Humans have been seeking happiness ever since self-consciousness threw us out of the garden of simple need satisfaction and into the quest for personal fulfillment. Inside the garden, reality was experienced as a provident web of support. Outside, we are on our own – or so it feels. Our human condition – separate, self-conscious, andContinue reading “Getting Off”
Tag Archives: Anxiety
Dropping Into Reality
In More Than You Think I offered a theory that regards mind as more than what’s going on inside your head. Western culture, particularly, has tended to equate consciousness (or spirit) with mind, mind with the brain, and the brain with the body as the central ganglion of its physical nervous system. Granting such exclusiveContinue reading “Dropping Into Reality”
Living From Our Higher Nature
I would say the major reason why humans suffer so much and project their suffering onto each other is that we don’t understand ourselves. There is indeed a truth that can set us free, but it involves more than just getting our facts straight. This truth has to do with waking up to what weContinue reading “Living From Our Higher Nature”
Your Fact-Value Map
All you need to know is that there are just four kinds of people in the world. There are those who live as close as possible to what their own senses validate as real; we’ll call them Skeptics (from Greek skopeîn, to examine). They have their opposite in the Agnostics who keep reminding themselves how much,Continue reading “Your Fact-Value Map”
How Schools Make The Problem Worse
In the field of higher education where I work as a manager of instructional support, a priority has been placed on “critical thinking” as the skill-set graduates most need in order to be productive at work. Consequently, it is the one thing that instructors are expected to teach and test for in their students. JustContinue reading “How Schools Make The Problem Worse”
What We Really Want, and Why We Settle for Less
For many millenniums humans have been trying to figure out the secret to wellbeing. Various philosophies and numerous religions have arisen with answers, methods, and sophisticated programs said to be “the way” to this elusive goal. Before we get too far, we need to put some definition around the term “wellbeing.” What does it meanContinue reading “What We Really Want, and Why We Settle for Less”
Science, Spirituality, and The World To Come
I probably spend too much time defending the role of religion in our lives, especially in the opinion of those who identify themselves as nonreligious or atheist. While they tend to define religion as a belief system oriented on the supernatural, driven by superstition, stuck in the past, prone to fanaticism, and utterly irrelevant toContinue reading “Science, Spirituality, and The World To Come”
The Price of Ignórance
We know for a fact that the pesticides we spray on our crops end up in our grocery stores. We know that rampant consumerism is unraveling the delicate web of life on our planet. We know that collateral losses of civilian casualties make wars criminally unjust. We know that teaching students what to think andContinue reading “The Price of Ignórance”
What’s Holding You Back?
In recent decades there has been a great deal of emphasis placed on the importance of self-esteem. Our children will grow into unhappy adults unless we can build up their sense of specialness and unique importance. Young people should believe in themselves, that anything is possible, and that nobody has a right to get inContinue reading “What’s Holding You Back?”
Life Outside the Consensus Trance
The psychologist Charles Tart coined the term consensus trance in reference to the shared assumptions and agreements that hold social organizations inside the rules of groupthink (Irving Janus, 1972). As an aspect of what he named a consensus reality orientation (CRO), it reflects the tendency we all have in adjusting our perspective and aspirations toContinue reading “Life Outside the Consensus Trance”
Tracts of Revolution 