I just wanted to say something about this, free from promotion, free from advertisement, free from the will to sell something to anyone. If no one reads this blog, it will be a blessing to me, as I’m not sure how it will fare with the general population.
In our desire for something out of the ordinary, we might have the tendency to fill words with triple meanings. But in the end, what is actually there? Tools that work to do a certain thing. For example, a mantra to remember dreams. That can end up being very useful. A ritual with an elemental for protection, that can also be very useful. What we have is an arsenal of useful tools and weapons to aid us in our lives. Do we have to use them? Is there something wrong with us if we choose not to use them? Is there something right with us if we do use them? The answer to all of these questions is: No. Tools are what they are. Do you have to remember a dream? No. Do you have to wake up and meditate? No. If we feel these have to’s then it’s our own reading into things that has caused it. If you want to remember a dream, then try. If you can’t, maybe the mantra will help. Simple enough.
Something else I’ve seen is the tendency to compare ourselves with people, and people with other people. This teacher is better than that teacher, this place is better than that place. Well maybe it is true, maybe not. But the point is that there is really no teacher or student other than you yourself. Who can teach you about yourself, other than yourself? Who can teach you how to live your life? No one can do that, and they are foolish if they wish to. Hey everyone, look at me, yeah, follow me, I’m good, I’m what’s right, Yeah…………. No….. Hey look, I’m well composed, I never make mistakes, I speak so eloquently, blah blah blah… So what?
Do you want to drink soda even though so-and-so higher up in the hierarchy doesn’t? Then do it. Do you want to watch a movie even though so-and-so says there’s something more important to be doing? Watch the movie.
I sense a purpose to the whole of life, a reason to our existence, and I highly doubt it is so that we can be told and tell each other how to think, how to feel, and how to act. In the end, we’re the only ones who can free ourselves from slavery to anyone or anything, because there will always be something trying to ensnare us again and again and again.
Both theists and atheists are quite ridiculous. The majority of them seem to be stuck in their own narrow extremist ways of thinking, whether it’s left or right. For instance, I was reading comments on Reddit today and people were going on about the many-worlds theory. But they will straight-up dismiss the idea of a man who could have died and resurrected. Why not? What makes it so unbelievable? Doesn’t it fit in with your many-worlds theory? Or it’s only velociraptors that fit into that?
I think mass communication is just accelerating this split, because as people group together, then one side gets more and more absurd, then those who recognize it tend to go to the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. It’s kind of like you have a lot of people who start an “I-Like-Apples” club, and generation after generation it gets bigger, at first people actually eat apples and like it so they join the group, they want more people to like apples. After a while though, they just want more people in their group, they forget about the apples, identified with a purpose to get more people to join their group, even to the point that many of its members have never eaten an apple. Then you have the group who doesn’t like apples, I-Hate-Apples, which started with very few (who doesn’t like apples?). But as the ILA gang grows in numbers and their ways become more and more absurd, then those who recognize how stupid those in the ILA group have become will start to join the IHA group. It no longer has anything to do with apples, although all of the members on both sides are convinced otherwise..
So basically what I’m trying to say is that we are not very concerned with the apples, but more with the group to which we belong.
Why can’t there be gods? Why can’t there be people who have existed who had extraordinary abilities? It doesn’t matter what we say those abilities belong to. Your eyesight is a miracle to someone who doesn’t have it, it is a mystery. Likewise if someone can see something in their mind although they’re at a distance, or if someone can rise from the grave, or whatever, that is a great mystery to someone who can’t do it, but that doesn’t dismiss it scientifically. Even that it is rare does not dismiss it scientifically.
Mathematically though, God can be understood, not as some separate entity or thing, but just the collective of all things, the source. The source of something is the sum of its parts, so if you add all the numbers on a number line, you get positive infinity plus negative infinity, which results in Zero, which is just a concept, but it actually is the source of all things, so in separating from its source, every number and its opposite exist. And what is anything except number gathered into some order?
I wish more people would want to make sense out of principles instead of being so concerned about taking sides.
I made this for myself because I love RPGs but wanted some motivation to do something in RL… I am not a programmer so Excel 2003 is the best it’s gonna get.
leveling-1.1 (w/charisma and sidequests) http://www.mediafire.com/?m2ottqndwrg
(be sure to check out the video response to this on how to set up sidequests)
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If you are using the sidequests, make sure at the beginning of each week to copy the stats first, then change the date. If you change the date first the stats from the sidequest will not be added since its completion date is no longer within the week listed. So just make sure first thing is copying the stats, all is fine to clear after that.
