Wondering about the future

If you do this a lot then time to consider if it makes any sense

If it is your job fine

If it is because you worry then not so fine

The future is just that the future

Not something that many can see and those who really can will not usually share it with others because it is not the thing to do

We are asked why not?

Our answer is because you can set things in motion that you have no right to interfere with

No one should manipulate others by saying things that might or might not occur

No one may interfere with another's karma

All should have the right to make their choices according to their own understanding of things

So that is why we do no future prophecies

Turning to those who do though notice this

Futurology is fine so long as the futurologists stays far out preferably to some point in the future where he will no longer be around

Few saw the fall of communism

Few saw global warming or climate change becoming a major issue

Few saw constant global ongoing weather related disasters becoming a major issue

Few saw 9/11

Most futurologists take the present and extrapolate some version of this into the future

It seldom happens that way

Seldom do they get it right because there are always variables that no one foresaw

An exception to this is the rise of the Muslim world

Many saw the intolerance

Many saw the emigration to other lands

Muslim populations are growing faster than those of the countries they are populating

European countries have only just begun to understand that many Muslims have no intention of integrating with the societies they are occupying

This is one aspect of the future that we can be sure of

Many Muslim people will not integrate

In many instances their feelings to the laws and rules of their faith are greater than to those of the societies of whom they are nominal members

Europe and other countries need to decide if this is acceptable?

So far most have not talked about this openly

Most have not taken issue with this change to their cultures and societies

Will they do so?

In these politically correct times probably not until it is too late

Already areas of France, Denmark, Sweden the UK are to all intents and purposes no go areas for non Muslims

Areas of their own countries

Areas that are to all intents and purposes no longer operating under the same laws

This is a taste of the future that awaits other countries

So if you are given to wondering about the future this is one pretty certain development

This is part of the future that needs no genius futurologist to foretell

The ramifications can be extreme

Have you thought about this?
.

Is this OK by you?

So many inventions

Were made when the inventor was not thinking

"It just came to him"

An insight

A flash of understanding

Many great inventors have admitted this

Many have not

Why not?

Often for reasons of ego

For reasons of money

Reasons of fame and fortune

Anyway leaving their reasons aside why is it like this?

Why do these men and women get these insights when they are not thinking about that issue or problem?

Because it is given to them

The answer already exists

They are searching for that answer

Searching with their minds

The answer cannot be found through mind, the left brain hemisphere

It can only be found when they are relaxed, through the right brain hemisphere

Note left brain scientists, inventors making their major discoveries through their right brain hemispheres

Not through their left brain where they spend most of their time

Truth is accessed through the right brain hemisphere

Insights occur when the left brain is not interfering

Not engaged

Not involved

Not judging or comparing analysing

When their brains are at rest they are accessing other realms

Some call it the akash

Whatever it's name it is where these insights occur, for that is what they are

The information being available to those looking in the right way

Some use their insights wisely some not

All have that choice

Second thought

I wrote a blog many moons ago in which I talked about the first thought each day

In it I said capture the first thought that comes into your head as it is often helpful

More powerful even if you had fallen asleep asking a question about something important to you

.

As often the answer is in that first thought for the day

.

Now coming to the second thought make this one you produce yoursefl

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Make it about something pleasant that happened to you yesterday

.

Something nice that happened

.

If you do this you start the day off feeling good, smiling even at the thought of whatever it was

.

Try it, every day

.

It sets a nicer approach to the new day in motion

Slightly tardy reply

"Money you may place into an account, yet how do you store energy inside?"

This was a question asked about a blog I wrote on the 4th of March 2006 and then subsequently added bit more on the 9th

I have no idea whether or not the person who wrote it still reads these blogs, however I felt like coming at it from a slightly different perspective

Yes you can place money in an account however you do not know what it will be worth when you come to take it out!

Lets just say it is positive

Energy is more complex

To store energy in a simple sense we eat food

In the sense that I feel you were asking about it is slightly more difficult

Energy feeds on energy

We store it to use it later

The trick is to go further

If we are angry and down we use more and store less

If life presses upon us we use more and save less

If we are happy we also use more however we gain more and this is the energy that stays within us

To store the maximum be positive

Be optimistic

Be excited by nature, the world, your life

Be curious

All of these help store energy inside

Of course when life is hectic and getting increasingly unpredictable this becomes more of a challenge

Be aware that once you use your reserves it is harder to get them back again

The trick is to balance input and output by learning how to be patient and calmer

When you can do this you are using less energy and causing less damage to the system

.

