....but let me ask you this -
Who is more stagnant, the man who thinks he has nothing left to learn, or the man who never thinks he will?

To look at things we are taught to dwell on, I would answer with this:

Let us embrace with love the man who thinks he has nothing left to learn, and let us guide with love the man who thinks he never will. If we reach below the surface of a stagnant pond, shall we not possibly find a current to carry us on down the gleaming river?
 
[SIZE=+4]Scientists Find Evidence
Of Paranormal Powers[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1][/SIZE][SIZE=+1]By Anil Dawar
The Daily Telegraph
[/SIZE] [TABLE="width: 555"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 100%"][SIZE=+1]If you have ever felt that someone is watching you, sending prickles up your neck, it might not have been just your imagination.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]Scientists have found evidence to suggest we do have a sixth sense and can tell when we are being watched, even through CCTV.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]This shows humans could have paranormal powers, say researchers at Germany's Freiberg University.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]Dr Stefan Schmidt and his team carried out two experiments a thousand times and believe they have finally proved the reality of the sixth sense.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]The first, called "remote staring'', consisted of a volunteer in a sealed room watching a second volunteer in another room via CCTV.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]The second volunteer was hooked up to electrodes which recorded the ``prickle'' or electrical activity of the skin. This was compared when the volunteer was or was not being watched.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]In the second experiment, called ``direct mental interaction'', the first volunteer concentrated on making the second feel uncomfortable or relaxed from within the sealed cell.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]The German team used a complex statistical scale to grade the studies according to reliability and paranormal effect recorded.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]In other experiments, the starer tried to make the other feel either uncomfortable or relaxed. Again, the electronic monitor proved repeatedly that it could be done.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]In the British Journal of Psychology, Dr Schmidt noted that the data was ambiguous but found that "for both data sets there is a small but significant effect''.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]While the findings will please believers in the paranormal, they are not enough to convince the sceptics.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]Psychology professor Richard Wiseman, of Hertfordshire University, said: "The number of times you turn around and find someone not looking at you far outnumber the times when you do but you only remember the times you turned round to see someone looking.''[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]Back in the 1960s Czech psychologist Milan Ryzl did a series of experiments with two supposedly telepathic people who were many kilometres apart.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]The ``sender'' was asked to try to make the ``receiver'' feel uncomfortable by imagining that he had been buried alive, and succeeded in inducing a crippling attack of asthma.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]Mr Ryzl was inspired by a colleague, Stepan Figar, who had proved that when one person concentrates on another, it can actually cause a measurable rise in blood pressure.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [SIZE=+1]Tapping the paranormal * The 'sixth sense' - knowing something without seeing or hearing it. * Dr Stefan Schmidt did more than 1000 experiments, involving two people in different rooms. * One of them would observe the other over a CCTV monitor. * Electrodes were attached to the skin of the volunteer being watched. * A meter registered 'prickling' in the skin if he was being stared at.[/SIZE][SIZE=+1][/SIZE] [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
 
....but let me ask you this -
Who is more stagnant, the man who thinks he has nothing left to learn, or the man who never thinks he will?

To look at things we are taught to dwell on, I would answer with this:

Let us embrace with love the man who thinks he has nothing left to learn, and let us guide with love the man who thinks he never will. If we reach below the surface of a stagnant pond, shall we not possibly find a current to carry us on down the gleaming river?

It wasn’t meant as a challenge to you personally, sorry....it’s more of my own personal idiosyncratic thought processes.
I just feel that God has a sense of love for us that transcends our faults as humans.
I feel that, especially as a Father myself, you do not punish your child in any way that would cause them pain...you guide your child, you explain why they should have done this instead of that...yes, they are accountable, but the ultimate responsibility falls upon my shoulders until such a time when they are an adult.
We are ofter referred to as “little children” in the eyes of God...I personally believe that it will be that understanding that can only come upon our death, that we should have been doing this instead of that, the feeling of disappointing our Father....that will be our punishment....not lakes of burning feces...no Father would ever purposefully send his child to such a place if he had one shred of real love for them.
I think we made a deal before we came here....that we knew we would be separate from God...that he wouldn’t help us...in order for us to truly learn what love is, compassion in the face of hate, jealously, longing....the good with the bad...who could ever know what light really is without experiencing the darkness?
We knew it would be hard, but we chose to come anyhow...that is what I believe.
 
