617 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2021
    1. Professional musicians, concert pianists get to know this instrument deeply, intimately. And through it, they're able to create with sound in a way that just dazzles us, and challenges us, and deepens us. But if you were to look into the mind of a concert pianist, and you used all the modern ways of imaging it, an interesting thing that you would see 00:11:27 is how much of their brain is actually dedicated to this instrument. The ability to coordinate ten fingers. The ability to work the pedal. The feeling of the sound. The understanding of music theory. All these things are represented as different patterns and structures in the brain. And now that you have that thought in your mind, recognize that this beautiful pattern and structure of thought in the brain 00:11:52 was not possible even just a couple hundred years ago. Because the piano was not invented until the year 1700. This beautiful pattern of thought in the brain didn't exist 5,000 years ago. And in this way, the skill of the piano, the relationship to the piano, the beauty that comes from it was not a thinkable thought until very, very recently in human history. 00:12:17 And the invention of the piano itself was not an independent thought. It required a depth of mechanical engineering. It required the history of stringed instruments. It required so many patterns and structures of thought that led to the possibility of its invention and then the possibility of the mastery of its play. And it leads me to a concept I'd like to share with you guys, which I call "The Palette of Being." 00:12:44 Because all of us are born into this life having available to us the experiences of humanity that has come so far. We typically are only able to paint with the patterns of thoughts and the ways of being that existed before. So if the piano and the way of playing it is a way of being, this is a way of being that didn't exist for people 5,000 years ago. 00:13:10 It was a color in the Palette of Being that you couldn't paint with. Nowadays if you are born, you can actually learn the skill; you can learn to be a computer scientist, another color that was not available just a couple hundred years ago. And our lives are really beautiful for the following reason. We're born into this life. We have the ability to go make this unique painting with the colors of being that are around us at the point of our birth. 00:13:36 But in the process of life, we also have the unique opportunity to create a new color. And that might come from the invention of a new thing. A self-driving car. A piano. A computer. It might come from the way that you express yourself as a human being. It might come from a piece of artwork that you create. Each one of these ways of being, these things that we put out into the world 00:14:01 through the creative process of mixing together all the other things that existed at the point that we were born, allow us to expand the Palette of Being for all of society after us. And this leads me to a very simple way to go frame everything that we've talked about today. Because I think a lot of us understand that we exist in this kind of the marvelous universe, 00:14:30 but we think about this universe as we're this tiny, unimportant thing, there's this massive physical universe, and inside of it, there's the biosphere, and inside of that, that's society, and inside of us, we're just one person out of seven billion people, and how can we matter? And we think about this as like a container relationship, where all the goodness comes from the outside to the inside, and there's nothing really special about us. 00:14:56 But the Palette of Being says the opposite. It says that the way that we are in our lives, the way that we affect our friends and our family, begin to change the way that they are able to paint in the future, begins to change the way that communities then affect society, the way that society could then affect its relationship to the biosphere, and the way that the biosphere could then affect the physical planet 00:15:21 and the universe itself. And if it's a possible thing for cyanobacteria to completely transform the physical environment of our planet, it is absolutely a possible thing for us to do the same thing. And it leads to a really important question for the way that we're going to do that, the manner in which we're going to do that. Because we've been given this amazing gift of consciousness.

      The Palette of Being is a very useful idea that is related to Cumulative Cultural Evolution (CCE) and autopoiesis. From CCE, humans are able to pass on new ideas from one generation to the next, made possible by the tool of inscribed language.

      Peter Nonacs group at UCLA as well as Stuart West at Oxford research Major Evolutionary Transitions (MET) West elucidates that modern hominids integrate the remnants of four major stages of MET that have occurred over deep time. Amanda Robins, a researcher in Nonacs group posits the idea that our species of modern hominids are undergoing a Major Systems Transition (MST), due specifically to our development of inscribed language.

      CCE emerges new technologies that shape our human environments in time frames far faster than biological evolutionary timeframes. New human experiences are created which have never been exposed to human brains before, which feedback to affect our biological evolution as well in the process of gene-culture coevolution (GCC), also known as Dual Inheritance theory. In this way, CCE and GCC are entangled. "Gene–culture coevolution is the application of niche-construction reasoning to the human species, recognizing that both genes and culture are subject to similar dynamics, and human society is a cultural construction that provides the environment for fitness-enhancing genetic changes in individuals. The resulting social system is a complex dynamic nonlinear system. " (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3048999/)

      This metaphor of experiences constituting different colors on a Palette of Being is a powerful one that can contextualize human experiences from a deep time framework. One could argue that language usage automatically forces us into an anthropomorphic lens, for sophisticated language usage at the level of humans appears to be unique amongst our species. Within that constraint, the Palette of Being still provides us with a less myopic, less immediate and arguably less anthropomorphic view of human experience. It is philosophically problematic, however, in the sense that we can speculate about nonhuman modalities of being but never truly experience them. Philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote his classic paper "What it's like to be a bat" to illustrate this problem of experiencing the other. (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/study/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf)

      We can also leverage the Palette of Being in education. Deep Humanity (DH) BEing Journeys are a new kind of experiential, participatory contemplative practice and teaching tool designed to deepen our appreciation of what it is to be human. The polycrisis of the Anthropocene, especially the self-induced climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic have precipitated the erosion of stable social norms and reference frames, inducing another crisis, a meaning crisis. In this context, a re-education of embodied philosophy is seen as urgent to make sense of a radically shifting human reality.

      Different human experiences presented as different colors of the Palette of Being situate our crisis in a larger context. One important Deep Humanity BEing journey that can help contextualize and make sense of our experiences is language. Once upon a time, language did not exist. As it gradually emerged, this color came to be added to our Palette of Being, and shaped the normative experiences of humanity in profound ways. It is the case that such profound shifts, lost over deep time come to be taken for granted by modern conspecifics. When such particular colors of the Palette of Being are not situated in deep time, and crisis ensues, that loss of contextualizing and situatedness can be quite disruptive, de-centering, confusing and alienating.

      Being aware of the colors in the Palette can help us shed light on the amazing aspects that culture has invisibly transmitted to us, helping us not take them for granted, and re-establish a sense of awe about our lives as human beings.

    2. That's a picture of it in the background. And this organism has the special trick that we call "photosynthesis," the ability to go take energy from the sun and transform carbon dioxide into oxygen. And over the course of billions of years, so starting from two and a half billion years ago, little by little these bacteria spread across the planet 00:07:08 and converted all that carbon dioxide in the air into the oxygen that we now have. And it was a very slow process. First, they had to saturate the seas, then they had to saturate the oxygen that the earth would absorb, and only then, finally, could oxygen begin to build up in the atmosphere. So you see, just after about 900 million years ago, oxygen starts to build up in the atmosphere. And about 600 million years ago, something really amazing happens. 00:07:35 The ozone layer forms from the oxygen that has been released in the atmosphere. And it sounds like a small deal, like we talked about the ozone a couple decades ago, but it actually turns out that before the ozone layer existed, earth was not really able to sustain complex, multicellular life. We had single-celled organisms, we had a couple of simple, multicellular organisms, but we didn't really have anything like you or me. 00:07:59 And shortly after the ozone layer came into place, the earth was able to sustain complex multicellular life. There was a Cambrian explosion of life in the seas. And the first plants got onto land. In fact, there was actually no life on land ahead of that. Another way to see this is, this is kind of a chart of pretty much most of the animals that you guys are familiar with. 00:08:24 And right at the bottom in time is the formation of the ozone layer. Like nothing that you are familiar with today could exist without the contributions of these tiny organisms over those billions of years. And where are they now? Well actually, they never really left us. The direct descendants of the cyanobacteria were eventually captured by plants. And they're now called chloroplasts. 00:08:49 So this is a zoom-in of a plant leaf - and we probably ate some of these guys today - where tons of little chloroplasts are still trapped - contributing photosynthesis and making energy for the plants that continue to be the other half of our lungs on earth. And in this way, our breaths are very deeply united. Every out-breath is mirrored by the in-breath of a plant,

      This would be nice to turn into a science lesson or to represent this in an experiential, participatory Deep Humanity BEing Journey. To do this, it would be important to elucidate the series of steps leading from one stated result to the next, showing how scientific methodology works to link the series of interconnected ideas together. Especially important is the science that glues everything together over deep time.

