America has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the prison population - I still find it hard to believe this onslaught against its own non-white people

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In case you didn't get it from the last post

1 in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail compared with 

1 in 36 Hispanic men, and 

1 in 12 African-American men.

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Even more shocking

America has 5% of the world's population and

25% of the prison population (mostly young black men)

.

http://youtu.be/RfCHolnJVTA

.

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Oh Dear God and this is the wealthiest nation on earth

the land of the free

home of the American Dream!

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and the mega-rich

can now console themselves with the idea that

 

the poor are poor because they have failed to

 

generate sufficient will-power

The New Republic

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They will tell you it has nothing to do with the fact that - 

 The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than 

half of all American households combined

 

and yet their tax rate has fallen 

by about half in the past 20 years. 

See HERE

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Mr Obama what are you doing?

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Michelle Alexander on Why Real Justice Means Fewer Prisons

Think Outside the Bars

Why real justice means fewer prisons.

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by Michelle Alexander

posted Jun 08, 2011

PEEK INSIDE THE SUMMER 2011 ISSUE OF YES! MAGAZINE

A white woman with gray hair pulled neatly into a bun raises her hand. She keeps it up, unwavering and rigid, as she waits patiently for her turn to speak. Finally, the microphone is passed to the back of the room, and she leaps to her feet. With an air of desperation she blurts out, “You know white people suffer in this system, too, don’t you? It’s not just black and brown people destroyed by this drug war. My son, he’s been in the system. He’s an addict. He needs help. He needs treatment, but we don’t have money. He needs his family. But they keep givin’ him prison time. White people are hurting, too.” She is trembling and sits down. 

There is an uncomfortable silence in the room, but I am in no hurry to respond. I let her question hang in the air. I want people to feel this discomfort, the tension created by her suffering. The audience is overwhelmingly African American, and a few of them are visibly agitated or annoyed by her question. I’ve spent the last forty minutes discussing my book, The New Jim Crow. The book argues that today, in the so-called era of colorblindness, and, yes—even in the age of Obama—racial caste is alive and well in America. The mass incarceration of poor people of color through a racially biased drug war has birthed a new caste system. It is the moral equivalent of Jim Crow.

Racial Politics, Not Crime

The audience has heard the facts: Our prison population quintupled in a few short decades for reasons that have stunningly little to do with crime or crime rates. Incarceration rates—especially black incarceration rates—have soared regardless of whether crime was going up or down in any given community or the nation as a whole. Mass incarceration has been driven primarily by politics—racial politics—not crime. As part of a backlash against the Civil Rights Movement, our nation declared a “War on Drugs” that has turned back the clock on racial progress in the United States. Although people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, African Americans have been targeted at grossly disproportionate rates. When the War on Drugs escalated in the mid-1980s, prison admissions for African Americans skyrocketed, nearly quadrupling in three years, then increasing steadily to a level in 2000 more than 26 times the level in 1983. In some states, 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison have been African American.

Just the Facts:
It's a Locking-People-Up Problem
The American problem with mass incarceration has less to do with crime than you think.

As a nation, we’ve been encouraged to imagine that this war has been focused on rooting out violent offenders or drug kingpins, but that is far from the truth. Federal funding has flowed to those state and local law enforcement agencies that boost dramatically the sheer number of drug arrests. It’s a numbers game. That’s why the overwhelming majority of people arrested in the drug war are the “low-hanging fruit”—poor people of color who are stopped, frisked, and tossed to the sidewalk by law enforcement, forced to lie spread-eagled on the pavement, simply because they “looked like” criminals while standing on the corner talking to friends or walking home from school or the subway.

The U.S. Supreme Court has given the police license to sweep poor communities of color, stopping, interrogating, searching anyone or everyone—without any evidence of criminal activity—so long as they get “consent.” What’s consent? When a police officer, with his hand on his gun, approaches a 16-year-old on the street and bellows, “Son, will you turn around so I can frisk you?” and the kid says, “Yeah,” and complies, that’s consent. Usually the exchanges are less polite.

And once the police get consent, the Fourth Amendment ban against unreasonable searches and seizures no longer applies. According to the Supreme Court, these “consensual” encounters are of no constitutional significance, even though they may wind up sending a 19-year-old kid to prison for the rest of his life: Life sentences for first-time drug offenses were upheld by the Supreme Court in Harmelin v. Michigan. The race of the defendant in that case was key to the sentence in the first place. It is nearly impossible to imagine a judge sentencing a white college kid to life in prison for getting caught with a bag of weed or cocaine. That’s how this system works: Poor people of color are swept into the criminal justice system by the millions for drug crimes that go largely ignored when committed by middle- or upper-class whites. And release from prison or jail marks just the beginning of punishment, not the end.

