The Mind Hacker

The three sides of the same coin.

2011-12-29T19:05:00.000-08:00

Lately it occurs to me that there is a beautiful study in technology in the statement, "the map is not the territory." Science does a wonderful job of mapping reality by hypothesizing and testing ideas to get closer and closer to a generality that can be summed up in a reusable theory. A map that is consistently accurate enough to propose a standard model that can be used to predict future events based upon past ones. A very good example of this is the study of electronics which is so well understood that we can use the map to build smart phones, microwave ovens, GPS, computers and flash drives the size of credit cards that can hold gigabytes of data on them. Over time, spanning many iterations the map starts to match the the territory so well that they essentially are mirror images of each other. This is one the game of the Human Mind. One of the ultimate goals of the human mind is to mirror the world we live in perfectly. The better your mind mirrors the real world the more accurate and successful your predictions will be. When your brain and your mental structures are sufficiently "tuned" to reality, you begin to live in a state of harmonious flow with everything, Fluid and Fluent.

A beautiful example of tuning your brain to reality is a musician who is so well trained and tuned to the reality of his instrument that the performance rendered is flawless, fluent even effortless. Steve Vai is such a virtuoso that even if you are not a fan of his style of music you can witness almost magic watching how the phrases and melodies are expressed like colorful orgasms of sounds, each run and solo purposely reflected from his brain on his guitar with accuracy, speed, elegance and passion. This is a perfect example of a person who has trained his brain and body to a level of precision that mirrors his instrument so well that the two essentially become one.
Music is an area where this feedback loop between external world and internal world are so tight that this kind of mirroring can take place quickly. When you play an instrument you have tactile stimulation, auditory stimulation, and visual stimulation as feedback. Your eyes, ears and skin are feeding you information. Your brain automatically sensing the neuro-stimulation "if then" patterns, quickly learns that If I do "this" then "that" happens. This is also why we learn to speak so quickly. We hear our own words and by comparing what we want to hear with what we are saying we eventually learn to speak. In doing this we learn to walk, talk, and do all the amazing things we do as humans. The closer our brains mirror the external world the better we manage and learn to control the external world as an instrument of our own will. When I learn what words, body language, tone, timing and physiological ques, trigger a desired response in another person I can employ these purposefully to achieve a goal. This is the awareness that leads to control. Anything can be controlled and brought under will once the correct and accurate map is understood.

The next time you find your self being controlled or see someone else in charge or in control pay close attention and you will see that their control stems from the mirrored mental map which subconsciously gives them the power to control others like a musician and his instrument. When your brain, body and reality are in harmony you become the master!

This is not a pipe-The media is the message.

2011-11-28T19:47:00.001-08:00

So you come to the conclusion that everything is simply cycling trivialities...If everything is simply matter/energy in various forms produced by quantum's of energy popping in and out of reality, resulting is electrons spinning around the impossible goal of ever reaching that god damn attractive proton core, half which it wants and the other that it doesn't, you have to realize that everything is constantly stuck in a perfectly balanced state of yin yang of perpetual reality resulting in the flow of time (change). Which is funny cause science tells you you really can't have perpetual energy but the first law of thermodynamics says you can't create or destroy energy just change forms. So you really do have perpetual energy it just so happens its perpetually changing forms inefficiently (from yin to yang in all the colors and shades of grey in between). And so all you have left is energy changing form. Since Matter is energy via E=MC^2 all matter and energy cancel out and you wonder what the hell is information? And Time? It's not energy? A piece of paper with all the laws of physics has pretty much the same caloric value as a blank one. A dead body has about the same amount of energy as a live one. (don't try to fool yourself if you think the soul has a weight or that it weights a fraction of an ounce: stop being stupid) It's the order and information that makes life but what the hell is information? If Matter is the Mother (mater) and the Patterns are the father(pater)is the Whole of the Universe simply Matter in Patterns? Okay... So it is... then what is consciousness? What is this stuff that remains after the patterns in the matter stop working like when Alzheimer's sets in or when the body his Quietus makes with a bare Bodkin? Is our experiences really what there is? Is there really no truth, just filtered and poorly filtered perception? If the tools are mis-calibrated, if the knowledge, wisdom, pattern misunderstood, if your just plain stupid, what is the hope that you will ever really know the truth? Is there any chance that the message can be sent purely enough that the inefficient transfer from one form of energy to the next will carry the pure message from sender to receiver? Can anyone ever really know what another person feels like or is thinking? Or if there really is another person at all? Maybe you really are all alone and everything else is just an auto-generated projection? You can never know until you experience a reality outside of yourself in an unquestionable way. So then you must ask what is the meaning of it all? What is the message? Why all this amazing complexity? Why don't we have full and pure understanding? Sure its a lot of fun and very enjoyable but is that really all that there is? Maybe instead of trying to find the"mean"ing of life we should try to discover or make the "funning" of Life!

Male and female he created them in the image of God
(Genesis 1:26-28)

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

Jesus was right He and the Father are one and so are you and me. He like you and me are the Pattern (image, likeness) and Mother Earth is what we are made from. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The word is the pattern and its written in DNA. The Media is the Message but are you a Pipe? (conduit for transfer, absolute value, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_bar)

We are looking at a picture in which the painter is in turn looking out at us. A mere confrontation, eyes catching one another's glance, direct looks superimposing themselves upon one another as they cross. And yet this slender line of reciprocal visibility embraces a whole complex network of uncertainties, exchanges, and feints. The painter is turning his eyes towards us only in so far as we happen to occupy the same position as his subject.

When is Spite a useful tool?

2011-11-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

When dealing with others there are 4 possible stances on any issue.

Me vs Other

If I benefit (+) and the others benefit (+) that is cooperation.

If I benefit (+) and the others don’t (-) that is selfishness.

If I don’t benefit (-) and the others do (+) that is altruism.

If I don’t benefit (-) and the others don’t (-) that is spite.

When is spite a useful strategy? When the scale or relevance of the detriment makes the detriment beneficial. High membership dues to a club act like a filter for low income people. The assumption is that if you don’t have enough money to play in the game you must not know how to handle your money or If you can’t handle the membership dues then you probably can’t handle the responsibility of being a member or bring any benefit to the group. Spite can act like a password and functions like credentials. If you don’t have the proper credentials you won’t be allowed in. Its a function of scale that determines how effective this authentication is.

Example: If you are an Elephant then a mosquito bite doesn’t have much affect on you , but if you are a mouse then the mosquito affects you much more. The scale of the blood loss from the bite is different.

This is how banks, clubs, businesses, and other controlling authorities wield their strength over the weak. Why do business require that you spend your money on stamps to pay bills? Why is the postage of the bill the payees responsibility? When you look at the issue through the lens of “scale” the mosquito bite of the stamps cost is a much higher percentage of total income to the payer then it is to the payee. This is why you can’t get ahead. The game is stacked against you. Unless you are a business owner or in the upper crust of the pyramid you will be the pack mule carrying the burden.

So the answer to the question is spite is a useful tool when it is used to qualify!

Cycles of Change-Vibrations

2010-11-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

Everything changes and goes through stages of change.
The entire universe has a rhythm to it and so do all of its pieces. Music is made of alternating frequencies at various times, notes are made of fluctuations in air vibrations, electricity flows through AC lines vibrating at a nice 60Hz frequency, the seasons of the planet change from spring, to summer, fall, winter and back around. The moon changes its phases on a regular basis, the clouds on certain days show up with long wavy bands, rivers flow with waves, ocean tides rotate, the heart beats at its frequency, your sleep cycles through various stages, color is color because of the frequency of the energy reflected or absorbed and how our eyes see it. Everything has its frequency...

Vibration is the source of life and death and everything.
When vibrations get out of regular order you have chaos. When they are too predictable you get boredom. The universe has made it perfectly clear that it is not interested in perfection or boredom. A simple study of the waves found in nature will show you with very little difficulty that no natural system oscillates on a perfect regular frequency relative to any single other. Try to pin down the exact time it takes for one year to elapse and you will see that it changes and continues to change over time. Determine a regular pattern for the moon phases and you will see the same changing pattern emerges. Measure the frequency of light and then relaize that it also changes with the speed of the observer, this is known as the Doppler effect or red shift, same goes with sound and the same goes with just about everything. So what do we determine about this regularly changing world and Universe? In a world of perpetual change how does one root to any thing? What is the standard? Well this is not an easy question to answer and it would be foolish and meaningless to attempt to answer it with any infinite certainty but you can begin with a single point of reference. This reference is You!

The Gold standard must be You! Just don't expect that the Gold standard for everyone else is You too! Just because the Earth goes around the sun in a regular predictable pattern doesn't mean that its pattern will match the Moons, and the Moons patterns don't actually match those of equinoxes and solstices, there are some similarities to them but they are not perfectly aligned. In the same way we must learn to take a lesson from the Universe and realize that all relationships are based on comparisons of pairs even when there are many members involved. At the root level all relationships are between pairs. The pairs are always in relation to each other regardless of the potential other members in the pair. Even though the other members may influence them slightly or greatly. This is why you must become the Gold standard for your reference point. You are always going to be one of the members of the pair! I think therefore I am! If you exist then you are the observer and as the observer you can say with Gold dignity that "I am that I am!" And if you are not aware that you are everything that exists realize this, that once you die and return to the ground and matter of the World that exists you will also be the Universe that you see now as the observer. For matter and energy can not be created nor destroyed but rather we simply change form. The oscillations of the Universe from God to Man and back to God and back to man......! If you are observing the Universe as a Man you perceive it as if You are separate, an individual (al-one). When you perceive it all as God you perceive it as simply You the totality of everything (All-One)!

Whats that hum? Ohmmmmmmmmm...........
Wanna know why life can be a challenge? Cause in the end all that we have is resistance!

The brotherhood of life

2010-10-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

This thought popped into my head a long time ago but I had not written it down so today I think its about time to lay it down. Evolution says that all life on earth began as a single cell that managed to have the right materials to reproduce itself and as a result it continued to reproduce itself and over time one of its offspring managed to change enough to become another different type of offspring and thus after much time and conditions those offspring continued to become another..... And so it goes. But have you ever pondered the implications of this?

If this is true which I have no reason to doubt it is this is amazing! Not just amazing but it also means that biologically speaking all living creatures are related and that there has been an unbroken link in the form of overlapping life forms since the moment that the first cell came to exist until now and into the future. Wow! So since the very first cell became living there has never been a time since then that there was no longer any living thing. Its mind boggling. Every living thing from cactus to buzzards to amoeba to scorpions are all related! That's simply beautiful! Now realize that life as we know it is a result of our particular brains and organs just as life as a dog knows it is a result of them being a dog. So realize how incredible it really is there there are so many different forms of life all sharing this experience! All chained via living down through the century's and further with an unbroken lineage! Its beyond imagination...

Contextual Facts for Winning the Game of Life.

2010-05-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

The pursuit of happiness

Your current body will die. This fact gives rise to the fact of your current life. While you experience your bodies life you have body and ego centric experiences.There was a time that your current body didn't exist. That experience will again take place after death. Your human memory is contextual to your body. Your body doesn't carry the memories of previous generations in any easily accessible way. They exist in the World around you. Everything and all history is You! So It pays to love and appreciate everything no matter how ugly and painful and terrible or beautiful and wonderful it might be. The strange the weird the evil the holy its all you. If you really Love the Creator you will Love it all! And think of it, from your perspective imagine all the incredible events that have been experienced as the You-niverse both terrible and wonderful! From the level of bacteria to the level of Galaxies and beyond. Its so much more incredible than a You-man can fathom. However a You-man has some very wonderful features which is the mind and its pain and pleasure experiences which makes for a wonderful ride. Only through a You-man can a bacteria and a Galaxy be appreciated. A cat can not experience a bacteria and a Galaxy the same way. You-mans are fun!

This is what gives rise to the experience of YOU-ness. Treasure and appreciate You-ness because it is your gift as creator to yourself (your body). The better your treat yourself the better your creator is treating you. You are not separate from the rest of the Universe you are in fact the entire Youniverse but while you are Youman you experience it as a single point of perspective. Everything that you can fathom in your Youman mind is an aspect of the You-niverse. What about Religion? Do you love God? Then Love yourself! Do you love the World? Then Love yourself! Experience is the name of the game! You are the struggle between all struggles. You enjoy this Human experience and as a result you have created many versions of the Human experience in fact each one is You-nique. The struggles in life are enjoyable and they give rise to new and more wonderful experiences. Each instance leaves a mark in reality which is the changes of the You-niverse nothing is ever lost each and every life and death deliverse good to You either as a You-man or a You-niverse its a win-win but it depends upon which state you are experiencing. (l'estat c'est moi) All bad experiences leading to progress sharpen the You-niverse and every good experience delivers pleasure. The goal is Net pleasure and progress for The Whole. The Golden Rule is Maximum pleasure for the Whole of You either as a You-man or a You-niverse. This is the guiding principle. What you see in the world is the Efforts of all your aspects in a challenge to obtain max benefits. What ever is good for You is Good for the You-niverse. When something defeats you in a challenge its because the result was for the benefit of the external You-niverse when You win to the expense of the rest it was for your You-man body benefit. Either way the You-niverse experiences the benefit. All suffering and challenges are there as opportunities for You to experience pleasure and benefits but often times a lack of appreciation makes it difficult to experience the full benefit of a triumph so as a result You lose to whoever can enjoy the win the most. Why? Because the max pleasure is always experienced either in your body or some other one. Also realize that pleasure and benefits are contextual and by seeing the proper context of an event allows you to enjoy max benefit but only after it is properly understood. So full appreciation of yourself both You-man and You-niverse is the goal of Life. All suffering is caused by a lack of appreciation. If you can realize how to find a way to enjoy every event you will have won the game of life. The persuit of Happiness really is the idea behind life.

Self Esteem- Ground yourself

2010-04-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

One of the most challenging mind hacks is correcting your self esteem.

Self Esteem is the first strong hold to build because it is the most fundamental and most easily bruised. Self Esteem is critical because it serves as a base for all the following beliefs about yourself. The only way to preserve its integrity is to realize this is self given not by way of comparison or from external sources. You must value yourself above anything or anyone. You must because you have no choice, or rather your alternatives only make you vulnerable to all kinds of mental weakness. Even in the midst of negative self reflection you must be able to pull away from the mental struggle and battle to recall that you are the source and the only way to repair anything that you think needs correction is to climb back to your throne. When dealing with Low self esteem think of these times as the president surveying a National disaster scene. Do not commit yourself to past mistakes or regrets, make them serve you to teach you not to define you. You must define yourself by your own golden standards. Do not take any action when you self esteem is low but rather change focus and collect thoughts until you are able to return to the issues apart from emotional suffering. Even if you have many regrets and reasons to hate yourself you must disregard them all or at least put them into a mental holding pattern for later until your mind is in control and you are on your mental throne. Realize now that all these thoughts are mind structures and contextual rather than absolute (absolute is grounded) so you are free to disregard them. They are a product of awareness. If you were ignorant (shielded) to them all you would experience no suffering so what you are dealing with is exposed wires of potential so to speak or a floating ground fault.

Solution: Root yourself to the ground when you find yourself comparing yourself to others or struggling with envy, jealousy, or low self esteem. This is like an ungrounded device which can lead to self destructive thoughts and behaviors.

Remember there will always be people on both sides of you. There will always be richer and poorer, sicker and healthier, uglier and more attractive, any standard that you chose to measure by you will always find people better and worse. Comparison is meaningless. So when you find a close contextual person in your life that causes you to have low self esteem root yourself to ground and remember you are preeminent and restore your throne.

Rules, What Ifs, and Results

2010-04-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

It is a fact that many people are ruled by the "what if". Many people based their actions upon the premise that there is a Universal rule maintainer that is ever present and ever ready to inflict punishment for breaking rules. This is easy to understand especially when the human social world operates this way. When you break laws and are caught in the action then you are fined and punished or worse depending upon the infraction. This idea is useful for bringing stability to society, however, it is based upon faulty, erroneous incomplete ideas. In fact the idea taken to an extreme results in a type of paranoia that makes one feel or think that any activity that one takes part in needs to conform to society or a person experiences guilt.

As a mind hacker you need to realize that it is the guilt that actually results in the universe bringing to you the punishment and not the actual action. The guilt radiates out into the subconscious mind and plants seeds that latter result in the experiential world as plants of punishment returning to you. Realize that the Universe that you inhibit is of your own creation and that it is entirely made and sustained by thought. Every rule, law, whether, physical, like the laws of physics, electricity, and of the sciences or in society such as traffic laws, etc are all your own creations. However, this does not imply that you must be follow any of them, however they are there for good reasons and as you understand them you should follow them. Also realize though that just as flying an airplane doesn't violate gravity, but uses other laws to result in new activities so too can stacking society rules to accomplish new activities. Conformity establishes systems, nonconformity also establishes raw potential for growth. Both are important. There is not one side that is more important than the other. Law breakers and Law makers are both required and important. As a Mind hacker you must realize, appreciate and allow this.

