Mysticism

Mythology

Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life. Joseph Campbell

Mythology is told through stories, Rituals and Symbols as a way to share experiences and connect with the divine or sacred. A myth is a story that gives life meaning and guides us to an understanding of the purpose of life as well as how life works. There are many different religions in the world today, yet each one believes theirs is special and contains the truth; all other religions are just myths. However, beyond the religious specific ceremonies, Rituals, stories and Symbols they all represent the end result, which is cultivating universal events and relieving concerns of everyday life. Each religion has something to offer with insights and spiritual perspectives, thus Mythology is found everywhere.

As our world evolves to another level of consciousness, which can be called spiritual awakening, or Age of Aquarius, key questions are beginning to be explored on deeper levels. These questions include: Where did I come from? What happens when I die? Why is there bad/evil in the world? What is my life purpose? . Fundamental religion and orthodox science have trouble with Mythology because of the need to have concrete, visible evidence. This, unfortunately, is a reflection of lacking in Imagination, looking beyond boundaries and understanding the Soul or spirit. Myth opens the Pandoras Box to unpredictability, uncontrolled experiences, and truths of great magnitude in relativity or an unreal world.

Keith VonderOhe gives three key points about Mythology. The first states that myths are ultimately expressed in story form. The human Soul needs deeper meaning reaching beyond the rational, scientific mind reaching into Imagination, symbolism and creativity. New layers showing new ways are necessary for our spiritual growth through Mythology and stories. These stories connect with the divine mystery of life unfolding a path to wholeness, healing and understanding. The second key point explains that we have several mythologies guiding our lives simultaneously. Creating harmony is essential in creating a balanced life and by formulating our own personal Mythology we can define its meaning ourselves. Finally, the third key point is the power of a myth can dissipate over time. At some point in history, Mythology looses its importance thus leaving behind a legacy and allowing newer mythologies to take its place.

David Elkins, author and PhD, points out that when we view Mythology as inferior to science and religion, we see it as irrelevant to moder n day living. Actually, there is a lot of value in Mythology we need in order to nurture the spirit and Soul leading us on a path to enlightenment. It is a guidance system that helps us evolve through the various stages and major events in our lives. Mythology is a record of the past with wisdom helping us understand our journey and how to create a smooth ride. There is a theme in Mythology which states, there is an invisible plane supporting this visible one. This is a channel for spiritual energies to nurture the Soul and support our spirituality. Both VanderOhe and Elkins believe man has destroyed our ability to embrace Mythology as an integral part of our lives. Organized religion has destroyed the ability to connect spirit with Symbols, Rituals and stories alienating the next generation in spiritual growth. Through the systematic destruction of the Native American way of life, our forefathers took away their traditions and Mythology. The results of these experiences ar e the loss of lifes meaning, joy and happiness. The Soul cannot live solely by science, logic, reasoning or linear thoughts, rather it strives for meaning and grounding. Mythology is a map of ourselves and can be a tool for exploring the deeper meaning of life.

The movie Pleasantville is about change and loss of innocence. It is a reflection of imagined perfection that is shattered by the realization of new discoveries when values change. The movie exemplifies the goodness in change, new horizons we can manifest and hope for a better life. The reference to a road that continues to endlessly circle is an analogy to life with boundaries. Learning that roads go on forever and there are no boundaries allow us to awaken to the world around us and to loose our attachment to the familiar. Pleasantville in black and white suggests the loss of potential and possibilities, while the color version shows the gaining of a new world full of knowledge, enrichment and loss of innocenc e. We cannot hide from ourselves, the truth or other realities; rather we must open up to the present and future with outstretched arms and welcoming the new and different from what we currently accept.

