11.02.2018
11.01.2018
He surprised me by saying, the world needs more people like you, this old shopkeeper of an old shop....
Sitting on the sidewalk by the vehicle eating some potato chips as I recall, the voice behind me started the conversation. Though the questions did not suggest to me that Soul was available in front of me, the man being much older than I caused me to indulge his questions about the vehicle. He asked about the crosses on my forehead and I told him what they said. He said, I Think Jesus is going to come back and take his followers to heaven. I repeated my belief which I had stated earlier to him, what I believe is his two Commandments, love creator with our whole heart and soul and our brother the same way. The world needs more people like you he said. This surprised me from him, but I was glad. It seems that Soul was available in this dialogue after all.
10.31.2018
What we need, and all we need, are people that are extraordinary examples of unconditional love, every breath.
What we need, and all we need, are people that are extraordinary examples of unconditional love, every breath.
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
Mount Whitney climb, among the 10 most difficult in the country. Pictures. Detail
This 10 mile climb to the Mount Whitney portal is rated among the 10 most difficult in the country for cyclists. Having just done the worst of it, and staying in the afternoon sun as long as possible to gather energy these are the key metrics.
PS. It is 7 in the evening, just saw the camp host in this almost entirely empty large Campground, Bill, my friend. Tonight is the last night that it is open. LOL. Who knew? Just 2 months left to the shortest day of the year. And yet we 900 pound payload climbed 4200 ft, 12 miles, 54-64 energy equivalent miles, good Sun but the final two hours were lost to the Rocky Mountains blocking the Sun, and the first two hours were lost to the sloppiness on the part of the operator, ending the day yesterday about 400 Watts down in the batteries. Yet we were able to complete the climb, cook 44 oz of hot water for coffee tonight and in the morning, and 3 cans of beans, tomatoes, and pasta for dinner, with 40% of the energy still in the batteries. Point being, this vehicle is extremely able now. Thanks to extraordinary dedication by the operator and help from a few friends. Oh, and some help from Creator whatever that is. I mean really, this is the last night it's open and this is the night we arrive? And although the operator was careful, this is a uniquely difficult climb, and two-thirds of the way the vehicle stopped. James was shocked to discover that one of the two controllers was much too hot to touch. Normally not a problem but on this climb he had allowed the ventilation on that controller to be blocked by a tarp after 10 minutes it was still too hot to touch. An absolute miracle that didn't burn up. Almost the same thing with the primary motor. Creator, or Hunger Games sponsors, whatever, decided to cut us some slack. Maybe because 67 year old stage 4 cancer survivor James did his part? He did the energy equivalent of cycling himself up this 1 of 10 or one of five most difficult bicycle climbs in the country, carrying his weight, and letting the sun and the motors carry the rest.
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 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
10.30.2018
Preaching to the choir is a useful caution, however, it obscures what is important to do, to Assemble, and equip a choir to ever higher levels of competence.
Preaching to the choir is a useful caution, however, it obscures what is important to do, to Assemble, and equip a choir to ever higher levels of competence.
10.29.2018
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.
If not relatively, tragically, expert in the Resurrection of the Soul no one should waste a second on what I have to say. If I am, no one should waste a second interacting with me as anything less.
If not relatively, tragically, expert in the Resurrection of the Soul no one should waste a second on what I have to say. If I am, no one should waste a second interacting with me as anything less.
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.”
Vaillant... All forms of spiritual healing have in common empathy, healing within a circle of caring persons, permission to feel and express emotion, shared responsibility for pain, and reverence for life rather than for self. Such “blessings” lower blood pressure, ease pain, relax muscles, and postpone death.
All forms of spiritual healing have in common empathy, healing within a circle of caring persons, permission to feel and express emotion, shared responsibility for pain, and reverence for life rather than for self. Such “blessings” lower blood pressure, ease pain, relax muscles, and postpone death.
... 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.”
10.28.2018
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
My religion is the soul, the heart, in charge of the head and flesh.
My religion is the soul, the heart, in charge of the head and flesh.
You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body and a computer. Anonymous. Detail
Regarding James being absent from Facebook. Detail
And it is like being an addiction counselor, and opioid addiction counselor, in West Virginia. People there want their opioids, they don't want to be rid of them, although they probably Like to talk about being rid of them.
Or like Harriet Tubman experienced, I could have saved a thousand more if they had understood they were slaves.
Regarding my inactivity on Facebook now, I must avoid enabling with chatter those addicted to head and flesh in charge, and continue the work of preparing myself to help the occasional soul that is dying to be rid of the addiction.
In the historically unlikely event that an individual is dying for such help, they can subscribe to the daily update from this blog, study the blog and the materials that it points to, painstakingly accumulated over the years, and contact me directly.
10.27.2018
... 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.