Self Talk: The most powerful word

2010-04-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

The root of all creations in your mind begin as words. Your words create the world and experience you live. The words you chose to give to the events and experiences you live shape and create your emotional perceptions of them. Any event can be described in factual terms or emotional terms and this is where their formation begins. When you think a word based thought you have already abstractly imagined it and depending upon how you tell the story determines how the event is recorded emotionally in your mind as a memory. The words and emotions that you link to the events are yours to control and define as you wish. Having this power it is useful and in fact very powerful to always retell events as factually and as positively for your own benefit as you can. Is this lying? Nope its mind hacking. You can tell any event in whatever terms suite you the best because there is only one perspective that you will ever experience which is yours. You don't have to be sympathetic from your perspective unless you find that useful because if you're really honest to yourself you can only know your own perspective regardless of what you think another might have experienced.

The Mind of the Master

2010-03-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

You are your Mind!
It is imperative that you remain on the throne of your mind.
You will encounter people that disagree with you and do not share your opinions and thoughts. They will attempt to convince you to question yourself. They may attempt to make you doubt your instincts. You must remain strong and never be removed from your mental throne. This is because as soon as you place another person or opinion where you belong everything that will proceed from that point will all work against you.

It's undoubtedly true that you are not aware of every fact or all information that you might want to know at any given point in time, however if you were aware of all this you would realize that you are the Master and as soon as you relinquish Your Master Mind then it will be harder to gain it back.

If at any given point you find that you do not have total control over your mind and your thoughts you can interpret this as a sign that you are climbing back to regain control of your throne. Once you regain it, protect it!

You are climbing a ladder so to speak of Rungs back to your throne. Each rung requires you to mentally overcome a weakness that you allowed yourself to experience. Once each rung is completed you will avail yourself of a better vantage point allowing you to see more clearly the previous steps in better perspective.

Remember when climbing a Ladder to focus on the ladder not the height, nor a potential fall. What you focus on expands so focus on restoring your throne.

Any person, system of thought, religion, philosophy, rule or agreement that offends your inner spirit and seeks to dethrone you is a rung to over come.

Start from yourself. You can love, cherish, protect, care for, like, enjoy and even sacrifice yourself for anything you want but you must do it from your own throne. You must be certain in your mind that this is your desire. Your honest desires must serve as your compass.

You are the King and its your game that you are playing. You will conquer every rung on the ladder but you must trust in your self or every time you do not you will suffer regret.

What if Christianity has it all wrong, So what?

2010-03-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

What if Christianity has it all wrong, So what?

I have heard the argument several times that If Christianity is right then you save yourself from eternal Hell and if Christianity is wrong what have you really lost by living according to its regulations? This essentially sets up a cost to benefit ratio problem.

But before we explore it lets play some thought experiments:

Case study 1)
Charlie and Bill are twin bothers and Charlie is a very clever jokester who has a keen sense for getting away with murder figuratively, while Bill never gets away with anything. One day Charlie and Bill are out and Charlie decides to steal a video game from the store they were in by putting it into Bills bag while Bill was totally unaware. The boys made it out of the store but due to diligent camera work from the store security they are caught on tape. Charlie manages via clever word play and "letter of the law" logic to pin the crime on Bill. Bill gets punished and has to pay for the game, as well as having to endure the shame and scorn of being blamed for the crime, with added insult because he still knows that he didn't do anything wrong.

Question: Who is the scum bag in that situation? Why?

Case Study 2)
Tom is a wonderful father who loves his son Greg above anything else in the world. He wants what is best for him so much that he would easily lay down his life for him just to know that he would get the chance to enjoy his life as Tom has. One day Greg (17), Tom's boy was walking in a park where a gang fight was supposed to take place and because Greg was wearing a red shirt the boys from the rival gang who are represented by the color blue saw Greg and decided to give him a beating simply because of the shirt he was wearing and Greg lost his life that day. This deeply hurt Tom.

Question: Who is the scum bag in this situation? Why?

Case Study 3)

During world war II in Nazi Germany the Nazi's required everyone to obey Nazi rules and anyone who was found to break a rule would be considered a traitor and possibly face gas chambers like the Jews they were instructed to Kill. Frank was instructed to report any Jews that he suspected to be living in the area. He knew that Daniel his neighbor was a Jew but as they were friends growing up he hesitated to turn him over. Daniel was eventually captured and as a result it was determined that Frank withheld information about Daniel and so Frank was convicted as a traitor for not following orders and eventually gasses in the chamber along side Daniel.

Question: Who is the scum bag in this situation? Why?

Case Study 4)

During the Rule of Ghangis Khan when a rival tribe was conquered as a way to enrage and further dis-heart the opposition when a soldier was killed in front of his parents it was the practice to eat the flesh and drink the blood to inflict further insult on the family.

Question: Who is the scum bag in this situation? Why?

Case Study 5)

As creator of the Universe I the lord your God created a trap for weak and selfish people who would be too weak to do the right thing I imprinted in their hearts. I created Christianity. The magnet for the selfish and weak. I created Rules that were not based upon my desire to bless you in the (Garden or Eden which you think you are no longer living in), but rather based upon what weak selfish people would prefer. I allowed you to take your pick. Would you rather follow your weak faithless self preserving rules or grow to be strong, confident and wise and enjoy everything I have wanted to bless you with?

And still many of you chose to blame the Innocent Bill when YOU stole, scum bag! And you chose to Kill my only son Tom and approve of others who did so, scum bag! You chose to obey rules handed to you over your internal regulations which I put in your heart like Frank, you scum bag! and then you decided to partake in the eating of the Flesh and drinking of the Blood of my son Like Ghangis Khan, you scum bag! That is why you have never enjoyed the fruits of your life. Because you wanted it given to you instead of earning it. You wanted the gift of eternal life while you failed to recognize that your life is also part of eternity not separate from it. You sacrificed this life for one that doesn't exist. You stopped listening to your heart in exchange for the empty hopes of empty self preservation for eternity. You got one life and you ignored every probing I gave you to enjoy it. I wanted to bless you but you chose to be weak.
You gladly sentenced others to eternal hell for wearing the wrong colors and gladly sent Buddhist, Muslims, Hindus and every one who rejected the idea of killing my innocent son to pay for your fear. You readily clung to a bloody cross where the most vile mistake ever ever accepted was perpetrated and gladly covered your self in the blood. You even sang songs about it. So much pride did you take in the blood of the cross and that is why your life makes no sense. You looked for peace that transcended understanding while the whole time all you needed was to listen to your heart not your fears. Fear drove you to the cross not Love. Love doesn't kill the innocent and does not eat the flesh of its own kind. You didn't want to believe this was a good world because you preferred to eat the filth handed to you rather than earn your freedom. Life is a Game with much Joy for those who learn to play it well. Stop Killing Jesus and Enjoy it!

Who is the scum bag in this situation?

Kymatica

2010-03-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

Oration on the Dignity of Man

2010-03-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

Oration on the Dignity of Man

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Most esteemed Fathers, I have read in the ancient writings of the Arabians that Abdala the Saracen on being asked what, on this stage, so to say, of the world, seemed to him most evocative of wonder, replied that there was nothing to be seen more marvelous than man. And that celebrated exclamation of Hermes Trismegistus, ``What a great miracle is man, Asclepius'' confirms this opinion.

And still, as I reflected upon the basis assigned for these estimations, I was not fully persuaded by the diverse reasons advanced for the pre-eminence of human nature; that man is the intermediary between creatures, that he is the familiar of the gods above him as he is the lord of the beings beneath him; that, by the acuteness of his senses, the inquiry of his reason and the light of his intelligence, he is the interpreter of nature, set midway between the timeless unchanging and the flux of time; the living union (as the Persians say), the very marriage hymn of the world, and, by David's testimony but little lower than the angels. These reasons are all, without question, of great weight; nevertheless, they do not touch the principal reasons, those, that is to say, which justify man's unique right for such unbounded admiration. Why, I asked, should we not admire the angels themselves and the beatific choirs more? At long last, however, I feel that I have come to some understanding of why man is the most fortunate of living things and, consequently, deserving of all admiration; of what may be the condition in the hierarchy of beings assigned to him, which draws upon him the envy, not of the brutes alone, but of the astral beings and of the very intelligences which dwell beyond the confines of the world. A thing surpassing belief and smiting the soul with wonder. Still, how could it be otherwise? For it is on this ground that man is, with complete justice, considered and called a great miracle and a being worthy of all admiration.

Hear then, oh Fathers, precisely what this condition of man is; and in the name of your humanity, grant me your benign audition as I pursue this theme.

God the Father, the Mightiest Architect, had already raised, according to the precepts of His hidden wisdom, this world we see, the cosmic dwelling of divinity, a temple most august. He had already adorned the supercelestial region with Intelligences, infused the heavenly globes with the life of immortal souls and set the fermenting dung-heap of the inferior world teeming with every form of animal life. But when this work was done, the Divine Artificer still longed for some creature which might comprehend the meaning of so vast an achievement, which might be moved with love at its beauty and smitten with awe at its grandeur. When, consequently, all else had been completed (as both Moses and Timaeus testify), in the very last place, He bethought Himself of bringing forth man. Truth was, however, that there remained no archetype according to which He might fashion a new offspring, nor in His treasure-houses the wherewithal to endow a new son with a fitting inheritance, nor any place, among the seats of the universe, where this new creature might dispose himself to contemplate the world. All space was already filled; all things had been distributed in the highest, the middle and the lowest orders. Still, it was not in the nature of the power of the Father to fail in this last creative élan; nor was it in the nature of that supreme Wisdom to hesitate through lack of counsel in so crucial a matter; nor, finally, in the nature of His beneficent love to compel the creature destined to praise the divine generosity in all other things to find it wanting in himself.

At last, the Supreme Maker decreed that this creature, to whom He could give nothing wholly his own, should have a share in the particular endowment of every other creature. Taking man, therefore, this creature of indeterminate image, He set him in the middle of the world and thus spoke to him:

``We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at the very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance round about you on all that the world contains. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.''

Oh unsurpassed generosity of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be! The brutes, from the moment of their birth, bring with them, as Lucilius says, ``from their mother's womb'' all that they will ever possess. The highest spiritual beings were, from the very moment of creation, or soon thereafter, fixed in the mode of being which would be theirs through measureless eternities. But upon man, at the moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot of all creatures, he should recollect himself into the center of his own unity, he will there become one spirit with God, in the solitary darkness of the Father, Who is set above all things, himself transcend all creatures.

Who then will not look with awe upon this our chameleon, or who, at least, will look with greater admiration on any other being? This creature, man, whom Asclepius the Athenian, by reason of this very mutability, this nature capable of transforming itself, quite rightly said was symbolized in the mysteries by the figure of Proteus. This is the source of those metamorphoses, or transformations, so celebrated among the Hebrews and among the Pythagoreans; for even the esoteric theology of the Hebrews at times transforms the holy Enoch into that angel of divinity which is sometimes called malakh-ha-shekhinah and at other times transforms other personages into divinities of other names; while the Pythagoreans transform men guilty of crimes into brutes or even, if we are to believe Empedocles, into plants; and Mohammed, imitating them, was known frequently to say that the man who deserts the divine law becomes a brute. And he was right; for it is not the bark that makes the tree, but its insensitive and unresponsive nature; nor the hide which makes the beast of burden, but its brute and sensual soul; nor the orbicular form which makes the heavens, but their harmonious order. Finally, it is not freedom from a body, but its spiritual intelligence, which makes the angel. If you see a man dedicated to his stomach, crawling on the ground, you see a plant and not a man; or if you see a man bedazzled by the empty forms of the imagination, as by the wiles of Calypso, and through their alluring solicitations made a slave to his own senses, you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you see a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule of reason, him shall you hold in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and not of earth; if, finally, a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in human flesh.

Who then will not look with wonder upon man, upon man who, not without reason in the sacred Mosaic and Christian writings, is designated sometimes by the term ``all flesh'' and sometimes by the term ``every creature,'' because he molds, fashions and transforms himself into the likeness of all flesh and assumes the characteristic power of every form of life? This is why Evantes the Persian in his exposition of the Chaldean theology, writes that man has no inborn and proper semblance, but many which are extraneous and adventitious: whence the Chaldean saying: ``Enosh hu shinnujim vekammah tebhaoth haj'' --- ``man is a living creature of varied, multiform and ever-changing nature.''

But what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand --- since we have been born into this condition of being what we choose to be --- that we ought to be sure above all else that it may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending beasts of burden; and that the saying of Aspah the Prophet, ``You are all Gods and sons of the Most High,'' might rather be true; and finally that we may not, through abuse of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the free option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift. Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment. Let us disdain things of earth, hold as little worth even the astral orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten to that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead. There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to them in nothing.

How must we proceed and what must we do to realize this ambition? Let us observe what they do, what kind of life they lead. For if we lead this kind of life (and we can) we shall attain their same estate. The Seraphim burns with the fire of charity; from the Cherubim flashes forth the splendor of intelligence; the Thrones stand firm with the firmness of justice. If, consequently, in the pursuit of the active life we govern inferior things by just criteria, we shall be established in the firm position of the Thrones. If, freeing ourselves from active care, we devote our time to contemplation, meditating upon the Creator in His work, and the work in its Creator, we shall be resplendent with the light of the Cherubim. If we burn with love for the Creator only, his consuming fire will quickly transform us into the flaming likeness of the Seraphim. Above the Throne, that is, above the just judge, God sits, judge of the ages. Above the Cherub, that is, the contemplative spirit, He spreads His wings, nourishing him, as it were, with an enveloping warmth. For the spirit of the Lord moves upon the waters, those waters which are above the heavens and which, according to Job, praise the Lord in pre-aurorial hymns. Whoever is a Seraph, that is a lover, is in God and God is in him; even, it may be said, God and he are one. Great is the power of the Thrones, which we attain by right judgement, highest of all the sublimity of the Seraphim which we attain by loving.

But how can anyone judge or love what he does not know? Moses loved the God whom he had seen and as judge of his people he administered what he had previously seen in contemplation on the mountain. Therefore the Cherub is the intermediary and by his light equally prepares us for the fire of the Seraphim and the judgement of the Thrones. This is the bond which unites the highest minds, the Palladian order which presides over contemplative philosophy; this is then the bond which before all else we must emulate, embrace and comprehend, whence we may be rapt to the heights of love or descend, well instructed and prepared, to the duties of the practical life. But certainly it is worth the effort, if we are to form our life on the model of the Cherubim, to have familiarly before our eyes both its nature and its quality as well as the duties and the functions proper to it. Since it is not granted to us, flesh as we are and knowledgeable only the things of earth, to attain such knowledge by our own efforts, let us have recourse to the ancient Fathers. They can give us the fullest and most reliable testimony concerning these matters because they had an almost domestic and connatural knowledge of them.

Let us ask the Apostle Paul, that vessel of election, in what activity he saw the armies of the Cherubim engaged when he was rapt into the third heaven. He will answer, according to the interpretation of Dionysius, that he saw them first being purified, then illuminated, and finally made perfect. We, therefore, imitating the life of the Cherubim here on earth, by refraining the impulses of our passions through moral science, by dissipating the darkness of reason by dialectic --- thus washing away, so to speak, the filth of ignorance and vice --- may likewise purify our souls, so that the passions may never run rampant, nor reason, lacking restraint, range beyond its natural limits. Then may we suffuse our purified souls with the light of natural philosophy, bringing it to final perfection by the knowledge of divine things.

Lest we be satisfied to consult only those of our own faith and tradition, let us also have recourse to the patriarch, Jacob, whose likeness, carved on the throne of glory, shines out before us. This wisest of the Fathers who though sleeping in the lower world, still has his eyes fixed on the world above, will admonish us. He will admonish, however, in a figure, for all things appeared in figures to the men of those times: a ladder rises by many rungs from earth to the height of heaven and at its summit sits the Lord, while over its rungs the contemplative angels move, alternately ascending and descending. If this is what we, who wish to imitate the angelic life, must do in our turn, who, I ask, would dare set muddied feet or soiled hands to the ladder of the Lord? It is forbidden, as the mysteries teach, for the impure to touch what is pure. But what are these hands, these feet, of which we speak? The feet, to be sure, of the soul: that is, its most despicable portion by which the soul is held fast to earth as a root to the ground; I mean to say, it alimentary and nutritive faculty where lust ferments and voluptuous softness is fostered. And why may we not call ``the hand'' that irascible power of the soul, which is the warrior of the appetitive faculty, fighting for it and foraging for it in the dust and the sun, seizing for it all things which, sleeping in the shade, it will devour? Let us bathe in moral philosophy as in a living stream, these hands, that is, the whole sensual part in which the lusts of the body have their seat and which, as the saying is, holds the soul by the scruff of the neck, let us be flung back from that ladder as profane and polluted intruders. Even this, however, will not be enough, if we wish to be the companions of the angels who traverse the ladder of Jacob, unless we are first instructed and rendered able to advance on that ladder duly, step by step, at no point to stray from it and to complete the alternate ascensions and descents. When we shall have been so prepared by the art of discourse or of reason, then, inspired by the spirit of the Cherubim, exercising philosophy through all the rungs of the ladder --- that is, of nature --- we shall penetrate being from its center to its surface and from its surface to its center. At one time we shall descend, dismembering with titanic force the ``unity'' of the ``many,'' like the members of Osiris; at another time, we shall ascend, recollecting those same members, by the power of Phoebus, into their original unity. Finally, in the bosom of the Father, who reigns above the ladder, we shall find perfection and peace in the felicity of theological knowledge.