And once you learn how to do this you set up a virtuous cycle where energy is always available

.

When we are really tired we like it when we need to give someone a correction because after we have finished we feel that we have more energy than when we started

.

A " positive commission" if you will

.

To attain positive energy storage it is also necessary that you do not bullshit yourself into mantras of positivity when you do not really believe them

.

Learning the truth of things allows you to go beyond mantras or forced sayings of a positive nature

.

Further than this you know, not a belief, you know the truth

.

At this point you are well on your way to having positive energy storage all the time

.

Life being process do not beat yourself up if you feel you have a long way to go, even the greatest Master started where you are now at some point in his or her journey

.

If you are still out there I hope you find this admittedly short answer OK

Money again

Money impoverishes us


Money does not go bad

In normal economic times it grows

Money changed our world

Everything with few exceptions is now monetized

Everything has had a monetary value placed on it

And the world is poorer for this

Money needs to grow and without growth money does not work

There has to be a greater need for money in the future otherwise the current money structure collapses

Can we continue with money as we know it?

Can we continue without it?

Money is a challenge for all of us for the way it rules our lives

Yet the subject is not addresssed as being at the root of our problems

Not addressed as being out of control

Money is our challenge we cannot get away from it

The world is mired in money

Mmmmm - 16

Power belongs to him who knows.

This is a very old axiom.

Knowledge the first step to which is the power of comprehending the truth, of discerning the real from the false

-is for those only who, having freed themselves from every prejudice and conquered their human conceit and selfishness are ready to accept every and any truth, once it is demonstrated to them.

Of such there are very few

Absurdity

there is a still greater absurdity than to speak of a cruel God:

.

it is to admit that God, the Great, Absolute Whole,

.

could ever interfere in terrestrial or human affairs.
.
The infinite cannot associate with the finite;

.

the unconditioned ignores the conditioned and the limited.
.
The absolute "Intelligence-Wisdom" cannot act in the restricted space of a small globe.
.
It is omnipresent and latent in the Cosmos, infinite as itself."
.
We find it's only true manifestation in humanity as a whole,

.

composed as it is of stray sparks,

.

finite in their objective duration,

.

eternal in their essence,

.

issuing from that hearth without beginning or end.
.
Therefore the only God whom we should serve is humanity,

.

and our only cult should be the love of our fellow man."
.
HPBlavatsky

Big pharma

Literally ten years and billions of R&D dollars after William Potter first sounded the alarm about the placebo effect, his message has finally gotten through.
.
In the spring, Potter, who is now a VP at Merck, helped rev up a massive data-gathering effort called the Placebo Response Drug Trials Survey.
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Under the auspices of the NIH, Potter and his colleagues are acquiring decades of trial data—including blood and DNA samples—to determine which variables are responsible for the apparent rise in the placebo effect.
.
Merck, Lilly, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson & Johnson, and other major firms are funding the study, and the process of scrubbing volunteers' names and other personal information from the database is about to begin.
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In typically secretive industry fashion, the existence of the project itself is being kept under wraps.
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NIH staffers are willing to talk about it only anonymously, concerned about offending the companies paying for it.
.
For Potter, who used to ride along with his father on house calls in Indiana, the significance of the survey goes beyond Big Pharma's finally admitting it has a placebo problem.
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It also marks the twilight of an era when the drug industry was confident that its products were strong enough to cure illness by themselves.
.
Before I routinely prescribed antidepressants, I would do more psychotherapy for mildly depressed patients, says the veteran of hundreds of drug trials.
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Today we would say I was trying to engage components of the placebo response—and those patients got better.
.
To really do the best for your patients, you want the best placebo response plus the best drug response.
.
The pharma crisis has also finally brought together the two parallel streams of placebo research—academic and industrial.
.
Pfizer has asked Fabrizio Benedetti to help the company figure out why two of its pain drugs keep failing.
.
Ted Kaptchuk is developing ways to distinguish drug response more clearly from placebo response for another pharma house that he declines to name.
.
Both are exploring innovative trial models that treat the placebo effect as more than just statistical noise competing with the active drug.
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Benedetti has helped design a protocol for minimizing volunteers' expectations that he calls "open/hidden."
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In standard trials, the act of taking a pill or receiving an injection activates the placebo response.
.
In open/hidden trials, drugs and placebos are given to some test subjects in the usual way and to others at random intervals through an IV line controlled by a concealed computer.
.
Drugs that work only when the patient knows they're being administered are placebos themselves.
.
Ironically, Big Pharma's attempt to dominate the central nervous system has ended up revealing how powerful the brain really is.
.
The placebo response doesn't care if the catalyst for healing is a triumph of pharmacology, a compassionate therapist, or a syringe of salt water.
.
All it requires is a reasonable expectation of getting better.
.
That's potent medicine and big pharma is not doing very well compared to the placebo effect
.
NYT

Lies we live with

That 9/11 was as described by the government and media

.

That humanity evolved from a chance reaction of chemicals

That modern humanity originated in East Africa

That humanity all descended from one source

That modern man is only a few tens of thousands of years old

That human evolution has been one long trend upwards

That we are descended from monkeys and chimpanzees

That carbon dioxide is the cause of global warming, sorry now changed to climate change

That Columbus discovered America

That Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered Brazil

The pyramids are only 11,000 or so thousand years old

Stonehenge is likewise around the same age

Acupuncture does not work

Homeopathy does not work

That the causes of cancer can be found in the physical body

Ditto many other diseases

That mobile phones cause no long term problems

We have no soul

We only have one life

Your sins can be forgiven by priests

That the end of this life is a big black hole of nothing

That 7/7 in London was as the official reports describe

That vaccines have no side effects other than those admitted

And if we accept these things without question then we have missed an important reason why we are here in this life

We are here to use our brains

We are here to learn discernment

We are here to question

We are here to challenge

The points above are common knowledge and yet they are just plain wrong

They are not accurate

You are told that they are

Does it matter if they are or not?

Yes because they influence our lives

Saying that the Earth is flat made a difference

Saying Columbus found America when he sailed with a Portuguese map of America in his ship is denying reality and makes a psychological difference

And with so many other things the truth is around us, however we accept what we are told and usually without murmur

Do we care?

The decisions we take in the coming period of time about the environment. global climate change, the economy, emigration, and the rest can determine what happens to us and our planet

If the information we base our decisions on is wrong then our decisions can also be wrong

And if that is not enough we are cursed with malfunctioning systems of government in most countries

Governments not renowned for far sighted unbiased decision making

Governments easily influenced by special interest groups also not renowned for their far sighted publicly spirited decision making

So being clear in our own minds about what is true and what is not is important

Numerically there are enough of us globally to influence and help shape our thinking on issues of concern to us

The question is will we all get involved and make our contributions?

Thinking about the past

And what might have been

What could have been

It wasn't though was it?

Fact is you didn't

So here you are now sad for opportunities lost

What a waste of space!

Looking back is only useful when it helps you grow

Helps you learn

Adjusts your memories in a more honest way

Making the memory more accurate

Allowing you to let it go

To move on

Memories held have a strength in them until you let them go

Good memories yes they linger with a nice taste

Bad memories are draining over time because every time you look back with anger or frustration you feed them

This is why many people cannot move on they are held hostage by their bitterness and memories

Not realising that by looking back in this way they are creating a self feeding loop of negative energy

In it's extreme form this can cripple

If you hold bitter memories let them go

If you really want to let them go try saying it was my fault
.
I was wrong
.
Even if you were not
.
You are choosing voluntarily to stop feeding the negative energy of the memory
.
How does that feel?
.
And if you cannot go that far
.
Say out loud I am letting this go and I choose to move on with my life
.
Live now in this moment bitter memories just poison and can serve no useful purpose
.
If you live for revenge this too will cripple you, poison you
.
As a friend's poster says "The best revenge is living well"
.
Heed it
.
The advice is sound

Helping the planet

Wanting to save it maybe?