    3. today I'm here to describe that everything really is connected, 00:02:02 and not in some abstract, esoteric way but in a very concrete, direct, understandable way. And I am going to do that with three different stories: a story of the heart, a story of the breath, and a story of the mind.

      These three are excellent candidates for multimedia Stop Reset Go (SRG) Deep Humanity (DH) BEing Journey.

      It is relevant to introduce another concept that provides insights into another aspect required for engaging a non-scientific audience, and that is language.

      The audience is important! BEing Journeys must take that into consideration. We can bias the presentation by implicit assumptions. How can we take those implicit assumptions into consideration and thereby expand the audience?

      For a non-scientific audience, these arguments may not be so compelling. In this case, it is important to demonstrate how science can lead us to make such astounding predictions of times and space not directly observable to normative human perception.

    1. Fundamental features of human psychology can constrain the perceived personal relevance and importance of climate change, limiting both action and internalization of the problem. Cognitive shortcuts developed over millennia make us ill-suited in many ways to perceiving and responding to climate change (152), including a tendency to place less emphasis on time-delayed and physically remote risks and to selectively downplay information that is at odds with our identity or worldview (153). Risk perception relies on intuition and direct perceptual signals (e.g., an immediate, tangible threat), whereas for most high-emitting households in the Global North, climate change does not present itself in these terms, except in the case of local experiences of extreme weather events. Where strong concern does exist, this tends to be linked to care for others (154) combined with knowledge about the causes and possible consequences of climate change (155).

      This is indeed a problematic feature of human evolution. It has given rise to what Timothy Morton refers to as "hyperobjects", objects of such vastness in space and time that it defeats human mechanisms of perception at local scale: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hyperobjects https://hyp.is/xROjpD_jEey4a6-Urbh4_Q/www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/timothy-mortons-hyper-pandemic

      This psychological constraint is worth demonstrating to individuals to illustrate how we construct our values and responses. These constraints can be demonstrated in a vivid way within the context of Deep Humanity open source praxis BEing journeys.

      As in the New Yorker interview with Morton, we can take Deep Humanity participants on BEing journeys, walkabouts to identify hyperobjects.

      Hyperobjects are also cognitive and highly abstract in nature. This is a clue to another idea that could be enlightening to understanding the problematic context of appreciating hyperobjects such as climate change, and that is the idea of Jakob Von Uexkull's Umwelt:

      "Uexküll was particularly interested in how living beings perceive their environment(s). He argued that organisms experience life in terms of species-specific, spatio-temporal, 'self-in-world' subjective reference frames that he called Umwelt (translated as surrounding-world,[9] phenomenal world,[10] self-world,[10] environment[11] - lit. German environment). These Umwelten (plural of Umwelt) are distinctive from what Uexküll termed the "Umgebung" which would be the living being's surroundings as seen from the likewise peculiar perspective or Umwelt of the human observer. Umwelt may thus be defined as the perceptual world in which an organism exists and acts as a subject. By studying how the senses of various organisms like ticks, sea urchins, amoebae, jellyfish and sea worms work, he was able to build theories of how they experience the world. Because all organisms perceive and react to sensory data as signs, Uexküll argued that they were to be considered as living subjects. This argument was the basis for his biological theory in which the characteristics of biological existence ("life") could not simply be described as a sum of its non-organic parts, but had to be described as subject and a part of a sign system.

      The biosemiotic turn in Jakob von Uexküll's analysis occurs in his discussion of the animal's relationship with its environment. The Umwelt is for him an environment-world which is (according to Giorgio Agamben), "constituted by a more or less broad series of elements [called] "carriers of significance" or "marks" which are the only things that interest the animal". Agamben goes on to paraphrase one example from Uexküll's discussion of a tick, saying,

      "...this eyeless animal finds the way to her watchpoint [at the top of a tall blade of grass] with the help of only its skin’s general sensitivity to light. The approach of her prey becomes apparent to this blind and deaf bandit only through her sense of smell. The odor of butyric acid, which emanates from the sebaceous follicles of all mammals, works on the tick as a signal that causes her to abandon her post (on top of the blade of grass/bush) and fall blindly downward toward her prey. If she is fortunate enough to fall on something warm (which she perceives by means of an organ sensible to a precise temperature) then she has attained her prey, the warm-blooded animal, and thereafter needs only the help of her sense of touch to find the least hairy spot possible and embed herself up to her head in the cutaneous tissue of her prey. She can now slowly suck up a stream of warm blood."[12]

      Thus, for the tick, the Umwelt is reduced to only three (biosemiotic) carriers of significance: (1) The odor of butyric acid, which emanates from the sebaceous follicles of all mammals, (2) The temperature of 37 degrees Celsius (corresponding to the blood of all mammals), (3) The hairiness of mammals." ( From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Johann_von_Uexk%C3%BCll)

      The human umwelt limits us to a relatively small range of sensed signs. CO2 particles is not one of them. We rely on scientific narratives but these are far removed from direct sensing, into the field of conceptualization and abstraction. We have evolved to respond to danger that is sensed, less so to danger that is conceptualized.

  2. Oct 2021
    1. I was speaking in Iowa, and I was asked, “How do you talk to people in Iowa about polar bears?” I said, “You don’t; you talk to them about corn.” If we begin a conversation with someone with something we already agree on, then the subtext is: “You care about this, and I care too. We have this in common.”

      This stresses the importance of applying Deep Humanity wisely by finding the most compelling, salient and meaningful common human denominators appropriate for each conversational context. Which group are we interacting with? What are the major landmarks embedded in THEIR salience landscape?

      The BEing journeys we craft will only be meaningful and impactful if they are appropriately matched to the cultural context.

      The whole mind- body understanding of how we cognitively construct our reality, via Deep Humanity BEing journeys, can help shift our priorities.

  3. bafybeiery76ov25qa7hpadaiziuwhebaefhpxzzx6t6rchn7b37krzgroi.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeiery76ov25qa7hpadaiziuwhebaefhpxzzx6t6rchn7b37krzgroi.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. Fundamental features of human psychology can constrain the perceived personal relevance andimportance of climate change, limiting both action and internalization of the problem. Cognitiveshortcuts developed over millennia make us ill-suited in many ways to perceiving and respondingto climate change (152),including a tendency to place less emphasis on time-delayed and physicallyremote risks and to selectively downplay information that is at odds with our identity or worldview(153). Risk perception relies on intuition and direct perceptual signals (e.g., an immediate, tangiblethreat), whereas for most high-emitting households in the Global North, climate change does notpresent itself in these terms, except in the case of local experiences of extreme weather events.

      This psychological constraint is worth demonstrating to individuals to illustrate how we construct our values and responses. These constraints can be demonstrated in a vivid way wiithin the context of Deep Humanity BEing journeys.

    1. With the aid of the concept of opposing pairs of magnetic poles, we can clearly contribute in a significant way to our expression and understanding of basic relationships in the overall magnetic field. We are proposing to look at soma and significance in a similar way. That is to say, we regard them as two aspects introduced at an arbitrary conceptual cut in the flow of the field of reality as a whole. These aspects are distinguished only in thought, but this distinction helps us to express and understand the whole flow of reality.

      When Bohm writes "These aspects are distinguished only in thought, but this distinction helps us to express and understand the whole flow of reality", it reveals the true nature of words. Their only ever revealing aspects of the whole. They are NOT the whole.Hence, as linguistic animals, we are constantly dissecting parts of the whole of reality.

      Deep Humanity open-source praxis linguistic BEing journeys can be designed to reveal this ubiquitious aspectualizing nature of language to help us all better understand what we are as linguistic beings.