Once branded a criminal, people enter a parallel social universe in which they are stripped of the rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement. The old forms of discrimination—employment and housing discrimination, denial of basic public benefits and the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service—are perfectly legal again. In some major American cities, more than half of working-age African American men are saddled with criminal records and thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. These men are part of a growing undercaste—not class, caste—a group of people, defined largely by race, who are relegated to a permanent, second-class status by law.

Uniting Poor People

The white woman is waiting for me to speak.

I know a great deal rides on my response. It is not an overstatement to say that the success or failure of the emerging movement to end mass incarceration may turn on the ability of advocates like myself to respond to people like her in a manner that validates and honors her experience, while not brushing aside—even slightly—the thoroughly racial nature of the prevailing caste system. Is it possible to join poor whites like her with poor people of color in a movement to challenge a political and economic system that harms them all, though differently?

1 in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men, and 1 in 12 African-American men.

There was a brief moment when it seemed clear that the answer was yes. As the Civil Rights Movement was gaining full steam, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders made clear that that they viewed the eradication of economic inequality as the next front in movement building—a Poor People’s Movement was required. Genuine equality for black people, King reasoned, demanded a radical restructuring of society, one that would address the needs of black and white poor throughout the country.

via yesmagazine.org

Click on link to read full article

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'If you are poor - develop your will-power. If you are rich you don't need to bother' Ho, ho, ho! | The New Republic

In a paper in April 2010, Harvard behavioral economist Sendhil Mullainathan (for whom, full disclosure, I once worked) and MIT’s Abhijit Banerjee applied this same notion to decisions requiring self-control. If a doughnut costs twenty-five cents, they wrote, then that “$0.25 will be far more costly to someone living on $2 a day than to someone living on $30 a day. In other words, the same self-control problem is more consequential for the poor.” And so, in addition to all the structural barriers that prevent even determined poor people from escaping poverty, there may be another, deeper, and considerably more disturbing barrier: Poverty may reduce free will, making it even harder for the poor to escape their circumstances.

All of this suggests that we need to rethink our approaches to poverty reduction. Many of our current anti-poverty efforts focus on access to health, educational, agricultural, and financial services. Now, it seems, we need to start treating willpower as a scarce and important resource as well.

via tnr.com

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What's the greatest staement you have ever heard? Mine is "If they stay connected at the heart level no one has to die."

via youtube.com

If you have little time run the video from around 3mins

The man is a genius

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Horses as Healers by Lorna Shepardson — YES! Magazine

Horses as Healers

What do you do with a kid who’s angry, depressed, disconnected, or all of the above? Lorna Shepardson knows a magical gift horses possess that can help bring young people from the depths of darkness to a glimmer of self-confidence. This is Lorna’s story.

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by Lorna Shepardson

posted Jun 09, 2011

— tags: newsletter

“Rusty, I promise to keep you safe and I need you to keep me safe, and if I make a mistake I want you to forgive me, and if you make a mistake I will forgive you.”

If you overheard this conversation, you might think that Rusty and this person have a trusting relationship.  They do.  Yet, there’s something you should know about why this connection’s so special. 

Rusty is a horse.

Equine-assisted therapy as it’s formally known today has been around for 20 years. As with any counseling mode it isn’t helpful for all people, but it has given many people a real, honest insight about themselves that might not have been revealed otherwise. 

Animals as Natural Therapy (ANT) operates at Windy Acres, a former dairy farm, nestled beside the Queen and King mountains in Bellingham, Washington. Upon arrival, you’re greeted by a menagerie of sights and sounds. Horses nudge each other vying for the first mouthful of hay. Juan, the banty rooster, crows with his squeaky little voice. The contagious giggle of an 8 year old spills into the arena as Patriot softly tickles her cheek with his long whiskers.

People who come to ANT think they are coming to learn about horses; this is often their only goal. But ultimately they learn about themselves.

via yesmagazine.org

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Becoming an Empath

via youtube.com

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Sir Ken Robinson on Q TV

via youtube.com

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Ken Robinson: Education Innovation - Conversations from Penn State

via youtube.com

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What is Nonduality? - James M Corrigan's site

What is Nonduality?

Simple Answer:

Nonduality is the state or condition of not being separate and distinct even if appearing to be so. It is the condition which allows us to say that there is no true separation between ourselves and anyone else or anything else in the world, for instance. When we say things like “We are all one,” or “God is in all things,” we are asserting that the presence we call ‘reality’ is a nonduality.

A “nondualism” is a systematic description of nondual reality, or the tradition of spiritual practices of nonduality.