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It’s a lot of fun to do this with a friend, try to make the activities and stats match as close as possible so there’s some competition. Competition is always good motivation.
A clarification on stats going down, it’s if you don’t reach 1/3 of the goal for that particular stat between all the activities, not 1/3 of each activity. For instance, if swimming and running both add to strength, you could not run at all but swim enough to make up for it and it would bring your str out of the negatives.
Please post any questions or comments on YouTube.
Thanks!
This is how to setup sidequests. It is absolutely necessary that when you complete a sidequest the date you enter is in this week’s date, as in make sure you enter the date right (and not late).
It’s one thing to be open to “ideas”, but a totally different thing to know something. Ideas are dead, are they not? They are based in uncertainty. Idea is the same as belief. They are things which are stated without knowledge. But knowledge only comes from within, it can’t be given from outside. So fine, be open to ideas, but find knowledge within yourself, and when you have it then no one can take it away from you. 2+2=4, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, that is knowledge in myself. But to someone who doesn’t know that, or understand that, then I can show them how I know, but the understanding ultimately has to come from within that person. Back in high school, I used to spend hours trying to help my friend with her math homework. I explained things as well as I could, and my answers were right, but she would get so frustrated she didn’t understand, and she would tell me things like “that’s stupid, what you just said is stupid”, but it certainly wasn’t… Math was my thing, my answers and explanations were right, but she just didn’t understand..
Imagine you have traveled to a distant land and tasted of some exotic fruit. It was a difficult road you took, but one that anyone else can take. But instead of taking that road, people tell you that what you say doesn’t mesh with their ideas.. Well you know that what you say is true, whether their ideas about it agree or not. When you try to tell them the road to take, and how to take it, they say “well my ideas say this or that”, well then it’s not really about you being open to their ideas, it’s about them being open to your knowledge and willing to take the steps you say it will take to reach that destination. There is a huge playing field here in this age when it comes to religion, and it’s just a big fat mess of IDEAS and BELIEFS and DIS-BELIEFS, which have very little to do with KNOWLEDGE which is what we want, right? Sometimes true knowledge gets mixed in with them, to such an extent that it fascinates people in a lifetime of theories and illusions like playing some mystery game, but this whole thing they live out is EXTERNAL, and it results in death, the brain dies and what’s left? The ideas that were bouncing around in their brain died with their brain! Real knowledge is completely INTERNAL and is found through searching there, and when it’s known then it’s no longer an idea. But this knowledge isn’t even in facts, it is about a living knowledge, a direct connection with the divine in each moment, building a world of divine vigilance, and this kind of knowledge is eternal, it does not die with the brain. If we think of what a village of perfect beings would be, what would it be like? Would they be talking about ideas, theories, etc.? Lifetimes are wasted like this.
So then how do we use the intellect to go beyond the intellect and find the divinity inside us? I agree the intellect is a useful tool. It’s the intellect that will understand where the map is pointing in order to even take it up to begin with. Without the intellect, the map wouldn’t make any sense. But once a step makes sense, then it has to go into action in real-time inside ourselves. Without having fallen from simplicity into complexity then we couldn’t return to simplicity with knowledge of the complexity. But the path has always been this: falling in order to rise. As we are fallen and in the complexity, then it is time to take up the sword and return to simplicity, right? Right.. otherwise we are just wasting our time. Some point has to come when we say, okay it’s time to go home, like the Prodigal Son, and actually do it.
This is a review for the book “The Flight of the Feathered
Serpent” by Armando Cosani. The original book was written in 1953, but
its contents relate very closely to the recently translated “Gospel of
Judas” which you can find free here: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/_pdf/GospelofJudas.pdf It is interesting that the book tells a similar story because the
Gospel of Judas wasn’t translated until the year 2006 and is the first
and only so far to relate such a controversial message!
Sam: I know, it’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here.. but we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered – full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass, a new day will come. And when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding onto something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.
Those on whom the Spirit of life will descend and (with whom) he will be with the power, they will be saved and become perfect and be worthy of the greatness and be purified in that place from all wickedness and the involvements in evil. Then they have no other care than the incorruption alone, to which they direct their attention from here on, without anger or envy or jealousy or desire and greed of anything. They are not affected by anything except the state of being in the flesh alone, which they bear while looking expectantly for the time when they will be met by the receivers (of the body). Such then are worthy of the imperishable, eternal life and the calling. For they endure everything and bear up under everything, that they may finish the good fight and inherit eternal life.
For banned books week (Sep. 26 – Oct. 3), here are my picks from the 