  4. Sep 2021
  5. Aug 2021
  6. Jun 2021
  7. May 2021
    1. Some people, regardless of their experience level are horrible as teachers. A school teacher gets asked the same question every year. Every year they answer them, even if it seems redundant, and the answers are simple to THEM. Teaching requires patience and the acceptance of being asked "dumb questions" repeatedly. If they cannot handle that, then they should simply not teach or pretend to be a teacher.
  8. Apr 2021
  9. Mar 2021
  10. Feb 2021
    1. To understand this helper, you should understand that every step invocation calls Output() for you behind the scenes. The following DSL use is identical to the one [above]. class Execute < Trailblazer::Activity::Railway step :find_provider, Output(Trailblazer::Activity::Left, :failure) => Track(:failure), Output(Trailblazer::Activity::Right, :success) => Track(:success)
    1. While Trailblazer offers you abstraction layers for all aspects of Ruby On Rails, it does not missionize you. Wherever you want, you may fall back to the "Rails Way" with fat models, monolithic controllers, global helpers, etc. This is not a bad thing, but allows you to step-wise introduce Trailblazer's encapsulation in your app without having to rewrite it.
    1. We got this email from Parabo, the print shop app, and smiled. Instead of the very standard “Please confirm subscription” header text, we were greeted with a funny, whimsical hello that’s totally in their brand voice. “We really want you to want us” is a clever way to break up the usual mundane greeting, and, guess what? It totally reaffirmed why we thought we wanted to sign up for their emails in the first place.
  11. Dec 2020
  12. Nov 2020
    1. The Thirteen Sources of Well-Being:More positive emotionsFewer negative emotionsLife satisfactionVitalityEnvironmental masteryPositive relationshipsSelf-acceptanceMasteryAutonomyPersonal growthEngagement in lifePurpose and meaning in lifeTranscendent experiences

      The Thirteen Sources of Well-Being

      1. More positive emotions
      2. Fewer negative emotions
      3. Life satisfaction
      4. Vitality
      5. Environmental mastery
      6. Positive relationships
      7. Self-acceptance
      8. Mastery
      9. Autonomy
      10. Personal growth
      11. Engagement in life
      12. Purpose and meaning in life
      13. Transcendent experiences
    1. This decorators proposal is based on a common model where each decorator affects just one syntactic element--either a field, or a method, or a getter, or setter, or a class. It is immediately visible what is being decorated.
  13. Oct 2020
    1. Scholars like Annette Gordon-Reed and Woody Holton have given us a deeper understanding of the ways in which leaders like Thomas Jefferson committed to new ideas of freedom even as they continued to be deeply committed to slavery.

      I've not seen any research that relates the Renaissance ideas of the Great Chain of Being moving into this new era of supposed freedom. In some sense I'm seeing the richest elite whites trying to maintain their own place in a larger hierarchy rather than stronger beliefs in equality and hard work.

  14. Sep 2020
    1. Explicit interfaces are preferable, even if it places greater demand on library authors to design both their components and their style interfaces with these things in mind.
    2. Web developers are well aware of the mess you can get into with global CSS, and the action of writing <Child class="foo"/> and <div class={_class}>` (or similar) in the child component is an explicit indication that, while taking advantage of all the greatness of style encapsulation by default, in this case you have decided that you want a very specific and controlled "leak", of one class, from one component instance to one component instance.
    1. If you copy an entire article from this site and republish it on your own site like you wrote it, that’s a little uncool. I won’t be mad at you for stealing, I just think you’re better than that and want to see you do better. I’m not going to come after you though. I’d rather play ball with my dog. The only time I’ll be mad at you is if you go out of your way to try and hurt me somehow. And again I probably won’t even be mad, just sad. Unless I’m having a bad day too, in which case I apologize in advance for my snarky replies.
  15. Aug 2020
  16. Jul 2020
  17. Jun 2020
  18. May 2020
    1. Explicit Form (where the purpose of the sign-up mechanism is unequivocal). So for example, in a scenario where your site has a pop-up window that invites users to sign up to your newsletter using a clear phrase such as: “Subscribe to our newsletter for access to discount vouchers and product updates!“, the affirmative action that the user performs by typing in their email address would be considered valid consent.

      Answers the question I had above: https://hyp.is/tpgdQo_4EeqPcm-PI0G2jA/www.iubenda.com/en/help/5640-email-newsletter-compliance-guide

    1. Does a China-based company selling goods over a website only drafted in Chinese need to comply with the GDPR just because it’s possible, from a practical point of view, that some EU-based Chinese persons might purchase something from it? In principle we’d say no, unless it can be proven, that the company is doing relevant business with EU-based customers, or is addressing them expressly (for instance, by informing that “delivery to the EU” or “payment from an EU bank account” are possible etc.).
  19. Apr 2020
    1. there's no reasonable way to communicate effectively with the less technically minded without acquiescing to the nontechnical misuse of the term "hacker"
    2. The more easily relabeled of the two uses of the term "hacker" is the malicious security cracker: it is not only the more recent phenomenon to acquire that label, but also the one whose meaning is most easily evoked by an alternative term. This is why, when you read an article of mine that talks about malicious security crackers, I use the term "malicious security cracker"
    1. It's typically a lot easier for software engineers to pull data out of a service that they use than it is for regular users. If APIs are available, we engineers can cobble together a program to pull our data out. Without APIs, we can even whip up a screen scraper to get a copy of the data. Unfortunately, for most users this is not an option, and they're often left wondering if they can get their data out at all.
  20. Mar 2020
    1. these active behaviors may include continued browsing, clicking, scrolling the page or some method that requires the user to actively proceed; this is somewhat left up to your discretion. Some website/app owners may favor a click-to-consent method over scrolling/continued-browsing methods as the former is less likely to be performed by user error.
  21. Feb 2020
    1. But, let’s be pragmatic for a second, the 80/20 rule states that you get 80% of the value from 20% of the work and a couple of simple tests are vastly better than no tests at all. Start small and simple, make sure you get something out of the testing first, then expand the test suite and add more complexity until you feel that you’ve reached the point where more effort spent on realism will not give enough return on your invested time.
  22. Nov 2019
  23. Sep 2019
    1. Jordan Peterson on The Necessity of Virtue

      "When you limit yourself, sometimes arbitrarily, and play the game, whole new possibilities emerge."

      "Being is not possible without limitation. The price you pay for being is limitation and the price for limitation is suffering."

  24. Aug 2019
    1. “You only get one mind and one body. And it’s got to last a lifetime. Now, it’s very easy to let them ride for many years. But if you don’t take care of that mind and that body, they’ll be a wreck forty years later, just like the car would be.” — Warren Buffett
    2. “I insist on a lot of time being spent, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. so I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” — Warren Buffett
    3. Cultivate positive habits and stick to them with a daily routine. How much better do you feel on the days that you do something good for yourself? Perhaps it’s the days that you exercise or maybe when you are really focused at work. Your days just seem to go smoother, don’t they? You can have that every day. It’s just a matter of deciding what you want to do and following through with it. Start small. Decide on one positive habit that you can start doing today, and then do it. Then do it again tomorrow. Once you’ve mastered one habit, you can put that momentum toward building a way to have the best day ever (every single day).
    4. Just be mindful about improving yourself. Here are some simple ways to do it: Mind: read a book (even if it’s just one page a day), journal, come up with ideas. Body: exercise (even if it’s just for 7 minutes), eat good food, drink plenty of water, get a good night’s sleep. Spirit: pray (it doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not) or just says ‘thanks’, be kind to people, write a gratitude list.
    1. Divergent responses to annotation demonstrate what Foucault means by power running through the whole social body.

      How would this have worked in pre-literate societies? Examples?

      "the whole social body" also reminds me of the idea of the "Great Chain of Being" to consider how differences in annotation may change and evolve in societies over long periods of time. I can't help but consider Richard Dawkins' original conceptualization of the "meme" and how they move through societies with or without literacy skills.

  25. Jun 2019
    1. “I felt like it wasn’t taken care of and it didn’t feel any safer to me and it didn’t feel any safer to (my son),”

      In most cases, many parents in this situation can understand all too well with the safety of their child. According to the school, the case is resolved with a slap on the wrist for the offender. Amy and her son still feels unsafe. Jacob would have to go to school everyday with fear waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Aside from that, parents must also fear the risk of suicide and the mental well being of their child? The result of a case being "resolved."