More Complicated Answer:

Nonduality is the condition that one arrives at when all distinctions and relations between ‘things’ are removed. Fundamentally, all such distinctions and relations are the result of error on our part because it is we that impose the idea of plurality on the whole. Nonduality is thus a simple wholeness, rather than an “all in one” whole. It is very difficult to clearly contemplate such a simple wholeness, because by thinking about it and conceptualizing it, we have lost the simple wholeness that is the real nonduality that we were trying to grasp, which is always already our very nature – we are reality. Nonduality is the Infinite because we can both indivisibly apprehend it and enumerate it inexhaustibly into parts and relations between parts.

Nondualism according to this understanding is an error because fundamentally anything that we say or think about the Infinite removes this simple wholeness of reality from our grasp.

The Ultimate Answer:

Nonduality is ineffable. Any words that attempt to capture its essence instead hides it from us.

via anintroductiontoawareness.com

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Guide to Literary and Critical Theory - Written and Designed by Dino Franco Felluga

  Introductory Guide to Critical Theory     Written and Designed by
Dino Franco Felluga

 

 

via cla.purdue.edu

Click on link to go to site

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Wikipedia article on emotions

Robert Plutchik created a wheel of emotions in 1980 which consisted of 8 basic emotions and 8 advanced emotions each composed of 2 basic ones.^[1]

Basic emotion	Basic opposite
Joy	Sadness
Trust	Disgust
Fear	Anger
Surprise	Anticipation
Sadness	Joy
Disgust	Trust
Anger	Fear
Anticipation	Surprise

Human Feelings (The results of Emotions.)	Feelings	Opposite
Optimism	Anticipation + Joy	Disappointment
Love	Joy + Trust	Remorse
Submission	Trust + Fear	Contempt
Awe	Fear + Surprise	Aggressiveness
Disappointment	Surprise + Sadness	Optimism
Remorse	Sadness + Disgust	Love
Contempt	Disgust + Anger	Submission
Aggressiveness	Anger + Anticipation	Awe

[edit] Emotions by groups

Here is a categorised, tree structured list of emotions as described in Parrot (2001).^[2][3]

Primary emotion	Secondary emotion (more correctly feelings)	Tertiary feelings/emotions
Love	Affection	Adoration, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, sentimentality
	Lust/Sexual desire	Arousal, desire, lust, passion, infatuation
	Longing	Longing
Joy	Cheerfulness	Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria
	Zest	Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration
	Contentment	Contentment, pleasure
	Pride	Pride, triumph
	Optimism	Eagerness, hope, optimism
	Enthrallment	Enthrallment, rapture
	Relief	Relief
Surprise	Surprise	Amazement, surprise, astonishment
Anger	Irritation	Aggravation, irritation, agitation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness, crosspatch
	Exasperation	Exasperation, frustration
	Rage	Anger, rage, outrage, fury, wrath, hostility, ferocity, bitterness, hate, scorn, spite, vengefulness, dislike, resentment
	Disgust	Disgust, revulsion, contempt, loathing
	Envy	Envy, jealousy
	Torment	Torment
Sadness	Suffering	Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
	Sadness	Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
	Disappointment	Dismay, disappointment, displeasure
	Shame	Guilt, shame, regret, remorse
	Neglect	Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult
	Sympathy	Pity, sympathy
Fear	Horror	Alarm, shock, fear, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification
	Nervousness	Anxiety, nervousness, tenseness, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, distress, dread

[edit]

via en.wikipedia.org

Which are the most common in terms of the negative emotions that make up the pain-body as Tolle calls the egoic false self?

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Emotional Competency - Recognize these emotions

Learn to recognize these emotions in yourself and others
Know how you feel

Each emotion serves as a primal beacon, guiding us along the difficult path of survival and procreation. Many researchers have worked to define emotions and have created their own lists of what they consider to be an emotion. Several of those lists are presented here. Use these lists and short descriptions to recognize the emotions you are feeling; then use the detailed description of each emotion to guide you toward the most constructive response. A subjective mood map locates each emotion according to the energy level and good-bad feelings often associated with it. Seven Basic Emotions Paul Ekman has dedicated his career to researching emotions, focusing primarily on these seven basic emotions. Fear — Danger lurks Sadness — Impending loss Anger — Conspecific threat, trespass, thwarted goals, plea for justice Joy — Impending gain Surprise — Unexpected event Disgust — Contamination, toxic contact Contempt — Substandard behavior or being The following facial expressions are characteristic of these seven basic emotions throughout the world:

Surprise	Disgust	Contempt	Fear	Joy	Sadness	Anger

The Passion and Reason 15 The book Passion and Reason provides clear definitions and descriptions of 15 separate emotions. These are: Anger — Conspecific threat, trespass, loss attributed to an agent, unjust insult, thwarted goals, plea for justice Envy — Desiring other's stature objects Jealousy — Threat to sexual access. Fright — Concern for a future specific unpleasant event. Anxiety — Concern for an unidentified unpleasant event. Guilt — You have a standard and I did not meet it. Shame — I have a standard and I did not meet it Relief — Anticipated undesirable outcome has not occurred Hope — Anticipation of future desirable event or outcome Sadness — A specific undesirable outcome has occurred Depression — lost hope Happiness — A desirable event or outcome has occurred Pride — I approve of my actions, I have met a standard (mine = smug, yours = authentic) Love — Attraction and caring Gratitude — Appreciating another's kindness Compassion — Feeling the pain of another Aesthetic Experience — Awe, wonder, and slight fear of nature and its creations. The Rationalized 22 The book The Cognitive Structure of Emotions describes these 22 distinct emotions in an organized structure: Appraisal of an event: Joy — (contented, cheerful, delighted, ecstatic, elated, euphoric, feeling good, glad, happy, joyful, jubilant, pleasantly surprised, pleased) — Pleased by the appraisal of an event Distress — (depressed, distressed, displeased, dissatisfied, distraught, feeling bad, feeling uncomfortable, grief, homesick, lonely, lovesick, miserable, regret, sad, shock, uneasy, unhappy, upset) — displeased by the appraisal of an event Fortune of others: Happy-for — (delighted-for, happy-for, pleased-for) — Pleased about an event desirable for another Sorry-for — (compassion, pity, sad-for, sorry-for, sympathy) — Displeased about an event undesirable for another Resentment — (envy, jealousy, resentment) — Displeased about an event desirable for another Gloating — (gloating, Schadenfreude) — Pleased about an event undesirable for another Appraisal of an agent's action: Pride — (pride) — Approving of one’s own action Shame — (embarrassment, feeling guilty, mortified, self-blame, self-condemnation, self-reproach, shame, (psychologically) uncomfortable, uneasy) — Disapproving of one’s own action Admiration — (admiration, appreciation, awe, esteem, respect) — Approving of another’s action Reproach — (appalled, contempt, despise, distain, indignation, reproach) — Disapproving of another’s action Appraisal of an Object: Love — (adore, affection, attracted-to, like, love) — Liking an appealing object Hate — (aversion, detest, disgust, dislike, hate, loathe, repelled-by, revulsion) — Disliking an unappealing object Appraisal of a possible future (prospective) event: Hope — (anticipation, excitement, expectancy, hope, hopeful, looking forward to) — Pleased about a prospective desirable event Fear — (apprehensive, anxious, cowering, dread, fear, fright, nervous, petrified, scared, terrified, timid, worried) — Displeased about a prospective undesirable event Satisfaction — (gratification, hopes-realized, satisfaction) — Pleased about an confirmed desirable event Relief —(relief) — Pleased about a disconfirmed undesirable event Fears-confirmed — (fears-confirmed, worst fears realized) — Displeased about a confirmed undesirable event Disappointment — (dashed-hopes, despair, disappointment, frustration, heartbroken) — Displeased about a disconfirmed desirable event Compound Emotions: Gratification — (gratification, pleased-with-oneself, self-satisfaction, smug) — Pride + joy Gratitude — (appreciation, feeling indebted, thankful) — Admiration + joy Anger — (anger, annoyance, exasperation, fury, incensed, indignation, irritation, livid, offended, outrage, rage) — Reproach + distress Remorse — (penitent, remorse, self-anger) — Shame + distress The Goleman Categories In appendix “A” of his book Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman proposes these basic families of emotions: Fear: (Safety) anxiety, apprehension, nervousness, concern, consternation, misgiving, wariness, qualm, edginess, dread, fright, terror and in the extreme cases phobia and panic. Anger: (Justice) fury, outrage, resentment, wrath, exasperation, indignation, vexation, acrimony, animosity, annoyance, irritability, hostility, and perhaps these are manifest in the extreme as hatred and violence. Sadness: (Loss) grief, sorrow, cheerlessness, gloom, melancholy, self-pity, loneliness, dejection, despair, and depression in the extreme case. Enjoyment: (Gain) happiness, joy, relief, contentment, bliss, delight, amusement, pride, sensual pleasure, thrill, rapture, gratification, satisfaction, euphoria, whimsy, ecstasy, and at the far edge, mania. Love: (Attraction) acceptance, friendliness, trust, kindness, affinity, devotion, adoration, infatuation, and agape. Disgust: (Repulsion) contempt, distain, scorn, abhorrence, aversion, distaste, and revulsion Surprise: (Attention) shock, astonishment, amazement, and wonder Shame: (Self-control) guilt, embarrassment, chagrin, remorse, humiliation, regret, mortification, and contrition. And Also: Flow — The absence of emotion or self-consciousness. Ambivalence — Multiple, simultaneous, conflicting emotions. It is likely that the variation and discrepancies among these lists result from a reification fallacy. The abstraction that we loosely call “emotion” is not real, it is not well-defined, and it most likely describes a composite of disparate real phenomenon that are not yet well understood. Non-Emotions In his 1991 book, Emotion and Adaptation, Richard Lazarus lists several mental states that may be emotion related, but are not themselves actual emotions. The list includes the complex states of: grief and depression; the ambiguous positive states of: expansiveness, awe, confidence, challenge, determination, satisfaction, and being pleased; the ambiguous negative states of: threat, frustration, disappointment, helplessness, meaningless, and awe; the mental confusion states of bewilderment and confusion; the arousal states of: excitement, upset, distress, nervousness, tension, and agitation; and finally the pre-emotions of: interest, curiosity, amazement, anticipation, alertness, and surprise. Note he included “awe” and “depression” in the list of emotions described in his later book, Passion and Reason. Also, Paul Ekman includes “surprise” in his list of basic emotions. Other mental states, such as bored, alert, drowsy, and trance are also not emotions.

