Mankind is destroying the earth- destroying beauty- breaking his connection with spirit- forgetting who he is. Much healing is needed for the earth- for all life- to heal the self-inflicted wounds and to restore an awareness of the connectedness of all life. Not an intellectual awareness- but an awareness that is at the depths of soul.

The destruction of the earth’s beauty is a violation of spirit. The challenge of human existence is not only to evolve- to experience pain and separateness and then to reunite with the divine love- not only to become instruments of healing and light.

We also have an obligation to preserve what is beautiful on the earth. Part of our essence is rooted in the Earth. She is a manifestation of the divine mother. To destroy her is to destroy what it means to be human. The dream of the earth and of all that is and was lives for eternity. The dream is more real than the physical reality. Yet, the destruction of life practiced so willfully, methodically, thoughtlessly, without fear of consequence, so unmercifully- degrades human spirit. The earth then no longer becomes a spiritual school but an endless reminder of pain and suffering with out beauty’s solace. This is not the destiny mankind wants. Let there be beauty and let the confusion of the human mind end. Knowing connection there cannot be willful destruction.

We cannot escape the Karmic forces in the universe much as we at times try. On the other hand, once we accept our Karmic connection, we will more fully experience the joy of loving creation and we will be able to evolve spiritually in ways that we now experience only sporadically if at all.

A Vision

Reaching out from the abyss of space and time, a strand of white light from some unknown messenger reached my waking mind- and restored hope.

Venturing into the living cosmos, I dimly sensed my oneness with all creation. But as I traveled outward, I reached a translucent barrier and could go no further. It was as if I and the rest of mankind were inside a cosmic egg- angry, hurt yet evolving- one day perhaps to break the mantle and be born to the universe and another dimension. Now, however- isolated, dreaming and barely conscious- compassionately watched from without. 

Or in my outward search did I confront my inner self- estranged from the universe. Do not all journeys start from within? 

Perhaps in deep communion and love- mankind may break through the shell- reborn. And all that was before will be an inchoate memory and ahead the unfathomable richness of the universe, both within and without....

Today, humanity may be experiencing the beginning of self-directed neuro-genetic-social-machine evolution. Standing at a cross road- perhaps we are seeing the last remnants of a reality rooted in our biological/terrestrial origins. Yet, is future evolution possible if humanity fails to cherish and respect the dignity and oneness of Gaia? Will the biological sphere be sacrificed to the deevolution, of a human machine like consciousness that devalues its origins and loses compassion for all life.

Or, will a heightened sensitivity to the consciousness continuum bring about a more profound understanding of life and creations' oneness?  Maybe both alternatives represent concurrent branches in the evolution of human consciousness. The fundamental questions are: (1) How will humanity choose; (2) What will it choose and (3) What will be the consequences. Gaia itself will influence those choices and their manifold consequences in ways that are beyond our imagining. See also: "First Step." As to possible consequences, See: World Disasters Report 2000, from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Is man re-creating the Earth in his own image?

From: Virtual Evolution

The Fractal Universe

So many futures to choose from- endless civilizations, endless futures, yet each uniquely bleak- much lost- but what gained?

The universe as whole is a fractal, evidenced by its' nested hierarchical and self similar structure. The universe unfolds through a series of iterating geometric functions. A propagation of spreading, oscillating, self generating, n-dimensional fractals through space/time. Fractals are a mathematical representation of cosmic oneness in a universe whose shape may mirror that of the DNA double helix- life's genetic template. The machinery and functioning of the living cell is not dissimilar to the machinery of galactic creation and destruction. The universe less evolves, than manifests itself. "Thought," both a creation and cause of physical/psychic reality is itself a fractal process. Through the sixth sense, that binds life at the conscious level in all dimensions, the fractal patterns can be known and the future predicted. Free will, however, is not an illusion. For example, in human society, the conscious creation of a peaceful, meditative state by the individual or the whole can alter the fractal unfolding, and manifest in free will and perhaps hope. On the cosmological level, black holes, serve a similar purpose, inducing unpredictable randomness in a quantumly determinate universe. Hence the future cannot be completely known in this or the infinitely branching universes that co-exist in space/time. See also: The Solitary Leaf.

A Personal Message

First Step

Interview with William Gibson,
author of "Neuromancer"

Karma: Meaning and Definition

Rava's Golem

Review by Donald Williams of David P. Barash's
"The Hare and the Tortoise: Culture, Biology,
and Human Nature." New York, Viking, 1986.

Strange Worlds and Strange Peoples

Paris au XXe siècle

The Edge
 

"Our five senses prepare us to experience the sixth sense- that sense through which we experience our deep connectedness with spirit and love- all creation. This sixth sense by measure infinitely richer than the other five."