  26. Apr 2019
    1. Sartre argued that a central proposition of Existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for individuals is that they are individuals—independently acting and responsible, conscious beings ("existence")—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individuals fit ("essence"). The actual life of the individuals is what constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.[27]
  27. Mar 2019
    1. gender stereotypes, or thebeliefs and expectations people holdabout the typical characteristics, preferences,and behaviors of men and women. Aperson’s gender identity refers to theirpsychological sense of being male orfemale.

      I think in today's society a lot of people struggle with gender stereotypes and their identity. Society is set up to believe that the man is masculine and the women is feminine, and that if those traits are switched, then it's wrong. It's hard teaching a child about gender stereotypes because you don't want your child to feel as though he or she can not do certain things, but it happens which "may or may not" cause a crisis with their gender identity. You want the child to explore their options but in this case a lot of parents may not agree because they don't want to cause confusion. According to the article gender stereotypes, or the beliefs and expectations people hold about the typical characteristics, preferences,and behaviors of men and women. A person’s gender identity refers to their psychological sense of being male or female.

  28. Jan 2019
    1. so "being " is used in various senses, but always with reference to one principle. For some things are said to "be" because they are substances; others because they are modifications of substance; others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of terms relating to substance, or negations of certain of these terms or of substance. (Hence we even say that not-being is not-being.)

      Being is always one. Multiplicity is always to be reduced to unity.

  29. Dec 2018
    1. Iam ergo ostensum est quare factae sunt formae intellectibiles multae, et non est esse nisi unum, simplex, et quare factae sunt multae animae, quarum quaedam sunt fortiores aliis quibusdam, et esse earum est unum, simplex, in quo non est diversitas.

      Multiplicity of things and unity of Being

    1. But there is no such substratum, there is no "being" behind doing, working, becoming; "the doer" is a mere appanage to the action. The action is everything. In point of fact, the people duplicate the doing, when they make the lightning lighten, that is a "doing-doing"; they make the same phenomenon first a cause, and then, secondly, the effect of that cause.

      Sentence reused by Butler in Gender Trouble:

      The challenge for rethinking gender categories outside of the metaphysics of substance will have to consider […] that « there is no ‘being’ behind doing, effecting, becoming; the ‘doer’ is merely a fiction added to the deed – the deed is everything. » […] There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is perfomatively constituted by the very expressions that are said to be its results. » (Gender Trouble Routledge, 1990 p. 25)

  30. Sep 2018
    1. What is so important about being a human being in the traditional way that Huxley defines it? After all, what the human race is today is the product of an evolutionary process that has been going on for millions of years, one that with any luck will continue well into the future. There are no fixed human characteristics, except for a general capability to choose what we want to be, to modify ourselves in accordance with our desires. So who is to tell us that being human and having dignity means sticking with a set of emotional responses that are the accidental byproduct of our evolutionary history? There is no such thing as a biological family, no such thing as human nature or a “normal” human being, and even if there were, why should that be a guide for what is right and just?

      I think is so important way to have human being characteristics. For example, as the writer said every human being is unique, their race, personality, the way that human react. All of these characteristic is a way to define the difference between every human.

  31. Jun 2018
  32. Apr 2017
    1. “Humans” do not simply assemble different apparatusesfor satisfying particular knowledge projects but are themselves specific localparts of the world’s ongoing reconfiguring

      I'm looking at this in the context of McLuhan's argument for technology as an extension of the human being. It seems to me that Barad also sees the "human" as extended beyond the materially contiguous body, but also in terms of reverse, humans as an extension of worldly processes, extended through us. The "person" stops being a discrete, immiscible beings, but "specific local parts" operating in "mutually implicated" elements of the world.

    2. If “humans”refers to phenomena, not independent entities with inherent propertiesbut rather beings in their differential becoming, particular material(re)configurings of the world with shifting boundaries and properties thatstabilize and destabilize along with specific material changes in what itmeans to be human

      This concept stands much more in line with Hume's take on human consciousness as another bundle of sensory impressions instead of Descartes' cogito (with this video as a refresher). If a "human" is the phenomena of collision and configuring of boundaries, there isn't a core "you" that exists outside these interactions between the human and nonhuman.

    1. "Trump’s campaign promise to “maximize flexibility for states via block grants so that local leaders can design innovative Medicaid programs that will better serve their low-income citizens.” "

      Again, the use of the phrase "will better serve our low income citizens" tried to sound like they are coming from a humanistic basis. They are also trying to frame this in a way that seems to give flexibility and freedom to innovate to local leaders...that by doing this they are facilitating this potentially more innovative and fliexible approach. It "sounds" good framing in this way, but it's not taking some of the realities of how horribly this can effect the states who might be left holding the bag financially and the citizens who may wind up left with out much needed services.

  33. Feb 2017
  34. Jan 2017
  35. Aug 2016
    1. So here’s a more rounded picture of millennials than the one I started with. All of which I also have data for. They’re earnest and optimistic. They embrace the system. They are pragmatic idealists, tinkerers more than dreamers, life hackers. Their world is so flat that they have no leaders, which is why revolutions from Occupy Wall Street to Tahrir Square have even less chance than previous rebellions. They want constant approval–they post photos from the dressing room as they try on clothes. They have massive fear of missing out and have an acronym for everything (including FOMO). They’re celebrity obsessed but don’t respectfully idolize celebrities from a distance. (Thus Us magazine’s “They’re just like us!” which consists of paparazzi shots of famous people doing everyday things.) They’re not into going to church, even though they believe in God, because they don’t identify with big institutions; one-third of adults under 30, the highest percentage ever, are religiously unaffiliated. They want new experiences, which are more important to them than material goods. They are cool and reserved and not all that passionate. They are informed but inactive: they hate Joseph Kony but aren’t going to do anything about Joseph Kony. They are probusiness. They’re financially responsible; although student loans have hit record highs, they have less household and credit-card debt than any previous generation on record–which, admittedly, isn’t that hard when you’re living at home and using your parents’ credit card. They love their phones but hate talking on them.
  36. Jun 2016
    1. Annie Sauter says: May 28, 2016 at 9:28 am

      Susan, did you read this comment. Kinda captured my own lostness but not quite. I get the feeling that I need to give up some of my...contextity? That's like saying "Hoist anchor" in a storm. And that really is a way of breaking smart if it saves your damned life. Our political life is exactly like this now. The contextity is killing us. Hoist the fucking anchor or be dragged down with it when the storm batters hell out of you. Here I am again trying to put down the meaning anchor. This is hard to do when you have spent your whole life trying to understand and do and drive uncertainty and ambiguity to ground. I think maybe the key for me to is to feel my way with a new set of antennae, nascent and emergent antennae.

  37. May 2016
    1. Be-ing is ex-pressing or out-pressing. You cannot imagine be-ing without expression. Therefore,I, All that Is, AM expressing, constantly and continuously expressing.Expressing what?What else could I express, if I AM All that Is, but My Self?
    2. This act of thinking produced only a vitalized thought-form of a planet, and its manifestation wasstill in a nebulous state in the thought realm.From a thought-form, however, the quickening power of the Idea within, with My Will focusedupon It, proceeded to mold, fashion and gradually to solidify into material form the variouselements of Life Substance; until My Idea finally shone forth in substantial manifestation in theworld of visible forms as the planet Earth, a medium ready for living expression, and nowcapable of both containing and expressing Me.This was the material body prepared by My Thinking, in which already dwelt all the potentialnature of My Being, by reason of the informing power of My Idea within.

      The manifestation of Earth............"a medium ready for living expression,"

    3. Therefore, every real desire you feel, every desire of your heart, comes from Me and must ofnecessity sometime, in some shape or other, be fulfilled.However, as I have no Desire, because I AM All Things, once this Idea of expressing My Self inthis new condition was born, I had but to think, that is, to concentrate or focus My Attentionupon My Idea and Will It to come forth into expression, or, as is told in My other Revelation, toSpeak the Creative Word, and at once did the Cosmic Forces of My BE-ing, set in vibration bythe concentrating of My Will, proceed to attract the necessary elements from the eternalstorehouse of My Mind, and, with My Idea as a nucleus, to combine, form and shape around Itthese elements into what is called a thought-form of a planet, filling it with My Life Substance --My Consciousness -- and endowing it with all the potentialities of My Being.

