we are literally what we think

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Prominent leaders of the Right including President Trump have openly spoken of their admiration of Ayn Rand's philosophy.

                         Joel S Goldsmith

(American spiritual author, teacher, healer and mystic)

Joel S Goldsmith's  last home was Hawaii. He grew up  in the world of the Garment District of New York City. He had many spiritual experiences and after WW II founded The Infinite Way movement. He lectured all over the  by word of mouth. His lectures were taped and are on You Tube. They were assembled into books. There are 25 on Amazon and many more were published. I started buying them in the early 60s including The Infinite Way, The Art of Meditation, Man Was Not Born to Cry. The one I keep close by to this day is The World is New. I bought it in 1965.

                                  Adyashanti 

(Steven Gray) s an American spiritual teacher and author from the San Francisco Bay Area who offers talks, online study courses, and retreats in the United States and abroad.  

Hi background is primarily Zen Buddhism, but he would not describe what he teaches  as Zen. The heart of his teaching is to help people question their argument with reality, with what is, and also to help them question their whole notion of themselves

 PL Kyodan, or the Church of Perfect Liberty, is a Japanese Shinshūkyō founded in 1924 by Tokuharu Miki, who was a priest in the Ōbaku sect of Zen Buddhism. The stated aim of the Church of Perfect Liberty is to bring about world peace. 

 About PL

 PL teaches that "Life is Art" and that humans are born to express their own unique individuality in everything they do, "creating true art".   

Life is art. To live is to express one's self. God appears through one's self. Being annoyed limits your expression. One's self is lost by being emotional.

Efface your self conceptions. Everything exists in relativity. Live as the sun

Human beings are all equal.. Love yourself and others. Always be with god

Everything has a way according to its name. 

There is a way for men and a way for women

World peace is everything. All is a mirror. 

All things progress and develop

Grasp what is most essential. Each moment is a turning point. Begin once you perceive.

Live maintaining equilibrium between mind and matter. Live in perfect liberty

"I teach suffering, its origin, cessation and path. That's all I teach", declared the Buddha 2500 years ago.The Four Noble Truths contain the essence of the Buddha's teachings. It was these four principles that the Buddha came to understand during his meditation under the bodhi tree. 1)The truth of suffering (Dukkha) 2)The truth of the origin of suffering (Samudāya) 3)The truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha) 4)The truth of the path to the cessation of suffering (Magga)The Buddha is often compared to a physician. In the first two Noble Truths he diagnosed the problem (suffering) and identified its cause. The third Noble Truth is the realisation that there is a cure.The fourth Noble Truth, in which the Buddha set out the Eightfold Path, is the prescription, the way to achieve a release from suffering. The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right Samadhi (meditative absorption or union.)  

Aztec & Mayan Calendars (above)

ACIM is a Course delivered over one Calendar year and divided into 365 daily lessons. It can be repeated as needed.

Helen Schucman dictated the Course to William Thetford in the 70s. She attributed the Text to God who she felt had a special message for her. It was received as a One Year "Course" and spoken to her by Jesus Christ in Rhythmic Verse which as a musician I like. There is a  Routine to be performed at times throughout the day  to reinforce the Daily Lesson. The Course teaches how to pursue happiness and has been translated into 22 languages. 

A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.

A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified.

Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.

The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there.

Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality.

What is the Ego?

The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. It is the “will” that sees the Will of God as enemy, and takes a form in which it is denied. The ego is the “proof” that strength is weak and love is fearful, life is really death, and what opposes God alone is true.

The ego is insane. In fear it stands beyond the Everywhere, apart from All, in separation from the Infinite. In its insanity it thinks it has become a victor over God Himself. And in its terrible autonomy it “sees” the Will of God has been destroyed. It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams; its enemies, who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them.  The Son of God is egoless. 

Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him.

"Forget your troubles and just be happy! 

Judy Garland "Get Happy" (Summer Stock (1950)

The scene above is from the Victorian British Navy Opera H.M.S.  Pinafore which was created by Musicians Gilbert & Sullivan who were both Freemasons. Other Freemasons are Jesse Jackson, Richard Pryor, John Wayne, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and  Gerald Ford.  I was a member of the Masons, SR and Shrine and continue my interest exploring the boundless material on Freemasonry on line. 