Sounds much better. I can appreciate those thoughts, as they tend to gravitate away from the negative.

I believe in many things. Among them, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10

I Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known .
 
....but let me ask you this -
Who is more stagnant, the man who thinks he has nothing left to learn, or the man who never thinks he will?

To look at things we are taught to dwell on, I would answer with this:

Let us embrace with love the man who thinks he has nothing left to learn, and let us guide with love the man who thinks he never will. If we reach below the surface of a stagnant pond, shall we not possibly find a current to carry us on down the gleaming river?

How about we embrace man with love?

....then let him guide his own way.
 
How about we embrace man with love?

....then let him guide his own way.

I would never had been such a good baseball player...

:fish2:

or fisherman. I really think a man that thinks he never will.......there was something missing, was there not......should at least have guidance and encouragement. In the end, he would choose for himself; would he not?

I, personally, am thankful for the guidance and teaching I was given. When looking at how some folk think nowadays, I am thankful. I have seen how a few young people have grown up in bad situations, and the outcomes. I have also been thanked for sharing some things, with some people that were in trouble later on, as they grew older. Many need love badly; others, know only what they see or are told on the street as a youngster. There are consequences. Would you let someone guide his own way without at least saying a few things to them.....if they were using a needle and spoon? Stuff in it now will kill you(fentanyl). Sometimes love is the only thing they may be missing. I have said enough on that. Reminds me of an old Glen Campbell song.
 
I'm doing some research on mindfulness and contemplative education, and came across this interesting article. It's a bit off topic (so I apologize), but I thought it was an interesting piece and might provide a bit of encouragement that education is expanding from it's traditions!

http://journals.sfu.ca/paideusis/index.php/paideusis/article/viewFile/276/186


I also have no one else to share this with and I'm so excited about it!!!! *nerds out*
 
Sounds much better. I can appreciate those thoughts, as they tend to gravitate away from the negative.

I believe in many things. Among them, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10

I Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known .

I am sorry....I just do not fear God...I don’t think anyone should fear God.
Love and respect to the highest degree, but not fear.
I don’t believe God is what we think God is...I think God is beyond our comprehension and understanding that our limited human mind can grasp.
Most people cannot even understand the concept of ‘infinity’ as being never ending...our minds have difficulty fathoming that.
Most religions these days set up our life here on earth to be about one thing - the exhalation and worshiping of God...I disagree, we could have just done that before we came to earth.
Why such a huge set-up for something that was already accomplished?
Logic says that there must be another reason then.
I think the answer to that question is highly personal from one person to the next...and probably won’t be fully realized until we pass on from this life.
I thank you for your directing but some things must be worked out in one’s own heart.
I DO have some amount of faith in certain things...just not in the Bible as being the unchanged word of God....it has been changed, and I have heard the argument that those changes are “insignificant”...but we don’t really know.
My older brother is Gay...I can tell you right now, that if God turns out to be who the Christian churches of today make him out to be, and my Brother is condemned to Hell, then God is not a loving God, he is not just, kind, forgiving, or any of the other attributes God is given.
He was always gay....he wasn’t abused, our parent’s didn’t divorce, he wasn’t ostracized (only after some kids in HS found out)...in fact we came from a very loving supportive family.
What is wrong and perverse to me are the parents who disown their child for being gay....I have known several people who were kicked out of their house after their parents found out....never spoken to again.
Where is the love that God is supposed to have?
Did the message of Jesus mean nothing to them at all...I could never in any amount of time, disown my son for something like that.
People can argue until they are blue in the face that it is a choice...but we are finding out in recent years that the answer to that is a resounding “No”.
I think God is more than that...that God transcends the way we think....that God isn’t just a man with a beard in his bathrobe.
That God is the universe...that we are part of God...that we are all connected.
Quantum physics is beginning to show us that we are all far more connected than we previously thought....that a collective consciousness is very likely a real phenomena.
There are things in my heart that feel good and correct and right to me....and things that do not...I am not fooling myself into thinking something is right when I know deep down it isn’t.
That is why I do not fear God...because that feels incredibly wrong to me.
 
I'm doing some research on mindfulness and contemplative education, and came across this interesting article. It's a bit off topic (so I apologize), but I thought it was an interesting piece and might provide a bit of encouragement that education is expanding from it's traditions!

http://journals.sfu.ca/paideusis/index.php/paideusis/article/viewFile/276/186


I also have no one else to share this with and I'm so excited about it!!!! *nerds out*
I started to read it but will have to finish it later....gotta start getting ready for work!
It seems very interesting from what I skimmed over!
 
[video=youtube;kLJgPK-Mick]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLJgPK-Mick#t=105[/video]
 
I'm doing some research on mindfulness and contemplative education, and came across this interesting article. It's a bit off topic (so I apologize), but I thought it was an interesting piece and might provide a bit of encouragement that education is expanding from it's traditions!

http://journals.sfu.ca/paideusis/index.php/paideusis/article/viewFile/276/186


I also have no one else to share this with and I'm so excited about it!!!! *nerds out*

Good piece!

This bit is great:

With the mind settled in the hara, narrow and egocentric thinking is superseded by a broadness of outlook and magnanimity of spirit. This is because thinking from the vital hara center, being free of mediation from the discursive intellect, is spontaneous and all embracing. Perception from the hara tends toward integration and unity rather than division and fragmentation. In short, it is thinking which sees things steadily and whole. (Kapleau,2001, p.17)
 
My mind is weary tonight. I may be approaching a fork in the road.
 
[h=2]Upon Which I Disassociate[/h][h=4]Written By: Jeff Behnke[/h]

prism.jpg


Disassociation is a trait that is often overlooked when trying to grasp the mental make up of those who are interested and appreciate the paranormal. What do I mean by 'disassociation'? It is the ability to leave this reality and go elsewhere in your mind and see things that others are unable to see because they are not looking and are just fine with their monday night football, Fox News reports, and BBQs on the weekend. Those who disassociate, they may try to do these things to feel normal, but they most often fail and have a general sense that something just isn't right with the single channel shown to them as 'the way to live' every day. It is often a depressing feeling, often overwhelming, and they feel lost because things just aren't right in the world. To someone who disassociates, they can feel bitterly and absolutely alone because they just don't fall for the tricks their television sets play on them, teaching us all how to live, how to function, how to respond to others, what to want, and what to feel in a single, global culture.

When you leave this reality through such a mindset, you disappear inside and draw pictures in the cloud-like formations known as your 'life events' and piece them back together as if they were all a part of some grand novel. And once that novel's plot is told in your mind, like a massive Etch A Sketch, you just shake it back and forth, and all of your life events are then able to be reassembled and retold to yourself to form a completely different story. It's so easy. You have no concerns with doing so, no guilt, no sense of losing yourself—to those who disassociate, that is just how this place works—not a world that is set in dust and rock as the TV teaches where there is only one lesson to be told through a theory of everything, but a multi-faceted surface that can be shaken back and forth and understood differently every hour, every day, just like the events of your life.

Those who disassociate are many times abuse victims. Their disassociation was taught to them by the end of a stick. Later, that stick becomes life itself, beating them senselessly into a state where they no longer see this world at all—why bother? But to the gatekeepers, this is wrong, a problem to be corrected, for it is made of but one channel to them—their channel, filled with nothing more than pain and lies given and told to us that we are supposed to accept as truth and love.

Disassociation is seen as a disorder because you cannot accept what other people tell you when you 'should' accept it—you know beyond any doubt that no matter how many sticks are used, the light is still there inside of you, the light is always available like the paint brushes next to your kitchen sink, the pencils next to your journal, always ready to be used to draw new worlds out that are hidden away. Where the world sees nothing but clanging pipes, you can see the demons. Where the world sees poverty brought about through laziness, you see angels.

Don't you see? It is not a disorder at all—it is a gift, and those who have it are often victimized because of it, for if you can see any reality, then you can accept what people say as fact and play along like a child following the Pied Piper. The child wants to see the piper happy, even if the song they hear is shit. This angers the Pied Piper who is trying to convince the world he is playing the most beautiful song ever written. The children are liars! He thinks. So he lashes back, drops his pipe, and pulls out his whip to end the laughter and turn them to tears so they learn the 'way things really are'.

When you disassociate, you see the lies in truth, the truth in lies. As such, you are seen by the piper and the rest of the world as out of balance, someone who must be schooled into obedience to a single truth, a single way, the right way, your way. Certainly these children must understand harmonics and scale! Yes, the children say. Yes, Mr. Piper, we understand. But these children know the piper is swallowed by his own darkness, created by his singular tune--they are merely trying to use their own disassociation to light the way for someone they see as in need: the piper himself.

Those in the paranormal who disassociate, they see a world stuck in its own pure darkness. Those in the paranormal see the pipers piping, smile, and say yes, you are right, there are no UFOs, there are no ghosts, there are no monsters in our closets, all is well—only to laugh madly as forks fly off the counter and stars pick themselves up and fly away at a moment's notice into the night sky. We aren't supposed to notice those other realities, are we? Nay. As such: Swamp gas, sure. Chinese lanterns? No problem. Whatever you say, Mr. Piper. Whatever you say. Please put away your whip.

Where the world looks for what MUST be true, those who disassociate see what CAN be true, and all can be true in a universe made of light. Just look at what can be displayed on your television. Stare at your stacks of DVDs and the possibilities they bring. Why would reality be any different? Why would we, as light workers, be any different? We are all story tellers, and the medium goes above and beyond any single material universe when you disassociate.

So the world can laugh at us and say the only thing on every channel, the only thing all of us could possibly be watching, are CSI reruns--but we know better, don't we? Our minds work with reality just like a remote, and when you attempt to school us by taping down our hands and tying us to a chair, we just have to tilt our heads back, drift away, and draw with our own thoughts, our own lives, again and again. And as all of us know through our own dreams that we experience every single day...the darkness outside of ourselves is no match for our own internal light.

As such, my cruel, singular world, controlled via a monopoly of media empires--I also bring a lesson of my own with this humble, pied pipe: You cannot stop all these other realities from bleeding in, for we, the light workers, are also legion. Call it a disorder all you want, but in a world where everything is under control, disorder is exactly what this place needs, and that is exactly what our disassociation brings. Like your own sticks and whips, consider this one a gift.

Enjoy.
 
Article from Wired Magazine -

[h=2]Signs of Consciousness After Death Found in Rats[/h]
rat_activity_after_death-500x262.jpg
Brain activity in rats while they’re fully conscious, sedated, and after their hearts have stopped (point 0). The top figures span 30 minutes in time; in the bottom figures, activity in the 30 seconds immediately following cardiac arrest is magnified. Image: Borjigin et al./PNAS


An icy prick in the veins and then the potassium chloride quickly runs through the rat’s veins, stopping their heart and blood flow. At that point the rats are considered “clinically dead”. However new evidence shows the amount of neurological activity that remains for up to 30 seconds (probably longer), high-frequency brain activity that’s known as Gamma waves. These gamma waves are said to affect our perception and self-awareness. This is nothing new, but scientists are now getting closer to figuring out if consciousness does in fact stay awake after death.
Those who have had NDE (Near Death Experiences) usually talk about celestial visions and human (or divine) intervention. The new study on the brain activity after death in rodents can give us a glimpse into the afterlife, or so we all hope. The following WIRED article gives us more details into the new research that’s developing.
For a brief time after their hearts stop beating, electrical activity that some scientists have linked to consciousness in humans continues in the brains of rats — a finding that could shed light on reports of near-death experiences in humans, and opens new possibilities for studying consciousness.
“People have just assumed that, after the heart stops, when the brain has very little oxygen or glucose, then the brain should not function,” said neurophysiologist Jimo Borjigin of the University of Michigan, leader of an experiment described August 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Higher brain function may require less oxygen and energy than many scientists had thought, Borjigin said.
Borjigin’s team implanted electrodes on the surface of the brains of nine rats, then injected the animals with potassium chloride, causing their hearts to stop beating and blood to stop flowing. This is the clinical definition of death.
At this point, or shortly after, neurological activity is supposed to cease. Yet for up to 30 seconds, the researchers’ electrodes detected patterns of synchronized, high-frequency activity known as gamma waves. In humans, some scientists have suggested that gamma waves could play a role in the interplay of perception, awareness, and intent known as consciousness.