      All desire is of God (that is all there actually is), yet God does not have desire because God is already the ALL...... To birth the expression of Gods Self in/as the Earth God focussed attention, Will for such a manifestation............

    4. Expressing what?What else could I express, if I AM All that Is, but My Self?You cannot yet see or comprehend when I inspire you with an Idea.Therefore, if I AM All there is, that Idea, which is direct from Me, must be part of or a phase ofMy Self in Being or Expression.Any Idea, once born within the realm of My Mind, as has been shown, immediately becomes aReality, for in the Eternality of My Being Time is not. With you, however, an Idea first createsDesire, a desire to express that Idea; then Desire compels Thinking, Thinking causes Action, andAction produces Results -- the Idea in actual outer manifestation.In Reality I have no Desire, for I AM All Things, and All Things are of Me. I need only to thinkand Speak the Word to produce results

      God is the very substance of all things............. expressing the very essence of substance........... all expression can only be God..........

    5. Now, My Consciousness is the inner essence of all Space and all Life. It is the real Substance ofMy All-comprehending and All-including Mind, whose informing and vitalizing Center iseverywhere and Its limit and circumference nowhere. Within the realm of My Mind alone I liveand move and have My Being. It both contains and fills all things, and Its every vibration andmanifestation is but the expression of some phase of My Be-ing.Be-ing is ex-pressing or out-pressing. You cannot imagine be-ing without expression. Therefore,I, All that Is, AM expressing, constantly and continuously expressing

      God is the substance that is everything

    6. Now you have been told that in the beginning I created man in "My Image and Likeness," afterwhich I breathed into him the Breath of Life and he became a Living Soul.By creating man in My Image and Likeness I created an organism capable of expressing all ofMy Consciousness and all of My Will, which means likewise all of My Power, My Intelligence,and My Love. I therefore made it perfect in the beginning, patterning it after My own Perfection.When I breathed into man's organism My Breath, it became alive with Me; for then it was Ibreathed into it My Will -- not from without, but from within -- from the Kingdom of Heavenwithin, where always I AM. Ever afterward I breathed and lived and had My Being within man,for I created him in My Image and Likeness only for that purpose.The proof of this is, man does not and cannot breathe of himself. Something far greater than hisconscious, natural self lives in his body and breathes through his lungs. A mighty power withinhis body thus uses the lungs, even as it uses the heart to force the blood containing the life itindrew through the lungs to every cell of the body; as it uses the stomach and other organs todigest and assimilate food to make blood, tissue, hair and bone; as it uses the brain, the tongue,the hands and feet, to think and say and do everything that man does.This power is My Will to BE and LIVE in man. Therefore, whatever man is, I AM, and whateverman does, or you do, I do, and whatever you say or think, it is I Who say or think it through yourorganism

      I cannot choose to breathe, the breath breathes me, a power within me uses the lungs.... the heart beats.... this power in this physical human body is Gods Will... it's in me..............

    7. 11Therefore, it must be that the consciousness of the cell of your body is My Consciousness, evenas your consciousness is My Consciousness; and therefore We must be One in consciousness --the cell, You and I.You cannot now consciously direct or control a single cell of your body; but when you can atwill enter into the Consciousness of the I AM of you and know its identity with Me, then you cancontrol not only every cell of your body, but that of any other body you might wish to control.

      As a conscious Being, what may be perceived as miracles flow naturally in physicality.

    8. I AM the Innermost, the Spirit, the animating Cause of your being, of all life, of all living things,both visible and invisible. There is nothing dead, for I, the Impersonal ONE, AM all that there is.I AM Infinite and wholly unconfined; the Universe is My Body, all the Intelligence there isemanates from My Mind, all the Love there is flows from My Heart, all the Power there is, is butMy Will in action.The threefold Force, manifesting as all Wisdom, all Love, all Power, or if you will, as Light,Heat, and Energy “ that which holds together all forms and is back of and in all expressions andphases of life, -- is but the manifestation of My Self in the act or state of Being.Nothing can Be without manifesting and expressing some phase of Me, Who AM not only theBuilder of all forms, but the Dweller in each. In the heart of each I dwell; in the heart of thehuman, in the heart of the animal, in the heart of the flower, in the heart of the stone. In the heartof each I live and move and have My Being, and from out the heart of each I send forth thatphase of Me I desire to express, and which manifests in the outer world as a stone, a flower, ananimal, a man

      God is the substance of all LIfe............

  38. Apr 2016
    1. I, the I AM of you, bring to you this My Message, My living Word, as I have brought to youeverything in life, be it book or "Master" to teach you that I and I alone, your own True Self, AMThe Teacher for you, the only Teacher and the only God, Who is and always has been providingyou not only with the Bread and Wine of Life, but with all things needed for your physical,mental and spiritual growth and sustenance.Therefore that which appeals to YOU, as you read, is MY Message, spoken to your outer humanconsciousness from within, and is but a confirmation of that which the I AM of you always knewwithin, but had not yet translated in definite, tangible terms to your outer consciousness.Likewise, all that ever appealed to You, coming from some outward expression, was but theconfirmation of My Word already spoken within. The outward expression was the avenue ormeans I chose at the time through which to reach and impress your human or self consciousness.I AM not your human mind, nor its child, the intellect. They are but the expression of yourBeing, as you are the expression of My Being; they are but phases of your human personality, asYou are a phase of My Divine Impersonality

      Even when I have been attracted to things perceivably outside of me, it really comes from within appearing in a way that I may pay attention to it until I go within.......

      The True Self is not my human mind or the intellect, they are the 'expression of my Being' and I AM an expression of Gods Being.

      I AM not the human personality, rather an aspect of Gods Divine IMpersonality.

  39. Jan 2016
    1. Raj: Paul, this anxiety is inherent in the level which you are choosing to invest energy. At this moment you are hearing me, but you are not experiencing the fact that you are with me. You are listening from within the framework of personal bias, the tiny sense of self, the three-dimensional-only frame of reference. Again, you must understand that this is not where Cause lies. This is not where movement originates. This is not where anything is done. This is not where Being is being. It is just the visibility and tangibility of Being-—visibility and tangibility only! You could say the three-dimensional-only frame of reference is the visibility-and-tangibility-only frame of reference. What it is the visibility and tangibility of exists only Fourth-dimensionally.
  40. christmind.info christmind.info
    1. One does not, however, graduate by virtue of invalidating the learning, but rather by virtue of having arrived at a point of valuing essential, primitive, or shall I say original Being, and finding It to be more important and meaningful than the educational process and the sense of identity which that educational process has seemed to create. Therefore, one graduates by virtue of caring more about something beyond education, and the invalidating of the learning will occur because there is something more meaningful present, not because a conscientious effort is made to invalidate it. Graduation is the shift from thinking to Being.

      Graduation is the shift from thinking to Being.

    2. Graduation. What could one possibly graduate into? Well, isn’t graduation the process of releasing education—an educational process, a learning process? Indeed, the movement into an ego sense of Self is like starting school, and graduation is what happens when you abandon the ego sense and all of the interesting dynamics of becoming educated. In effect, it is truly a moving back into the elemental and fundamental natural perfection of one’s Being, which I will say constitutes a complete invalidation of everything which was ever learned in the educational process. Therefore, necessarily, graduation means forsaking the value which has been placed upon the learning.

      Raj shares what is meant by Graduation.... it is to abandon the ego sense of all the interesting dynamics of becoming educated and "it is truly a moving back into the elemental and fundamental natural perfection of one’s Being, which I will say constitutes a complete invalidation of everything which was ever learned in the educational process."**

    3. Now, there is concern about finances. I will tell you, that concern is arising out of thinking. At this time, you are letting yourself be open to Knowing. Knowing, identified as You/Me speaking, is not addressing money, is It? Therefore, that is not the issue. That is not where congruence is needed. That is not what congruence is needed about. What we are talking about is specifically relevant to your finances, among other things. It is only the ego, the sidekick, which would demand that Knowing address what it sees to be a problem. Knowing doesn’t address problems. Knowing specifically uncovers resolution, solutions.

