Sincerity
October 25th, 2007
Fron the Ralph Alen Dale translation of the Tao Te Ching Verse 23″
Speak few words, but say them
with quietude and sincerity,
and they will be long lasting,
for a raging wind cannot blow all morning,
nor a sudden rainstorm
last throughout the day.
Why is this so?
Because it is the nature of the sky
and the earth to be frugal.
Even human beings
cannot alter this nature
without suffering the consequences.
When we sincerely follow the ethical path,
we become one with it.
Ahmadinejad’s Speech at Columbia
September 25th, 2007
Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia undermines the case for war with Iran. I hope that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University yesterday will energize the antiwar movement in the United States to vigorously and effectively oppose war with Iraq and to understand that the question of Palestinian self-determination is inextricably linked to all the conflicts the U.S. is involved in the Middle East.What follows is my reaction to some of the issues raised in Ahmadinejad’s speech and in the question and answer session that followed:Iran’s Nuclear Technology: The International Atomic Energy Agency has consistently certified that Iran is complying with international guidelines for the peaceful use of atomic energy. Iran’s uranium enrichment process is limited to 5% enrichment - well below the level needed for developing weapons. Iran fully complies with requests for international inspections and has maintained transparency about its program.
Ahmadinejad recognizes that Iran’s oil is a nonrenewable resource and Iran’s oil based economy is not sustainable in the long run unless Iran uses its oil revenues to make the transition to economic and industrial self sufficiency. Iran is developing nuclear power because Iran’s supply of oil will inevitably become depleted.
Quotes
September 23rd, 2007
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
~ Stephen Roberts
If you can conceive of morality without god, why can you not conceive of society without government?
~ Peter Saint-André
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
~ Albert Einstein
Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.
~ Michel de Montaigne
Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.
~ Howard Zinn
Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
~ Denis Diderot
We, on our side, are praying to Him to give us victory, because we believe we are right; but those on the other side pray to Him, too, for victory, believing they are right. What must He think of us?
~ Abraham Lincoln
Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of awesome mystical power. We know this because they manage to be invisible and pink at the same time. Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can’t see them.
~ Steve Eley
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
~ George Bernard Shaw
Neitzche and The Self
August 1st, 2007
Carrying on on The Paradox of Choice post, Arthur Schopenhauer was an influential figure on the philosophy of Neitzche:
Neitzche’s is a story of quest for truth outside the constraints of traditional religion (in his case Christianity). He managed to kill the notion of a judging God who intervenes, and replaced the vacuum with his own powerful yet suffering mind to navigate the path of life. Obsessed with the idea of overcoming the ordinary life, he advocates a free existentialism that helped plant the seeds of the ideals of freedom in Western society today. One of unlimited progress and choice, yet ultimately nihilistic, void of happiness and morality as we saw Adam Curtis videos. Neitzche advocates transcending the self, yet he attempted to achieve this through the use of the self, which creates a unique conflict of interest. His attempt to create a new system of values to replace the old was his downfall that led to madness.
How can we not fall into the trap of Neitzche’s selfish search for meaning through the self? The self can be thought of as a master that controls us, a never satisfied beast that leads only to a path of aimless wandering.
Taking it one step further, UG describes the root of this thirst:
You are interested in the self, not I. Whatever it is, it is the most important thing for man as long as he is alive. If you don’t think it never occurs to you that you are alive or dead. The very birth of thought creates fear and it is out of fear that all experience springs. Both inner and outer worlds proceed from a point of thought. Everything you experience is born out of thought.
So everything you experience or can experience is an illusion. The self-absorption in thought creates a self-centeredness in man—that is all that is there. All relationships based upon that will inevitably create misery for man. These are bogus relationships. As far as you are concerned, there is no such thing as a relationship. And yet, society demands not just relationships but permanent relationships.
-UG Krishnamurti from The Natural State
The Paradox of Choice
July 24th, 2007
Arthur Schopenhauer
(1788-1860)
Our life is like a journey on which, as we advance, the landscape takes a different view from that which it presented at first, and changes again, as we come nearer. This is just what happens–especially with our wishes. We often find something else, nay, something better than what we were looking for; and what we look for, we often find on a very different path from that on which we began a vain search. Instead of finding, as we expected, pleasure, happiness, joy, we get experience, insight, knowledge–a real and permanent blessing, instead of a fleeting and illusory one.
“Freedom” is a double-edged sword! Following on this thought:
Below are just the first part of these series - for other parts, search “century of self” “power of nightmares” and “the trap freedom what happened” on Google or YouTube. Adam Curtis of the BBC shares his cynical vision on how the concept of freedom has been distorted by government elites to control the masses:
Rationalizing The Meaning of Life
July 22nd, 2007
The human brain has a amazing tendency to rationalize to keep the notion of one’s identity afloat when faced with contrary evidence or truths. If you ask a murderer or a dictator who commits crimes against humanity, they will usually see themselves as doing the “right thing.” The same goes for political and corporate leaders who become corrupted by power or greed. Many soldiers only deal with the mental horrors of their actions on duty, only after the fight. Even spirituality is not immune, from priests who sexually molest, to religious fanatics that commit bombings, to those who portray themselves as holy to gain power or money.
The mind’s rationalizing power no doubt developed as a biological mechanism to grease the gears of tribal life for our ancestors, so that they may live a less stressful life and justify actions in a social setting. But can we modern humans transcend this tendency that gets our species into so much trouble?
An interesting study was performed in the 70’s that exposes the human tendency to distort reality under social pressure:
All meaning is extracted from experience, culture, identity. Inherently, it has no truth to it. Here is an interesting map of how different people around the world have extracted their meaning of life based on their location or cultural influence:
The Ten Dimensions, Energy, and Fate
July 17th, 2007
This animation explains the ten dimensions according to string theory, which requires all ten dimensions to work out mathematically. I’ve always thought of the world as three dimensions, with time being an illusion. If all matter is vibrating energy (also covered in string theory) in a constant state of flux, and exists in eternity and infinity, that seems like a simple way to explain the reality we perceive. The placement of this matter through the third dimension is space/time, but this is merely the illusion that we live in. Matter is the container that creates an illusion of separation of this universal energy that vibrates in and out of our dimension.
When one realizes that everything is created from this source energy, that life and light is the energy that shines through the matter, then how can there be good, bad, anger, greed, or war? We’d be fighting ourselves. This reality has been realized by non-dualism and mysticim through the times:
