Many are looking all around for the clues to understand our present predicament. They look on the stage of national and global politics. They look at the deteriorating conditions of Earth’s climate and habitats. They look upon the cracking infrastructures of civil society. They look out the window at their neighbors. They look everywhere exceptContinue reading “Four Burning Questions”
Tag Archives: significance
One Song
An important challenge for contemporary cosmology – referring to our present-day theory and general picture of reality – involves finding a place for the higher mysteries of mind, ego, and spirit. Like Odysseus steering his ship between Scylla the six-headed dragon on one side, and Charybdis the crushing whirlpool on the other, we need toContinue reading “One Song”
A New Hierarchy of Needs
Back when Abraham Maslow formulated his hierarchy of human needs, the science of psychology hadn’t yet clarified what I have come to name our subjective or “feeling-needs.” At that time the concept of need was still equated with a dependency on something external to the individual which is required for healthy development. As we moveContinue reading “A New Hierarchy of Needs”
The Five Facets of Meaning
The brand of humanistic spirituality I ascribe to regards human beings primarily as creators, and what we create is meaning. This brings in another key concept as it relates to meaning itself, which is that meaning is created – or constructed and projected – rather than intrinsic and merely awaiting our discovery in objective reality.Continue reading “The Five Facets of Meaning”
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”
The Harmony of Intelligence
I recently offered up the idea of our “quadratic intelligence,” of four distinct types of intelligence in us that open up and come online in developmental stages, each one engaging us with a dimension of reality. I pointed out how Western psychology and education theory have only recently come to realize that our earlier notion of anContinue reading “The Harmony of Intelligence”
Mystical Faith and the Way to Peace
And now we began to drive through that narrow strait. On one side was Scylla and on the other Charybdis. Fear gripped the men when they saw Charybdis gulping down the sea. But as we drove by, the monster Scylla seized six of my company–the hardiest of the men who were with me. As theyContinue reading “Mystical Faith and the Way to Peace”
Life Without Hooks
De Mello: “Put this program into action, a thousand times: (a) identify the negative feelings in you; (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of ‘I’; these things come and go; (d) understand that when you change, everythingContinue reading “Life Without Hooks”
Holding On and Letting Go
Anderson: “People of power and position are not the only ones who resist threats to a belief system; so do ordinary people who have internalized that belief system and take it to be absolute reality. The collapse of a belief system can be like the end of the world. Even those who are most oppressedContinue reading “Holding On and Letting Go”
The View from Down Under
De Mello: “The trouble with people is that they’re busy fixing things they don’t even understand. We’re always fixing things, aren’t we? It never strikes us that things don’t need to be fixed. They really don’t. This is a great illumination. They need to be understood. If you understood them, they’d change.” “Problems” motivate ourContinue reading “The View from Down Under”
Tracts of Revolution 