      It is only the ego that perceives a problem, in Being there are none...

      Knowing specifically uncovers resolution, solutions.

    4. Again, the goal is to be goal-less, present in the now, so as to always be standing in support of the movement of Being and Its Intent, which is never confined to concepts, but is always absolutely expressive of original fulfillment. So, be willing to stay at the threshold, the crest of the wave—as Susan brought out this morning—that point of instability where unpredictable originality is what is happening.

      "Again, the goal is to be goal-less, present in the now, so as to always be standing in support of the movement of Being and Its Intent, which is never confined to concepts, but is always absolutely expressive of original fulfillment. So, be willing to stay at the threshold, the crest of the wave......that point of instability where unpredictable originality is what is happening."

    5. How do you eat dinner from your Center? How do you play Pictionary from your Center? How do you hug someone from your Center? How do you observe the scenery from your Center? I am not going to answer that. I am going to say, explore doing it! And explore doing it on purpose, just as much as you engage in Workshops and private conversations from your Center on purpose. And remember, because this is the key point for you at this time, that in doing it, you will experience the integrity, the congruence, the Peace of your Being which is fulfilling, and will constitute an experience of Self—minus fear, minus the sense of incompetence, minus all the characteristics of the sidekick.

      The importance of practice in every day life and Raj suggests that this is what builds "the integrity, the congruence, the Peace of your Being which is fulfilling, and will constitute an experience of Self."

    6. Now, I encourage you to pay more attention when you are doing the private conversations, because when you are doing them, you are also experiencing this fulfillment, this congruence. But you have not gleaned from it its full benefit because you have not been aware of the fact that it has been you standing as the Door, and as the Door, being the presence of the Voice for Truth which constitutes your real conscious experience of Being. You have seen it as a pleasant side-effect, you might say, of something else1 which is Real that is going on, rather than the realness of You.

      I relate to this when working with clients, being present with them supports me to be at the Door, being the presence of the Voice for Truth... consciously Being......

    7. It is only the experience of Integrity, which you have when you are Knowing, that will promote the willing release of any desire to shift back to ignorance, to shift back to fear. You see, just because something is familiar does not mean it is actually desirable. It may feel comfortable, but it does not feel fulfilling, because it does not embrace fulfillment. It is not an experience of congruence or unity. That which is familiar does not provide peace—the Peace of your Being. And when you are feeling the Peace of your Being, as you are right now, it is obvious to you that the familiar does not include this experience.
    8. Absolutely everything, all form, is simply the expression of the movement of Knowing, the movement of Self. Abide with the Knowing, and be from the Knowing, and all form will identify Being, because there will be no misidentification of Self to cause a preoccupation with form. I mention this because you must be very clear that in shifting from thinking to Knowing, you will not become unconscious of Self, and you will not become unconscious of body. It is just that Self and Body will not be identified with body! Again, it is just that Self and Body will not be identified with body. The simple fact is that self-consciousness and body-consciousness become secondary, and ultimately nonexistent in the Act of Knowing. And yet, consciousness, with full identity and identification will be experienced—another key point!

      "Absolutely everything, all form, is simply the expression of the movement of Knowing, the movement of Self."

      and

      "you must be very clear that in shifting from thinking to Knowing, you will not become unconscious of Self, and you will not become unconscious of body. It is just that Self and Body will not be identified with body!"

      and

      "The simple fact is that self-consciousness and body-consciousness become secondary, and ultimately nonexistent in the Act of Knowing. And yet, consciousness, with full identity and identification will be experienced."

    9. You see, you are still listening to me, aren’t you? You are still conceptualizing what is happening as though you are listening to me, and you are eager. This is wonderful, because it simply means that full permission is being given. But, I will remind you that it is your Self which you are listening to, and it is an experience of Integrity. It is an experience of You, and truly not something separate from you, because I am not a person. I am the Voice for Truth. And there are not many voices for Truth, there is just the Voice for Truth. And you are the Voice for Truth—the utterly same Voice for Truth. When you listen to me, you listen to You. And when you listen to You, you listen to me. But what you must come to embrace and embody as your conscious awareness is the fact that it is You; that every word which is being experienced at this moment is You in the act of being Who You truly Are. Where is the imaginary sidekick, Bumbling Paul, at this moment? Nowhere! Never was anywhere. So, conceptually speaking, you could say that you will either be talking with me/Yourself or opening your mouth and saying what me/Yourself is being the Knowing of. You are at a point where you truly can release the idea that an experience or sense of authorship will accompany true Being, and just be the experience, the presence of It happening!

      Channelling......."I will remind you that it is your Self which you are listening to, and it is an experience of Integrity."

      "I am the Voice for Truth." and he goes on to say that there is only one Voice for Truth and our Being is that!

      And he shares there is no sense of authorship in true Being.....

    1. Every time you have a healing session with anyone, do not believe for a moment that, through your inner growth and development, you are being able to do something wonderful for “them.” It is your Self that you are experiencing, working with, and handling. Figuratively speaking, it amounts to nothing less than your discovery that the piece of the puzzle—which is difficult to identify on its own—is actually some part of the universal portrait of your Self. The Bible quotes Jesus the Christ as saying, “I have overcome the world.” This means that He had come over into the Christ-consciousness of His world, and no longer disowned any part of it as being separate or other than His Being.
    1. Stop trying to figure it out, Paul. The process of “observing” is the Conscious Function of Mind. That which is being “observed” is Mind’s Universal Function of being Conscious Being. In other words, Being—Mind—by being, projects or manifests Itself, and is the Observing of the Process. It is the projector, the image, and the observing of it.

      So this is powerful.... to 'observe' is the Conscious Functioning of the Mind... figuring out is the human mind. Then as I observe, I am a Conscious Being, in Mind observing itSelf... All One... and I can even observe the projector and the image as a part of all of this.

    1. Remember that your Being is unfolding Itself in Its Totality, and therefore the events going on “out there,” three-dimensionally, are all part of this Totality. You cannot get out of sync. You have not taken any time out from anything, not now nor during the past four weeks.

      This reminds me of Almaas's work in Facets of Unity re the Holy Ideas. Holy Truth is that we are an aspect of the totality of all that is. There is no outside therefore even if we perceive there is this itself is still taking place within the Totality ....

    1. it is an accurate perception on your part that your allegiance, your trust, and your energies need to be placed unequivocally where they have been for the past six months—in other words, in your direct perception of your Self as Fourth-dimensional Conscious Being.

      Raj tells us very specifically here where to place our allegiance.... in our direct perception of your Self as Fourth-dimensional Conscious Being.

    1. You see, as long as you think “Bumbling Paul,” the sidekick, is the real you, your divine Self-hood will seem to be your sidekick, the fantasy partner, the intangible, insubstantial essence—the ethereal you. This displacement is being healed, requiring you to invest yourself in the “unreal” 2 and abandon the “real.” 3 That is how you let go of the ego. This is how you become Sane. You see, I am not riding around in your hip pocket. The “you” that thinks I am is riding around in the hip pocket of You. And You and I are brothers. You hear me instead of your Self because your sidekick cannot acknowledge You. Indeed, this is an Awakening, or healing of mental illness—confused identity—and will affect and consume every perception of your existence. One is never selectively insane. Misperception colors all of one’s experience.

      Raj shares that to let go of ego the displacement of seeing the ego as self instead of Being as Self needs to be healed. To re identify with Being, true Self.

      Confused identity is the cause of mental illness!!

    2. hen you begin a Workshop, you have the conscious intent to draw exclusively from within, to not place your attention outside yourself. No attempts are made to control the environment, or the order of events or the nature of the questions. Everything is grist for the mill. You are the one who takes breaks periodically for “relief” from that mode of being. I will tell you something: We are pushing through this supposed need for “relief.” Indeed, the timing of the breaks 1 has occurred because they are in order, but your shift of attention to “Paul, the Channeler” and “externals” is not. Now, I will tell you something else: I am not pushing you. I am reflecting the demand of your Being for congruence! I am doing this so that you might know what the pressure is, and not misunderstand the need. This is not a learning that you can choose to learn whenever you feel like it. You are bigger and you must embrace it.