How many times do we hear that

Many

And then the question to us what should they do

We say heal yourself

They ask what do you mean

We point out that saving the planet starts with yourself

Once you have sorted yourself then maybe just maybe you will be able to go and save the planet

Healing yourself is not easy and is not accomplished in five minutes

In fact five life times or so might get you there and only then after mega effort on your part

Why so?

Because so few of us know ourselves

False perceptions and refusal to be honest with ourselves being just two issues

Learning to control our minds being another major major one

How many of you can still your mind for thirty seconds at will, whenever you want to?

If you cannot then how are you going to pretend that you are in any way shape of form the master of yourself?

And if you are not the master of yourself then how can you know who or what you truly are?

Just not possible so as you see there are several things that get in the way of saving the planet

Simply stated if you cannot master yourself how do you know what to save let alone how to do it?

Harsh?

Not really saving the planet is a tall order witness some of the half baked ideas being presented as serious issues at Copenhagen

Just how can these issues seriously be presented as those that will save the planet?

So we come back to reality

Sure all of us want to make a contribution, but getting real we need to start with ourselves

Doing that will keep us busy enough and along the way we can make our contributions as and when the opportunities present themselves

It does not matter the scale or situation what maters is that we do our best

Doing it because it is the right thing to do not for any reward or prestige

Helping the planet in reality is all of us doing what we can to support those in need

Doing what we can to help others

Along the way we learn a lot about ourselves and that indeed takes us towards mastery of ourselves

That's real and also helping the planet

.

Why?

.

Because we are the planet

.

So helping ourselves and others is helping the planet

Greed and beyond

Even the word has something grrrr about it!

Notice how we are being told that as we are now into difficult times greed is allegedly becoming unfashionable

The rich should tone down their ostentatious lifestyles magazines and pundits tell us

What pray will half the world's media, who feed endlessly breathlessly on the doings of the rich, give us instead?

And do those who take a vicarious pleasure in the doings of the rich and famous want to be fed anything else?

Probably almost certainly not

However for those who want to move on it is time to see that greed is "so yesterday" but then it always was!

Where to go then?

If we are to move away from greed and we all talk about greed, how is it actually defined?

"Greed is the excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of money, wealth, and power

It is generally considered a vice, and is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism"

People believe greed is based on incorrectly- connecting material wealth with happiness.

This is caused by a view that exaggerates the positive aspects of an possessing an object; that is to say, acquiring material objects has less impact than we imagine on our feelings of happiness.

This view has been corroborated by studies in the field of happiness economics, which confirm that beyond the provision of a basic level of material comfort, more wealth does not increase happiness

So if greed is self defeating and leads only to an addiction for ever more things leaving us increasingly empty inside..............

What is happiness?

"Happiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy"

A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion.

Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics.

While direct measurement of happiness presents challenges, tools such as The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire have been developed by researchers.

Positive psychology researchers use theoretical models that include describing happiness as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities, or that describe three kinds of happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

Research has identified a number of attributes that correlate with happiness: relationships and social interaction, extraversion, marital status, employment, health, democratic freedom, optimism, religious involvement, income and proximity to other happy people

So now you know

Does that really tell you anything you didn't know before?

Possibly the definition of greed and when you read it you think, no I do not want to go down that road thank you very much

The happiness option doesn't really help too much in telling me what to do either as it merely describes the state and not how to get there

It does give clues

It does name those things that are associated with happiness

How many do you have?

How many are you working on?

Are you consciously moving towards greater happiness?

Because if you are then a great big fat point is missing from both the definitions of greed and happiness

Fear

Fear is often if not always at root the driving force behind greed

Fear is often if not always at root the inhibition that prevents us experiencing happiness

So why do they not talk about this?

Maybe they don't know

Maybe they don't know the way out

We all have fears

Just a question of how much they dominate your life

So to move beyond greed and towards happiness we need to let go of fear

Letting go of fear is a major part of the journey of life

It is at root what we are all here to learn about

Wherever you are on this journey

If you can be honest with yourself about your fears then you are on your way

To leave greed and selfishness behind and move towards happiness learn your own fears

Just that, and it's not easy because we all like to pretend that we don't have any or that we can control them

Not so for most of us we prefer to shuffle through life ignoring the signs

Be different, find them, get them out, talk about them, it reduces their power over you

And this allows you to move on

Happiness is not the goal but more of it is nice to live with!

