Because Jews are afraid, and the institutions that should be helping them conquer their ignorance are instead stoking it to further solidify their grasp on Judaism’s future. The darker picture they paint of Judaism’s plight — the further synagogue membership dwindles, the greater Israel’s peril — the more money they raise. Every suicide attack on Israel and each negative report on intermarriage statistics lead to a surge in donations.

originally posted by xowie

Metaphorically, the path of the wounded healer, or the journey of the shaman has very important implications for the future of spirituality. No other metaphor sufficiently deals with the journey of humanity. We are wounded, and whether we're going to be the wounded victim, or the wounded healer is our choice. We have wounded the planet. We have wounded our genes. We've wounded the coming generations. Whether we make some remediation to the environment, and to our psyches, is something that only time will tell.

The next day people in like radioactive suits came out with tongs to pick up the poor thing. They put it in a big metal canister and took it away. Sure enough, it was rabid, and I had to go through all these shots in the fleshy parts of the stomach area, and in my back. The antitoxin that they injected me with contained dead dried duck embryo and it would leave a lump under my skin. It was very painful. I think that stopped me from picking up dead animals for awhile. (...) It was a medical school morgue, so we prepared the bodies for dissection. When a new body came in, if no one else was there, I would do a simplified Tibetan Book of the Dead ritual, calling their name, and encouraging them to go toward the light.(...) I experienced a vision where I was in a courtroom being judged. I couldn't see the face of the judge, but I knew the accuser was a woman's body who I had violated in the morgue work. She was accusing me of this sin. I said "It was for art's sake." This excuse didn't hold up under scrutiny for the judge. I was put on lifetime probation and not forgiven. The content of my work and my orientation would be watched from that point on. It made me consider the ethical intentions of my art. The motivation that moves us to creative work is critical. (...) I hope that death will be like a cosmic orgasm, where I'm released into convergence with the infinite one. Certain tantric traditions have sexual rituals to be performed in charnel grounds, and there are some pretty intense paintings of Kali astride corpse Shiva. (...) Even young children know the fear. (...) It was prior to my name change that I went to the North Magnetic Pole, and I shaved half my head of hair, in alignment with the rational and intuitive hemispheres of the brain. (...) The painting acts a portal to the mystical dimension. (...) That was an extraordinary trip that really convinced me of the reality of the transpersonal dimensions. We experienced the same transpersonal space at the same time. That space of connectedness with all beings and things through love energy seemed more real to both of us, than the phenomenal world. (...) It seems to me the universe is like a self-awareness machine. I think the world was created for each individual to manifest the boundless experiences of identity with the entire universe, and with the pregnant void that gives birth to the phenomenal universe. That's the Logos. That's the point of a universe, to increase complexity and self-awareness. The evolution of consciousness is the counter-force to the entropic laws of thermodynamics that end in stasis, heat death, and the loss of order. The evolution of consciousness appears to gain complexity, mastery, and wisdom. Lessons are learned over a lifetime-- maybe many lifetimes. And the soul grows and hopefully attains a state of spiritual awakenedness. Buddha was the "Awakened One". To be able to access all the simultaneous parallel dimensions, and come from a ground of love and infinite compassion like the awakenedness of the Buddha, is a good goal for the evolution of consciousness. The spiritual "fruit" in many spiritual paths is compassion and wisdom.

:: Douglas Rushkoff - Weblog :: Old School

Evolution was no longer competition, it was a team sport. Fueled by music, chemicals, motion, and, most of all, empathy. We were navigating a course through hyperspace to the attractor at the end of history.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/s_120924.html

I’m so interested — you know I don’t want to hurry it — but I’m so interested in getting to heaven. Frankly, I think that after we die, we have this wide understanding of what’s real. And we’ll probably say, Ah, so that’s what it was all about.

The Pitch (Kansas City), May 23, 2002: Guards tell Krishna devotees to keep off the Plaza’s private parts.

They must have said go to jail a hundred times. They said we couldn’t be on their private property. They told us that all the fountains, all the benches, all the courtyards and all the trash cans belong to Highwoods.

I said, Well, everything does belong to God, Swami continues. Then a female officer told me, Not here. Here, Highwoods is God.

Despite the threat of jail time, the Hare Krishnas have no plans to stop their twice-weekly chants on the Plaza. Swami still holds out some hope that the security officer who declared that “Highwoods is God” will one day be less caught up in the temporary identity of being a security guard.

Sainthood for Mychal Judge?

originally posted by daiichi

As a lighthearted reminder, Pashkow circulates around the admissions office a three-page memo called "Jews Clues." The first piece of advice is to spot names ending in "baum," "berg," "burg," "bloom," "man," "stein," "thal," "vitz" or "witz." Another dead giveaway mentioned in the memo: If applicants mention that they have had a bar or bat mitzvah.

originally posted by daiichi

The order to return to life is often delivered by a religious figure like Jesus or Buddha, but a recent study done in India revealed something striking: at the end of the tunnel of light the Indians were met by a government official. "In three independent reports, the Indians said they were told to go back because there had been a bureaucratic mistake. Something along the lines of, ‘Oh, so you are Kumar from Calcutta? The person who was supposed to die was Kumar from New Delhi!’"

originally posted by daiichi

The Washington Post: Scientists Planning to Make New Form of Life.

If the experiment works, the microscopic man-made cell will begin feeding and dividing to create a population of cells unlike any previously known to exist. To ensure safety, the cell will be deliberately hobbled to render it incapable of infecting people; it also will be strictly confined, and designed to die if it does manage to escape into the environment.

"It's a car. It's not like I'm wearing her nightgown. It's a car. It was his car. He had been driving it. It was the only car he had."

originally posted by daiichi

“All the Saints of the City of the Angels is a poetic and historical road trip through the City of Los Angeles, California, exploring our cultural and spiritual heritage by traveling through our 85 streets bearing the names of saints.” Though I’ve only been to LA once (when I was four, and the cylons on the Universal Studios tour scared the sh!t out of me), recent developments in my life reveal more and more connections with that place. [via Pop Culture Junk Mail]

It is absolutely clear that Islam stems from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, we should think in terms of the "Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition."

Vatican Meeting on Abuse Issue Is Set to Confront Thorny Topics (NY Times).

A top Vatican official said today that next week’s meetings with American cardinals about the sexual abuse scandals in the church would cover controversial issues like celibacy, the screening of gay candidates for the priesthood and the role of women in the church.

Falwell: I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'.

originally posted by xowie

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