      Raj speaks with Paul about a 'supposed' need for relief from Being.

      Raj speaks about the call from Self for congruence.

    1. Assume nothing—just as you asked me whether it was appropriate to keep Michael’s appointment, even though your conditioning said, “Of course, it is appropriate. The time was set. I have to be there. I should be there. It is appropriate for me to be there.” Well, you didn’t Know whether it was appropriate for you to be there. It was a concept that you ought to be there, and that concept was based upon education and training which embodied certain protocols. There are no protocols in Being. There is, however, the integrated orderliness of being absolutely appropriate, and that means being unquestioningly congruent with the Movement of God. That means that you may or may not do what you said you were going to do, because your allegiance is to congruence rather than cooperation.

      Assume nothing!

      To choose Reality, Being, I need to check in and ask my Beingness instead of making assumptions about anything is in the mind. Reminds me of "I do not know what a single thing is or is for".

    2. Remember—and this is the key of our conversation today—it is the act of being in dialogue, it is the event of being connected, and not what happens during the connection, which constitutes the bridge that allows you to move from the ego sense of self to the Conscious experience of Who You Are. Indeed, you can ask me to simply say, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” when you are afraid of the content of what you might hear, because it isn’t the content but the connection that constitutes the bridge.

      "it is the event of being connected, and not what happens during the connection, which constitutes the bridge that allows you to move from the ego sense of self to the Conscious experience of Who You Are."

      ? Real dialogue is not about what is said?

    1. This means that “as much of you as is hearing me” is absolutely Fourth-dimensional, experiencing a limited experience of infinite Being. Therefore, no matter how limited it is, it is absolutely valid, absolutely real, and constitutes a part of you that has no further to go. It is a limited experience of You, Fourth-dimensional man. Now, I must reiterate that this checking in must continue frequently—indeed, even more frequently than during the past twenty-four hours. Do not be dismayed that your sense of what is real becomes less sure. I am speaking now of your experience of your sense of yourself and your sense of your world.
    1. Remember that your Being is the I that is the Us, the One that is the Many. The total Absolute Fact of Being is being you Totally. It is Perfect. Do not try to force answers. Being reveals Itself Perfectly, both specifically and infinitely. “The place whereon you stand is Holy ground”3 means that with or without answers you are perfectly being. Within the patterns-within-patterns, it fulfills the unfolding of Reality to “have” and “not have” answers. The moment it fulfills the Law for the answer to be known, at that moment All of YOU, the One and the Many, will be bound in a new pattern of intercooperation based on Love. The patterns of cooperation will move together in a manner of “brotherly love” (that’s the best way for you to grasp the larger meaning) and Self-recognition, and there will be no penalty.

      I am perfectly Being even if I have no idea in my thinking mind.

  41. Dec 2015
    1. As you found, all you had to do in order to contact that part of your infinite Being called “Raj,” was to simply acknowledge my existence. Even though you had no idea who I was, you reached out with a simple, heartfelt acceptance of the possibility of my responding to you; and I was there. So is every other aspect of your Being. It’s all present. It’s all active. It’s all You.

      Every aspect of your Being is present, active, and available. It's all You.

    2. Now we are going to talk for a bit about the idea of what it is that you are going to practice on. As your entire Being is becoming consciously integrated as your conscious experience of your Self, it will appear as though the Reality of your Being—to whatever degree you are aware of it—will be brought to bear upon that disowned portion of your experience which is not clear to you is your own Being. It will appear as though that aspect will be “healed,” “improved,” “changed,” or “reversed.” But, the actuality of such appearances is one of the revealing of its true nature as your Being. Every time you have a healing session with anyone, do not believe for a moment that, through your inner growth and development, you are being able to do something wonderful for “them.” It is your Self that you are experiencing, working with, and handling. Figuratively speaking, it amounts to nothing less than your discovery that the piece of the puzzle—which is difficult to identify on its own—is actually some part of the universal portrait of your Self. The Bible quotes Jesus the Christ as saying, “I have overcome the world.” This means that He had come over into the Christ-consciousness of His world, and no longer disowned any part of it as being separate or other than His Being.
    1. Now, let’s move on. I want to correct a misconception on your part—a spatial misconception. you are feeling that you are moving forward along a path, building upon a foundation of knowledge and ability to reason, which you have developed and exercised in the past. This is not the case. The fact is that you are moving backwards on the path which you have come. This is because, to a large degree, your path took you away from your Being and into a three-dimensional frame of reference. You are, so to speak, relaxing back out of that thinking process—that finite, reasoning, intellectual structure which you felt was getting you somewhere in a progressive sense. Our conversation right now is not the result of a thinking process at all. When you stand at the Door as the Door, the Wisdom, the Truth, the Knowledge that flows through and as your conscious experience of Being, is not the result of thought processes, nor of reasoning. Because It continues to flow on past you, It truly does not become a stored body of knowledge from which you may draw in the future. Standing as the Door means that, in this so-called “future,” whatever Knowledge and Understanding is applicable to the unfolding at that time will be there in exactly the same manner that It is here right now. You see, Paul, we are beginning to redefine what constitutes your conscious experience of Being.

      Description of how Being operates.

      Not by storing knowledge...

    1. Now, I want to correct a misconception on your part. Your ability to reason and think is not the equivalent of the three-dimensional frame of reference. Your thought processes and reasoning processes are not to be ignored. We would not be communicating at this very moment if you did not have the means to translate the meanings I am communicating into words and phrases. It is only by virtue of the fact that you have imagination, reason, perspicacity—all of the various capacities and functions of Consciousness—that you are able to correctly translate that which unfolds to you. This is true whether it is coming from me, or from that Place wherein you directly experience the Reality of Being. We run into trouble when we stand away from the Door, and begin our thinking or thought processes from their standpoint, and then extrapolate and come to conclusions without going within and being as Conscious Being. You see, Being unfolds Itself as meaning, not as language. It is through the function of Reason and Imagination that language is brought into play, for the purpose of verbalizing these infinite meanings which Being is unfolding. You do have a right to answers which will identify the Absolute Oneness of Being throughout your entire experience of Being.

      Question: what is the best Tag to use when referring to challenges that arise in life - here, Raj, speaks of running into trouble when we begin our thought process apart from conscious Being.

      Raj is correcting Paul's Belief, or misconception, regarding reason and thinking.

      He also further describes Being.

    1. RAJ: Paul, you are suffering from your “should” system. You are experiencing how difficult it is to lay down conceptualized processes and theories. I will not leave my position that this conceptual thinking relates in no way to what is Actually going on—which is the infinitude of your Being unfolding Itself perfectly, properly, and nondestructively—except of course, in terms of these concepts which are binding you. They will be destroyed. They no longer serve to move you to a new base. As you are discovering, the concepts are actually impeding your growth. You must lay them down. The growth will occur. The growth is occurring. This is why you feel shoved into the corner right along with the concepts. Figuratively speaking, this is why you feel that you are going to be blown up in the blowing up of your concepts.

      Paul is suffering because he thinks things should be different than what they are.

      Raj says that "should" stance illustrates how difficult it is to lay down concepts and theories. This Links directly to ACIM Lesson 189, Simply do this...

      Raj says what's Actually going on is the "infinitude of your Being unfolding itself perfectly, properly, and nondestructively"...

      Paul can't see this because of the concepts that bind him.

    1. We need to remember that all of Life, infinitely speaking, is unfolding Itself at every moment, and not just an isolated part of that infinity. It is essential for you to realize that your thinking processes do not in any way have any effect, whatsoever, on this infinitely detailed, yet harmonious unfolding of Being. This does not mean you have nothing to do with it, but it simply means that you have no three-dimensional control over it. You must come to the realization that it is your Being which is unfolding Itself infinitely on the basis of Its Nature as Intelligence, as Life, and as Mind. Therefore, It is—before you think a single thought about it—unfolding Itself (your Self) with all the precision, Intelligence, and Principle which constitutes Itself. It is this infinite unfolding of your Self that you must learn to bring your thought in line with. You cannot use your thoughts to bring your Being into line with them. This is a part of the letting go which is necessary for you in order for you to experience the unfolding of your Being as complete Harmony. Until you are willing to let go of this concept—that you must in some way be able to control your environment and your life experience with your thought—you will seem to suffer from the unfoldment of your Being.

