings. You value
ecumenical religious services, andsometimes you support the United Nations over your own country’s interests. You learn to differentiate your emotions and master Piagetian formal operations. Loevinger believes, and I agree, that
some, but not most, adults evolve further into what she calls the autonomous stage. By autonomous she means trusting others to be autonomous. Rather than giving the hungry a fish, you teach them how to catch fish themselves. Defining love becomes more difficult than just the

... For millennia, theologians, largely male, have suggested that spirituality was about basic intellectual questions like “Who am I? Why am I here? What happens to me when I die? How can I please my God?” These dry, cognitive questions are about patriarchal gods and “me.” In the last century, however, cultural anthropologists (such as Margaret Mead), ethologists (such asJane Goodall), and neuroscientists (such as Andrew Newberg) have been more likely to suggest that spirituality reflects limbic questions about love, community, positive emotions, and the feeling of “being one with the universe.”... Vaillant

For millennia, theologians, largely
male, have suggested that spirituality was about basic intellectual questions like “Who am I? Why am I here? What happens to me when I die? How can I please my God?” These dry, cognitive
questions are about patriarchal gods and “me.” In the last century, however, cultural anthropologists (such as Margaret Mead), ethologists (such asJane Goodall), and neuroscientists (such as Andrew Newberg) have been more likely to suggest that spirituality reflects limbic questions about love, community,
positive emotions, and the feeling of “being one with the universe.”

Over the last two thousand years literate humans “forgot” how to think with the brain with which they were born. The more humankind learned to think rationally, the.... Vaillant

Over the last two thousand years literate humans “forgot” how to think with the brain with which they were born. The more humankind learned to think rationally, the more estranged they became from their innate emotional spirituality. Since the Enlightenment, this divorce between emotion and reason has become complete for many in the West. As I have already noted, until the penetration of neuroscience, cultural anthropology, and ethology into the culture over the past fifty years, the positive emotions were virtually abandoned as a focus for respectable scientific research.

While the cultural memes of compassionate religions spread throughout the globe, the simultaneous spread of literacy overthe last two thousand years made possible the gradual evolution of science at the expense of spirituality. Vaillant

While the cultural memes of compassionate religions spread throughout the globe, the simultaneous spread of literacy overthe last two thousand years made possible the gradual evolution of science at the expense of spirituality.

Vaillant.... The “Way” of Confucius led neither to Heaven nor to Yahweh’s favor,but rather to a “condition of transcendent goodness.>>>

In a China torn to pieces by tribal
strife, Kong Qiu (551–479 BCE)—whose name in the West is Confucius—worked out the moral principles of the New Testament 500 years before Christ and 2,500 years before Schweitzer and Gandhi. The “Way” of Confucius led neither to Heaven nor to Yahweh’s favor,but rather to a “condition of transcendent
goodness.

..... What mattered to Confucius, Socrates, Christ, and Isaiah was not what you believed but how you behaved. Show me, don’t tell me. “God” was the experience of loving compassion, not an all-powerful, judgmental, and often angry patriarch.....

In Armstrong’s words, “The Axial Age pushed forward the frontiers of human consciousness and discovered a transcendent dimension in the core of their being, but they did not necessarily regard this as supernatural…. If the Buddha or Confucius had been asked whether he believed in God, he would probably have winced slightly andexplained—with great courtesy—that this was not an appropriate question.”22 What mattered to Confucius, Socrates, Christ, and Isaiah was not what you believed but how you behaved. Show me, don’t tell me. “God” was the experience of loving compassion, not an all-powerful, judgmental, and often angry patriarch.