Prohibition

Prohibition = Hypocrisy = Politics = Vested interests

Certainly we can all understand how many interest groups derive money from the continuance of prohibition on different substances

Certainly we can see the damage inflicted, the waste of lives

More difficult to ignore is the proof that prohibition does more harm than good

The clear and continuing message that humans will always do those things that bring them personal pleasure

With or without prohibition

Certainly we can see the political advantage of prohibition

What is more difficult to see is why journalists cannot rouse themselves to fight once in a while

Certainly we see that the media is controlled by those who are in league with politicians

But with the screamingly obvious like prohibition

Can they not rouse themselves?

They even have children

What will they tell them?

They were too busy to get involved?

Too frightened?

Too lazy?

Whatever the truth

Prohibition raises again the question as to what rights do governments have to interfere in the choices their citizens make with regard to what they consume?

On the one hand governments feel it is fine to force increasing numbers of inoculations on children and society at large

On the other they say you may not take or consume this or that substance

So they want it both ways

You may not consume this

But you must consume or take that

Out of control

The nanny state has overstepped what is reasonable

Prohibition is not a solution to any problem

Time to fight both prohibition and enforced vaccination programs

Mobile advances

In the grand scheme of telecoms history, mobile phones have made a bigger difference to the lives of more people, more quickly, than any previous technology.

They have spread faster than TV or PCs and proved the easiest and cheapest new technology to adopt.

Even a few years ago the idea of connecting everyone on Earth was considered Utopian

Laughable even

But now It is now clear that the long process of connecting everyone on Earth to a global telecommunications network, which began with the invention of the telegraph in 1791, is nearly complete

Mobile phones will have done more than anything else to advance the democratisation of telecoms, and all the advantages that come with it.

Leaving aside the unknown or undeclared risks from the long term use of mobile phones it is clear that mobile phones are having a greater positive impact on the lives of more people than other single device

And yet ten years ago they were clunky and in the possession of only a few

Today they are within the reach of almost all, if not to own, then at least to use

For the poor mobile phones offer an increasing range of possibilities only dreamt of a decade ago

Mobile phones allow many advances in life possibilities for the poor

Health monitoring, support and advice

Agricultural information

Advice on prices

On crops

On social and sports events

Weather warnings

But maybe the single most important is the transfer of money

Putting those too poor to open a bank account in a position to hold money safely

To transfer and pay bills

This last aspect is well developed in Kenya, Indonesia the Philippines, and some other countries where there is competition amongst network providers

.

But in countries where there is only one provider, such as Ethiopia usage is limited, the uptake slower the costs higher and the services fewer

.

The next steps allowing greater transfer of data through internet access promise another jump in connectedness

.

Sadly as so often is the case greed and corruption slow this advance in many countries

.

Ironically the mobile phone itself is slowly helping to loosen these constraints through greater awareness and communication

Where else will mobile usuage take us, all of us?

Who knows!

New brains

One of the interesting developments arising from the use of programs like Twitter is that we are literally changing our brains

Rewiring them if you will

They are responding quicker over greater periods of time, days, months, years at a new pace and intensity

This new brain might be quicker but it encodes information more shallowly and the record lasts less long

Twitter might seem to record our thoughts and feelings, but for the most part does nothing other than record simple information like where I am, what I am doing

We do so in a practical way using our digital instruments that merely record our inputs

One person called the fixation of some users with Twitter and other interactive devices "time greed" and in a way this encapsulates what is happening

Many people are becoming addicted to their digital instruments to the point where this becomes and is their world

Seldom far away from the beep or demand of their digital devices

They break conversations, move away from others to text and speak totally absorbed in their digital world

The demand of their devices overriding any other relationships

Never stopping, their life totally at the beck and call of the digital devices of choice

Devices designed to aid communication are becoming that communication

Why?

Because Twitter and the like are creating the illusion of involvement, importance and reality

When in fact they are often nothing but accelerators of banality

As the old saying goes garbage in garbage out

And who would argue that 90% of twitter communication is less than stellar?