      Being, all of Life, is unfolding Itself and our thoughts about have no effect on it.

      You must bring your thought in line with this unfolding of Being, you cannot bring Being in line with your thoughts.

      Until you let go of the need to control your environment and experience and allow Life to unfold as it does, you will seem to suffer.

      ForMe: this means that my journey is mine. It doesn't depend on anybody else getting it, that anybody else understands and applies Christ Mind teachings the way I do. If I don't allow things to be as they are - even when they don't correspond to my view (my spiritual view, HA! - folly), I will suffer. And I do!!

    1. As I said yesterday, your Being is unfolding Itself infinitely in all Its perfection. This is the Fact which underlies everything that Is, as well as everything that seems to be. Do not get hung up on what seems to be the case. Your Being is capable of manifesting Itself as your conscious experience of being, and has never stopped doing so. It is this ongoing eternal, abiding Fact which needs to become an integral part of your conscious experience. Cultivate It and you will not be sorry.

      What does he mean?

      The unfolding of Being underlies everything that is and everything that seems to be (even Illusion [what seems to be]??).

      You Being has never stopped manifesting Itself as your conscious experience of Being. Cultivate (Practice) this fact so it becomes an integral part of your experience and you will not be sorry.

    1. You certainly know that, because you exist, you have purpose or intent—there is a design to your Being. You should also know that every single event which is unfolding in and as your conscious experience of being is in perfect harmony with that design. They are all part of the intent of your Being to fulfill Itself specifically and flawlessly, both individually and Universally, since all of you is always unfolding all of Itself with total success.

      Further clarity on Being.

    1. If “form follows function,” then it is imperative that your attention be on the function and not the form. What is the Function which you see as the unfolding of daily activities? It is the unfolding of Your Being, identifying and fulfilling Itself as Itself. Activity, money and profit are all aspects of that identification. Money—income—is not the end goal of it all. Every aspect of your day identifies your Being, and not any one is more important or less important than another. Work does not generate income. Being generates work and income and leisure and growth. Yet, not any one of these things exist for their own independent purpose or identity. They identify Being, and Being is the Alpha and Omega—that which is and is identifying Itself completely and successfully. It is the flow of Being which is the Function. It is identified by the forms which constitute your daily activities. Your need is to identify yourself as Being and not as form.

      The Function of your daily activities is the unfolding of Your Being Identifying itself as Itself.

      Every aspect of your day identifies your Being and not any one part is more important than another.

      The Flow of Being is the Function. It (the Flow?) is identified by the forms of your daily activities.

      Your Need is to identify yourself as Being, not form.

    1. Stay with the Fact that your Being is totally present. THAT’S FACT. Your Being is totally functioning. THAT’S FACT. Your Being is being totally successful in fully identifying Itself. THAT’S FACT. You are not a small part of the totality of God’s Universe. THAT’S FACT. And you are not part of God’s Universe, because God is the only Identity you have. Therefore, your Being is infinite and cannot be contained. Do not let yourself be coerced into accepting the pea-sized concept of Identity called three-dimensional man. You must stay with the Infinity of your Being, together with Its Omnipresence and Omnipotence. You are all of It. It is all of You. God is the only thing going on. it is the Happening. Do not buy the hypnotic suggestions being put forth by “ego.“

      Being is present, Being is your Identity, **Being is infinite and cannot be contained.

      You are Infinite - Do Not allow yourself to be coerced into accepting the pea-sized concept of identity as 3d man.

    1. Right now, you are seeing from the inside. Although you do not see me with your eyes, and do not hear me with your ears, you are, indeed, perceiving me and the ideas which I am expressing. You are perceiving the meanings which my Being is expressing at that point of my infinitude which is called “Paul.” The five physical senses play no part in this exchange or process, and yet the process is Actual and experienced. As I said yesterday, observe the process of communication that we are enjoying. As you do, you will begin to grasp the process by which you may communicate with and understand the meaning of any and all parts of the infinitude of your Being, whether it is visible or invisible to the five physical senses. Everything about this process of communication illustrates and includes lessons to be learned and understood.

      The body is not necessary for communication.

    2. The process of “observing” is the Conscious Function of Mind. That which is being “observed” is Mind’s Universal Function of being Conscious Being. In other words, Being—Mind—by being, projects or manifests Itself, and is the Observing of the Process. It is the projector, the image, and the observing of it. The more you learn to be out from Mind—rather than believing that you are some part of the image on the screen—the more you will become aware of the total harmony of the total process or function that constitutes your Being. What you apparently do, and what apparently is done to you, will become apparent as being totally harmonious. There will be no sense or experience of separation, lack, division, or opposition. The conscious experience of Being is all that is going on. The details, the drama, the story line, et cetera, are incidental to the whole Process.

      Description of Conscious Being.

    1. It is quite accurate that it is not possible for those who believe that they have been born to communicate with those who believe that they have died. These are two different states of the three-dimensional-only frame of reference. It is part of the distortion of that finite view which makes it seem as though some part of one’s infinitude (those who have “passed on”) is not available to him as his conscious experience. There are infinitely more individualizations of Being who are Awake than there are those who are “asleep.” it is ridiculous to believe that communication with them is impossible.

      Quote: There are infinitely more individualizations of Being who are Awake than there are those who are "asleep."

      Birth and Death are two different states in the 3d frame of reference. They are part of the same distortion. It is not possible for one who believes in death to communicate with one who had died because of the belief that they are gone.

    1. Remember that your Being is unfolding Itself in Its Totality, and therefore the events going on “out there,” three-dimensionally, are all part of this Totality. You cannot get out of sync. You have not taken any time out from anything, not now nor during the past four weeks.

      Important

      Come back to this and diagram to deepen understanding. The following two paragraphs are confusing to me and seem to be contradictory.

    2. Although we are going to be conversing more continuously today and tomorrow than we have in the past, it need not involve any sense of urgency or rush. Let it flow at its own rate, and you float with the current. The river will get to its destination. the river, of course, is the flow of your own Being unfolding Itself as Itself, and constituting your conscious experience of Being.

      River is a metaphor the unfolding of your conscious experience of Being.

    1. That which makes abundance appear to be lack is entirely in the standpoint. It depends entirely on which end of the binoculars you are looking through. As I have said before, you have a habit of switching ends quite frequently. This is what is frustrating you. When you receive a telephone call, or a statement in the mail, which claims that your Supply is not omnipresent—some part of your universe is coming up short—you must recognize this as being totally false. Your Being is omnipresently present and active. Since that is the Fact, then it would be foolish for you to go out and attempt to correct that illusion on the basis of the phone call or statement. The attempt is made on the basis of a false assumption.

      This is an effective metaphor: what is perceived depends on which end of the binoculars you are looking through.

      It is important to be aware of claims that what is false is true so they can be effectively addressed. This is why mindfulness or awareness is such an important component of the journey of awakening.

      What tag to use?? An event has arisen that claims Paul is in lack when that is not possible in Truth - only in illusion. How best to tag things like this?

    1. I want you to consider that in everything we are doing, we are harmonizing and flowing with the divine energies—with the outpouring of the river of Life, right at Its source. This river of Life flows freely and totally through and as your conscious experience of Being. It is always doing this, whether or not you have placed yourself properly in that Place. This is important to understand, since it makes clear that the only thing we need to do in order to find the resolution to whatever situation we are faced with, is simply go to the Source as the Door.

      The simplicity of life comes in harmonizing with the source of life that is continuously flowing freely through your conscious experience of Being.

    1. Again, do not let your experience of being as Conscious Being become divided into many beings, externalized, “out there,” separate and apart from You. That is the illusion. The fact is that everything you see is going on as You, and you must understand that the You that you experience as “being alive,” “being conscious,” is the I that is Mind, God. The realization of this fact is what is called the Christ, the True Perception of Your Being. It is this True Perception of your Being which is dawning in your thoughts more forcibly than ever before.