via emotionalcompetency.com

Click on link to go to the emotionalcompetency site

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Sir Ken Robinson - brilliant & very funny

via sirkenrobinson.com

Audio stuff from Sir Ken are here - http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/listen

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The Breath of God Inspiration Method | by Leo Babauta at 'zen habits'

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” -Vincent van Gogh

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

The word “inspiration” to some literally means “the breath of God”.

Whether you’re religious or not, the idea of God or a god or a muse breathing inspiration into the depth of our beings is a beautiful one. Even if the world is naught but a natural miracle, this idea can lift you up, and give you the spark of life to *do* something great.

That’s inspiration at its absolute best: not just when it lifts us up, makes us feel good or enthusiastic or excited, but when it *moves* us, when we become so moved that we create something of truth or beauty.

It’s an elusive thing, this pure inspiration, something people of all types of creativity seek on a daily basis. Here’s one method — a simple method I hope will help you in that everyday search.

It’s three simple steps:

1. Find something divinely touched.
2. Breathe in that divine inspiration.
3. Do. Create. Inspire.

Let’s look at each step in turn.

Step 1. Find something divinely touched.
For this step, I use a loose definition of “divine” … you don’t have to be religious to find divinity in something. When Mozart wrote a symphony, or Jobs created the Macbook Air, or a stranger smiles at you, there is divinity in that. There’s divinity in a sunset, in every living thing (why I’m a vegan), in a cool breeze on a humid day.

You just need to recognize the inspiration, in whatever form it comes.

Here are my greatest sources of inspiration:

• People doing great things.
• Things of great beauty.
• Nature.
• Music.
• The written word: books, magazines, blogs.
• People in your life.
• Love, in any form.
• Yourself, doing anything good, no matter how tiny.

Step 2. Breathe in that divine inspiration.
Take a slow, deep breath. As the air comes into your mouth or nostrils, through your throat, and fills your lungs, it is bringing divine inspiration into your body.

Repeat. Each inhalation brings with it more inspiration, and each exhalation releases tension.

Step 3. Do. Create. Inspire.
You are now filled with the Breath of God. Take this inspiration and use it, be moved, and do something. Don’t just sit there feeling good. Channel that inspiration into creating something amazing.

Put that something out into the world, and in turn, you will inspire others.

via zenhabits.net

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Zen Biology Lesson for Enlightenment

via youtube.com

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'In Praise of Ego' by Michael Shepherd

In Praise of Ego by Michael Shepherd

In carefree, laughing, joyful mood –
let’s praise the ego, to its face!

Our most faithful mate throughout our life;
with us longer than our parents or our children are;

at our heels at all times, proud of head and tail,
saying to the world that ‘I belong to him! ’;

faithful as a dog; and cunning as a cat;
between them, running our un-mastered lives;

(and like the cosy purring cat you stroke upon your lap,
ego's the secret dark night-hunter, out to kill all life..)

ego, more awake than we ourselves,
never missing a living moment;

every heart-beat an opportunity;
sharper entrepreneur than any city slicker:

‘what’s in it for me? ’; there is no trick,
no turn, no market swing, that ego can’t exploit and profit from;

to read the whole poem click HERE - http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-praise-of-ego/#

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I would love to read a whole set of ego poems!