And our brains that accept this as an imperative are changing

Removing the interest and depth which makes inter human communications so rich and valuable

By increasing the speed of life and accepting the demands of the digital domain we risk losing so much more

Maybe this is why we are seeing the emergence of so many "slow movements", the best known of which is the slow food movement

These are fighting the relentlessly increasing tempo of life

Just as we are ruining the natural environment by our accelerating greed for resources

So we risk damaging our essential humanness through the overloading of our temporal realm

Destroying the core element of our humanity

Let us hope that those coming after us learn to handle their digital realm with more balance than many do today

"Time greed" is unsustainable as many will discover

Little ditty

"Only when the last tree has died
.
and the last fish has been caught
.
and the last river poisoned
.
will we realize that we can’t eat money"
.
Wrote someone
.
To which we reply
.
"Only when we respect each other as we do ourselves
.
and accept the truth of reincarnation and karma
.
and so see the reason for our many lives
.
will we realize that money is no answer"


Life is as life is

Money is part of life

Learn to handle it

Do not let it handle you

Ours to make the best of life

Yes it is hard

Yes and it only gets better when we feel good about ourselves

And that comes when we help others

Think of others

Because deep inside that is what we are here for

Deep inside we know we have many lives

Deep inside we know we should help others more than we do

Deep inside we know that money is not the answer

Our happiest days are not about money

Our happiest days are about sharing and caring

When we all do that then we have it solved

Just a question of velocity really

Mmmmm -70

Power belongs to him who knows

This is a very old axiom

Knowledge - the first step to which is the power of comprehending the truth

Of discerning the real from the false -

is for those only who, having freed themselves from every prejudice

and conquered their human conceit and selfishness, are ready to

accept every and any truth once it is demonstrated to them

Of such there are very few

The majority judge of a work according to the respective predjudices of its critics

Who are guided in their turn by the popularity or unpopularity of the author

Rather than by its own faults or merits

CW Vol X1V

What will matter

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

.

There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.

.

All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.

.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

.
It won’t matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.

.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

.
So what will matter?

.

How will the value of your days be measured?
.
What will matter is not what you bought but what you built,

.
Not what you got but what you gave.

.
What will matter is not your success but your significance.

.
What will matter is not what you learned but what you taught.

.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched,

.
empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

.
What will matter is not your competence but your character.

.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,

.
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.

.
What will matter is not your memories but the memories of those who loved you.

.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.

.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.

.
Choose to live a life that matters.
.
Michael Josephson

Place is space with memory

What makes a place interesting or memorable?

What makes it stick in our memory?

What makes us remember somewhere?

Some would say it's energy

.

It's beauty

Others it's features

Smell and history maybe

It's infrastructure perhaps

And at the end of the day, infrastructure is more than just roads, buildings and electrical lines.

Infrastructure is an interesting one because it carries so many elements that influence us

Speak to us

It’s about the social fabric of a community, and the collective memory of a geography, that determines whether a place will thrive and replicate, or destroy itself from within

.

And that's why we want to live where we do

.

Why we like visit and go back to certain places

.

Invisible but very real

.

That shiver when we enter certain places

.

That desire to leave others

.

Every place on Earth has it's story

.

Place is space with memory

Simple evasion

Once every four or five years voters get the chance to vote nationally in most Western countries

This vote on a national level is often preceded or followed by local voting

And for most that is it

Once every four years or so

A choice usually between two virtually indistinguishable parties

One slightly right of center

One slightly left of center

For many voters today neither party is attractive

There is no choice just x or y

Commentators seem surprised that most voters are fed up with this situation

That many refuse to vote

Because that one vote is usually couched in silly terms where both parties make nonsensical promises of heaven on earth

And after the vote?

Politicians then tend to ignore voters until election time comes around again

Paying scant attention except when crises arise

These politicians decide many aspects of our lives

.

Creating laws

.

Modifying laws

.

Implementing laws

.

Following the dictates of pressure groups and lobbyists

.