Today, we struggle to keep alive an old system rather than explore new stories and Symbols. Searching for understanding the connection to divine and transforming to a new consciousness is the key to evolution. Rituals that once identified spiritual reality have lost their power to nurture and give sustenance to lifes questions. New archetypes are evolving from our consciousness allowing us to see clearly the oneness of life, raising our spiritual awareness, blending science with spirit and moving away from untruths. VanderOhe believes our spiritual Mythology needs to change in order to help people connect with the divine and move to the next level of consciousness.

Eileen Wood is a mystic and healer. She is currently pursuing her Masters at Atlantic University bas ed on Edgar Cayce philosophy. Her degree will be in Transpersonal Studies understanding the mind,body and spirit connection. Eileen is a Reiki Master/Teacher and practices Arcing Light, Intuitive Healing, and enhances people's lives through teaching, guidance and inspiration. She is opening a retail/cafe business that will nurture the mind, body and spirit: Mystic Gardens and Cafe. Contact information: http://www.serenityexpressions.com, 919-523-7872, eileen@serenityexpressions.com.

Author:: Eileen Wood
Keywords:: Mysticisim, Mythology, spiritual awakening, Soul, Symbols, Rituals, Consciousnsess, Imagination
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German Philosophers

German Culture: German Philosophers

German and German speaking Philosophers have made vast contributions to Philosophy, and through Philosophy, to the course of world history. Perhaps the most influential were the great triumvirate of Kant, Hegel and Marx. Other noteworthy Philosophers include Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger and the Nobel prize-winner Hermann Hesse.

One of the greatest characters of German Philosophy was Friedrich Nietzsche, who professed himself to be a follower of Dionysus, the god of lifes exuberance, and declared that he hoped Dionysus would replace Jesus as the primary cultural standard for future millennia.

Nietzsche showed his academic talents early on. As a child he didnt like playing, and the neighbours children called him the little minister. He died i n 1900 after 11 years of madness. He went insane one morning after seeing a horse being whipped by a coachman. Historians argue whether his insanity was caused by syphilis, drug abuse, or a disease inherited from his father.

Nietzsche was heavily influenced by the work of Schopenhauer, a man so unpleasant, negative and pessimistic that even his own mother eventually banned him from her house.

Schopenhauer's Philosophy was based on that of Kant, but he did not believe in individual free will, he believed that we are all part of a vast single will which is the entire universe, and any sense of individuality is pure illusion.

Schopenhauer never married, perhaps not surprisingly considering his view of women, he once declared that women are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of our childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and short-sighted; in a word, they are big children all their life long. Instead, he shared his lonely existence with a poodle.

The first of the great triumvirate, Kant, was born in 1724 in Knigsberg, (now part of Russia, and called Kaliningrad). He was one of the fathers of critical Philosophy, and divided modes of thinking into two kinds, analytic and synthetic.

Analytical propositions are those which can be proven to be true by analysis, for example pink boots1 are boots2. This statement must be true, because the predicate is contained in the subject. (If pink boots1 werent boots2, then they wouldnt be boots1!)

Synthetic propositions are those that cannot be contrived purely from analysis, for example, the boot is pink, this relates to something in the real world and cannot be shown to be true or untrue purely by analysis of the statement, you need to see the boot. His most famous works include his Critique of Pure Reason and The Metaphysics of Ethics, in which he discussed his views on ethics.

Kant died in 1804, when Hegel was 33. Hegel was born in Stuttgart and his Philosophy was greatly influenced by that of Kant. After an inheritance he was able to devote his entire life to academic works.

He believed that dialectical reasoning (debate by question and answer to resolve two differing points of view) was the only way for progress in human thought. He believed that all men were fundamentally free, and that our task is to find a state or a set of laws under which we can all live freely.

Hegel did not advocate anarchy, rather he thought that we could make ourselves free by choosing to obey laws we knew to be rational. Hegel died in 1831 of cholera, after one days illness. He was buried next to another German Philosopher, Fichte, and near another, Karl Solger, in a plot he had chosen himself.

