What do we do? What do we do?

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Merriam-Webster defines the word “do” as ways we act, behave, get alone, fare, manage, happen, finish and serve, among others.  Often our actions require our ability to rationally ascertain the context of our actions, the possible consequences of our actions and the ethics of our actions before we do anything.  Or do they?  Our actions, I think, like our words, are very clear indications of our state of mind.  Sociopaths would act differently than saints in the same circumstances, because they bring to the moment, a different frame of reference, different viewpoint and different foundation for action.

There are psychologies to both doing and doing nothing.   Yes, there are rational-emotional models of the factors that predispose humans to do nothing.   And there are theories of the psychology of action, which take into account reasoning abilities, emotion, attitude and other factors.

When our belief system holds God and Divine Action, our state of mind is very different than states that do not hold that belief, and our actions may reflect these differences.  To understand and bridge these differences, The Vatican Observatory (VO) and the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences (CTNS) jointly sponsor a series of conferences on divine action. The theme of each conference is an area of the natural sciences: quantum cosmology and the laws of nature (1992), chaos and complexity (1994), evolutionary and molecular biology (1996), neuroscience (1998), and quantum mechanics (2000). This brings specificity and precision to the discussions of divine action. In one of the papers from these conferences, along with summaries of many others, is posted on the CTNS website:  In “The Metaphysics of Divine Action,” John Polkinghorne notes that any discussion of agency requires the adoption of a metaphysical view of the nature of reality. He claims that there is no “deductive” way of going “from epistemology to ontology,” but the strategy of critical realism is to maximize the connection. This leads most physicists, he claims, to interpret Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as implying an actual indeterminacy in the physical world, rather than an ignorance of its detailed workings.  Polkinghorne’s summary on the nature of Divine Action includes the insight that divine agency has its own special characteristics and that God’s knowledge of the world of becoming will be truly temporal in character.

In his book, Religion in late Modernity   Robert C. Neville,  suggests that these inquires  “concerning divine action takes its rise from people who affirm as a supposition the belief that God is a personal being of some sort.”

In A Search for God In Ancient Egypt, by Jan Assmann, divine action and religious experience are part of the cosmic dimension of the mystic experience.  Here, divine action is implicit in all contact with the divine once transcendence into Divine Presence has been realized.  In other words, our actions become Divine Action, while in the presence of the One within.

To Bernard de Clairvaux, mysticism is the highest degree of the scale of love and “a perfect participation in the love which God has from Himself in the unity of the Spirit…to become thus is to be deified.”  Our actions are naturally inspired from this unity of the Spirit that pervades our state.

This idea is similar to the mystical divine action, our own action, taken as a result of our mystical union with the God with us.  The mystic Jan Ruysbroeck suggests in mystical union God “breathes us out from Himself that we may love and do good works; and again he draws us into Himself, that we may rest in fruition.”

Our efficacy and actions then, may be defined by whether or not we believe in God, and if we believe that God is external and personal, or a state of being within ourselves.  What do YOU think?

Artwork by Beth Nash.  Many thanks.

Consciousness, Ourselves and Our World

Various scientists and philosophers have given us myriad ideas of consciousness. Some see it as the result of our physical brain function.  Others explain consciousness as a non local essence of phenomenon.

Paul Valery: “The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow expressed in the inner structure of our intellect.”

James Jeans: “[T]he universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.”

Albert Einstein: “It seems that the human mind has first to construct forms independently before we can find them in things.... Knowledge cannot spring from experience alone, but only from a comparison of the inventions of the intellect with observed fact.”

As Augustine, Valery, Eddington, and Einstein have duly noted, every “something” that our consciousness may see and point to reflects the qualities of the consciousness that is pointing.

Dan Dennett has us looking at our own perceptions, and suggests that it is the observer of viewpoint that is consciousness:  http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/102

How do you explain consciousness? 

Artwork by F. Rassouli  Many thanks.

I Die Daily

There is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist saying: "When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries".

What is death, exactly, and what does it mean to us as we are living? Throughout the world, death and the rituals that surround it are steeped in taboos. Death is celebrated, embraced and feared. Around death and the dead, cultures put in place diverse restrictions and practices associated with clothing, food and ritual.

For the Roman Catholic Church death is the "complete and final separation of the soul from the body". However the Vatican has conceded that diagnosing death is a subject for medicine, not the Church. In 1957 Pope Pius XII raised the concerns over whether doctors might be "continuing the resuscitation process, despite the fact that the soul may already have left the body."