One such area is those who promote Genetically Modified crops

Europeans have said no they do not like this idea in country after country

In every country voters have said no thank you

Voters have expressed their dislike and concern for this over and over

The British government has chosen to ignore voters concerns by telling voters how important it is to use GM seeds bringing out various arguments ranging from increased productivity to lack of food reserves to health of crops

Telling voters that they are safe when no one can know as the subject area is too new for anyone to know the long term effects on man or nature

Why would we worry except that GM crops have mostly failed to produce the claimed benefits in productivity or disease resistance and reduce farmers choice of seed stock even further

Voters are still saying no thank you

The government is determined to proceed anyway

In Britain by law the government had to announce where it was doing trials

Trials were initiated and the crops were then uprooted by people who did not like this idea of trials

Now the Government is going to change the law so that it no longer has to announce where it is doing trials

So what is the point of having votes when the government refuses to listen to what its citizens say or abide by it's own laws?

Lobbyists enjoy ready access to politicians

Laws are changed, the will of the people is ignored

And so it goes on

But when trials go wrong or something is amiss the last to be found are the politicians who changed the laws............... for none are accountable

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Yes they will have plenty of weasle words and excuses

While the companies involved merely pay off those affected, if they even bother to do this

Governments are not listening and insist that they know best regarding GM foods and products

Behind them stand lobbyists for the chemical and agribusiness companies

Voters can say all they like lobbies are getting their way

Votes mean little, lobby money does

However surveys and opinion poles do attract politicians interest if only for self survival or the chance to posture

On an individual level it is important to inform yourself and be clear about what you think

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After all these modified foods are increasingly what you are buying and eating

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Whether or not you know it

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And the long term harm they might be doing to you or your children?

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No one knows

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So yes it is time

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To voice discontent with the abuse of the electorate by unaccountable governments

Over time this system has failed the electorate in country after country

New Internet pressure groups are making headway in challenging government and lobby groups

Do you support any?

Should you?

The Han colonisation of Tibet

Tibet was autonomous until October1950 when he Chinese invaded and occupied the country

It was a poor country by material standards

With a feudal system of government

Isolated to the extent that few really understood or knew it's reality

A Buddhist country with the Dalai Lama as one of it's leaders

The Dalai Lama was forced into exile in India along with 100,000 other Tibetans

There has been an increasing influx of Chinese settlers into Tibet in recent years as transport has improved, but the exact figures are a matter of dispute.

According to an official census in 2000, there were 2.4 million Tibetans in the region and 159,000 Han Chinese.

The government in exile says there are many more Chinese if migrant workers and soldiers are counted.

The Dalai Lama has said there is a Han majority in Lhasa, the regional capital.

China has denied carrying out any deliberate settlement policy aimed at the dilution of Tibetan culture and points instead to the benefits brought to the region by economic development and investment.

The Dalai Lama claimed over-settlement and over-exploitation of Tibet was threatening the quality and flow of rivers flowing out of the Tibetan highlands, including the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Indus, the Mekong and the Ganges.

Due to carelessness these waters have been polluted and also reduced, and I think billions of people's lives depend on these rivers the Dalai Lama said.
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There has been mining without proper care, deforestation, irrigation without proper planning. In some valleys, new diseases have developed which some specialists believe is the result of water pollution

While outsiders are unable to verify many things it is clear that increased Han immigration is a reality

It is also clear that control of the region and economy is in Han Chinese hands and that indigenous Tibetans have little if any say in the future of their country

Can Tibetans protect their land?

Hard to see how when the Dalai Lama is unable to engage the Chinese in meaningful dialog and local Tibetans have been marginalized

The outside world is powerless and unable or unwilling to influence Chinese behavior and strategy

Has it ever been thus

Poor world over and over politicians choose to ignore or avoid challenging abuse by bullying countries prefering to say nothing

Throughout history the bully has been allowed to behave badly

The world then has to pay when the bully goes too far

Will we ever learn?

We will see but the precedents are not encouraging

Healers

So many claim to be healers today

Seems like it's the fashion

All kinds of approaches from quaint and weird to sane and secure

Our take on this is simple

A true healer, in our understanding of that word, will never ask for money

Why?

Because if they are healers using the resources of nature, which most claim to be doing

Then they may not charge for something that is not theirs

The act of healing another is one of service not profit

And yes in the modern world this is rare

However this is how we see it

The healer may accept donations and yet may not ask for any

Those who choose to give do so because they feel to do so, not because of any obligation to do so

Those who do not are free to create their own karma, which is not the business of the healer

The healers we are talking about accept that life will carry risk and they accept this

Somehow life looks after them and provides what they need

Note what they need not what they might want

Wanting is also a no no for those we are talking about

They do not want they appreciate what they have

Their focus is not on the material

Their focus is on doing the best they can with whoever and whatever is sent their way

Just a few thoughts on your average modern healer

If your healer has not healed him or herself then they are mixing their energy with yours

Happy about that?