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Spiritual Insights for Teachers and Parents 1 - Our sacred nature

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain, both. We are
the sweet, cold water and the jar that pours.

SOURCE

My response: 

We, and the children we nurture, are sacred because they are emanations of the Universe's Creative power.  Each is a miracle of potential.

They are arrows sent by us into the future.

God willing, included in what our sacrifices cause to grow in them will be qualities that will enable them to overcome ego, overcome what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain-body.  In that lies the future justice, unity & peace   of the world.

In every classroom and family we need to nurture democracy, conflict resolution and peace-building, as well as economic skills.

Roger Prentice 8th June 2011

.

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NVC UK to learn about non-violent communication

via nvc-uk.com

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The Basics of Non Violent Communication 1.1 - Marshall Rosenberg

.

.

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Dr. B.R.Ambedkar’s Contribution To Buddhist Education In India By Nishikant Waghmare

Dr. B.R.Ambedkar’s Contribution
To Buddhist Education In India

By Nishikant Waghmare

16 February, 2007
Countercurrents.org

“Noble is your aim and sublime and glorious is your mission. Blessed are those who are awakened to their duty to those among whom they are born. Glory to those who devote their time, talents and their all to the amelioration of slavery. Glory to those who would reap their struggle for the liberation of the enslaved in spite of heavy odds, carpine humiliation, storms and dangers till the downtrodden secure their Human Rights.” - Bharat Ratna Babasaheb Dr.B.R.Ambedkar.

Today’s Ambedkarites may have reduced their mentor to a symbol to center their electoral campaign on, but history will view Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar differently—as a man whose genius extended over a diverse arrange of human affairs. Born to Mahar parents, Babasaheb would have been one of the many Untouchable of his times condemned to a life of suffering and misery, had he not doggedly overcome the oppressive circumstances of his birth to rise to pre-eminence in India’s public life. Ambedkar was, of course, a towering leader of the Untouchables, but he was also much more- patriot, scholar, thinker and Founding Father of the Indian Constitution.

Ambedkar started the Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha and the Samaj Samanta Sangh for the uplift of untouchables. He led processions and dharnas for his community, demanded separate electorates for them, parted ways with Gandhi, violently differing with Gandhi’s approach toward the Untouchables, and finally, left the Hindu fold, embracing with thousands of his followers the more egalitarian faith of Buddhism.

via countercurrents.org

Click on link to read article

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Good post from Eckhart Tolle on 'Abundance'

Eckhart on Abundance

Our planet, whether in the first world or the third world, is going through austerity measures that causes most of us to experience a sense of lack. In fact, our minds can become habituated to ignoring that which is good is our lives and only seeing the lack. Who is this person that chronically complains about not being treated well enough?

This is the “needy little me” that is the small mind being identified with. This part of ourselves is always finding others that are withholding from them what they need when what is really happening, is a dis-identification with who they really are. If you see yourself as a weak, needy person abused by the world and others then that self-image will sabotage your relationships, your career even your relationship with money. In fact, identification with lack tends to bias one’s point of view to seeing lack everywhere.

The first step in changing your identification with the victim position of “I’m being taken for granted and can’t get the respect, attention, and recognition I deserve” is to acknowledge the good that can already be recognized and cherished in your life.

via tolleteachings.com

Click on link to read the full article

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AMAZING American Eskimo Preforms STUNNING Tricks!

via youtube.com

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Beautiful counsel on the almost taboo subject of childlessness - Brooke Medicine Eagle

Childlessness Transformed: Stories of Alternative Parenting

Chapter 3- Brooke Medicine Eagle

Among my Crow Indian people there is a beautiful and very functional tradition. When a person has no children, then all the children are their children. This means both all the children of that specific tribe, camp or clan as well as all the children of Earth, which includes every being and thing upon our Mother Earth - the four leggeds, the wingeds, the green growing ones, the stone and gem people, those who live within the earth and crawl upon her, the waters and the finned ones: all things in the Great Circle of Life. As those of you with children well know, your own children occupy a large percentage of your time, and thus it should be so that our coming generations are raised with love and care. Those of us with no children have much more time to focus on the larger circle of life; we have that responsiblity

via eheart.com

Click on link to read Brooke Medicine Eagle's chapter - and much more

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Bentinho Massaro - A shift of Allegiance

A Shift of Allegiance

The moment I started to trust more in this natural presence, something happened. Most of all I became more at ease by the day, and additionally books and teachers of a more direct nature started to cross my path that 'confirmed' the way of direct trust in what's naturally here. Each of these books and teachers still got analyzed and mapped automatically, but simultaneously they helped me to let go more and more of that intellectual structure that was still very active and convincing at times.