The last of these three, with perhaps the biggest influence on recent history, born in 1818, was Karl Marx. He is in fact best known for his economic theories, especially one seminal work he produced togethe r with Engels, The Communist Manifesto. In fact this only represents only a tiny fraction of his thought. Overall, his writing on Communism represents only an aside, he wrote much more simply in criticism of capitalism, or on analysis of concrete political events.

An even more contemporary Philosopher was Martin Heidegger, who died only in 1976. He was strongly influenced by Nietzsche, and in turn his work influenced the French existentialist Jean Paul Sartre, although Heidegger himself disagreed with existentialist interpretations of his work. His work has had a great influence on Western Philosophy, but he has received little public recognition because of his refusal to apologise for his involvement with the National Socialist Party. To what degree he was involved is still unclear.

Standing like a giant over modern German literary Philosophy is the Nobel prize-winner, Hermann Hesse. At the age of 13 he was told he would be a poet or nothing, so he started off by writing unimpressive romantic novels. His first successful work was the more philosophical Peter Camenzind, which positively burned with anger at his repressed and traditional childhood.

His most widely read work is Siddhartha, which was published in 1922, it is based on the idea that mans true nature has been lost and can only be found through self expression.

Hesse was at one point accused of supporting the Nazis, whom he did not openly criticize, but while based in Switzerland he did a lot to help political refugees from Germany, and refused to leave out sections of his works which dealt with pogroms and anti-S emitism. His publisher Peter Suhrkamp, was arrested by the Nazis in 1944.

Hesse received the Nobel Prize in 1946, and thereafter did not produce further major works. He died in 1962.

by Robert Easton (c) Soccerphile.com

Robert Easton is a UK based journalist specializing in Germany and German culture. He has written a series of Germany-related articles for http://www.soccerphile.com

Author:: Philip Beech
Keywords:: Germany,Philosophy,Philosopher,Marx,Nietzsche,Hegel,Kany,Hesse,Heidegger
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What I Know About String Theory

You all saw Jodie, Jodi, Jody Foster in Contact.

Oh, you missed it?

Lucky you?

Oh, you liked it!

Anyway, Jodie, Jodi, Jody doesnt always take good roles.

Either that or she doesnt always get good directors. (What, he directed Forest Gump!)

Either that or when I watch a technical movie the inaccuracies make me want to barf.

When Jodie, Jodi, Jody gets a good role and director, wow!

I like Jodie, Jodi, Jody when she lets her hair down like in Maverick. She was Mrs. Annabelle Bransford.

I loved that gal!

But this is not a gossip column. We are into serious science here.

Now, you did see Jurassic Park at least forty times, right?

Remember the dark haired guy that spoke of String Theory?

That was Dr. Ian Malcolm whom was played by Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum.

Jeff was born in Pittsburgh in 1952. He probably saw Roberto Clemente play for the Pirates. Clemente died tragically in 1972 when Jodie, Jodi, Jody Foster was about 10 years old. (Jodie, Jodi, Jody was born in Los Angeles in late 1962.) When we lived in Pittsburgh we loved to watch those Pirates. Roberto could throw a man out at home from the right field fence!

Well, Jodie, Jodi, Jody didnt just talk String Theory, in her movie. She got zapped off to another planet!

If that is not true, lets make it our hypothesis. It wont change the direction of this article much.

As soon as I know what the direction of this article is, Ill let you know.

When I was a kid, we all knew the value of string. We collected it and hid it from our siblings. It was required for kite flying and for making play telephones from tin cans. What we knew about string theory was that if you ran out of string, you would lose your kite, have to run a mile to find it, and then have to throw rocks at the thing to get it to come down from the tree. If you broke a window, you had to run.

Also, for tin can telephones, the string must be held very tightly or no communications were possible. We had the basics figured out back then. Now string theorist use different shape strings but still require that they be tight.

Im sure Albert Einstein would be against string theory. He always kept his violin strings very straight and tight as do my grandchildren. If violin strings were normally curving about and tight, he would have invented the theory.

