27 Oct Materialistic View
Materialistic people think that enlightened masters and their serious disciples are silly. Rightfully so, though ironically the enlightened are laughing much of the time and the materialistic people only occasionally....
23 Oct At Birth
At birth, my mother's obstetrician told her I was the smartest baby he had ever delivered. A bit of a difficult birth, the obstetrician used forceps to pull me out as I kept trying to go back in. The obstetrician reasoned I knew where I came from, one with everything, is obviously a better place than where most of us go after birth; lives apart and separate from the infinite....
17 Oct Two Ways To Happiness
There are two paths to happiness, the long and the short way. The long way is gratitude, optimism and freeing ourselves from our karmic prisons. Gratitude is being thankful for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, regardless of how dire, as we know that things could always be worse. However, it is often difficult to be grateful because our mind easily distracts us to selfishly focusing our attention on our plight and not the more overwhelming suffering of others. Optimism, especially during relatively difficult times, is a natural negative feedback loop as all things tend to regress to the mean; better times follow difficult times, sooner or later. Unfortunately, it is often difficult for us to be optimistic as many of us are prone to thinking in positive feedback loops, that difficult times will lead to even greater difficulties which makes us see the light at the end of the tunnel as a train coming at us. Karma is thoughts we associate with the intentions, actions and the consequences of our actions in our past lifetimes. (Past lifetimes are the past days of our life as each day is a lifetime, not a day in a life.) Karma is seeing through the filter of our mind, not with our eyes. Thus, karma imprisons us from experiencing the present as it is. Fear of experiencing the present as it is, without the delusional comfort of collective and personal meanings karma assigns to things, makes escaping from our individual karmic prisons very difficult. Many years of meditation, a long process, can help us to happiness. The short way to happiness is simple: love all others as we love ourselves, the Golden Rule. When we truly love all others as ourselves, we in turn feel everyone loves us; we feel one with everything; a calm, peaceful, joyful state of mind. We are grateful happy. It might seem difficult to unconditionally love all others as at times some people treat us with loathe, not love. However, we still love them because we accept them, not judge them. Moreover, we are optimistic that if they don't love us now, they'll love us later. We feel badly for them because they simply don’t get it. They're locked in their karmic prison. Or they might suffer from a mental disorder that precludes them from loving others. Or, simply, they are animals locked and have not yet realized their potential of divine consciousness. Hopefully, sooner or later, they will....
14 Oct Joe Bruno
"Why is everybody now so interested in artificial intelligence, it's been around for over a hundred years." Joe likely is referring to superficial intelligence which has been around since 1905 when the first IQ tests were offered. While IQ and related tests have been good predictors (as have high school grades) of future success in school, success in school reflects conformity of thought (thinking like test writers and teachers who determine grades) and the ability to delay gratification (doing schoolwork instead of goofing off). Real intelligence can only be identified by life choices and outcomes over time; those that prove to be most fun and of least regrets. But that's more a function of wisdom and luck than intelligence....
13 Oct Voltaire 3
"The best is the enemy of the good." That which we perceive as the best distracts us from appreciating that which we perceive as good. However, the good is also the enemy of the best as perceiving things relatively, as best or good, precludes us from experiencing things as they uniquely are. Best and good are relative categories, empty of the things they arbitrarily contain. Experiencing things we've categorized, we experience our the associations we have with the categories; not things as they actually are. As everything is unique, experiencing things as they are is the experience of being present. Categorizing things as relatively best or good precludes us from the gratitude that invariably comes from the experience of being present. Gratitude is one of the keys of happiness. It's difficult to be grateful when we are distracted by the enemies we create....
10 Oct Way Of Way 46
God runs the Rewards Department. The devil runs the Complaint Department....
09 Oct Trump’s Concession Speech
I recently viewed a video lampooning Donald Trump. The video was captioned "Donald Trump's Concession Speech." The video shows a scene from The Wolf of Wall Street movie wherein Leonardo DiCaprio, the CEO of a brokerage firm, defiantly declares to his white salespeople and traders "I'm not leaving" after he was charged with securities fraud. The firm soon collapsed as did Trump's administration. Perhaps cute to those who view Trump as a defiant crook heading a misogynist racist male cabal. But the video clip is also telling of the age-old conflict between educated priests and rough and tumble merchants. Brokerage firms have two arms, sales/trading and research. Sales/trading is what the business is about; the rough and tumble of buying and selling stocks to make money. Research supports sales/trading with investment ideas. Research analysts analyze companies' past performance and prospects, write reports and recommend stocks to buy and sell. Research analysts, like highly-educated priests, are articulate, well-reasoned and cogent in their analyses. However, while never in doubt about their recommendations, they are often wrong. Due to having different perspectives, there is a natural friction between traders/salespeople and analysts. Simply, analysts think traders/salespeople are lowbrows and traders/salespeople feel analysts "don't get it;" that is, analysts don't know how to make money in the markets. However, traders/salespeople and analysts realize that each plays a necessary role in a firm's success. The open question is who is to lead the firm. Analysts think that as they are the more educated, articulate and intelligent, they should lead a firm and have traders/salespeople work for them; a hierarchy based on perceived intelligence. Traders/salespeople view themselves as working for the customers which are the essence of the business. They believe who runs the firm should be based on the Golden Rule: those who make the gold rule. The presidential election was likewise divided. Many who were anti-Trump (Democratic Party progressives) are like brokerage firm analysts, highly educated and articulate. They described Trump supporters as stupid, immature, greedy, deplorable, misogynists, fascists, Nazis, etc.; simply, "bad people." Trump supporters said of those who were anti-Trump: "They don't get it," they don't know how a successful economy and liberal society functions. Ultimately, the progressives would throw Trump and other bad boys in prison or otherwise limit their laissez-faire approach to life. But then how will the progressives afford to buy milk and who will make the milk? Returning to the video, it's actually very funny; though not as intended. It answers a question long befuddling the geniuses leading the Democratic Party: "Why do the people, the working class, who stand to most benefit economically from Democratic Party programs don't vote for us?" Simply, the working class (presumably the majority of the government's customers) might not know much but they know when Party leaders are laughing at them, thinking they are stupid, and they don't like it....
05 Oct Way Of Way 42
Birth is like nuclear fission, a powerful explosion. Love is like nuclear fusion, 3-4 times more powerful. In fission, our soul separates from being one with everything. In fusion, our soul reunites as one with everything....
30 Sep The Burning Bush
The mind is the flames; ever-changing, illuminating and destructive burning heat. The soul is the bush; unchangeable, eternal, supporting the flames but not transformed by the flames. The mind is wisdom, sometimes. The soul is love, forever....
30 Sep Anonymous
"Sometimes I sit quietly and wonder why I'm not in a mental institution. Then I take a good look around at everyone and realize...