Ever since my allegiance shifted from 'thinking' and 'other teachers' towards trusting in this intuitive sense of natural presence, that simple and always already present awareness has become more and more obvious in this experience.

This natural presence reveals the unity beyond all ideas and concepts and there is nothing that ever affects it. It's completely stable, ever-present and unchanging awareness. Yet it is not 'out of this world' or 'detached' in any way. In fact, it allows us to be completely engaged in life, for the first time really, without fear for our thoughts and emotions or those of others. There is a loving freedom present in and as every experience, without exception.

Experiences come and go, but they all come and go within that which is effortlessly aware of them. When this awareness becomes obvious to us, than not only is it discovered to be unaffected by whatever appears within awareness, but the unity of experiences and awareness is gradually (or suddenly) revealed.

This then neutralizes the power that experiences seemed to have over us, and there arises a natural freedom, love, wisdom and joy in the midst of every experience.

With Free Awareness, I hope to be able to provide some sort of simple and accessible structure, that can support you in directly awakening to that which is already wide awake at all times.

via free-awareness.com

Click on link to go to Bentinho's site

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Free Awareness - Relax for 2-to-5 Seconds! - Bentinho Massaro

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It's not just the policemen who are getting younger! - Bentinho Massaro on Awareness

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Read Tony Parsons' fine piece on Her Maj in the Mirror.co.uk

Tony Parsons illustration, May 21, 2011

SO calm, so cool, so relaxed – as a pipe bomb was made safe in County Kildare and a mob burned the Union Flag, the Queen toured the Republic of Ireland and proved she has ice in her veins.

Plus gin, of course.

Eighty-five years old – and she just negotiated a historical minefield with grace, courage and humanity.

via mirror.co.uk

Click on link to go to the Mirror

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Rea Tony Parsons' piece on 'our enry' in the Mirror Mirror.co.uk

Henry Cooper

AFTER Sir Henry Cooper was cremated this week, his ashes were mixed with the ashes of his beloved wife, Albina. Now that is what you call a love story.

Henry Cooper was never a world champion, but he was something more than that – a role model. As a husband, a father, a boxer, a sportsman, a public figure – he showed the rest the best a man can be.

via mirror.co.uk

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What are the benefits of developing 'Presence Awareness'

Here are some of the benefits we have found that arise from Presence Awareness …

• A fundamental shift from the limited world of mind and ego to the awakened world of NOW.
• Freedom from the limitations of the past.
• Freedom from anxiety about the future.
• An ability to be more fully present in your daily life and relationships.
• Inner silence, stillness and peace.
• An opening into true power and freedom.
• A greater capacity for unconditional love and acceptance.
• Release from judgment, blame and guilt.
• Awakening to clarity, truth and wisdom.
• A sense of the sacred in everyday life.
• The experience of Oneness and the eternal dimension of life.

The aim of The Seer is to help readers enjoy these benefits in their own life experience.

via clearsightblog.net

See also Peter's Pearls http://peterspearls.com.au/ - a great site

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Dr Ambedkar - Father of the Indian Constitution - one of India's true heroes

By R C Rajamani

It may surprise many to know that Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, celebrated as the "Father of Indian Constitution," found economics closest to his heart and got his doctorate for a thesis on "The Problem of the Rupee". He was a Professor of Economics in Mumbai’s Sydenham College in the early 1930s.

Ambedkar strongly believed that the fundamental cause of India’s backward economy was the delay in changing the land system. The remedy was democratic collectivism that entailed economic efficiency, productivity and overhauling the village economy, he wrote.

This, he said, would wipe out elements of economic exploitation and social injustice. He did not want landlords, tenants, or landless labour. His idea of economic realism sought both freedom and welfare.

The essential feature of his approach to economic problems was the condemnation of such extreme views as laissez-faire and scientific socialism. Mixed economy was the cornerstone of his economic ideas. He advocated an end to the glaring social and economic inequalities produced by the capitalist system.

Ambedkar was a keen student of economics. He got his MA for his thesis on ‘Ancient Indian Commerce’ and MSc (London) for his thesis on ‘The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India’ and DSc for his thesis on ‘The Problem of the Rupee’.

His evidence before the Hilton-Young Commission was an important contribution to the discussion of currency problems in India. He gave expression to his thoughts on such issues as small-holdings, collective farming, land revenue and abolition of landlordism. It covered nearly four important decades — 1917 to 1956, and touched on all major political and economic events.

He realised that the solution to the problem of the untouchable landless labourers depended upon the solution to Indian agricultural problems or, more broadly, economic problems. He focussed on the injustice in basing the assessment of land revenue on income and advocated that land revenue be brought under the income-tax.