Let us also inquire of the just Job, who made his covenant with the God of life even before he entered into life, what, above all else, the supreme God desires of those tens of thousands of beings which surround Him. He will answer, without a doubt: peace, just as it is written in the pages of Job: He establishes peace in the high reaches of heaven. And since the middle order interprets the admonitions of the higher to the lower orders, the words of Job the theologian may well be interpreted for us by Empedocles the philosopher. Empedocles teaches us that there is in our souls a dual nature; the one bears us upwards toward the heavenly regions; by the other we are dragged downward toward regions infernal, through friendship and discord, war and peace; so witness those verses in which he laments that, torn by strife and discord, like a madman, in flight from the gods, he is driven into the depths of the sea. For it is a patent thing, O Fathers, that many forces strive within us, in grave, intestine warfare, worse than the civil wars of states. Equally clear is it that, if we are to overcome this warfare, if we are to establish that peace which must establish us finally among the exalted of God, philosophy alone can compose and allay that strife. In the first place, if our man seeks only truce with his enemies, moral philosophy will restrain the unreasoning drives of the protean brute, the passionate violence and wrath of the lion within us. If, acting on wiser counsel, we should seek to secure an unbroken peace, moral philosophy will still be at hand to fulfill our desires abundantly; and having slain either beast, like sacrificed sows, it will establish an inviolable compact of peace between the flesh and the spirit. Dialectic will compose the disorders of reason torn by anxiety and uncertainty amid the conflicting hordes of words and captious reasonings. Natural philosophy will reduce the conflict of opinions and the endless debates which from every side vex, distract and lacerate the disturbed mind. It will compose this conflict, however, in such a manner as to remind us that nature, as Heraclitus wrote, is generated by war and for this reason is called by Homer, ``strife.'' Natural philosophy, therefore, cannot assure us a true and unshakable peace. To bestow such peace is rather the privilege and office of the queen of the sciences, most holy theology. Natural philosophy will at best point out the way to theology and even accompany us along the path, while theology, seeing us from afar hastening to draw close to her, will call out: ``Come unto me you who are spent in labor and I will restore you; come to me and I will give you the peace which the world and nature cannot give.''

Summoned in such consoling tones and invited with such kindness, like earthly Mercuries, we shall fly on winged feet to embrace that most blessed mother and there enjoy the peace we have longed for: that most holy peace, that indivisible union, that seamless friendship through which all souls will not only be at one in that one mind which is above every mind, but, in a manner which passes expression, will really be one, in the most profound depths of being. This is the friendship which the Pythagoreans say is the purpose of all philosophy. This is the peace which God established in the high places of the heaven and which the angels, descending to earth, announced to men of good will, so that men, ascending through this peace to heaven, might become angels. This is the peace which we would wish for our friends, for our age, for every house into which we enter and for our own soul, that through this peace it may become the dwelling of God; sop that, too, when the soul, by means of moral philosophy and dialectic shall have purged herself of her uncleanness, adorned herself with the disciplines of philosophy as with the raiment of a prince's court and crowned the pediments of her doors with the garlands of theology, the King of Glory may descend and, coming with the Father, take up his abode with her. If she prove worthy of so great a guest, she will, through his boundless clemency, arrayed in the golden vesture of the many sciences as in a nuptial gown, receive him, not as a guest merely, but as a spouse. And rather than be parted from him, she will prefer to leave her own people and her father's house. Forgetful of her very self she will desire to die to herself in order to live in her spouse, in whose eyes the death of his saints is infinitely precious: I mean that death --- if the very plenitude of life can be called death --- whose meditation wise men have always held to be the special study of philosophy.

Let us also cite Moses himself, who is but little removed from the living well-spring of the most holy and ineffable understanding by whose nectar the angels are inebriated. Let us listen to the venerable judge as he enunciates his laws to us who live in the desert solitude of the body: ``Let those who, still unclean, have need of moral philosophy, dwell with the peoples outside the tabernacles, under the open sky, until, like the priests of Thessaly, they shall have cleansed themselves. Those who have already brought order into their lives may be received into the tabernacle, but still may not touch the sacred vessels. Let them rather first, as zealous levites, in the service of dialectic, minister to the holy offices of philosophy. When they shall themselves be admitted to those offices, they may, as priests of philosophy, contemplate the many-colored throne of the higher God, that is the courtly palace of the star-hung heavens, the heavenly candelabrum aflame with seven lights and elements which are the furry veils of this tabernacle; so that, finally, having been permitted to enter, through the merit of sublime theology, into the innermost chambers of the temple, with no veil of images interposing itself, we may enjoy the glory of divinity.'' This is what Moses beyond a doubt commands us, admonishing, urging and exhorting us to prepare ourselves, while we may, by means of philosophy, a road to future heavenly glory.

In fact, however, the dignity of the liberal arts, which I am about to discuss, and their value to us is attested not only by the Mosaic and Christian mysteries but also by the theologies of the most ancient times. What else is to be understood by the stages through which the initiates must pass in the mysteries of the Greeks? These initiates, after being purified by the arts which we might call expiatory, moral philosophy and dialectic, were granted admission to the mysteries. What could such admission mean but the interpretation of occult nature by means of philosophy? Only after they had been prepared in this way did they receive ``Epopteia,'' that is, the immediate vision of divine things by the light of theology. Who would not long to be admitted to such mysteries? Who would not desire, putting all human concerns behind him, holding the goods of fortune in contempt and little minding the goods of the body, thus to become, while still a denizen of earth, a guest at the table of the gods, and, drunk with the nectar of eternity, receive, while still a mortal, the gift of immortality? Who would not wish to be so inspired by those Socratic frenzies which Plato sings in the Phaedrus that, swiftly fleeing this place, that is, this world fixed in evil, by the oars, so to say, both of feet and wings, he might reach the heavenly Jerusalem by the swiftest course? Let us be driven, O Fathers, by those Socratic frenzies which lift us to such ecstasy that our intellects and our very selves are united to God. And we shall be moved by them in this way as previously we have done all that it lies in us to do. If, by moral philosophy, the power of our passions shall have been restrained by proper controls so that they achieve harmonious accord; and if, by dialectic, our reason shall have progressed by an ordered advance, then, smitten by the frenzy of the Muses, we shall hear the heavenly harmony with the inward ears of the spirit. Then the leader of the Muses, Bacchus, revealing to us in our moments of philosophy, through his mysteries, that is, the visible signs of nature, the invisible things of God, will make us drunk with the richness of the house of God; and there, if, like Moses, we shall prove entirely faithful, most sacred theology will supervene to inspire us with redoubled ecstasy. For, raised to the most eminent height of theology, whence we shall be able to measure with the rod of indivisible eternity all things that are and that have been; and, grasping the primordial beauty of things, like the seers of Phoebus, we shall become the winged lovers of theology. And at last, smitten by the ineffable love as by a sting, and, like the Seraphim, filled with the godhead, we shall be, no longer ourselves, but the very One who made us.

The sacred names of Apollo, to anyone who penetrates their meanings and the mysteries they conceal, clearly show that God is a philosopher no less than a seer; but since Ammonius has amply treated this theme, there is no occasion for me to expound it anew. Nevertheless, O Fathers, we cannot fail to recall those three Delphic precepts which are so very necessary for everyone about to enter the most holy and august temple, not of the false, but of the true Apollo who illumines every soul as it enters this world. You will see that they exhort us to nothing else but to embrace with all our powers this tripartite philosophy which we are now discussing. As a matter of fact that aphorism: meden agan, this is: ``Nothing in excess,'' duly prescribes a measure and rule for all the virtues through the concept of the ``Mean'' of which moral philosophy treats. In like manner, that other aphorism gnothi seauton, that is, ``Know thyself,'' invites and exhorts us to the study of the whole nature of which the nature of man is the connecting link and the ``mixed potion''; for he who knows himself knows all things in himself, as Zoroaster first and after him Plato, in the Alcibiades, wrote. Finally, enlightened by this knowledge, through the aid of natural philosophy, being already close to God, employing the theological salutation ei, that is ``Thou art,'' we shall blissfully address the true Apollo on intimate terms.

Let us also seek the opinion of Pythagoras, that wisest of men, known as a wise man precisely because he never thought himself worthy of that name. His first precept to us will be: ``Never sit on a bushel''; never, that is, through slothful inaction to lose our power of reason, that faculty by which the mind examines, judges and measures all things; but rather unremittingly by the rule and exercise of dialectic, to direct it and keep it agile. Next he will warn us of two things to be avoided at all costs: Neither to make water facing the sun, nor to cut our nails while offering sacrifice. Only when, by moral philosophy, we shall have evacuated the weakening appetites of our too-abundant pleasures and pared away, like nail clippings, the sharp points of anger and wrath in our souls, shall we finally begin to take part in the sacred rites, that is, the mysteries of Bacchus of which we have spoken and to dedicate ourselves to that contemplation of which the Sun is rightly called the father and the guide. Finally, Pythagoras will command us to ``Feed the cock''; that is, to nourish the divine part of our soul with the knowledge of divine things as with substantial food and heavenly ambrosia. This is the cock whose visage is the lion, that is, all earthly power, holds in fear and awe. This is the cock to whom, as we read in Job, all understanding was given. At this cock's crowing, erring man returns to his senses. This is the cock which every day, in the morning twilight, with the stars of morning, raises a Te Deum to heaven. This is the cock which Socrates, at the hour of his death, when he hoped he was about to join the divinity of his spirit to the divinity of the higher world and when he was already beyond danger of any bodily illness, said that he owed to Asclepius, that is, the healer of souls.

Let us also pass in review the records of the Chaldeans; there we shall see (if they are to be believed) that the road to happiness, for mortals, lies through these same arts. The Chaldean interpreters write that it was a saying of Zoroaster that the soul is a winged creature. When her wings fall from her, she is plunged into the body; but when they grow strong again, she flies back to the supernal regions. And when his disciples asked him how they might insure that their souls might be well plumed and hence swift in flight he replied: ``Water them well with the waters of life.'' And when they persisted, asking whence they might obtain these waters of life, he answered (as he was wont) in a parable: ``The Paradise of God is bathed and watered by four rivers; from these same sources you may draw the waters which will save you. The name of the river which flows from the north is Pischon which means, `the Right.' That which flows from the west is Gichon, that is, `Expiation.' The river flowing from the east is named Chiddekel, that is, `Light,' while that, finally, from the south is Perath, which may be understood as `Compassion.' '' Consider carefully and with full attention, O Fathers, what these deliverances of Zoroaster might mean. Obviously, they can only mean that we should, by moral science, as by western waves, wash the uncleanness from our eyes; that, by dialectic, as by a reading taken by the northern star, our gaze must be aligned with the right. Then, that we should become accustomed to bear, in the contemplation of nature, the still feeble light of truth, like the first rays of the rising sun, so that finally we may, through theological piety and the most holy cult of God, become able, like the eagles of heaven, to bear the effulgent splendor of the noonday sun. These are, perhaps, those ``morning, midday and evening thoughts'' which David first celebrated and on which St. Augustine later expatiated. This is the noonday light which inflames the Seraphim toward their goal and equally illuminates the Cherubim. This is the promised land toward which our ancient father Abraham was ever advancing; this the region where, as the teachings of the Cabalists and the Moors tell us, there is no place for unclean spirits. And if we may be permitted, even in the form of a riddle, to say anything publicly about the deeper mysteries: since the precipitous fall of man has left his mind in a vertiginous whirl and and since according to Jeremiah, death has come in through the windows to infect our hearts and bowels with evil, let us call upon Raphael, the heavenly healer that by moral philosophy and dialectic, as with healing drugs, he may release us. When we shall have been restored to health, Gabriel, the strength of God, will abide in us. Leading us through the marvels of nature and pointing out to us everywhere the power and the goodness of God, he will deliver us finally to the care of the High Priest Michael. He, in turn, will adorn those who have successfully completed their service to philosophy with the priesthood of theology as with a crown of precious stones.

These are the reasons, most reverend Fathers, which not only led, but even compelled me, to the study of philosophy. And I should not have undertaken to expound them, except to reply to those who are wont to condemn the study of philosophy, especially among men of high rank, but also among those of modest station. For the whole study of philosophy (such is the unhappy plight of our time) is occasion for contempt and contumely, rather than honor and glory. The deadly and monstrous persuasion has invaded practically all minds, that philosophy ought not to be studied at all or by very few people; as though it were a thing of little worth to have before our eyes and at our finger-tips, as matters we have searched out with greatest care, the causes of things, the ways of nature and the plan of the universe, God's counsels and the mysteries of heaven and earth, unless by such knowledge on might procure some profit or favor for oneself. Thus we have reached the point, it is painful to recognize, where the only persons accounted wise are those who can reduce the pursuit of wisdom to a profitable traffic; and chaste Pallas, who dwells among men only by the generosity of the gods, is rejected, hooted, whistled at in scorn, with no one to love or befriend her unless, by prostituting herself, she is able to pay back into the strongbox of her lover the ill-procured price of her deflowered virginity. I address all these complaints, with the greatest regret and indignation, not against the princes of our times, but against the philosophers who believe and assert that philosophy should not be pursued because no monetary value or reward is assigned it, unmindful that by this sign they disqualify themselves as philosophers. Since their whole life is concentrated on gain and ambition, they never embrace the knowledge of the truth for its own sake. This much will I say for myself --- and on this point I do not blush for praising myself --- that I have never philosophized save for the sake of philosophy, nor have I ever desired or hoped to secure from my studies and my laborious researches any profit or fruit save cultivation of mind and knowledge of the truth --- things I esteem more and more with the passage of time. I have also been so avid for this knowledge and so enamored of it that I have set aside all private and public concerns to devote myself completely to contemplation; and from it no calumny of jealous persons, nor any invective from enemies of wisdom has ever been able to detach me. Philosophy has taught me to rely on my own convictions rather than on the judgements of others and to concern myself less with whether I am well thought of than whether what I do or say is evil.

I was not unaware, most revered Fathers, that this present disputation of mine would be as acceptable and as pleasing to you, who favor all the good arts and who have consented to grace it with your presence, as it would be irritating and offensive to many others. I am also aware that there is no dearth of those who have condemned my undertaking before this and continue to do so on a number of grounds. But this has always been the case: works which are well-intentioned and sincerely directed to virtue have always had no fewer --- not to say more --- detractors than those undertaken for questionable motives and for devious ends. Some persons disapprove the present type of disputation in general and this method of disputing in public about learned matters; they assert that they serve only the exhibition of talent and the display of opinion, rather than the increase of learning. Others do not disapprove this type of exercise, but resent the fact that at my age, a mere twenty-four years, I have dared to propose a disputation concerning the most subtle mysteries of Christian theology, the most debated points of philosophy and unfamiliar branches of learning; and that I have done so here, in this most renowned of cities, before a large assembly of very learned men, in the presence of the Apostolic Senate. Still others have ceded my right so to dispute, but have not conceded that I might dispute nine hundred theses, asserting that such a project is superfluous, over-ambitious and beyond my powers. I should have acceded to these objections willingly and immediately, if the philosophy which I profess had so counseled me. Nor should I now undertake to reply to them, as my philosophy urges me to do, if I believed that this disputation between us were undertaken for purposes of mere altercation and litigation. Therefore, let all intention of denigration and exasperation be purged from our minds and with it that malice which, as Plato writes, is never present in the angelic choirs. Let us amicably decide whether it be admissible for me to proceed with my disputation and whether I should venture so large a number of questions.