"Intentionality is a strong and powerful way of manifesting both light and darkness in the universe. While I have no right to impose my ethics on any one- I do have a sense of what is right- often this is subtle and beautiful- there is so much rightness in a spider's web, a drop of dew, the gentle flowing of a brook and the soft words of trees. I hear so much and there is so much to hear and so much love.

Atlantis was a world where energy knowledge was known, yet it self-destructed because it forgot the basic connection of all life and allowed duality and intention to run amok. Without love, there is only fear, and fear, though destructive, is a plea for love."- Lowell Greenberg
 

The Physical World

The physical world is illusion. It is a training ground- a place where souls evolve and where death seems possible. All things in the physical world are new. The physical is a fractal- a reflection of the eternal, dreaming world.

Yet, this world is no less precious, no less beautiful than the eternal. In this physical world there is always a connection with spirit- the body becoming a vessel for this connection. It is here that we may learn compassion, empathy and experience the essence of true beauty.

Suffering is less an illusion and more a teacher. We may be reborn many times to this world and each life becomes a contract where the soul seeks to learn and grow.

The universe ebbs and flows- creation and destruction, endless cycles of birth and rebirth. Our teachers are the plants, trees, mountains, animals. We must preserve and respect them- it is they that teach us and help preserve our connection with spirit while on the physical plane. It is in them that we find profound beauty and an escape from the endless din of our monkey minds.

We are here to lean how to break out of the world of delusion- to become conscious of our eternal connection to the universe and all consciousness. We are here to learn compassion. Some of us are here to teach and the only way we can teach is to experience what our student's experience- yet we at least can feel the beauty as we experience the suffering. The beauty a reminder of what truly is.- Lowell Greenberg

"We conjure up the past we run the risk of reawakening old nightmares of being overwhelmed with horror. Conjuring the future is even more treacherous, because to attempt to envision the future we must resort to what is known, to the past, and if the past is nearly unbearable, how much more to look ahead and see only nightmares staring back at us. The again, considering the dire present, imagining that we have any future at all has got to be accounted  a cause for celebration."

"Those who govern us, in whose hands power is most concentrated, have as their objective, if we can judge by their actions, to bring time to an end, to abolish the past and future. That this is so, that these people are who they are, that we have permitted them to wield such power and may permit worse yet, is so fundamentally threatening that we reject immediate knowledge of it. In the grip of that knowledge, every human action, including the making of theatre, would have to be directed towards the abolition of such power and of the systems that maintain it. The brightest hope for the future would be any event, theatrical or otherwise that presses this knowledge closer to home."- Tony Kushner


"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

"Our genes look much like those of fruit flies, worms, and even plants. The genome shows that we all descended from the same humble beginnings, and that the connections are written in our genes."

David Baltimore
Note: Humans differ from both common chimps and bonobos in about 1.6% of DNA, and share 98.4%.

"Only a comprehensive switch from the narrowing specialization and toward an ever more inclusive and refining comprehension by all humanity- regarding all the factors governing omnicontinuing life aboard spaceship Earth- can bring about reorientation from the self-extinction-bound human trending, and do so within the critical time remaining before we have passed the point of chemical process irretrievability."

R.Buckminster Fuller, "Synergetics."

“If we are to create balanced human beings, capable of entering into world-wide co-operation with all other men of good will--and that is the supreme task of our generation, and the foundation of all its other potential achievements--we must give as much weight to the arousal of the emotions and to the expression of moral and esthetic values as we now give to science, to invention, to practical organization. One without the other is impotent. And values do not come ready-made: they are achieved by a resolute attempt to square the facts of one's own experience with the historic patterns formed in the past by those who devoted their whole lives to achieving and expressing values. If we are to express the love in our own hearts, we must also understand what love meant to Socrates and Saint Francis, to Dante and Shakespeare, to Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti, to the explorer Shackleton and to the intrepid physicians who deliberately exposed themselves to yellow fever. These historic manifestations of love are not recorded in the day's newspaper or the current radio program: they are hidden to people who possess only fashionable minds. Virtue is not a chemical product, as Taine once described it: it is a historic product, like language and literature; and this means that if we cease to care about it, cease to cultivate it, cease to transmit its funded values, a large part of it will become meaningless, like a dead language to which we have lost the key. That, I submit, is what has happened in our own lifetime.”

Lewis Mumford, "Values for Survival."

"A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then their study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting of the human mind."

Mary Shelly, "Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus," (the character Victor Frankenstein, reflecting on his unholy act).

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever."

Describing "doublethink:" "The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies- all this is indispensably necessary."

George Orwell, 1984

"The danger of the past is that men become slaves. The danger of the future is that men become robots."