I think it is about time to get to the meat of this article, so please stop distracting me.

To learn about string theory we must go to their official web site: http://www.superstringtheory.com/index.html.

I quote:

Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and ho w much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.

In a similar manner, in string theory, the elementary particles we observe in particle accelerators could be thought of as the musical notes or excitation modes of elementary strings.

In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in spacetime, they aren't tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension.

There are two kinds of strings described on the site. The first are those in closed loops that can break open and those that are closed and cant brake open.

Well, I guess that about covers string theory.

John T. Jones, Ph.D. (tjbooks@hotmail.com)is a retired R&D engineer and VP of a Fortune 500 company. He is author of detective & western novels, n onfiction (business, scientific, engineering), poetry, etc. Former editor of international trade magazine.

More info: http://www.tjbooks.com

Business web site: http://www.bookfindhelp.com (wealth-success books / flagpoles)

Author:: John T Jones, Ph.D.
Keywords:: string theory, roberto clemente, Pittsburgh, jodie foster, Jeffrey Goldblum, Contact, Jurassic park
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There is No Long Term Alternative to Democracy

Human history is filled with so many successful civilizations and empires and with so many different forms of government, but in the end there appears to be no long-term alternative to democracy. Or rather some form of democracy where the people feel as if they are in somewhat control of their own destiny and live out their lives as if they have choice and are able to pursue a comfortable lifestyle, good standard of living and what they believe to be quality of life.

Those forms of government and civilizations, which disregard basic human rights and abuse the privilege of the people are destined to eventual failure unless those in control rule their empires with an iron fixed. But in doing so that negates a comfortable lifestyle, good standard of living and quality of life. So I ask you; can you name another form of government, which does not have the least some of the components of democracy, which is an alternative that will provide a long-term solution for huma n civilization.

We saw in George Lucass Star Wars that he had put together a government, which had in it a group of wise and learned man who were a collective rule of benevolent dictators. However it also appeared in the movie that there was some form of democracy, voting and self-determination of the people. From a philosophical standpoint one could argue that in all of human history no civilization or empire has been able to be a true and fair to the life of every man, woman or child within that society unless it had some form of democracy attached to its government or rulers. Consider this argument in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: No Long Term Alternative to Democracy
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The Universe as Living Organism

I read the other day that astronomers have spotted a huge nebula in our galaxy in the shape of a double helix.

I couldnt believe it so I googled 'double helix in outer Space' and sure enough there is a picture of it.

I havent been able to stop thinking about it.

As you recall a double helix is the design or configuration that our DNA shapes itself into within us; the genetic stuff that gives us blue or green eyes, blonde or brown hair.

And there is a big one of these double helixes, some 80 light years long, floating around in Space in our galaxy 300 light years away from a black hole which is also located in our gala xy, which is about 25,000 light years away from earth.

Now that made me think, or start imagining things that may or may not be true.

A nebula is defined as being a vast mass of interstellar gas, so someone might say that just because it looks like a double helix doesnt mean its cosmic DNA. After all some clouds look like elephants or Napoleon, but that doesnt mean that clouds are the things they appear to be.

But still the idea is intriguing.

Why shouldnt the Universe be a growing expanding organism?

I cant prove it is anymore than I can prove it isnt.

And the concept does upset a few preconceived notions I have. For example, lets take religion. Maybe God is not a guy with a long white beard sitting on a throne in heaven who has omnipotent powers, but instead the nucleus of a cell, a nucleus that is omnipotent and all seeing while at the same time interacting with all of its components, kind of like, a God.

And if we live in a livin g organism is it then possible that other organisms live within us, that we are supporting Universes, galaxies and planets at a sub atomic level, much in the same way the Universe is supporting us, creating a continuum of life with all of us being connected?

And some other questions come to mind.