His work "The Problem of the Rupee" was considered an instructive treatise. He wrote that closing of the Mints would prevent inflation and disturbances in the internal price level.

He advocated that the standard of value should be gold and the elasticity of currency should come from this source. That great scholarship and hard work had gone into this book is evidenced by the rave reviews Ambedkar received from the British Press.

The Times (London) described the book as an, "excellent piece of work. English style is easy; and his knowledge of his subject obviously very full... "

The Economist (London): "It is a clear and ably written book. Certainly, none of the other numerous works on one or the other aspect of the monetary problem have anything like the readability of this tract."

Financier: "Ambedkar deals with the problem in a very lucid and praiseworthy manner and puts forward not merely its origin, but also valuable proposals for a solution, which should be studied by bankers and those merchants whose business depends upon the exchange."

A versatile personality, Ambedkar’s hunger for knowledge, his passion for books and his erudition were unique. He was a voracious reader and knew seven languages. He described his obsession with books thus: "For a man like me, who was socially boycotted, these books took me to their hearts."

His love for the printed word naturally led him to extensive writing on a variety of subjects with depth and vision. Ambedkar’s book ‘Pakistan’ drew the attention of many thinkers and politicians. Historians agree that in that book he first clearly spelt out the difference between the community and the nation. Mohammed Ali Jinnah read the books and recommended for reading to Gandhiji. The Mahatma admitted: "It is ably written" but, remarked, "It carried no conviction to him."

On December 5, 1956, he completed writing his book ‘Buddha’ the next morning his servant found him dead when he went in his room to serve him tea. Like a blessed soul, he truly "slept in God". His death came peacefully in his sleep.

Dr Ambedkar was conferred posthumously the Bharat Ratna, the nation’s highest civilian honour, on his 99th birth anniversary in 1990. It was rightly seen as a fitting, though belated, tribute to one of the builders of Modern India. PTI

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Ordained Minister: Online Ordination Ministry: Ordain Me Now

Be Ordained

It's simple.

It's easy.

It's free.

It is our policy to promote absolute freedom of religion, consequently we believe any one who desires to become a ordained member of the Spiritual Humanist Clergy should be able to do so with the least difficulty possible. You can be ordained right now for absolutely no fees or charges. Ordination is for life, with no hidden fees or costs. Local laws governing religion and clergy vary widely so check with state, country, and provincial authorities before performing ceremonies like marriages, etc.

via spiritualhumanism.org

I am speechless........................

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Atheists are wrong - lets kill them!!!

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Why do atheists care about religion?

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Bruce Sheiman says Gwynth Paltrow and I are loopy (An Atheist Defends Religion)

Definition of “Religious”

What makes a person religious is belief in and efforts to relate to a Transcendent Spiritual Reality, which has two necessary characteristics: (1) It is a spiritual mode of reality that is not subject to the physical laws and temporal limits of the natural world; and (2) It is an objective reality that transcends the material world, is the source or creator of that material world, and is usually conceived as being more real than our material reality.

The reference to a Transcendent Spiritual Reality (TSR) is synonymous with our Western (and Islamic) conception of a theistic or deistic “God.” The reason I use TSR as the basis for my definition is so that I can include within this umbrella the non-theistic Eastern traditions. Buddhism and many interpretations of Hinduism may not use the term God, but they clearly embrace a TSR.

Thus, in my conceptualization, you are considered religious even if your idea of God is indistinct and nebulous, such as this minimalist definition by Keith Ward: “God is a non-physical being of consciousness and intelligence or wisdom.” You fit my definition of religious if you do not specify a particular kind of spiritual entity, but believe that you possess a non-material soul or spirit that transcends death. You are religious if you borrow from Eastern traditions in postulating a higher or transcendent Self that exists apart from the ego-world of material phenomena.

Lastly, you are considered religious in any of the above contexts even if you do not express or practice your belief within an organized religious institution. I will have more to say about this last point later. But suffice to say that of the people who may repudiate organized religion, most are not necessarily rejecting a religious conception of reality or God.

The key qualifier for “religious,” therefore, is belief in and connection to an “invisible” reality that exists “beyond” the natural world and is not subject to the mandated laws of the material universe. Within that context, even the loopy belief of an out-of-touch celebrity counts as religious, such as this idea offered by actress Gwyneth Paltrow: “I believe Mohammad and Jesus and Buddha and Shiva are all the exact same thing: an energy, our link to something larger than ourselves.”

via anatheistdefendsreligion.com

So Bruce there are limits to your kinder, gentler atheism. Count me in with GP.

Click on link to read Bruce's article and blog

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Eckhart Tolle, Quite Ordinary, www.soundstrue.com

via youtube.com

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