I shall not, in the first place, have much to say against those who disapprove this type of public disputation. It is a crime, --- if it be a crime --- which I share with all you, most excellent doctors, who have engaged in such exercises on many occasions to the enhancement of your reputations, as well as with Plato and Aristotle and all the most esteemed philosophers of every age. These philosophers of the past all thought that nothing could profit them more in their search for wisdom than frequent participation in public disputation. Just as the powers of the body are made stronger through gymnastic, the powers of the mind grow in strength and vigor in this arena of learning. I am inclined to believe that the poets, when they sang of the arms of Pallas and the Hebrews, when they called the barzel, that is, the sword, the symbol of men of wisdom, could have meant nothing by these symbols but this type of contest, at once so necessary and so honorable for the acquisition of knowledge. This may also be the reason why the Chaldeans, at the birth of a man destined to be a philosopher, described a horoscope in which Mars confronted Mercury from three distinct angles. This is as much as to say that should these assemblies and these contests be abandoned, all philosophy would become sluggish and dormant.

It is more difficult for me, however, to find a line of defense against those who tell me that I am unequal to the undertaking. If I say that I am equal to it, I shall appear to entertain an immodestly high opinion of myself. If I admit that I am unequal to it, while persisting in it, I shall certainly risk being called temerarious and imprudent. You see the difficulties into which I have fallen, the position in which I am placed. I cannot, without censure, promise something about myself, nor, without equal censure, fail in what I promise. Perhaps I can invoke that saying of Job: ``The spirit is in all men'' or take consolation in what was said to Timothy: ``Let no man despise your youth.'' But to speak from my own conscience, I might say with greater truth that there is nothing singular about me. I admit that I am devoted to study and eager in the pursuit of the good arts. Nevertheless, I do not assume nor arrogate to myself the title learned. If, consequently, I have taken such a great burden on my shoulders, it is not because I am ignorant of my own weaknesses. Rather, it is because I understand that in this kind of learned contest the real victory lies in being vanquished. Even the weakest, consequently, ought not to shun them, but should seek them out, as well they may. For the one who is bested receives from his conqueror, not an injury but a benefit; he returns to his house richer than he left, that is, more learned and better armed for future contests. Inspired by such hope, though myself but a weak soldier, I have not been afraid to enter so dangerous a contest even against the very strongest and vigorous opponents. Whether, in doing so, I have acted foolishly or not might better be judged from the outcome of the contest than from my age.

I must, in the third place, answer those who are scandalized by the large number of propositions and the variety of topics I have proposed for disputation, as though the burden, however great it may be, rested on their shoulders and not, as it does, on mine. Surely it is unbecoming and captious to want to set limits to another's efforts and, as Cicero says, to desire mediocrity in those things in which the rule should be: the more the better. In undertaking so great a venture only one alternative confronted me: success or failure. If I should succeed, I do not see how it would be more praiseworthy to succeed in defending ten theses than in defending nine hundred. If I should fail, those who hate me will have grounds for disparagement, while those who love me will have an occasion to excuse me. In so large and important an undertaking it would seem that a young man who fails through weakness of talent or want of learning deserves indulgence rather than censure. For as the poet says,

if powers fail, there shall be praise for daring; and in great undertaking, to have willed is enough.

In our own day, many scholars, imitating Gorgias of Leontini, have been accustomed to dispute, not nine hundred questions merely, but the whole range of questions concerning all the arts and have been praised for it. Why should not I, then, without incurring criticism, be permitted to discuss a large number of questions indeed, but questions which are clear and determined in their scope? They reply, this is superfluous and ambitious. I protest that, in my case, no superfluity is involved, but that all is necessary. If they consider the method of my philosophy they will feel compelled, even against their inclinations, to recognize this necessity. All those who attach themselves to one or another of the philosophers, to Thomas, for instance or Scotus, who at present enjoy the widest following, can indeed test their doctrine in a discussion of a few questions. By contrast, I have so trained myself that, committed to the teachings of no one man, I have ranged through all the masters of philosophy, examined all their works, become acquainted with all schools. As a consequence, I have had to introduce all of them into the discussion lest, defending a doctrine peculiar to one, I might seem committed to it and thus to deprecate the rest. While a few of the theses proposed concern individual philosophers, it was inevitable that a great number should concern all of them together. Nor should anyone condemn me on the grounds that ``wherever the storm blows me, there I remain as a guest.'' For it was a rule among the ancients, in the case of all writers, never to leave unread any commentaries which might be available. Aristotle observed this rule so carefully that Plato called him: auagnooies, that is, ``the reader.'' It is certainly a mark of excessive narrowness of mind to enclose oneself within one Porch or Academy; nor can anyone reasonably attach himself to one school or philosopher, unless he has previously become familiar with them all. In addition, there is in each school some distinctive characteristic which it does not share with any other.

To begin with the men of our own faith to whom philosophy came last, there is in Duns Scotus both vigor and distinction, in Thomas solidity and sense of balance, in Egidius, lucidity and precision, in Francis, depth and acuteness, in Albertus [Magnus] a sense of ultimate issues, all-embracing and grand, in Henry, as it has seemed to me, always an element of sublimity which inspires reverence. Among the Arabians, there is in Averroës something solid and unshaken, in Avempace, as in Al-Farabi, something serious and deeply meditated; in Avicenna, something divine and platonic. Among the Greeks philosophy was always brilliant and, among the earliest, even chaste: in Simplicus it is rich and abundant, in Themistius elegant and compendious, in Alexander, learned and self-consistent, in Theophrastus, worked out with great reflection, in Ammonius, smooth and pleasing. If you turn to the Platonists, to mention but a few, you will, in Porphyry, be delighted by the wealth of matter and by his preoccupation with many aspects of religion; in Iamblichus, you will be awed by his knowledge of occult philosophy and the mysteries of the barbarian peoples; in Plotinus, you will find it impossible to single out one thing for admiration, because he is admirable under every aspect. Platonists themselves, sweating over his pages, understand him only with the greatest difficulty when, in his oblique style, he teaches divinely about divine things and far more than humanly about things human. I shall pass over the more recent figures, Proclus, and those others who derive from him, Damacius, Olympiodorus and many more in whom that to theion, that is, that divine something which is the special mark of the Platonists, always shines out.

It should be added that any school which attacks the more established truths and by clever slander ridicules the valid arguments of reason confirms, rather than weakens, the truth itself, which, like embers, is fanned to life, rather than extinguished by stirring. These considerations have motivated me in my determination to bring to men's attention the opinions of all schools rather than the doctrine of some one or other (as some might have preferred), for it seems to me that by the confrontation of many schools and the discussion of many philosophical systems that ``effulgence of truth'' of which Plato writes in his letters might illuminate our minds more clearly, like the sun rising from the sea. What should have been our plight had only the philosophical thought of the Latin authors, that is, Albert, Thomas, Scotus, Egidius, Francis and Henry, been discussed, while that of the Greeks and the Arabs was passed over, since all the thought of the barbarian nations was inherited by the Greeks and from the Greeks came down to us? For this reason, our thinkers have always been satisfied, in the field of philosophy, to rest on the discoveries of foreigners and simply to perfect the work of others. What profit would have dervied from discussing natural philosophy with the Peripatetics, if the Academy of the Platonists had not also participated in the exchange, for the doctrine of the latter, even when it touched on divine matters, has always (as St. Augustine bears witness) been esteemed the most elevated of all philosophies? And this in turn has been the reason why I have, for the first time after many centuries of neglect (and there is nothing invidious in my saying so) brought it forth again for public examination and discussion. And what would it have profited us if, having discussed the opinions of innumerable others, like asymboli, at the banquet of wise men, we should contribute nothing of our own, nothing conceived and elaborated in our own mind? Indeed, it is the characteristic of the impotent (as Seneca writes) to have their knowledge all written down in their note-books, as though the discoveries of those who preceded us had closed the path to our own efforts, as though the power of nature had become effete in us and could bring forth nothing which, if it could not demonstrate the truth, might at least point to it from afar. The farmer hates sterility in his field and the husband deplores it in his wife; even more then must the divine mind hate the sterile mind with which it is joined and associated, because it hopes from that source to have offspring of such a high nature.

For these reasons, I have not been content to repeat well-worn doctrines, but have proposed for disputation many points of the early theology of Hermes Trismegistus, many theses drawn from the teachings of the Chaldeans and the Pythagoreans, from the occult mysteries of the Hebrews and, finally, a considerable number of propositions concerning both nature and God which we ourselves have discovered and worked out. In the first place, we have proposed a harmony between Plato and Aristotle, such as many before this time indeed believed to exist but which no one has satisfactorily established. Boethius, among Latin writers, promised to compose such a harmony, but he never carried his proposal to completion. St. Augustine also writes, in his Contra Academicos, that many others tried to prove the same thing, that is, that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were identical, and by the most subtle arguments. For example, John the Grammarian held that Aristotle differed from Plato only for those who did not grasp Plato's thought; but he left it to posterity to prove it. We have, in addition, adduced a great number of passages in which Scotus and Thomas, and others in which Averroës and Avicenna, have heretofore been thought to disagree, but which I assert are in harmony with one another.

In the second place, along with my own reflections on and developments of both the Aristotelian and the Platonic philosophies, I have adduced seventy-two theses in physics and metaphysics. If I am not mistaken (and this will become clearer in the course of the proposed disputation) anyone subscribing to these theses will be able to resolve any question proposed to him in natural philosophy or theology on a principle quite other than that taught us in the philosophy which is at present to be learned in the schools and is taught by the masters of the present generation. Nor ought anyone to be surprised, that in my early years, at a tender age at which I should hardly be permitted to read the writings of others (as some have insinuated) I should wish to propose a new philosophy. They ought rather to praise this new philosophy, if it is well defended, or reject it, if it is refuted. Finally, since it will be their task to judge my discoveries and my scholarship, they ought to look to the merit or demerit of these and not to the age of their author.

I have, in addition, introduced a new method of philosophizing on the basis of numbers. This method is, in fact, very old, for it was cultivated by the ancient theologians, by Pythagoras, in the first place, but also by Aglaophamos, Philolaus and Plato, as well as by the earliest Platonists; however, like other illustrious achievements of the past, it has through lack of interest on the part of succeeding generations, fallen into such desuetude, that hardly any vestiges of it are to be found. Plato writes in Epinomis that among all the liberal arts and contemplative sciences, the science of number is supreme and most divine. And in another place, asking why man is the wisest of animals, he replies, because he knows how to count. Similarly, Aristotle, in his Problems repeats this opinion. Abumasar writes that it was a favorite saying of Avenzoar of Babylon that the man who knows how to count, knows everything else as well. These opinions are certainly devoid of any truth if by the art of number they intend that art in which today merchants excel all other men; Plato adds his testimony to this view, admonishing us emphatically not to confuse this divine arithmetic with the arithmetic of the merchants. When, consequently, after long nights of study I seemed to myself to have thoroughly penetrated this Arithmetic, which is thus so highly extolled, I promised myself that in order to test the matter, I would try to solve by means of this method of number seventy-four questions which are considered, by common consent, among the most important in physics and divinity.

I have also proposed certain theses concerning magic, in which I have indicated that magic has two forms. One consists wholly in the operations and powers of demons, and consequently this appears to me, as God is my witness, an execrable and monstrous thing. The other proves, when thoroughly investigated, to be nothing else but the highest realization of natural philosophy. The Greeks noted both these forms. However, because they considered the first form wholly undeserving the name magic they called it goeteia, reserving the term mageia, to the second, and understanding by it the highest and most perfect wisdom. The term ``magus'' in the Persian tongue, according to Porphyry, means the same as ``interpreter'' and ``worshipper of the divine'' in our language. Moreover, Fathers, the disparity and dissimilarity between these arts is the greatest that can be imagined. Not the Christian religion alone, but all legal codes and every well-governed commonwealth execrates and condemns the first; the second, by contrast, is approved and embraced by all wise men and by all peoples solicitous of heavenly and divine things. The first is the most deceitful of arts; the second, a higher and holier philosophy. The former is vain and disappointing; the later, firm, solid and satisfying. The practitioner of the first always tries to conceal his addiction, because it always rebounds to shame and reproach, while the cultivation of the second, both in antiquity and at almost all periods, has been the source of the highest renown and glory in the field of learning. No philosopher of any worth, eager in pursuit of the good arts, was ever a student of the former, but to learn the latter, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato and Democritus crossed the seas. Returning to their homes, they, in turn, taught it to others and considered it a treasure to be closely guarded. The former, since it is supported by no true arguments, is defended by no writers of reputation; the latter, honored, as it were, in its illustrious progenitors, counts two principal authors: Zamolxis, who was imitated by Abaris the Hyperborean, and Zoroaster; not, indeed, the Zoroaster who may immediately come to your minds, but that other Zoroaster, the son of Oromasius. If we should ask Plato the nature of each of these forms of magic, he will respond in the Alcibiades that the magic of Zoroaster is nothing else than that science of divine things in which the kings of the Persians had their sons educated to that they might learn to rule their commonwealth on the pattern of the commonwealth of the universe. In the Charmides he will answer that the magic of Zamolxis is the medicine of the soul, because it brings temperance to the soul as medicine brings health to the body. Later Charondas, Damigeron, Apollonius, Osthanes and Dardanus continued in their footsteps, as did Homer, of whom we shall sometime prove, in a ``poetic theology'' we propose to write, that he concealed this doctrine, symbolically, in the wanderings of his Ulysses, just as he did all other learned doctrines. They were also followed by Eudoxus and Hermippus, as well as by practically all those who studied the Pythagorean and Platonic mysteries. Of later philosophers, I find that three had ferreted it out: the Arabian, Al-Kindi, Roger Bacon, and William of Paris. Plotinus also gives signs that he was aware of it in the passage in which he shows that the magician is the minister of nature and not merely its artful imitator. This very wise man approves and maintains this magic, while so abhorring that other that once, when he was invited to to take part in rites of evil spirits, he said that they ought rather to come to him, than he to go to them; and he spoke well. Just as that first form of magic makes man a slave and pawn of evil powers, the latter makes him their lord and master. That first form of magic cannot justify any claim to being either an art or a science while the latter, filled as it is with mysteries, embraces the most profound contemplation of the deepest secrets of things and finally the knowledge of the whole of nature. This beneficent magic, in calling forth, as it were, from their hiding places into the light the powers which the largess of God has sown and planted in the world, does not itself work miracles, so much as sedulously serve nature as she works her wonders. Scrutinizing, with greater penetration, that harmony of the universe which the Greeks with greater aptness of terms called sympatheia and grasping the mutual affinity of things, she applies to each thing those inducements (called the iugges of the magicians), most suited to its nature. Thus it draws forth into public notice the miracles which lie hidden in the recesses of the world, in the womb of nature, in the storehouses and secret vaults of God, as though she herself were their artificer. As the farmer weds his elms to the vines, so the ``magus'' unites earth to heaven, that is, the lower orders to the endowments and powers of the higher. Hence it is that this latter magic appears the more divine and salutary, as the former presents a monstrous and destructive visage. But the deepest reason for the difference is the fact that that first magic, delivering man over to the enemies of God, alienates him from God, while the second, beneficent magic, excites in him an admiration for the works of God which flowers naturally into charity, faith and hope. For nothing so surely impels us to the worship of God than the assiduous contemplation of His miracles and when, by means of this natural magic, we shall have examined these wonders more deeply, we shall more ardently be moved to love and worship Him in his works, until finally we shall be compelled to burst into song: ``The heavens, all of the earth, is filled with the majesty of your glory.'' But enough about magic. I have been led to say even this much because I know that there are many persons who condemn and hate it, because they do not understand it, just as dogs always bay at strangers.

I come now to those matters which I have drawn from the ancient mysteries of the Hebrews and here adduce in confirmation of the inviolable Catholic faith. Lest these matters be thought, by those to whom they are unfamiliar, bubbles of the imagination and tales of charlatans, I want everyone to understand what they are and what their true character is; whence they are drawn and who are the illustrious writers who testifying to them; how mysterious they are, and divine and necessary to men of our faith for the propagation of our religion in the face of the persistent calumnies of the Hebrews. Not famous Hebrew teachers alone, but, from among those of our own persuasion, Esdras, Hilary and Origen all write that Moses, in addition to the law of the five books which he handed down to posterity, when on the mount, received from God a more secret and true explanation of the law. They also say that God commanded Moses to make the law known to the people, but not to write down its interpretation or to divulge it, but to communicate it only to Jesu Nave who, in turn, was to reveal it to succeeding high priests under a strict obligation of silence. It was enough to indicate, through simple historical narrative, the power of God, his wrath against the unjust, his mercy toward the good, his justice toward all and to educate the people, by divine and salutary commands, to live well and blessedly and to worship in the true religion. Openly to reveal to the people the hidden mysteries and the secret intentions of the highest divinity, which lay concealed under the hard shell of the law and the rough vesture of language, what else could this be but to throw holy things to dogs and to strew gems among swine? The decision, consequently, to keep such things hidden from the vulgar and to communicate them only to the initiate, among whom alone, as Paul says, wisdom speaks, was not a counsel of human prudence but a divine command. And the philosophers of antiquity scrupulously observed this caution. Pythagoras wrote nothing but a few trifles which he confided to his daughter Dama, on his deathbed. The Sphinxes, which are carved on the temples of the Egyptians, warned that the mystic doctrines must be kept inviolate from the profane multitude by means of riddles. Plato, writing certain things to Dionysius concerning the highest substances, explained that he had to write in riddles ``lest the letter fall into other hands and others come to know the things I have intended for you.'' Aristotle used to say that the books of the Metaphysics in which he treats of divine matters were both published and unpublished. Is there any need for further instances? Origen asserts that Jesus Christ, the Teacher of Life, revealed many things to His disciples which they in turn were unwilling to commit to writing lest they become the common possession of the crowd. Dionysius the Areopagite gives powerful confirmation to this assertion when he writes that the more secret mysteries were transmitted by the founders of our religion ek nou eis vouv dia mesov logov, that is, from mind to mind, without commitment to writing, through the medium of of the spoken word alone. Because the true interpretation of the law given to Moses was, by God's command, revealed in almost precisely this way, it was called ``Cabala,'' which in Hebrew means the same as our word ``reception.'' The precise point is, of course, that the doctrine was received by one man from another not through written documents but, as a hereditary right, through a regular succession of revelations.

