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Showing posts from 2020

As We Exit 2020, Do We Really Understand More Than The Ancients?

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  Dear Reader, As a humble student of both history and spiritual philosophy, I am very conscious that as we exit 2020 (which coincides with the notion of 20-20 vision, which we have demonstrated to be severely lacking!) the world faces many very profound predicaments, particularly about health and sustainability. In addition, the UK enters into a new commercial world on exit from the EU. The USA faces the future without Trump. For me, our future outcome very much depends on us all (not just 'them') looking deeply into ourselves and determining the wisdom that we have come very close to losing altogether.  It is a wisdom that I discern is still present in farmers (who seem to know more than the weather forecasters with their powerful computers), and in ancient priesthoods and philosophers, of whom the Greeks were representative of the wisest - according to the West. Plato referred to five geometrical shapes, saying that  the Creator "practices eternal geometry",  and b

Age of Aquarius? The Second Coming?

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  Dear Reader, The shortest day of the year, December 21st, has just passed us by but much has also been made of the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that was first visible that day. It is being said by some that this event ushers in the astrological Age of Aquarius. Further, because of how close the date of this year’s Great Conjunction is to Christmas day, many are comparing it to the Christmas Star that Catholics believe heralded the birth of Jesus.  I am writing about this     Great Conjunction and  Age of Aquarius , not because I am specifically interested in astrology, but because I do believe that everything in the universe is inter-connected, and if that is the case, why shouldn't movement of planetary bodies generate different types of energy that affect everything within our solar system? It is only in the past few decades that people have become more fully aware of how the Earth's myriad of different species are inter-dependent, so to include planetary bodies

Seeking A Symbol To Find Inspiration By

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  Dear Reader, In these COVID times, I don't always find it easy to remain 'above it all'. Trying to remain as focused as I would like is a job in itself, sometimes. However, while busying myself on something creative the other day about family history, I was trying to think of what my family was really all about: what were (I pondered) its major characteristics. Well I considered the striving aspect in the family - no-one sat around doing nothing, that's for sure. And I considered the craftsmanship element of what had been handed down, particularly the advice not to blame one's own tools when things go wrong. My own experience transformed this advice into not to blame others for what goes wrong. How then, I thought, do I translate all that into something succinct and which could act as an instant reminder when seeking inspiration? What emerged from that contemplation was that an answer lies in heraldry! I had forgotten that part of the purpose of a coat of arms is

Boris, Angola, Changing Times and Mental Health

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  Dear Reader, Everything is constantly changing, whether we realise it or not, though only those who have lived at least 70 years will be all too aware of how much has materially and socially changed in such a short space of time. The amount of change in the last 70 years is surely unprecedented in human history. In the way we lived back in the days post-WW2, there was considerably more neighbourliness, though perhaps that consciousness has been returning in the COVID outbreak. It is interesting that whenever there is a hardship that people experience in common with one another, teamwork suddenly seems to take over. Materially, however, I was brought up in a time when very few people had TV, and even then there was only one channel and that was in 'natural colour' (black and white)! Supermarkets were a thing of the future, and air travel was for the rich. Only 30 years later, by the mid-1980s, all that had changed, and people were even complaining that five TV channels were n

Do We Need A New Bible?

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  Dear Reader, From my earliest thinking years more than 60 years ago to the present day, I have wondered about the real nature of things. The sciences never attracted me as a source of truth as they seemed to dwell on physical issues, so I went within. At one point as a teenager, I was drawn to an evangelical church, but my ever-practical father debated with me for 12 hours one day.  I eventually succumbed to his argument, partly because in those days sons respected their fathers more than they do now, but also because something inside me said that there was something that made sense in his arguments: essentially that the church (in whichever form) rarely set a good example of Jesus's teachings. That was certainly true back then, ca 1960. And besides, he said, isn't it better to help with one's hands rather than pray? Though I tried to shelve thoughts of religion and search for truth at that point, life's experience brought the search for meaning back to me time and ag

Why Not Take A Spin Into The Unknown?

  Dear Reader, I am conscious of this pervading thought that the pandemic will be over not so very long away, perhaps a year, and though I do not wish suffering on anyone I cannot but wonder why people should think that all will be as people expect once it is over.  Yes, in former times pandemics did go away after a time, and, yes, this one (as it is now) is also likely to depart at some point, but do people not observe how the conditions of the world have been increasingly deteriorating over the past few decades - particularly since the start of the Millennium? Desperate conditions exist for refugees in various parts of the Middle East and other places - including the Mexican/USA border - and we also have Climate Change, which has brought about havoc through storms and fire. Just to name a few situations,  The underlying situation is that there must be very few people who can truthfully say they are happy, both with their lot and in the way in which world governments are responding. M

Einstein Was More Than A Scientist - He Was Also A Seer

  Dear Reader, Whenever people talk of Einstein, they tend to think of him as related purely to science; no-one speaks of his philosophy, except for those that have taken the trouble to find out: This is just one of his many statements related to his philosophy: A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. What might be of more interest is an article written by a Godson, Mark Abrams, nearly 20 years ago, who provides a more intimate view of the great man - and more: what Sri Sathya Sai Baba ("Baba" or "S