Eric Fromm, The Sane Society

"i have had the gift of traveling death rows, prisons, and with gang kids...the "imperfect ones", as well as with celebrities, CEO's and the most revered, the "perfect ones"... on the outside. What *i* have learned is that we are all one."

Anonymous

"All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die."

W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939

"I am life which wills to live, in the midst of life which wills to live. As in my own will-to-live there is a longing for wider life and pleasure, with dread of annihilation and pain; so is it also in the will-to-live all around me, whether it can express itself before me or remains dumb. The will-to-live is everywhere present, even as in me. If I am a thinking being, I must regard life other than my own with equal reverence, for I shall know that it longs for fullness and development as deeply as I do myself. Therefore, I see that evil is what annihilates, hampers, or hinders life. And this holds true whether I regard it physically or spiritually. Goodness, by the same token, is the saving or helping of life, the enabling of whatever life I can to attain its highest development. 

In me the will-to-live has come to know about other wills-to-live. There is in it a yearning to arrive at unity with itself, to become universal. I can do nothing but hold to the fact that the will-to-live in me manifests itself as will-to-live which desires to become one with other will-to-live. 

Ethics consist in my experiencing the compulsion to show to all will-to-live the same reverence as I do my own. A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. If I save an insect from a puddle, life has devoted itself to life, and the division of life against itself has ended. Whenever my life devotes itself in any way to life, my finite will-to-live experiences union with the infinite will in which all life is one. 

An absolute ethic calls for the creating of perfection in this life. It cannot be completely achieved; but that fact does not really matter. In this sense reverence for life is an absolute ethic. It makes only the maintenance and promotion of life rank as good. All destruction of and injury to life, under whatever circumstances, it condemns as evil. True, in practice we are forced to choose. At times we have to decide arbitrarily which forms of life, and even which particular individuals, we shall save, and which we shall destroy. But the principle of reverence for life is nonetheless universal and absolute. 

Such an ethic does not abolish for man all ethical conflicts but compels him to decide for himself in each case how far he can remain ethical and how far he must submit himself to the necessity for destruction of and injury to life. No one can decide for him at what point, on each occasion, lies the extreme limit of possibility for his persistence in the preservation and furtherance of life. He alone has to judge this issue, by letting himself be guided by a feeling of the highest possible responsibility towards other life. We must never let ourselves become blunted. We are living in truth, when we experience these conflicts more profoundly. 

Whenever I injure life of any sort, I must be quite clear whether it is necessary. Beyond the unavoidable, I must never go, not even with what seems insignificant. The farmer, who has mown down a thousand flowers in his meadow as fodder for his cows, must be careful on his way home not to strike off in wanton pastime the head of a single flower by the roadside, for he thereby commits a wrong against life without being under the pressure of necessity. "

Albert Schweitzer, excerpted from Chapter 26 of The Philosophy of Civilization and from The Ethics of Reverence for Life in the 1936 winter issue of Christendom

"...From our "mythology" of the instincts we may easily deduce a formula for an indirect method of eliminating war. If the propensity for war be due to the destructive instinct, we have always its counter-agent, Eros, to our hand. All that produces ties of sentiment between man and man must serve us as war's antidote. These ties are of two kinds. First, such relations as those toward a beloved object, void though they be of sexual intent. The psychoanalyst need feel no compunction in mentioning "love" in this connection; religion uses the same language: Love thy neighbor as thyself. A pious injunction, easy to enounce, but hard to carry out! The other bond of sentiment is by way of identification. All that brings out the significant resemblances between men calls into play this feeling of community, identification, whereon is founded, in large measure, the whole edifice of human society."

"...Now war runs most emphatically counter to the psychic disposition imposed on us by the growth of culture; we are therefore bound to resent war, to find it utterly intolerable. With pacifists like us it is not merely an intellectual and affective repulsion, but a constitutional intolerance, an idiosyncrasy in its most drastic form. And it would seem that the aesthetic ignominies of warfare play almost as large a part in this repugnance as war's atrocities."

"...How long have we to wait before the rest of men turn pacifist? Impossible to say, and yet perhaps our hope that these two factors--man's cultural disposition and a well-founded dread of the form that future wars will take--may serve to put an end to war in the near future, is not chimerical. But by what ways or byways this will come about, we cannot guess. Meanwhile we may rest on the assurance that whatever makes for cultural development is working also against war."-Sigmund Freud, from The Einstein-Freud Correspondence (1931-1932)

"A revolutionary understanding and practice of meditation will begin in Cosmic Night. It will give birth to the inner new human in hundreds of millions of people around the world. Their flowering of consciousness can tip the scales of fate toward a golden future in the next 36 years. Out of our transformation will come an end to fear, and a celebration of heaven and earth meeting in blissful union inside each of us."- John Hogue, Year 2008 Predictions