After Cyrus had delivered the Hebrews from the Babylonian captivity, and the Temple had been restored under Zorobabel, the Hebrews bethought themselves of restoring the Law. Esdras, who was head of the church [sic!] at the time, amended the book of Moses. He readily realized, moreover, that because of the exiles, the massacres, the flights and the captivity of the people of Israel, the practice established by the ancients of handing down the doctrines by word of mouth could not be maintained. Unless they were committed to writing, the heavenly teachings divinely handed down must inevitably perish, for the memory of them would not long endure. He decided, consequently, that all of the wise men still alive should be convened and that each should communicate to the convention all that he remembered about the mysteries of the Law. Their communications were then to be collected by scribes into seventy volumes (approximately the same number as there were members of the Sanhedrin). So that you need not accept my testimony alone, O Fathers, hear Esdras himself speaking: ``After forty days had passed, the All-Highest spoke and said: The first things which you wrote publish openly so that the worthy and unworthy alike may read; but the last seventy books conserve so that you may hand them on to the wise men among your people, for in these reside the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom and the river of knowledge. And I did these things.'' These are the very words of Esdras. These are the books of cabalistic wisdom. In these books, as Esdras unmistakably states, resides the springs of understanding, that is, the ineffable theology of the supersubstantial deity; the fountain of wisdom, that is, the precise metaphysical doctrine concerning intelligible and angelic forms; and the stream of wisdom, that is, the best established philosophy concerning nature. Pope Sixtus the Fourth, the immediate predecessor of our present pope, Innocent the Eight, under whose happy reign we are living, took all possible measures to ensure that these books would be translated into Latin for the public benefit of our faith and at the time of his death, three of them had already appeared. The Hebrews hold these same books in such reverence that no one under forty years of age is permitted even to touch them. I acquired these books at considerable expense and, reading them from beginning to end with the greatest attention and with unrelenting toil, I discovered in them (as God is my witness) not so much the Mosaic as the Christian religion. There was to be found the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Word, the divinity of the Messiah; there one might also read of original sin, of its expiation by the Christ, of the heavenly Jerusalem, of the fall of the demons, of the orders of the angels, of the pains of purgatory and of hell. There I read the same things which we read every day in the pages of Paul and of Dionysius, Jerome and Augustine. In philosophical matters, it were as though one were listening to Pythagoras and Plato, whose doctrines bear so close an affinity to the Christian faith that our Augustine offered endless thanks to God that the books of the Platonists had fallen into his hands. In a word, there is no point of controversy between the Hebrews and ourselves on which the Hebrews cannot be confuted and convinced out the cabalistic writings, so that no corner is left for them to hide in. On this point I can cite a witness of the very greatest authority, the most learned Antonius Chronicus; on the occasion of a banquet in his house, at which I was also present, with his own ears he heard the Hebrew, Dactylus, a profound scholar of this lore, come round completely to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

To return, however, to our review of the chief points of my disputation: I have also adduced my conception of the manner in which the poems of Orpheus and Zoroaster ought to be interpreted. Orpheus is read by the Greeks in a text which is practically complete; Zoroaster is known to them in a corrupt text, while in Chaldea he is read in a form more nearly complete. Both are considered as the authors and fathers of ancient wisdom. I shall say nothing about Zoroaster who is mentioned so frequently by the Platonists and always with the greatest respect. Of Pythagoras, however, Iamblicus the Chaldean writes that he took the Orphic theology as the model on which he shaped and formed his own philosophy. For this precise reason the sayings of Pythagoras are called sacred, because, and to the degree that, they derive from the Orphic teachings. For from this source that occult doctrine of numbers and everything else that was great and sublime in Greek philosophy flowed as from its primitive source. Orpheus, however (and this was the case with all the ancient theologians) so wove the mysteries of his doctrines into the fabric of myths and so wrapped them about in veils of poetry, that one reading his hymns might well believe that there was nothing in them but fables and the veriest commonplaces. I have said this so that it might be known what labor was mine, what difficulty was involved, in drawing out the secret meanings of the occult philosophy from the deliberate tangles of riddles and the recesses of fable in which they were hidden; difficulty made all the greater by the fact that in a matter so weighty, abstruse and unexplored, I could count on no help from the work and efforts of other interpreters. And still like dogs they have come barking after me, saying that I have brought together an accumulation of trifles in order to make a great display by their sheer number. As though all did not concern ambiguous questions, subjects of sharpest controversy, over which the most important schools confront each other like gladiators. As though I had not brought to light many things quite unknown and unsuspected by these very men who now carp at me while styling themselves the leaders of philosophy. As a matter of fact, I am so completely free of the fault they attribute to me that I have tried to confine the discussion to fewer points than I might have raised. Had I wished, (as others are wont) to divide these questions into their constituent parts, and to dismember them, their number might well have increased to a point past counting. To say nothing of other matters, who is unaware that one of these nine hundred theses, that, namely, concerning the reconciliation of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle might have been developed, without arousing any suspicion that I was affecting mere number, into six hundred or more by enumerating in due order those points on which others think that these philosophies differ and I, that they agree? For a certainty I shall speak out (though in a manner which is neither modest in itself nor conformable to my character), I shall speak out because those who envy me and detract me, force me to speak out. I have wanted to make clear in disputation, not only that I know a great many things, but also that I know a great many things which others do not know.

And now, reverend Fathers, in order that this claim may be vindicated by the fact, and in order that my address may no longer delay the satisfaction of your desire --- for I see, reverend doctors, with the greatest pleasure that you are girded and ready for the contest --- let us now, with the prayer that the outcome may be fortunate and favorable, as to the sound of trumpets, join battle.

CRS, 21 November 1994
With many thanks for correction of textual errors by Mr. Pete Grubbs of Penn State University.

The full wave bridge of Goals, attitude, life and beliefs

2010-03-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

The Full Wave Bridge- Electronics as a guide for positive emotions and outcomes

This is how to turn your ups and downs into only ups! It's no surprise that as humans we experience a life filled with highs and lows. Our emotions change and we have great days and not so great days. How do you handle your mind so that you benefit regardless of the type of day you are having? A very useful analogy and lesson can be taken from electronics, in the concept of the full wave bridge. The full wave bridge takes the alternations of A/C current that look like up and down waves and make them look like the McDonalds golden arches. All positive!

A full wave bridge is an arrangement of electronic components that are configured in such a way that it converts the alternations of alternating current from positive to negative into a all positive or all negative output. If you have ever been shocked accidentally by touching an ungrounded short circuit you have experienced the shocking buzz of A/C power. It buzzes and vibrates and in that rapid vibration is a living experience of AC alternation. Some electrical equipment requires no alternations and they use a full wave bridge to convert the pulsing sine wave of AC power into a rectified pulse wave of the same polarity. Essentially accomplishing what the Mc DLT did keeps the hot side hot and the cold side cold!

As interesting as this might be unless you are designing circuits you might wonder what this has to do with mind hacking. The answer is this: This is the fundamental key to converting every event in your experience to your benefit. It is the essential Principia Maxima for mind hacking. This is how you beat the game!

First examine the circuit of the full wave bridge:

You tube video of full wave bridge

Notice that it has 4 rectifiers. A rectifier is a check valve or a one way sign that only lets current of a particular polarity flow in through it. So to begin the Mind Hackers mental full wave bridge you setup your mental rectifiers. These are logic gates that only let in thoughts that promote your goal. This is how you keep pushing through challenges to obtain your goals even when your default emotions or events are not inline with your desired goal. It is all under your will after all!

The basic setup:
1) the total circuit: Your goal represents the fulfillment of your desires. This is the purpose of the circuit.
2) The resistor: The obstacles between where you are now and your fulfillment of your goal is the resistance to your goal. This is the resistor in your circuit.
3) Positive alternating phase: When events or emotions bring you closer to your goal this is the input side of the alternation going in your favor or a positive oscillation. Examples of positive input flow include confidence, assurance, instant action, certainty, positive feelings, rejoicing, excitement, satisfaction, vitality, successful steps, etc.
4) Negative alternating phase: When events or emotions take you away from attaining your goal this is the input side alternating against your favor in a negative oscillation. Examples of negative input flow include fears, doubt, hesitation, uncertainty, negative feelings, anger, depression, frustration, exhaustion, mistakes, etc.
5) Diodes or rectifiers are one way mental filters that you put in place mentally to keep from going against your original goal of the circuit. Essentially the rectifier is a choice or decision that you must make regarding the action and event at any given time. It really boils down to your attitude and how you chose to see the events and what meaning YOU assign to them.

Notice that you need four diodes. This is also true in mind hacking you need 1 for interpreting positive goal oriented events one on the input side of the challenge and one on the after side of the action and event. (What will I do? and then how did I do?) Both serve as future broadcasting feedback

Example. Goal is to learn to juggle.
You first begin trying but drop all the balls and have to chase them around the room. You observe that event and you can entertain two thoughts depending upon your rectifiers :
1) [negative] It's hopeless I can't do it now. or 1) [positive] It's not hopeless I will eventuality be able to do this.

Now if you actually saw the beginnings of actual juggling you might think these thoughts:
2) [negative] I'm getting it but I'm not as good as the other guys. 2) [positive] I'm getting it and I will soon be as good or better than the other guys.

You see that your self referential mental speech determines the future output (performance) towards your goal. When you realize that this self fulfilling prophesy guides your unconscious mind and thus your future you realize how important to always give yourself the benefit of the doubt and never allow others to berate you or convince you that you are a sinner or unworthy. Because that language will wreck your mind and make you miss out on the benefits of the Game of life. The full wave bridge is nothing more that believing in yourself all the time and deciding your life under your will. There are many people that don't and there are many people and situations you will encounter that will attempt to discourage you. Stay strong and hack through the to the top!

EGO- A rose that adorns its self beautifies the entire garden.

2010-03-01T18:43:00.000-08:00

EGO- A rose that adorns its self beautifies the entire garden.

Most people think of an egotistic person as a person who is selfish and this is considered bad or undesirable because it usually is thought of in terms of others versus you. Egotism is equated with greed and hording and these traits are not good for others in general. If person A hordes all the resources then it is very unlikely that anyone else will be able to benefit with the resources. It is commonly accepted that sharing resources among those of the same group is a good thing. I intend in this article to explain why Egotism is good and to tease out the difference between egotism and greed. Although they are often found together they are in fact different things and not the same.

Every living organism that continues to live has to be egoistic or it will not continue to survive. Plants must take from the sun, bugs must take from plants, lizards must take from bugs, etc. This is how life continues. As soon as this process stops the life of the individual stops. If every individual stopped this practice then all life would stop. Row, Row Row your boat gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily merrily, life is but a dream!

Some people operate from the perspective that egotism is bad and that altruistic behavior is good. I say that this stance is lacking and immature at best. A person who constantly gives away resources and never accumulates an excess for themselves can never really provide a lasting benefit for another is any significant way. This kind of behavior maintains a minimum status quo not a progressively growing status quo. A person who does not have a balanced perspective between the extremes of altruism and egotism will eventually cause themselves problems or cause others problems.

The point of Life is to be all that you can be. Reach your potential, or die trying. How do we verify this? By looking at all the other living things and asking what is the point of their life? Every living creature at any level is essentially doing one thing. Trying to achieve its latent potential. But does just because "you can" mean that you should? Maybe it does.

If you plant a seed in the ground and water it and provide it with all the required nutrients and resources without it having to decide mentally it grows and produces rich and abundant leaves, and flowers, and fruit and more seeds. Anyone looking at a plant can say that the point of its life is to grow and turn into what it turns into and make more. An unhindered plant grows. This is basically true for all living creatures. What directs a plants growth? The striving for resources does. It's a living chain reaction designed entirely at getting more resources and proliferating more life. Plants branches and leaves grow up to reach sunlight and its roots grow down to reach water. When the plant is sufficiently developed its produces flowers, then fruits and then seeds. The DNA found in its seed directs how it accomplishes this goal but at a most essential level its the seeds self identity that directs it to grow. The fundamental underpinnings of life are the concept of the individual-ness, separateness, or what is often refered to as Individuality or Ego. Once a complete individual exists separate from the rest it either continues to exist or to perish this: EGO or death. Ego or recognizing the self as separate from the rest leads to life and if you value life then you have to realize life is the converting of resources into the individual. Everything else is a complication of this simple idea. The view that needs to be contrasted here is that even individuals are part of a greater whole. Just as your body is made up of organs, communities are made up of individuals. And just as a heart would quickly die without a body to exist in and individual would soon cease to reach their potential without a community. Thus community provides the opposing force that the individual must work against in the form of competition but it is also for the community that the individual works when he is working for himself. It's a balance that exists. The more successful an individual is the better it is for the whole however, other individuals do not see it this way because they can only see it from their individual perspective and if they are not as successful as another one they experience the sensation of inferiority. This sensation of inferiority can be converted into disdain and blame against the successful individual (which is unproductive) or it is converted into motivation to achieve an equal or greater level of success. If there never existed a very wealthy individual who decided to build a factory to make more wealth then we might never have cars and thus no roads and thus no fast mobility and thus all the other things that relate to the wealthy individual who decided to turn abundance into more abundance. Is this good? Is all this progress good? If the point of Life is being all that you can be then yes. If like the plant the point of life is to grow and develop into all that your resources allow then yes is is good! Beware of the nay sayers. This is a Good Universe. Man must be responsible but man must try to be all that he can be. For his good and the Good of the whole.

Being alive as an individual gives the Universe a temporary sensory experience of being separate from the all. Being human allows the universe to enjoy being an idividual from the receivers perspective. However while Human or any other individual life the experience of consciouness stops being infinite in form and instead perceives reality and the infinite totality separate from You. This is the illusion of individuality. We are all Universal consciousness but as individuals we get to be receivers not just givers. While we compete for resources we are struggling against our self in the form of others and meanwhile producing greatness such as art and music and other wonderful creations just as life created all the other wonderful versions of life as plants and animals and fungus through the efforts of obtaining resources. All Life is the struggle to remain alive (separate) in its myriad versions. Life is the Universal struggle to retain form identity while competing for resources against other versions of the Universe Life energy without remembering that it is competing with itself the whole time creating beauty in all its forms.

You are God but you don't remember it because your memory seems to only go back to some point after you were born but look around you. Are you not made of the same stuff as the Universe around you? Is it not that very Universe that sustains you? Is the energy of the Sun not the same energy that you get from plants and allows you to move and think? Its all the same! Consciousness is the essence of The Universe. But as individuals we loose most of our infinite consciousness and we experience it wrapped in the filters of our senses, thoughts, and feelings. (Maya Illusion) You have filtered your self from your undefined infinite knowledge and wisdom by sequestering yourself into a human body that only gets limited information in the form of your senses, which give rise to thoughts, which in turn give rise to feelings which give rise to your will and actions. Follow the desires of your heart for it itself is being driven by the Universal source. Your knowledge and wisdom comes to you in the form of trials and challenges which your other infinite side is giving you for the purpose that it hopes you will overcome and when you do everything in the Universe benefits. Human progress and your personal progress is Universal progress and when things get better for those on Earth it makes a better experience for those that follow. Being an individual is Universes way of enjoying itself. Your reason to be alive is to enjoy existence and to create. We are guided by our desires for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This is how we learn what pleases us. It's the balance between our individual struggles and the creation of a better world.