In earlier rat research, Borjigin observed a sudden release of neurotransmitters at the moment of death. If what they’ve seen in rats has human analogues, said Borjigin, the combination of neurochemical surge and continued electrical activity could be involved in near-death experiences, in which people report continuing perceptions for minutes after their hearts have stopped.
“By presenting evidence of highly organized brain activity and neurophysiologic features consistent with conscious processing at near-death, we now provide a scientific framework to begin to explain the highly lucid and realer-than-real mental experiences reported by near-death survivors,” wrote Borjigin’s team.
Of course, it’s impossible to know what their nine rats experienced. Whether they saw a rodent version of the light, so to speak, and whether similar neurological mechanisms exist in humans, remains unknown.
Critical care physician Sam Parnia of Stony Brook University, who leads the Human Consciousness Project’s AWARE study, which documents after-death experiences in hospitals across North America and Europe, stressed the uncertainties.
Parnia said the study is “very interesting and raises many questions,” but said the assumption that these patterns exist in humans and might explain near-death experiences “is extremely presumptive and unsupported by evidence.”

Some people who’ve been resuscitated after dying have described seeing and hearing events that occurred tens of minutes after their heart stopped, said Parnia. Electrical activity in Borjigin’s rats didn’t last longer than 30 seconds. The types of signals her group recorded also haven’t been detected in human patients monitored as they died.
According to Borgijin, that’s likely because the signals are relatively weak, and the electroencephalograph machines used to detect brain activity in patients aren’t as sensitive because they take readings from their scalps, not directly from brain tissue.
In future studies, it might be possible to revive cardiac-arrested rats and see whether they recall some stimulus presented after they died, but while brain activity continued, said Borjigin. It may also be possible to obtain more sensitive recordings of human patients going into cardiac arrest, then ask what they’ve seen if they recover.
Yet to Borjigin, questions the study raises about near-death experiences are less interesting than questions about the nature of consciousness itself, and whether it actually requires far less oxygen and energy than previously thought.
If the rats are truly aware after death, the experiment could offer a methodology for testing questions about consciousness. Researchers could, for example, give rats a drug that blocks a particular protein’s activity, then see whether after-death neurological activity is affected. –Source: Wired



 
Hebrews constitutes one look at things differently.
Hebrews 12: 18-29
18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched , and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, 19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: 20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded , And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned , or thrust through with a dart: 21 And so terrible was the sight , that Moses said , I exceedingly fear and quake:) 22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, 23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect , 24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. 25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh . For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: 26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised , saying , Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. 27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken , as of things that are made , that those things which cannot be shaken may remain . 28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
 
I see how one might look to God as something to fear...for it is the unknown that mankind fears the most.
And God is surely not known.
So I may fear something like that....to have so much awe for something that you are fearful of it I would think would be a natural response.
But to command fear, to promote fear throughout the centuries - I still see as wrong on so many levels.
You cannot deny that the Christian church has promoted fear in history and even now in certain circumstances.
I don't believe God wishes for us to fear him...I picture God as all loving.
But I think you and I have different ideas of what God is...
I don’t think of God as something singular, as a person even...I’m sure God could become a singular person if God made it so......but I think God is everywhere and everything, including you and me.
I believe in a collective consciousness...we even have pretty good data to support that theory.
I believe that the universe is even far more complex that we know...I believe the universe has consciousness...through you, through me.
I feel that we have a questioning nature because the universe is trying to explore itself...to understand the nature of everything.
I think that somewhere, after this life...we will have access to all that immense knowledge.
 
Just know I understand how you feel. I'm not stupid. We depart from here to go each the way we have chosen. I bid you farewell. Keep your head up, and may the wind be always to your back.
 
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Just know I understand how you feel. I'm not stupid. We depart from here to go each the way we have chosen. I bid you farewell. Keep your head up, and may the wind be always to your back.
Heeey now....I never thought or assumed you were stupid.
I think the fact that you have so much faith in something is incredibly wonderful!
I hope I have that much faith one day as well.
We don’t have to part ways because we have different ideas of dogma.
 
[h=3]Psalm 23[/h]King James Version (KJV)

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
[SUP]2 [/SUP]He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
[SUP]3 [/SUP]He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
[SUP]4 [/SUP]Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
[SUP]5 [/SUP]Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
[SUP]6 [/SUP]Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
 
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