Some Orthodox Jews, Native Americans, Muslims and fundamentalist Christians believe that as long as a heart is beating--even artificially, you are still alive. Followers of religions like Zen Buddhism, and Shintoism believe that the mind and body are integrated and have trouble accepting the brain death criteria to determine death.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, whose actual title is "The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State" or "Bardo Thodol", is ostensibly a book describing the experiences to be expected at the moment of death, during an intermediate phase lasting forty-nine days, and during rebirth into another bodily frame. The Bardo Thodol is a guide that is read aloud to the dead while they are in the state between death and reincarnation in order for them to recognize the nature of their mind and attain liberation from the cycle of rebirth.

Some think, however, this book is merely the esoteric framework which the Tibetan Buddhists used to cloak their mystical teachings. The language and symbolism of death rituals of Bonism, the traditional pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, were skillfully blended with Buddhist conceptions. The esoteric meaning is that it is death and rebirth of the ego that is described, not of the body. Either way, or perhaps for both, the death/rebirth process is examined.

A graduate of Columbia University and Yale Medical School, Brian L. Weiss M.D. is Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami. He has written many books on reincarnation, and maintains that we have all lived past lives. All of us will live future ones but at some level time probably does not exist. All lives might be occurring simultaneously. He thinks that what we do in this life will influence our lives to come as we evolve toward immortality. This would make death more of a marker between lives.

What do YOU think?

Let It Be

To be or not to be, that is the question. What does that mean - being? It is something most of us take for granted. We don't have to know or even question the nature of our being to be. Popeye's famous saying, "I am what I am and that's all that I am," may be the quintessential statement on being. What more is needed?

Contemporary philosophers tell us that the term "I am" has no meaning by itself; it must have an action or relation appended to it. Hegel distinguished between the being of objects and the being of people, but thought being stripped of all predicates is nothing.

Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) exploits the version of Husserlian intentionality by insisting that human reality (Heidegger's Dasein or human way of being) is "in the world" primarily via its practical concerns and not its epistemic relationships.

Emmanuel Levinas (1923 - 1995) in his ethical phenomenology, asks the question, why is there Being instead of simply nothing? His "first philosophy" is responsibility that unfolds into dialogical sociality and is based on our transcendence through relation with other. His "being" is the exploration of sensibility as the locus at which "inside" and "outside" merge. The exploration of the self, minus the intentional ego, through an affective complex, unfolds in a language that is best communicated through enactment. It can be likened to prophetic witness. It is as though Levinas were describing the affective investiture of a subject called to witness.

Levinas' study brings us closer to the theological view of being, like Hermetic philosophy, which relates man as microcosm to the macrocosm in a direct covenant with the Creator of life, who is defined as God. This is seemingly an abstract definition, if we take the word as it is. Its effectiveness, however, changes entirely if we see it as Creation and as force, indeed as energy in which and through which all aspects of life come into being, and man, the very crown upon Creation, is brought into being.

The Buddhist terms it Nirvana; and the period of which it is the termination is called by the Hindus, Kalpa, a word signifying Form. And they hold that the universe undergoes a succession of Kalpas, being at the end of each reabsorbed into Deity, Who then rests awhile prior to the next manifestation, reposing upon Sesha, the celestial serpent, or living circle of Eternity, the symbol of essential Being, as opposed to existence in its strict sense of manifested Being.

The Hindu Vedanta gives a spiritual interpretation of the Ultimate Reality, the meaning of creation, and the human individual. Its view of the cosmos is one of organic wholeness that includes all beings and things. Things and beings in the realm of maya are not non-existent, though they are illusory. The beings and things of the relative universe appear real because they reflect the light of the Absolute.

The Essenes believe that consciousness is being, and there is no mode of matter in which the potentiality of personality, and therein of man, does not subsist. For every molecule is a mode of the universal consciousness. Without consciousness there is no being.

What do YOU think?

Trust Lost, Earned and Achieved

What is trust, and why is it important to us? We all know people who can't trust, who often expect things to go bad, ignore what they know, leap quickly into action without accessing the risk, and push others away. What can we do to develop trust?

"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."
- Golda Meir

Trusting yourself can be a matter of listening to your own inner voice as a source of wisdom and strength. We can do this as long as doubt and fear do not get in the way, with questions like: what if I am making a mistake? What was I thinking? Why would anyone listen to me? Developing self trust can take a great deal of patience and self-forgiveness. We first must learn to minimize our regrets and see our mistakes as opportunities. We need to rely on confidence instead of approval.

"Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances" Ralph Waldo Emerson

By advising us to trust the ideas of men, not the events in their lives, Emerson expresses his belief that history was biography. This is a form of trusting others outside of convention, namely, trusting in the ideas of men and how they shape our lives.

"No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence." TS Eliot

Trust between people is the most widely studied form of trust. Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines trust as: an attitude that we have towards people whom we hope will be trustworthy, where trustworthiness is a property, not an attitude. For trust to be warranted (i.e. plausible) in a relationship, the parties to that relationship must have attitudes toward one another that are conducive to trusting one another. Moreover, for trust to be warranted (i.e. well-grounded), both parties ought to be trustworthy.

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish He didn't trust me so much." Mother Teresa

We see from this statement by Mother Teresa, that trust in something greater than ourselves, in a divine organization to life, or in God can work both ways. Having faith that everything will be alright, that tomorrow will come or that the Lord provides, are all examples of trust in creation.

What do YOU think?

A Time for Soul Searching

What, exactly, is our soul? What does it do, and how does it effect our daily lives? Christians think of the soul as that eternal part of ourselves that exists before we are born and lives on after we die. Eastern traditions see the soul as a vessel for karma, our identity, which forms each lifetime as we reincarnate. The Hermetic teachings maintain that through forgiveness, our karmic debt (formed by error and transgression) is released. Through forgiveness, the soul transcends the level of cause and effect and allows the soul to be directed by spirit. This is often achieved after a dark night of the soul, where soul and spirit are purified by facing, embracing and releasing all the good and evil within. What do YOU think?

Reaching The Source of All Creation

Most of us feel that there is a source or creator or God or ultimate order to life. Connecting to this for some of us, is fleeting, takes effort and may even be something we think very little about. How do YOU connect with the spirit within you? How often do you connect? How does this connection effect your life?

A Vietnamese spiritual leader, Ching Hai, touches on this by answering the following:

Q: What is the first step one must take toward reaching God?

A: We must pray that if God exists, please guide me, please help me. And stick to your religion and pray to that religious head that you believe in to help you. If you're Christian, pray to God, pray to Jesus, Santa Maria. If you're Buddhist, pray to Buddha, to Bodhisattvas, Quan Yin Bodhisattva, Amitabha Buddha, etc., to help you. That's the first step.

The second step is, we must lead a virtuous life as prescribed in the Bible and in the Buddhist scriptures or in any other religious scriptures. I haven't seen any major religion which teaches people to do bad things. So follow your own religious ethic, as the second step.

The third step is, we must find someone, and very importantly, who has known God, who has realized God, to show us something, to share with us the wealth that he or she has got. Just like if we want to speak English, what is the first step? Prepare the money for it, so that the teacher will accept you and then go and find a teacher -- one who can speak English. If you find one who speaks Spanish, then no good. It's very easy.

What do YOU think?

Molly Brogan

Does Evil Exist?

There is a wide variety of opinion on the existence of evil. Some see any opposing force as evil, while some think that to be termed evil requires an act resulting in an injury to life of some kind. What are your thoughts? How does your belief about evil effect your life?

The 19th century Christian mystic Thomas Troward defined evil this way: "This is the old original sin of Eve. It is the belief in Evil as a substantive self-originating power. We believe ourselves under the control of all sorts of evils having their climax in Death; but whence does the evil get its power? Not from God, for no diminution of Life can come from the Fountain of Life, however evil may have relative existence, it can have no substantive existence of its own. It is not a Living Originating Power. God, the Good, alone is that.

What we recognize as Evil is the One Good Power working as Disintegrating Force, because we have not yet learnt to direct it in such a way that it shall perform the functions of transition to higher degrees of Life without any disintegration of our individuality either in person or circumstances. It is this disintegrating action that makes the ONE Power appear evil relatively to ourselves; and, so long as we conceive ourselves thus related to it, it does look as though it were Zero balancing in itself the two opposing forces."

What do YOU think?

Love and Self Discovery

Does love lead to self discovery? How?

Both light and shadow are the dance of Love.
Love has no cause;
It is the astrolabe of God's secrets.
Lover and Loving are
inseparable and timeless.
Although I may try to describe Love
When I experience it I am speechless.
Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
My pen breaks and the paper slips away
At the ineffable place where
Lover, Loving and Loved are one.
Every moment is made glorious
By the light of Love.
-Rumi -----

What do YOU think?