To be or not to be-schrodinger's cat

2010-02-28T04:46:00.000-08:00

To be or not to be – that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.—Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

2010-02-28T04:35:00.001-08:00

In the land of the Island Kingdom

Mid Shinto temple and shrine

Where the lights of a thousand altars

To a thousand false gods shine

There is a carved an odd, quaint lesson

Wondrously cut in the wood

The three wise monkeys of Nikko

Who hear, see, speak but the good

O'er the door of the sacred stable

They sit in their wisdom, the three

The little deaf monkey, the little dumb monkey

And the monkey who will not see

With eyes close shut to evil

Ears that hear only the right

And lips that are dumb to scandal

They sit in their silent might

In the land of the Island Kingdom

Mid Shinto temple and shrine

Comes again from our Eastern manger

A message of truth divine

Tho they bow their heads to Kwanen

When the lotus of Nikko nods

Yet this is the message they send us

From the land of the thousand gods

The Space Between

2010-02-24T18:19:00.000-08:00

The Space Between (The Space Between The wicked lies we tell And hope to keep safe from the pain-Dave Matthews Band)

Have you ever pondered the difference between your true thoughts, your lies, your imaginings, and the reality you experience? What is this insulation that protects us and the world around us from the brute honesty that lives in our minds in the form of thoughts, desires, emotions, and various internal structures? I will be the first to admit that if everyone else had access to the full range of possible thoughts that traffic my brain I would be embarrassed. I for one am glad that there is a separation in the universe between me and others, however, the same separation also prevents others from ever knowing the true "YOU" that you posses inside. That is unless you actively work to "let it out". WAIT! don't just go letting it all out! It must be metered and in appropriate doses, and in appropriate places, under appropriate circumstances, to appropriate people. This I mention for your own benefit not for others, or rather for your perspective benefit.

Imagine a world in which the insulation of mental privacy did not exist. You would never experience skepticism when you shared information that you knew from experience was true. You would never need to say "I love you" cause it would be known in full. But then the same would happen when you didn't mean it also, or you were holding on to a secret that could harm. No joke would ever be funny. No surprises and no unpredictable endings. We are complex and wonderful beings and we experience many elaborate feelings, and thoughts.These thoughts and feelings and experiences are US. Our thoughts and feelings will contradict. Walt Whitman said it nicely with-"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"-Song of myself. The question is when to reveal and when to hold back. Truth is strong medicine and very few people are mature enough to be able to handle the "Meat" of it and prefer to live on "Milk". You must also practice discipline when giving yourself truth because it is possible to react too severely to yourself and over react leading to unnecessary challenges that do not benefit anyone.

Points:
1) You are separate. This will make you feel lonely in this world, this will also what allows you to be YOU as an individual. Revel in loneliness for it signifies YOU-ness.
2) The insulation between you and others is privacy. Keep it strong for it is a tool of great ability.
3) If you long for a world where you never feel alone you are not thinking "reality based" thoughts and this strategy will lead to you giving away one of your your most prized possessions; your privacy.
4) Keeping yourself private and holding on to your secrets is an enormous strength. Hardly anything is as powerful as a secret, it is the inverse of awareness.
5) There is no God surveying your minds thoughts, and feelings. Those are there for you alone. (Consider this deeply and realize how important the opposite thought is for the tools of control.)
6) Secrets and concealed information allow things to work in much the same way plastic on wires insulate electricity, pipes insulate water and sewage, fences insulate property, veins insulate blood, or clothing insulate our bodies.
7) Space is the final frontier!

Paying The Piper

2010-02-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

Don't pay the piper till you get your bill! (You may never get the bill) Do not punish yourself for things that you "think" others might hold you accountable for. It's very possible that you might never be held accountable for these and if the Universe doesn't want to hold you accountable then why should you?

You gain nothing by applying self inflicted injuries. Often times we do things and make mistakes or even do things on purpose that we can't fully understand or explain. This doesn't mean that at the time you didn't have reasons, and it doesn't mean that later new context info hasn't changed your perspective making you feel guilty or at fault for choices and actions made in the past. It's not useful to judge the past based upon new information except for learning something from it, otherwise it's a total loss for the sake of a loss. Would you hold a child responsible for mistakes made out of ignorance? Only when there is something to be learned does punishment have value otherwise its just cruel and torture.

Would you call the police and tell them that you drove too fast on your way to work? Would you give up a reward if you thought that someone else deserved it more because they tried harder even if you earned it via legitimate effort? How do you handle being on the long end of the stick? Most people complain about being on the short end of the stick, but when the shoe is on the other foot, they don't know what to do and prefer to feel guilty. why not just appreciate it? Take what you get and appreciate it. Do you think that ants should feel bad for consuming fruit from a tree that has fallen into their reach? Should the tree feel guilty about wasting fruit if no one gets to enjoy the flavor of its friut? Guilt does no favors to you or the Universe. If you profit from the ignorance of another, be grateful not contrite. That's how the game works!

Analyze the word "Kindness". It's funny that Kindness has been taken to mean being charitable or nice to another without prejudice for your own sake. Notice the root of the word is kind. Here is what Wiki has to say about Kind- "In philosophy a natural kind is a grouping of things which is a natural grouping, not an artificial one. Or, it is something a set of things (objects, events, beings) has in common which distinguishes it from other things as a real set rather than as a group of things arbitrarily lumped together by a person or group of people." If you think about the meaning based upon the words it contains, Kindness means the trait of sharing things in common. (After all Kind(ness) is the trait of being the same kind, or group membership)You don't eat your own kind. Or you don't exploit members of your group. So the simple act of having kindness means that you are respecting a group membership. Remember you are in groups to share benefits. When group membership doesn't help the group and hinders you, it should be disregarded. Use higher laws to violate lower ones. That's how birds fly. They don't break gravities laws, they use higher laws! Fly like the Ibis! Don't be a rat!(Rattenfänger)

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Columbus' Senecan Prophecy

2010-02-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

Columbus' Senecan Prophecy

venient annis saecula seris, quibus Oceanus vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus. Tethysque novos detegat orbes nec sit terris ultima Thule.

-time shall in fine out breake
When Ocean wave shall open every Realme
The wondering World at will shall open lye,
And Thyphis some newe founde Land Survay
Some travelers shall the Countries farre escrye,
Beyond small Thule, known farthest to this day.
-Senca Medea 375-379

Reality Maps

2010-02-17T19:22:00.000-08:00

Reality Maps

Religion and philosophy are reality map software for the brain. These reality maps provide contextual programs running in the operating system of our our brains. If you chose to learn and follow a particular belief system you will filter your life experiences via that reality map or filter. You will see events according to the tenants of that belief system. Each religion or philosophy can be used as a tool to manipulate the parts of your life by providing meaning, and emotional technology to your life. These reality filters provide methods of perceiving reality and its events based upon various agreed upon standards shared by various groups of people. The key to managing these under your own will is to not become a slave to any particular one. You can be agnostic to them all but be able to call upon any one for your own purpose. You don't have to be a Christian to benefit from Christianity, you don't have to be a Kabbalist to benefit from Kabbalah, you don't have to be an Existentialist to benefit from existentialism. Use these tools to navigate your life without getting stuck or dependent upon any particular one. Reality maps are simply tools not unlike a hammer, compass, photoshop, or openoffice. The best tools are those that serve you to obtain your goal easiest. Chose your tools wisely it's your life you building after all.

creation vs evolution

2010-02-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

The whole creation vs evolution debate stems from a very simple minded but unfortunately extremely prevalent view of the Universe and God as separate. Traditionally we have been taught to think of God as out there somewhere like an individual or super spirit computer creating and sustaining reality. God is imagined as some super natural magic making, natural law breaking, obsessed with ethics and doing the right thing, moral dictator with a bent to wards sacrifice. We have also been mislead to think that this world isn't perfect (while it actually is) because there exist what we think of as conflicts, or things that we individually don't like or prefer. These views are shallow, broken, or at the very least immature. You and I and every atom in this reality is a partially free agent. Partially because don't yet know how to control under will every aspect of our reality. However over time and with much growth and development it becomes amazingly clear that we are the creator/creators. Every amoeba, fungus, lichen, frog, tree, lion, spider, ant, teacher, Haitian, minister, rapist, president, child, Indian, Mormon, Eskimo, sea lion, whale, virus, oyster,Planet, supernova, etc... Is the creator, not unlike every cell, eye, hair, nerve, heart, stomach, muscle in your body is you. We are this! There is no external magician apart from this. (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain-There is no Wizard of Oz) This is what we are. And when we die we become food for the rest of us (bacteria) and the process starts again. Just as when we kill a chicken and fry it up it becomes food for us. This is what we are we are evolving and there is nothing else but us. There is no Heaven or Hell except for that which you make of this world in your mind and with your choices. God (We/Us) did create evolution but not as some over lording planner with an engineering table and master plan, but as individuals doing what we do. Every atom following the forces it chose to. The same way you chose to brush your teeth, tie your shoe or chose to be happy or sad. We are all different from the rest of us (myriad forms) but we are all the same (in essence). We are more than just fashioned in the image of the creator, we are the creator, Humans with our minds just happen to be the top of the line when it comes to the technology evolution (development) has produced on our planet for the creation to experience itself. In fact the word "creation" should be totally replaced with the word development. We are the development of this Universe and Humans with our brains are the pinnacle of this development. We carry the "all seeing eyes" in our heads, on our faces and we use them to see with. The human mind is the place where reality is appreciated. Look around you and know that what you see is you. Not you as a human but You as a Universe! You are the offspring of the Universe and if you can shed the cocoon of trying to find a human God in heaven to protect you from your worst fears you'll find one hiding behind your eyes and on every face you meet as you walk down the street. And eventually the God you seek will appear all around you and in you too! And creation and evolution will will merge and all will be one again, at least in your mind. Which after all is the only place you know reality to take place anyways!

The magic pyramid

2010-02-11T19:26:00.000-08:00

There is an ancient symbol known as the Oroborus. It is essentially a snake or dragon that is eating its own tail. It has been described as a representation of the cyclical nature of the universe and It does a good job of capturing some very useful ideas about reality and the universe. If you step back and think about the Earth as one self sustaining organism and consider the circle of life and the food chain, it becomes easy to see how well the Oroborus does actually capture the essence of the master pattern of life on this planet. Beginning with inanimate materials such as rocks and water, and gases, etc that through chemical and physical forces break down and change form and get digested by bacteria and fungi releasing more complex minerals that get consumed by plants that collect minerals, gases, light and convert them into more complex molecules, which themselves get eaten by bugs and more complex life forms, which get eaten by birds and fish and more complex life forms, which get captured and eaten by wolves and bears and more complex life forms which get trapped and shot and eaten or used as fur coats by more complex and advanced life forms, its obvious that the pattern of this planet is not just a circle but a pyramid. What's the pattern here? The pattern is based upon awareness, complexity and Energy. Complexity leads to awareness and awareness leads to complexity. Both sustained by energy. What seperates the levels of complexity? Awareness! What travels across the levels? Energy! The bacteria and fungi that break down rocks and releasing minerals have a specific reseptivity and response to the previous level. What is that receptivity and response? Its uses the less aware level as a resource to help it grow. The plants tilting towards the light, taking in carbon dioxide and minerals from its roots is in a sense are more aware than the level before it and uses it as a resource. The insect on the leaf of the plant devouring the leaf as food is more aware and able to respond to the plant than the plant is to it. The insect is more aware than the plant. The bird that is preparing to munch down on the insect chomping away on the leaf is more aware of the insect than the insect is aware of the bird, and on and on and on... The pyramid of energy moves up. The pyramid of complexity moves up, the pyramid of awareness moves up. Now the pyramid is easy to grasp but the Oroborus explains the cyclical nature of our world and is a little less obvious until you realize that the earth is one. The earth is an organism with myriads of life forms abounding upon it, but when you realize that no single life form is exempt from being a part of the earth, in the same way no single nerve cell on your body is exempt from being part of you, it becomes obvious that the earth is eating itself for food. The whole planet earth is constantly devouring itself in order to grow and raise its level of energy, complexity and awareness. When you realize that your consciousness is awareness, powered by complexity and energy you have no choice but to see that Evolution is the physical manifestation of the universe developing or growing into a self realizing Entity using itself as its food source for growth and development. Its kind of beautiful to realize this. Especially when you realize that your food is less aware of you that you are of it it seems a little more (for lack of better word) "nice". An analogy could be made that the Universe though blind has figured out a way to see itself, but it had to use itself as a resource in order to do that. Hence the Oroborus.

Look around you. Right now you see the page before you. The letters on the page, possibly a cup with a drink in it, a few other items maybe a window and some plants outside. Now if you are alone ponder the following thought. The only thing in this room with sight to see is you. Think about this for a moment and don't take it for granted. The table in front of you does not have eye sight, the floor does not, the ceiling does not, You are the only object in that room that sees. Even if you have a dog or cat they can't see the same way you can. Their eyes and mind does not have the level of complexity that yours has. That's why you can watch TV or listen to music and get the meaning and the cat and dog can not. You are so much more complex and aware and energetic than those objects before you. You are a master piece. Or better said a peice of the master! You are in the highest portion of the top of the pyramid on the planet Earth. You are the highest level of complexity known on the planet. And the equipment that is understanding and appreciating this thought, namely your brain is the crowning jewel. With your brain and the sences you have are the best technology the Universe has been able to engineer via blind struggle since time immemorial. And what's most significant is that you are not blind! You can see yourself. You are the Universe! You are the accomplishment which the Universe has been struggling to achieve. You are the meaning of all of this. You are aware and alive and you are the all seeing eye! If you truly get this you should be in amazement and awe at what a miracle that is. You should be able to see that you are the creator! Not you the Ego behind your face and name but you as the achievement of the efforts of the Universe to see itself. You are the goal of billions of years of growth and development. Developing to experience yourself as the universe uninhibited by blindness is the goal. You are here to experience yourself! Which is the universe. Your body is the vessel of the culmination of the efforts of the universe to mature to the point it sees and understands itself. The self revealing development of You as the Universe requires You as an individual to be the scene organs of the Universe. You eat yourself when you eat your meals, and when you enjoy it you are experiencing joy and appreciation for yourself. The more you can learn to enjoy your experiences the the more successful your fulfillment as the crowing accomplishment of the Universe you are. When you reach a point that you can appreciate and enjoy everything in your experience in some form or fashion you are fulfilling your role as You the universe desired.

Life is good!

2010-02-09T16:46:00.000-08:00

This is a great world and a great life! Each day it only gets better. It feels good to be here, its fun! Enjoyment can be found and made at every instance. Why? Because every challenge can be converted into an entertaining game and conquered with ease upon discovering an entertaining method for viewing and playing it. Resources abound, friends abound, closeness, appreciation, admiration, support and willingness to benefit are a constant. It's more fun each day. Troubles stay away because it is understood that troubles are caused by misunderstanding potentially beneficial circumstances and applying anxiety where courage is required. By substituting courage when anxiety attempts to springs up you can turn a potential fear into a reason to excel. Remember buy low sell high!

Life is not hard nor is it meaningless, but it does require effort and willingness to assert yourself. Laziness won't cut it! You should not wait for others to make the world better for you instead you must by your own will decide to make your world better for you because this is where the fun is at. Life being hard is a bad mis-interpretation of your own abilities and beleiving that life is meaningless shows a lack of creativity on the part of the holder of that view. Although the "meaning of life" does have to be individual and certainly does not come prescribed it certainly does not lack anything in value simply because it is arbitrarily set by you the individual. Don't look for meaning outside of yourself. It's not there. Instead find it inside yourself first and then you will find it outside yourself also as it develops from the seeds you plant in your own mind.

Cow Path

2010-02-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

One day thru the primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should,
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer, the calf is dead;
But still behind he left his trail,
And thereon hangs my mortal tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way,
And then a wise bell-weather sheep
Sliding into a rut now deep,
Pursued that trail over hill and glade
Thru those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
and uttered words of righteous wrath
Because “twas such a crooked path”
But still they follow-do not laugh-
The first migrations of that calf.

The forest became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road
where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The village road became a street,
And this, before the men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.

And soon a central street was this
In a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Followed the wanderings of this calf.

Each day a hundred thousand strong
Followed this zigzag calf along;
And over his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led
By one poor calf, three centuries dead.
For just such reverence is lent
To well established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach.

For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
(Author Unknown)

Resistance

2010-02-06T05:53:00.000-08:00

Resistance: Hermes the guardian of travelers, safe passage through changes.
Resistance is a gift in disguise. Challenges and resistance provide you a natural difficulty to over come which allow you the option of changing your mind and adapting to the changing nature of the mind gradually. Consider the following situation. You decide that you want a particular desire satisfied. You immediately begin moving in that direction the Universe has no way of knowing whether or not that desire is going to be in your best interest. Depending upon how much desire you sense for this thing you trigger resistance challenges to overcome. If you want it too much its damn near impossible to obtain it. Its for your own good. You might not be able to handle it once you have it, because you haven't yet believed that you properly earned it or some other reason such as maturity so resistance is how the universe provides a check against your desires to ensure that you really want something. Resistance prevents you from short circuiting your whole life for one single desire. If valuable things were that easy to obtain then it's possible without control that you would sacrifice and ignore every other wonderful aspect of your life in pursuit of this one desire. Consider what happens to crack heads who lose all balance in life to obtain the high of crack.