If they have illness be it physical or mental do you really want to mix yours with theirs?

And just what have they learnt?

Where and with whom?

Before engaging a gas repair man you want to know if he has the right credentials

Same for a healer

Where did he learn?

What did he learn from whom, for how long, and did he have to show or prove aptitude?

If the answers don't sound right then think twice

18th century Russian women

Did you know?

For much of the eighteenth century Russia was ruled by women

After Peter the Great died he was briefly succeeded by his wife Catherine I

She was followed by Peter's grandson Peter II

But he died in only three years and was followed by Peter's niece Anna

When she died in 1740 she was briefly succeeded by a baby prince

He was soon deposed by the daughter of Peter the Great who became the Empress Elizabeth

She was followed in 1762 by Peter II

Within a few months he was overthrown by his wife, the German Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, who became Catherine the Great

Though widely differing in tastes and talents these women all contributed to increasing the visibility of women in Russian public life

It could well be argued that they did as well or better than the men who have ruled Russia

Is it not time we had another woman ruling Russia?

Quotes - 4

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts

- Henry Adams
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Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire

- William Yeats
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The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd.

The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been

- Alan Ashley-Pitt
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What is a weed?

A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not entirely absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible

- Bertrand Russell
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I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

- Anne Frank
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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.

Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great

- Mark Twain
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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away

- Henry David Thoreau
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Some trees grow very tall and straight and large in the forest close to each other, but some must stand by themselves or they won't grow at all

- Oliver Wendell Holmes
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What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be

- Ellen Burnstyn
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When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this... you haven't

- Unknown
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It's better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all

- Anne Bradstreet
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Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.

All life is an experiment.

The more experiments you make the better.

What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn?

What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice.

Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Not all who wander are lost

- J.R.R. Tolkien
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The fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are there

- Yasutani Roshi
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Patience will achieve more than force.

- Edmund Burke
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Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold.

For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you.

So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will be powerless to vex your mind.

- Leonardo da Vinci
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Should you shield the valleys from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their canyons. - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
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Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go

- T. S. Eliot
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The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away. Puzzling..

- Robert M. Pirsig
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Many people suffer with their thoughts, not knowing that revealing them on paper, continuously over a two hour period, removes the stinging bitterness which they are tightly wrapped within.

- Asmos
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Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness

- Chuang-tzu
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Success is not the key to happiness.

Happiness is the key to success.

If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
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The thing you set your mind on is the thing you ultimately become

- Nathaniel Hawthorne
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There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion

- Carl G. Jung

Being positive

We are often asked why we are so positive

How can we stay so positive?

Positive when our lives are spent hearing about terrible situations

Treating those with horrible terminal illnesses and other conditions

Seeing some die and decline

Others walking away too frightened to fight or change

Yes it does get to us

It is hard to have a permanent firewall between ourselves and those who come to us for help

Hard not to get emotionally involved when you like those you are helping

So how come we are positive when we can also see through the lies and hypocrisy of those who lead us?

Like most of us we hate the hypocrisy, greed and selfishness so prevalent today

When we can see the future

When we can know what will happen

Answer

Because we follow rules

Because we lead disciplined lives

Because we believe

Believe in what we do

Beyond belief we know beyond doubt, for ourselves that is, the truth of what is and is not

The truth of the perennial or ageless wisdom

We understand why we are where we are as a species

And what we must go through as a species

We know where we are as individuals and can imagine no other way of life

Serving is fine

Making a contribution is fine too

In whatever comes our way

Accepting pain and sorrow along the way is OK with us

Feeling and experiencing an ever closer relationship with nature is amazing

Feeling part of the creative aspect of nature is a powerful experience

So for us as half atoms in a big universe being positive goes with the territory

Being positive comes with where we are on our journey

As it can be for any other person who so chooses

Choices we all make

Choices made easier by taking the trouble to find out the truth of things

That's why we are positive