If the Universe is a living organism is it possible that the big bang theory was conception, the meeting of the egg and sperm with our Universe being the zygote, ever expanding and growing?

And if thats true, then what is our Universe growing up to be? A giant horse, or dog, or human?

And if thats true can a Universe die?

And if it does shouldnt that fact change my entire concept of death as being final and absolute for surely when a Universe dies its energy is transposed into something else, thus giving it eternal life?

Well, its just a thought.

Jim Muckle is the author of The Property Manager, How To Find Jobs Teaching Overseas, Teaching I n Saudi Arabia, Teaching in Japan, The Class Act Reading Game and The Stay At Home Dad. The contents of all of these booklets can be viewed at his web site at Booklets From Jim Muckle @ http://hometown.aol.com/jimmuckle/myhomepage/business.html

Author:: Jim Muckle
Keywords:: Universe as living organism, Universe, living organism, double helix in Space, Space
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You Are Stuck in Your Own Perspective and Cannot See My Point of View

Are you stuck in you are own belief system and cannot understand someone elses point of view? Well then have you ever been told by someone who asked you to see things from their perspective before rendering a judgment? All the while you are thinking to yourself I do see their point of view, yet it is completely bogus and therefore cannot accept it.

Meanwhile they repeat that you do not understand their perspective and that is your problem, because you simply do not understand. You cannot seem to get them to understand that you absolutely understand their perspective and have thought it through prior to their re-mentioning it and found it to be irrelevant, irresponsible and completely ludicrous. Well if this has happened to you then you have seen the new paradigm shift in political correctness. It goes like this;

You are right and I am right, we just have different views. Now then, I think you really need to look at it from my perspective and I am sure you will see that; ? I am right?

If you have had this happen to you recently then you are not alone, as this is something that academia is purporting in their attempt to get you to see their viewpoint. There is danger in this because what happens is people who are wishy washy or are unable to understand the dynamics of this new spin on an old debate tactic get sucked into completely bogus notions and linear thinking on the hypocrite who is asking them to re-examine the situation. Consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

Author:: Lance Winslow
Keywords:: Stuck in Your Own Perspective, Cannot See My Point of View
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A Way of Being In the World

When you come to recognize that all consciousness is aligned in a vast network of cooperation, then you come to find a unique way of being in the world.

You come to recognize that it is rare that one is born a human being. It is difficult and rare to get the opportunity to understand spiritual teachings that lead to an exceptional way of being in the world. And it is rare, indeed, for one to make ones life a blessing to all.

If you make an effort to be kind to all creatures, no matter how simple or primordial their form, and if you make it a point to be slow to anger and quick to forgiveness, then you are on your way to finding a way of being in the world that will magnify even beyond death.

Adopt this way of being in the world and revelation, a complete understanding of things, will come to you spontaneously. You will see that Gratitude is a blessing, and that Kindness, Generosity, and Compassion are the only options for true and abiding Success.

The greater your station in life, the more it behooves you to become cordial to all; for, ultimately, you are answerable to yourself.

Transformation can only occur when you are in sympathy with all of life; when you reflect on your experiences and sweeten them with correction and resolve to express even more Compassion and Generosity in the future.

Caught in the cycles of economic survival and social interaction, we miss the central message of how rare it is to be a human being and how necessary it is to use our short time on this planet to work on evolving a better way of being in the world.

To be kind to all creatures, to be forgiving of all, to be reflective of your past experiences, and to be determined to bestow cordiality upon all will make you a blessing to all of life.

A ll your other Successes are but a footnote to this type of greatness, for only in expanding the magnanimity of your soul will your life have been well spent.

Saleem Rana is a psychotherapist in Denver, Colorado. He has a special gift for you that will guarantee your Success in life. Simply go here: http://theempoweredsoul.com/neverevergiveup.html

Author:: Saleem Rana
Keywords:: Kindness, Generosity, Compassion, Success, Gratitude, spiritual teaching
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