Desires trigger resistance challenges to prevent you from short circuiting your entire life for one single desire. And they also lock in your appreciation for what you do obtain after overcoming the challenges. No pain, no gain! Or rather No gain, no pain.

Resistance Challenges can be: Cost, time requirements, effort, risk, pain, discomfort, ridicule, waste, shame, patience, anything that can be used as a reason or excuse not to do something. Of course its up to you whether or not it worth it to overcome the challenge. And this is how you determine if something is worth obtaining to you or not.

The tale of the bald Frog

2010-02-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was a bald frog with a wig. The frog had been taught to believe that it was a shame to be bald, so he fashioned for himself a wig from algae and aquatic plants he found in his pond. But over time the wig continued to fall and slip off his head frustrating and shaming the bald frog until one day he finally decided that the hassle and aggravation of hiding his baldness was no longer worth more than the possible shame from showing his bald head and so he finally tore off the algae wig once and for all discovering that being bald was liberating! He'd found exactly what he had wanted all along. What was most interesting to the bald frog was the realization that all the other frogs were also bald. He had been to busy worrying about his own baldness to notice that they had all been wearing the algae wig also for they all feared the ridicule of showing their bald heads since it was well known that being bald was shameful. And it wasn't until this particular bald frog said enough of this silliness that baldness became beautiful. I shall be bald and enjoy it my days are few and bald shall I be and that's just what I'll do! Ribbit!

Attention Buckets.

2010-02-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

It seems that one of the variables in the game of life is attention. It looks like there are returns that result from attention but they operate like buckets whose contents are growing or dying. If you put attention into one bucket it automatically removes it from the other bucket. So you have to chose wisely which buckets to fill with attention because what results is that as soon as you switch buckets whatever you have put into that bucket seems to begin to disappear. Not entirely but it almost seems like quantum's because you fill these buckets to certain levels but if they don't reach the next level then once the attention is off it drains to the previous level. Its almost as if the buckets have holes in them and you must constantly be pouring attention into them or they empty on their own. These buckets can take the form of finances, health, relationships, etc.

If you don't pay attention to your finances they get out of control, If you don't water your lawn it dies shortly, if you don't pay attention to your work it soon becomes so full of mistakes that its almost impossible to get on track, what ever you ignore seems to fade away. This has both constructive and destructive features for your perspective. If you ignore a problem long enough it may no longer exist shortly afterward and the same is true of thing you want to preserve. So put your attention into things you want to preserve and remove it from those that you want to perish.

If your reality were like a computer then attention buckets could be analogs to processes, services, and threads. Starting certain activities is like launching a program. A program which takes up attention or system resources. Waking up is like booting your computer. Brushing your teeth, getting dressed, taking a shower, eating breakfast, etc each is like a part of starting the system. Once your day is started your attention launches the "drive to work" program, This program has various threads such as change lanes, accelerate, brake, etc. Once at the office you run program "get to desk" and then begin running "do work" program with all the threads that it entails. Now these are the normal daily programs but all the while your running processes in the background like "earning a wage" which dumps out put to "pay bills", and purchase necessities. Other services run in the background like "save money for vacation" and "work to pay off mortgage". The goal of attention buckets is to arrange your life in such a way that your attention buckets automatically flow over into other attention buckets so that you get good efficiency from resource to resource. You build a cascade of resource trickles that handle each other for you. And that way you can put most attention where it spills over the best. This is true multitasking. Multitasking at its best is when you layer tasks, processes, and services to result in on total array of satisfying all your desired attention buckets.

For instance you have these buckets: Pay mortgage, spend time with family, take a vacation, pay for school, keep relationships at work good, make customers happy, keep a good job, live in a decent house.

You can arrange your buckets so that each flows into the next so that they all are taken care of. Make customers happy, and keep relationships at work good, trickles into keep a good job, which trickles into pay mortgage leading to live in a decent house, and take a vacation, pay for school, which trickles into spend time with family, and enjoy your time alive.

The Gravity Against Greatness

2010-02-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

Personal Greatness can be compared to an internal self worth elevation. It is a self contained mental image or feeling, not a shared one among others but it does determines how others perceive you. [How you see your self gets broadcast by your actions, words and reactions and then received by others and returned to you in the form of respect or lack of] Everyone else naturally sees themselves as greater (or more important) than you in their own eyes and they are constantly looking for a hole in your personal greatness armor in the form of mistakes or flaws, OR DOUBT to promote themselves into a greater role or power stance either in their own minds or in the minds of others. If you see your self as great and broadcast this they will also, if you don't they won't either or rather they will find ways of exploiting your holes for their climbing purposes. The pattern seems to be that your nerve (confidence) determines the grade or hierachy of the situation. This requires vigilant participation on your part for it is a yin/yang kind of thing, the areas that you don't seize are taken to be used against you, so it's much more important than it seems on the surface. Essentially it amounts to your greatness vs. your weakness. What ever is not for you or working for you, is working against you. So you must be your own advocate. If you drop your self from your list of priorities, boom the world turns against you. (realize I'm speaking of your own perceptions of things) You don't just get the option of seizing or not but rather seize or be seized. It's active like a constant pressure or gravity. Like Gravity you must stand on something to keep you from falling and that is your nerve. As soon as you back off, you lose that ground and your competition raises around you and it's not just one, its all (this is because its in your perception). Nature does abhor a vacuum and if you won't fill it with confidence in yourself then it will be filled by your competition. So how do you maintain your nerve and greatness? By not backing down! Take the pain, take the risk, take the blame, the take the pressure and by patience, nerve, wit, strength, mental control, adapt and overcome! Give yourself a way to manage it all. Accept it. The words that you chose to speak to yourself with are your first line of strength. Next are your emotions and energy. These are all under your control so use them. It's all up to you to win or lose. This doesn't mean that you are down for good if you lose a step but it does mean you must stay vigilant. So keep in mind that when you take a break (lose your nerve, have personal doubt) it must be out of sight of the rest of the world so that you can reconfigure in peace. Any sign of weakness is openings in your Armour. Even with those who claim to be on your side you must protect against since they are closest to you and can inflict the most damaging blows. Your friends can be more dangerous than your enemies. Shared resource groups exist because of competition. The shared resource is what makes the group but also introduces the internal competition for heirachy. No one goes to work if there is no money available, no one gets married if there is no benefits. If you aren't getting what you want and need you're in the wrong group, or you are the lowest participant in the hierachy. You can change this. You are the sole warrior for your own resources. Don't let your team/group get lazy on you and you must assert your place every time it's required or you will lose it. Use the team rules for your benefit. But when they don't benefit you or the group find a way to make them benefit you.

Pace yourself! By pacing yourself you won't feel a desire to give up when the competition gets strong.

When caught in a wrong especially if no one is harmed or done for nobler reasons then other realize your best bet to signal the universe is to push through it free from guilt and internally justified. Remember who you are and that your consciousness is the one you are operating, don't give in or up. Be strong at all opposition! You know that you are Good and that this Universe is Good. Hang on that thought. Also know that Doing wrong in the eyes of others is necessary at times for the sake of learning or creating circumstances that you need. Be your own advocate always, and release any doubt about your worth especially if based on an external source for your judgment. The only consciousness you know is in your head. Remember who does the thinking!

Develop your own standard

2010-02-05T16:54:00.000-08:00

Many people believe and behave based upon external standards. They use the Bible, or other religious writings, friends opinions, tradition, and other standards.They use these external metrics to gauge their actions and lives. This is fatally flawed. There is no way that a person can ever measure up to these external standards nor would you really want to for the sake of fulfilling your potential. For me after my life trying to meet up to external standards I have learned that it is more important to develop your own standard and make yourself the measure of what is right and wrong. You must decide for yourself based upon your own reasons for your choices and opinions. If you don't do this you could potentially face the risk of bringing yourself to your own demise while living according to others views over your own. People commit suicide for this very reason. How stupid! You are the only person that you will spend all of your time with while you are alive. You will have to live with your conscience and your feelings and thoughts. It becomes meaningless to try to live according to someone else's views because you really don't have access to what they really think or beleive not to mention they may not have your best in mind. Its useful to imagine their point of view for the sake of strategy and survival. You must learn the rules of others games so that you can work with them but never lose sight of the fact that you are ultimately responsible to yourself. Don't make an external source your source for your life. You came into this world with yourself and no one should have your best interest as a higher priority than you. As a child this may not be true but once you have been around long enough to be own your own as an adult you have the responsibility to determine what is real and what is not.

Does God really need a face?

2010-01-31T06:31:00.000-08:00

This is an old writing of mine from back in 2008. I think this was a monumental achievement in my development towards a consistent view of reality.

Does God really need a face?

Ok so I I’m pondering life again and I keep going back to the idea of God. And it seems really simple to me. So many people want a God that protects them or one that gives them stuff or one to help them beat their enemies and it seems to me that every group of people want to invent or have a God that does something for them in some way either here in this life or in some afterlife. I have to admit I have been in those shoes myself for many years, but lately it seems to me that the originating source of life and everything else that we seem to think exists doesn’t really play by our rules nor it really respect what we think should be the ways things are. So it got me thinking about Good and Evil. Everyone seems to equate Good with God and Evil with Gods opposite but the more I thought about it I stumbled on a more telling pattern.

If you ask anyone if they believe in evil most if not all will say that they do. And if you push them for an example they might say something like Hitler was evil and rapists and molesters are evil. I have to agree from my normal point of view these would easily be considered evil. However, note that these are actions perpetrated against people by people. Something very commonly feared. If you first started out by asking if a volcano on an island in the pacific erupted and killed all the living creatures on the island and asked 100 people if they thought the volcano was evil it’s doubtful that many would answer that the eruption was evil. If the question were asked if lightning were to strike a mother and her newborn if that were evil you might actually get some people that would say that the lightning is evil and some that would not. If you ask it this way instead: if a dog attacked a child and unfortunately they were fatally harmed perhaps then ask if the dog was evil for doing what it did you might get more people to agree that the dog was evil. If you take it a step further say that there is a group of people that hate your ethnic group of skin color and want to kill you just for that reason it might be a lot easier to label them as an evil group. What I started to notice is that the closer I relate to the victim or perpetrator of any destructive action the easier it is to label the source of the destruction as evil. The same opposite goes for Good. The more I relate to the benefits of some action or force the more I consider it Good or from God. Simple stated the logic goes like this If it’s Good it must come from God and if its bad to me it must be Evil. The simple flaw in this logic is that it’s completely individually based and when you change perspective you no longer have the same Good and Evil as you did before. For example two opposing teams say for example to armies fighting over territory. The good team depends on which side you want to win. It simply makes more logical sense to assume that there is no such thing as good or evil rather that it boils down to perspective. The problem that we have is that people equate their Good with God. They make for themselves a God idol of their preferences and label them God’s will. So why do we do it?

I can only answer certainly for myself or what seems reasonable to me but it seems that we chose to serve the God that is going to hand us our needs, wants and preferences either now in this life or in the next. It would make no meaningful human sense to serve, worship or entertain the idea of a God that idly does not provide for us or has absolutely no preferential treatment but requires effort, worship, sacrifice or any active action on our part. However, I am arriving at a place in my understanding of the world and life that actually paints God in just that role. This is not disappointing at all. Actually refreshing.

I believe in God so much more now that I have been able to strip the creator of the human trappings that traditional and historical pictures have painted. The key to understanding God is to separate human realities from infinite ones. For instance an example of a Human reality that is not infinite is the idea and system of currency and money. Money is simply a shared idea that works as a tool. Money is not real apart from the shared agreement that people have that it can be exchanged for objects or services that are needed. Just visit a foreign country and bring the currency back and take it to your local store and see how real or fake the money is. Other examples of Human realities that are not real are laws, marriage, style, beauty, art, music, language, writing, good and evil. These are human inventions not infinite ones at all. They are no more infinite or Godly then the rules that govern a beehive, or an ant mound, or monopoly. They are simply mind structures, and temporary. These realities always change and they are products of an internal survival desire imprinted in all living creatures. Humans always like to view themselves as special or different from nature or animals but nothing could be further from the truth. Humans are very different but we are still products of the Earth. We are the result of infinite forces, energies, and time culminating and still changing in an expression of patterns and varieties so elaborate and elegant that nothing but pure appreciation and awe should be felt when pondering the vast sublime beauty that our creator and sustainer is. That is what God is about. Good and Evil are human interjections into this tapestry, mere appendages of the mind. I have to believe that at some level every living creature has it version of good and evil. I can imagine a house fly blessing the creator for a Good pile of fresh dog feces to lay its eggs into, the same Evil pile the angry guy is cursing his neighbor for allowing his evil dog to produce in his lawn. What religion needs is a dehumanization of God. I would agree that humans sure seem to be the most developed and favored animals in creation but infinite Gods we are not, nor have anyone of us of ever been at least not based upon Good or Evil.

The Fuck you factor

2009-11-03T18:40:00.001-08:00

Some times you can establish such a secure relationship with another person that you lose the fear of angering the other person because you know that nothing you can do or say will permanently damage the friendship. I call this the "fuck you" factor. This is the kind of friendship that allows you to be totally open and honest and say fuck you when you mean it but understands that you are just being you and that you can change your mind later and still be ok with them. This is more honest and true than a friendship that says it must be based upon some guidelines of limits that can not be crossed.

Obviously no one should stay in a relationship that is abusive and ugly for either of the individuals but a trust and openness so open that anything as long as it is based upon real honesty even being wrong as long as it is honest is better any day than one that is based upon self and other deception. Being in a falseness based relationship that never allows the members to develop and explore their own dimensions as individuals is a recipe for hatred.

If you really love another person in a way that allows you to admire them and simply be glad that they exist in your world simply because you can recognize their greatness apart from you is a wonderful thing. And if they reciprocate this you are in the perfect situation.

No jealously, or intoleration.

The Widow's Offering

2009-11-03T17:12:00.000-08:00

The Widow's Offering

¹As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ²He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.^[a] ³"I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

I just don't understand how intelligent people can not question how a system that tells them that they are naturally bad (sinners) and that the only way to be good is to sacrifice themselves for anyone but themselves is good for them. I mean why is it so hard to see that this is absolute insanity? I mean if everyone else is in the same boat what makes self sacrifice to someone else better than working for yourself?

The church just wants you to hurt yourself, it doesn't really matter who you help really as long as its not you? Is the widow helping the Church by giving her last penny? Really? No! She's doing no one any good at all in reality. No! In fact she's only hurting herself. It's a total waste! And this is twisted to be seen as good. Brilliant! Oh, I get it. I understand the way its supposed to be perceived; I mean it's obvious that she's showing her devotion and that she's putting hope in her idea of God. But here is the hidden message- You should do stupid sacrificial things because God will reward you. The underlying detrimental psychology behind this action is: You feel weak so you want someone else who is strong to solve your problems so you will sacrifice on the premise that God will take care of it for you. News Flash! Reality doesn't work this way. That's the lazy and foolish way to handle problems. I'll be good so my luck will improve. Sorry! It takes more real work to make your life better. It takes thinking, planning, effort, adjustments, and goal setting, not blindly sacrificing for a group that doesn't appreciate it or that can't.

Why does anyone think this is a good idea?
When I hear the story of the widow that gave all that she had it seems obvious to me that the ladies intentions are to do right by what someone told her was Gods eyes but why would God require that she hurt herself for Gods sake? It's obvious to me that from the story that Jesus's statement is true that from her perspective she did give a larger sacrifice than the rest but it's not obvious to me that Jesus was in favor of what she did. In fact if you read further His comments to the disciples were actually not so much in favor of the church or their wealth. He continued to showed that wealth and gifts dedicated to God don't really amount too much in the long run. You won't see that point brought out in Church!

Signs of the End of the Age

⁵Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, ⁶"As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."

It's just abusive and cruel to require that any person give their last penny to help the church when if the church was really powered by God it wouldn't need it. If God would take the last penny of a poor person his value to that living person is nil. The Christian God idea makes God the God of the Dead not the living. What kind of God accepts a persons last penny? Would you? Are you that selfish? Frankly I think God doesn't do that kind of shit. That's just asshole advantage seeking people who want to control the poor and others that are weak minded. Hey I guess it works! So it will continue for a long time. Just one more example of how the lack of awareness will keep you in the position of a resource provider for those more aware than you.