Other Freemasons:

Clark Gable, Don Rickles, Franklin D Roosevelt,  Oscar Wilde, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Houdini, Ernest Borgnine,  Mel Blanc, Charles Lindbergh,  Voltaire,  Count Basie, William McKinley, Thurgood Marshall, William Howard Taft,  Mozart, James Monroe, Mark Twain, Glenn Ford, Will Rogers, Cecil B. DeMille, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole,  Duke Ellington, Douglas MacArthur, Sugar Ray Robinson, John Philip Sousa,  Rudyard Kipling, Bud Abbot, Peter Sellers, Francis Scott Key, Bob Feller, John Hancock, Billy Wilder, Oliver Hardy, Henry Clay, Arnold Palmer,  Irving Berlin, W.C. Fields, Davy Crockett, Jack Dempsey, Red Skelton, Thomas Paine, J. Edgar Hoover,  Ty Cobb, Paul Revere, Roy Rogers, Patrick Henry, Willy Mays,David Patterson, Tim Horton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Douglas Fairbanks, Harpo Marx, Samuel Adams,Cy Young, Honus Wagner, Tex Ritter, Thomas Edison, Colonel Sanders, Ludwig an Beethoven, Felix 

Mendelssohn, Winston Churchill, 

"Ferris Wheel"

by Reel Don Steele

l am on the way down but soon be on the upswing for another exciting ride to the top. 

"Cocoon"

by Reel Don Steele

I wrap myself in silken threads of silence. 

An Ode to "Nothing"

(Morales/A Chorus Line)

by Reel Don Steele

Nothing is a good thing because everything emerges  from it and it its time returns.

Mark

 I have been studying the past year "The Secret of the Kingdom of God" by Hugh Humphrey. It is about the Literary and Theological  Achievement of the Evangelist Mark. (Hugh M. Humphrey retired after 50 years teaching at the Jesuit Catholic Fairfield University in Connecticut). 

Kabbalah

Exciting to see new on line courses making this ancient Jewish philosophy congruent with Goldsmith, ACIM, 

Chinese Wisdom

They divide up the year in Seasons with dozens of traditions of each Season. It's the Winter season so Chinese lore recommend eating lots of Ginger. Take noon day walks in the sun. Go to bed e early and sleep late. Cut back on sexual activity. 

ABRAHAM

At the age of 75 childless and his life a failure,  with God 's encouragement, Abraham left his roots and went off on his own. But not exactly. To reassure him God said “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; Abraham was a stranger in a dangerous land; This is the first reference to God as a “shield”; The Lord is the protector of all of his people; The Psalms often identify God in this way: See Psalms 3,7,18  your reward shall be very great.”  Faithfulness to God is rewarded with grace, mercy, protection, love, eternal life; Some translations say “I am your very reward”, that our relationship with God awards us with all that defines God  But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”  Abraham soon would marry and have a child. It is  fair to tell God of our grievances. He wants to hear our troubles and cares, and bear them for us. Abraham felt as though he were trapped, destined to be childless forever.  And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.”  Reading scripture can reassure us of the promises of God.  God’s approach to Abraham is gentle, not rebuking any lack of faith, which indicates that Abraham was not angry, but more longing for a son, and called on God to fulfill His word. And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  This is a moment between friends, between a Heavenly Father and son. Abraham expressed his troubles, and God relieved him. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham trusted God, and his faith grew from this interaction.

And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”  Nothing is beyond God, He called Abraham specifically.  

                       Poland's Contributions

Jan Sobieski was King of Poland 100 years before our American Revolution. He personally commanded his Polish Army and won decisive battles (followed by finishing blows by Marshall Potocki) saving Europe from becoming part of the invading Ottoman Islamic Caliphate.

It is conceivable that England would be conquered and the Ottoman's would claim America as part of their Islamic Caliphate.  

(1,000 year before in 732 the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate intended to conquer Europe and invaded France but was defeated by Charles Martel in the Battle of Tours).  

  All Americans need to remember that a

 Polish Businessman and broker Haym Salomon was responsible for raising most of the money needed to finance the American Revolution and later to save the new nation from collapse.

                                       Music

Poland is also noted for Pianist  and Composer Frédéric Chopin  famous for "The Minute Waltz". 

                                   Chemistry

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics, and with her later win, in Chemistry, she became the first person to claim Nobel honors twice. Her efforts with her husband Pierre led to the discovery of polonium and radium, and she championed the development of X-rays. 

                                   Space

NASA reports that Polish Aerospace Engineers and Space Architects s were heavily involved in the early development of our Rocket Technology.  

Today, Polish Engineers developed the most important components of the flight software for the OPS-SAT Mission, the European Space Agency's technology Test Satellite launched last December. If Poland's solution works, it has a chance to become a standard used in all satellites of the European Space Agency and one day, all the largest space agencies in the world, including NASA. They never buckled under Communism and along with Rumania are pushing back on EU control.