Does God need anything? Why would God create a special organization to collect funds to "do his will"? What kind of God is so lame and impotent that he requires people to do his bidding? I mean if God created the Heavens and the Earth and controls everything why the need for a special group to "do God's will?" I think its all Gods will. Everything from beautiful babies being born to 9/11 catastrophes; its all the Earth and the Universe in a powerful dance of forces and events. Its all the same force behind it. Christianity as having the trademark on God falls apart really badly when you start thinking about it. It's just crap. It's severely broken and yet people will continue being weak and blind just because they don't want to trust in themselves to solve their own problems, or they can't face up to the fact that their individual lives will one day cease forever into something they don't right know understand.

Only losers want fairness-Be glad Life isn't fair!

2009-09-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

There are many inequalities in the physical World. It's these unbalances that make everything happen. Cars go down the road because of inequalities, planes fly based on this and your human body lives and grows because of inequalities. Life exists because of unfairness. Another way to say it is "Life isn't fair". That's just the way it is and has to be. Period! There are people who want it to be because they operate from the erroneous idea that it should be fair. This is an emotional fantasy caused by a losers ego. They want it fair because they find themselves on the losing side of the inequality so at a minimum they want fairness. They can appeal to others on the same level with them because by raising the banner of fairness they do not offend others that might feel the same way as them, and add strength to their numbers. If they were on the other winning side of the equation they would not want fairness.

They are in the losing side so they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the idea that It could and should be fair. They take pride in hurting themselves for the their ideals. Ever hear of the phrase blessed are the weak, blessed are the poor, blessed are the...? Instead of fulfilling their needs they trade in their true desires and cling to unreal wishes for some imaginary emotional payback. In essence they lose so that others may gain and in return they get to hold on to a fantasy that emotionally makes them feel good. The best example of this is Christianity and the story of Jesus. They idealize sacrifice so that they get an emotional payback. They get to feel good by belonging to a group that thinks the same. The shared experience of belonging to groups of people that share this view such as churches, etc is their reward. The motto seems to be "Well If I can't win at least I'm in good company!". However, only by wanting more for yourself and not wanting fairness can you ever live a life of benefits or get ahead. As long as you want fairness your own conscience (your mental idea of what the group thinks) will not let you without feeling an emotion unbalance or guilt. It would cause you to ask : How can I be happy when the rest of the world is sad? Can you see how stupid that is? However, you can't make the world better by making your world sad, but that's not what the group or tribe would want you to believe.

Master your emotions and retrain them correctly. Nature benefits those who recognize this and master it. Train your emotions to match reality not some imaginary unrealistic dysfunctional ideal. Most successful people know this but I would dare say that most of the general population does not. There are many people who live this completely unaware of how it works. They keyed into this long before socialization kicked in. You don't have to punish yourself for the perceived sins of the group. Your best strategy is to learn the tribes mentality then learn how to negotiate in it, and then learn to master the unfair system and get on the benefiting side. When you achieve the level of success you need you can bestow benevolence where you want.

The weak use the emotion system of fairness idealized as religion or God to justify their struggles. I just can't get ahead they say. This is great for those that understand it because it means that the more they sacrifice the more you can win. And the sacrificial ones will feel better about it. How's that for Irony? They will be happy to fork over their money and reject the pleasures available just so they comply with their artificial emotional fairness idea.

That is why in order to be successful you must be able to control your emotions. It's almost impossible to at first because we have been socialized by TV, School and Churches in a certain way of feeling about this, and because we are constantly bombarded with emotionally charged info in songs and Internet. Don't fall into this trap! If you see wealthier people don't feel inadequate to them. Know that you too can also achieve this in this wonderful abundant world. Weaklings see others doing well and get emotional and jealous asking "why does it always seem to work out for everyone else but me? I'm such a good person I just want fairness!"Don't go getting all emotional and asking God to make it fair. But rather put your energy into yourself and getting ahead instead of the group to try to bribe God into giving you what you want. You will sacrifice yourself meaninglessly trying to force God to live up to his part of a bargain that doesn't exist. If you think that God wants fairness you will always want fairness which doesn't and can't exist. This just isn't going to happen. The Universe and nature work perfectly without a confusing concept. Get on the same page and get on the ball! This is not a fallen sinful world. It's a perfect masterpiece. When you recognize its a masterpiece you will only then Master Peace! Open your eyes and see this. God (the Universe) made the Game, you either learn to play it or lose. Don't get even, get ahead!

Welcome to Life

2009-09-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome Living creature to the Earth. Congratulations! You are now separate from everything that you were before. Don't remember? Good you are not supposed to. Exciting isn't it? Scary? Just for a while until you get used to it. But don't worry you will get used to it. It's a little uncomfortable going from being part of everything to knowing almost nothing but don't worry your one of the lucky ones. You're Here! The ones that came before you have made your turn just a little bit easier just as you will help to make the turns that come after you a bitter easier. It used to be a lot harder so be glad it took us a long time to get to this point.

You’re going to need some help starting off but you have already shown that you are qualified because you are here so take comfort knowing that you beat out billions just like you to get to right where you are. You are a winner! And you will always be a winner as long as you want to be. All you have to do is want it. As long as you "want" you will be fine. Why? Well because wanting leads you to grow and growing will turn you into what you can be. I built into your system this desire factory to keep you on the right path. While you follow your wants you will be following the one most important rule that will keep you here. Call it the prime directive. What's the rule? BE YOURSELF. Doesn't sound that difficult does it? It's harder than it sounds. Why? Because you are not alone here. There are others. Some are similar to you and some are not. They are also winners like you. And they are trying to be themselves also. They also want what you want and some times you both can't have it. Its called competition. This is why you will form groups so that you can work together to get what you want. But groups are not you and you are going to have to pretend that you are not yourself to get what you want. It’s called compromise. These groups are called families, tribes, religions, nationality, races, schools, employment, language, gender, etc. You see already you broke the first rule: you are not yourself! You stopped being yourself to get what you wanted but you broke the first rule. Okay, don't worry you have a built-in "self forgetter" that allows you to forget who "you" are called your unconscious mind it will help you convince the others that you are not yourself and that you are part of their group. Everyone has this but since we all forget it, it works fine. This is important because when you are part of a group you can more easily get what you want remember. If you were aware of this all the time you would come across as dangerous to groups and you would kill your chances at using them for their advantages. The problem is that when you are part of a group you have to use their rules and these rules are not always in your best interest. Families, religions, employers, Nationalities they all want you to act according to their rules. They will tell you things like: We don't eat with our hands, We can't eat meat on Fridays, You must believe this or you will go to hell, You have to support us, you must pay your taxes, or membership dues, etc. The thing about groups is that they are useful but limiting. Groups like everything else are just a tool in the great game of life. Just don't forget this point or you will forget that you are "you" which is rule number one; remember "be yourself-just do it when you are alone." Groups want you to work for them more than you work for you. Some groups have gone so far as to ask you to die for them. They will convince your "you forgetter" that it's noble and wonderful and manly and honorable to die for the group. They call this loyalty and make a real big deal about it. And they are right. It's everything they say but do you want to check out of the dance? If not, stay away from that kind of thinking. They will even show you others that did so as heroes of the group. Unless you are ready to go back to where you came from and you want to stop being "you" don't go down this road. The choice is up to you. Being you is fun. If you’re not having fun your are doing it wrong! Remember life is just a game it can be fun if you play it right.

Don't think that groups are all against you either, they are not. Everyone in a group is just like you. In fact this letter is for them also so just remember that. No one is more important than another but some will be more favored than others especially if they want something more than the others. This goes for you too. So if you really want something figure out how to get it or how to do it. There will be this idea called fairness. Every one who loses will want it. Winners will not. Beware of people who want fairness they are the ones that want groups. This is because they have not yet learned how to win on their own. Winning is getting what you want. There will be times when getting what you want means someone else won't. They will say its not fair and they will want to be part of a group that will work for fairness. Use groups like a tool but don't get so attached that you lose yourself. Learn about reciprication its a way to trade unlike things that have different values so that your interactions pay off for you and the rest.

Earlier I said follow your wants. That's mostly true but the problem is choosing what you want. When you figure out how to determine what you really want you will have reached a very desirable stage in the dance. It's at this point that clarity will begin and when you will see that everything I have said so far is true. Choosing what you want is confusing because you first start off knowing what you want but then you will learn to use groups to get it. But slowly you will forget what you originally wanted because the group will be so important to you. You will trade what you want for something completely foreign. Then you will get what you think you want but you will then discover it wasn't what you wanted but rather what the group said you should want. This will leave you wondering what is going on? Why didn't getting what you wanted satisfy you? The answer is not as complicated as it seems: you compromised and forgot what your really wanted and you put what the group wanted in its place. This will make you ask questions which at first will make you feel bad because the group has taught you to feel bad when you question the group. They call it morality, guilt, ethics, etc. But after you discover a few things on your own you will get stronger and dare to ask harder and more painful questions. You might even find your self leaving the group mentally while physically still pretending to be part of it. Take your time at this point. This is the time to gather information and reflect what you really know versus what you have been taught to believe. Question everything you learn from a group because every group has its own rules. Some is true some is not. You will discover that it's incredible how much you believe that you really don't know. It's painful. You might even wish you hadn't reached this point many times because the comfort level is now gone. I don't recommend getting mad. Everything you are against weakens you. Focus on what you want instead it strengthens you. Learn to negotiate and navigate in groups this will lead you to great pleasure. You might even want to start a group against the other group yourself (see how this works), But don't, if you push through it you will discover yourself again. After all discovering yourself is the most fun part of becoming all that you can be. This is what you were made for. It's really a lot of fun.

I have prepared for you inside your life a guidance tool kind of like a compass. You will know it as pain and pleasure. Pain is how you will avoid going down paths that will not get you where you should be. But just like a compass only shows you the general directions pain and pleasure only do the same. In life you will have to go East and West sometimes to go North or South because there will not be any roads to take. It's the same with the pain and pleasure compass. You will have to go through some pain to get to your pleasure. This is called resistance. It's built into the dance. The best way to get to your goal is to focus on driving not the destination. But make sure you’re on the right path. But don't think that just because you are going through pain you are going the right way. Some groups believe this! This is because many times competition provides resistance so people mistakenly think that resistance means competition and generally competition means that there is stuff others want and you might want it too. Sometimes pain just means someone needs to build a road here. Maybe you can build that road? When you master using your pain and pleasure compass you will learn to drive you mind. Avoiding pain and obtaining pleasure will be a great source of motivation. In fact it is for every living creature with a brain. Your mind is the vehicle that I have given you to navigate and enjoy the ride. It's a great tool but you will not know how to drive it correctly for a long time. Some people never learn. They stay on the group side of the dance. They will make the world a better place for you and those like you. Don't hold this against them. You might actually be one for a very long time. It's not a bad thing. Some plants never flower, and it’s fine. Its all in correct order. When you think that you have gotten really good at driving your mind be careful you don't think you have mastered it. Make sure it's not the group that's making you think that. We can call the group "culture". When you are a huge success in the eyes of the World you will have reached a point where you think you're really good at self control and driving your mind, that's when you need to get away and reflect on whether you are really following your own road or the road of the group. Also, remember what ever is good for you will be good for those that come after you. Just like you showed up into a better world than the ones before you, it is this process we use to make this a better place.

I need to tell you about rules. Rules are patterns that make boundaries. That's it and nothing more. Boundaries are what make you "YOU". When you stop being you all boundaries cease. I use boundaries to separate everything into itself. However remember that rules are just tools to make the game. They are arbitrary. Rules are everywhere. Some call them the laws of physics, others call them commandments, some call them law. Groups love rules. I use rules but I never make a rule that I can't un-make, or break. That's just the way I am. I don't like to limit myself. If you want to have some fun, make up some of your own rules. Just don't take them too seriously or you will regret it. Or a group will form around them and soon you guys will be forgetting who you are.

Okay, you’re thinking this all sounds too good right. You just can't wait to get out there and be all that you can be. Great that's what I am hoping for but here is the catch. When it's all over and you come back to join infinity everything you did, thought, felt and created stays here on this side. You can't take any of it with you. You are just playing a character in the dance of life. When it’s over you will be right back where you came from enjoying the view from my side. You will not remember any of it from your point of view. You see "You" will be no more, instead you will wake up and be ME again after you merge back to the great Everything. Infinity and beyond. You will just simply love all of it. You will enjoy every single molecule of it knowing that you are building the most beautiful art work and you will love it all equally. No group will be more favored. No individual will be more favored. You will just keep watching more individuals in all their glorious forms develop and grow and add to the beautiful creation. Magnitude and beauty and glory and life in its entire glorious splendor will continue as You/God unraveling and revealing. You are the creation, the creators great dream, it's no artificial illusion "You" are here but "you" are playing a game with and against yourself. You have been doing this for eternity getting better and better as time passes. You are the Great Creator, you take many forms and you do it all at the same time. You started with the simple and you made it complex. You started with no rules and you brought order to chaos. Then you returned it to chaos again. You are the Earth,

Go have fun kids!

Spin your own world!

2009-09-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Some people like to find tragedy in all things and others like myself like to find the victory in all things. I have found my strategy much more beneficial than the first one. When I hear of tragedy I find responses that leave me better than before not worse. Why should I take pain upon myself from of a situation when pleasure is available? Why chose pain when even remaining neutral is available? At any given moment in the World there are wonderful things happening and terrible things happening. It's not worth a crap to go around experiencing feelings about them that are not beneficial to you. The only valid feelings that you have a right to have are those that you experience about you. Why would you chose to suffer for someone else's misery? You don't even know if they are actually suffering? Its all perspective and they might not be as hurt as you might think over an event happening to them. Am I advocating not showing empathy? Sure why not? What's the point? Why should I share in the agony of another when its not happening to me? How is that fair to me? Do I get to enjoy their bonuses? When someone else gets to eat a tasty hamburger do I some how gain a benefit? No. Then why should I experience loss when someone else does? Just for the sake of sharing? Nah. They can keep it!

Sympathy and empathy may be looked upon as virtuous but why? Why would the forced action of taking upon myself the suffering of another be such a good thing? I can understand having sympathy enough to not go around killing or hurting others and being able to relate to another person who needs help but lets face it where do you draw the line? I say draw it where it doesn't hurt you. Draw it where you want. Why increase the suffering in the world? If one person is suffering you are better off finding something positive in it to rejoice about so that the net total happiness in the world increases or at least stays the same. I mean if you can help and want to go ahead, but only if you want to. If you were to measure the total happiness in the world at any moment would a bad situation be made better by more people suffering from the event than the actual individuals harmed? No. The total net happiness of the world is increased by finding the good in any situation not in suffering from it. Find the benefit in all events and you will be a better and happier person. Find the bad in any situation and you will soon become an expert on how bad life is. Go on you pessimist have your sad field day! As for me and my mind I will stay happy.

My Own Hero

2008-06-19T17:14:00.001-07:00

I want to be my own hero. I no longer want to feel scared, worried, angry, jealous, sad, victimized, oppressed or subjugated. I believe that the best thing for the people around me is to have me at my best. I will be a blessing to others if I can be a blessing to myself. I no longer want to be weak mentally, emotionally, or physically. I want to be the man that my family needs. I want to be the friend that my friends need. I don’t want to be lazy, or slack. I want to be the very essence of the best that I can be. I don’t want this for purely selfish reason but because there are many that depend upon me and I need to be there for them for a long time.

There is a new prerogative for me starting this moment. It’s to live my life, making good choices in thoughts, words, and deeds to the benefit of others and myself and to make the world a little better. I will not take myself so seriously. I will give myself room to mess up and not expect perfection. I will not believe in all or nothing notions that cause me stress and worry. Life is a continuum and I mustn’t forget that. I need to allow myself to make mistakes and learn and grow from them. I will also work to make better choices and not surrender easily when life puts a demand upon me. As of this moment on I want to be my own hero.

Walter C. Hieber III - June 19^th, 2008

Five minutes of Peace

2008-04-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

I wish to give you five minutes of peace. I would rather give you even longer but 5 minutes might be all you need to get back to a calm spot that will carry you through whatever you might have to face today.

Starting this very second if you have five minutes I want you to clear your mind of anything at all. Stop your worrying.
Stop your planning.
Stop complaining.
Just plain stop and be grateful for five minutes of pure uninterrupted quietness.

Now think about things that you are thankful for.
It might be your family, your pet, your friends.
It might be your car or your house, or your bicycle.
Be thankful for those things that are right in front of you.
Be happy for those that love you, that show up when you are down, that bring you presents on your birthday.
Think nice thoughts about them. These are the people that are there to pick you up when you can't pick yourself up. Be there for them also it will bring more happiness to you.
Be happy right now. Don't worry about the rest of the day or tomorrow or next week be happy right now.

Here are some of the things I am grateful for this moment right in front of me:
Air conditioning
Clean Clothes
A glass of ice cold tea
my computer
My wife
my sleeping children
my children are a sleep!
comfortable roof over my head
peace and quiet
a nice lamp
my bed which I will be in soon.

Thank God for the little things and the big ones will be just as wonderful!