“Non-attachment is freedom from longing for all objects
of desire, either earthly or traditional, either here or
hereafter.”
Patanjali
The Good News Report!
There was a man named Paul Alex who survived polio in the 1950s, but
the disease disabled most of his body. Unable to breathe on his own, he
lived in an iron lung, dreaming of one day escaping it. But everyone
told him, “No, you can’t.” But he began thinking that God was bigger
than his problem. And he did learn to breathe on his own. And he did
get out of that iron lung. And then he wanted to write, but because
his hands were disabled, he learned to hold a pencil in his mouth. He
wrote poetry and he wrote a novel. He went on to college and became a
lawyer. And he helped draft laws to make life better for those with
disabilities. Few of us will ever face the difficulties of Paul Alex.
But we can all achieve greatness, as he did, by challenging that voice
that says, “No, you can’t.”
Mary Manin Morrissey
Check out the GOOD News Zone for other such inspiring stories, and
contribute your own at:
Well, I suppose this is the “annoy everyone and then apologize”
issue. So, let me get the apologies out first, before you start
reading the rest, or sending in your complaints!
The first article, about the personal God, is something that has
been bubbling within for some time. It’s a big topic and I have
only scratched the surface, although I think it comes close to
what I am trying to express on this subject. Of course, it’s a
personal view and you are free to disagree.
As for the second one, it’s meant humorously but it’s got some
serious insights too that may well hit home for you. See what you
think. And try not to be TOO offended!
I didn’t see much posting in the new “Good News Zone” this month.
Perhaps you all prefer the bad news you are getting on TV? If you
have any good news stories to cheer us all up, drop by and post
them at :
P.S. If you’re NOT
already subscribed, but just visiting…
Asoka Selvarajah‘s“Aspire
to Wisdom” FREE
Newsletter
Packed
with strategies and secrets for you to achieve
spiritual & material abundance, happiness, and
manifest your dreams!
Plus 2
FREE EBOOKS,Inner Light
Outer Wealth & As A Man Thinketh,
when you join!
Important Note:We respect Your E-mail privacy.
A personal God is an idea whose time has come…. and gone. In the wake of all the troubles it has brought to us throughout the centuries, and particularly in recent years, is it not time to move onto a vision of the Divine that is better suited to reality? The notion of the personal God arose with our prehistoric ancestors. It was a convenient way to describe a complex, and often very harsh, world. The personal gods were many in number, as evidenced by the numerous pantheons of divinities from ancient Egypt to modern India. The concept of a single masculine personal God, although prefigured by the Aton of Pharaoh Akhenaton, seems to have come to the fore largely through Judaism, and then through Christianity and Islam. Hinduism also adopted the idea that the many gods in its pantheon are actually the different faces of ONE god. However, although the pantheon gods are personal, the ultimate God from which they derive, the Brahman, is not. However, the idea that the universe and the human race were created by a personal God gives rise to many theoretical and practical problems. The most obvious one, discussed frequently in Christianity, is: why does God allow suffering? In its wider sense, the question might be asked: why is the world the way it is, i.e. so very terrible? Christianity answers with the words “Devil”, “Free Will”, “Sin”, and ultimately “Salvation”. However, none of this is very satisfactory when examined closely. The saying, “A bad workman always blames his tools” comes to mind. After all, God made us did he not? And with omniscient knowledge, he must surely have known exactly what was going to happen. Indeed, this leads onto theological ideas of Good and Evil. In all three of the Abrahamic family of religions, Evil is regarded as abnormal and definitely NOT the will of God. Hence, Death, which is arguably Evil’s ultimate manifestation, is also considered highly unnatural (but ultimately redeemable, whether through the blood of Christ or faith in Allah etc.). Yet, the very idea is absurd. How can there be an up without a down, or a left without a right, or a coin with only one side? Death, we now know, is INTEGRAL to life. If the old and wasted cells in your body refused to die to make room for new ones, you would literally face a fate worse than death! In Nature, everything EATS everything! A lion might very well lie down with a lamb one day (in fact, they can do so right now, when they are not hungry), but could it still be called a lion if it transforms into a vegetarian in Paradise? Indeed, for lions, tigers and crocodiles to be carnivores at all, and kill for their own survival, you would have to propose that after the fall of Man, the Devil had to redesign the whole of the animal kingdom! After all, if the personal God did not design these aggressive predatory animals just as they are, who did?… This is partly why the three Middle Eastern religions have a relatively difficult time describing Paradise; a place where evil does not exist. Christianity would have us doing nothing but singing God’s praises all day (honestly…how dull!). Islam seems to hold that Paradise is basically more of the good life; basically, “wine, women and song”! But wouldn’t we get bored with all that after a while? Many people already are. Each religion tries to imagine an ideal world, where evil does not exist. Yet, they completely fail to deliver the goods in a manner that can excite or convince us. The personal God is itself a massive contradiction. For someone to have a “personality”, in any meaningful sense, they must surely be time-based. For a God who operates completely outside of Time, i.e. in Eternity, it is impossible to conceive how personality could function. In the Bible, we learn that God can be pleased or angered, saddened or elated. But given that we operate within the sphere of time and he/she does not, does this imply that God is ETERNALLY angry with the Exodus Jews for their worship of the Golden calf?! If so, how can we, mere finite mortal beings, produce permanent modifications in the infinite eternal Godhead? It is also hard to think of a “personality” who is sexless. Hence, God has traditionally been male (although in prehistoric times, God was female: the Mother Goddess). Christianity has reinforced this further with words like “Father” and “Son”; both male images. Is it any wonder, therefore, that women have systematically been ill-treated and regarded as second-class human beings by those religions that have adopted this male God? They are blamed for the Fall of Man in Book One, and it basically goes downhill from there! Islamic veils. Medieval witch trials. No women priests. The list goes on and on. In practical terms, the notion of the Personal God has wrought tremendous chaos throughout world history. The three religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam are at each others’ throats, which has led to the loss of countless millions of lives. The reason is not too hard to find. Clearly, the one Personal God has chosen to present his truth in mutually contradictory ways, and each time has also incorporated a failsafe system for large-scale destruction by (a) declaring that all competing revelations are the work of Satan and (b) his TRUE revelation must be spread to all corners of the globe through religious conversion AND, if necessary, war with “Satan’s forces” (i.e. the faithful of other religions). This creates a neat closed circle within the minds of the zealous, that completely prevents them from ever understanding, and hence respecting, the point of view of other faiths. After all, why cavort with the Devil? Some brief examples will suffice… In Judaism, you can go right back to the founding of Israel. On the orders of God, a war of genocide was carried out by putting to death every man, woman and child in the land of Canaan. Interestingly, the chosen people proved to be more merciful than their God, failing to deliver on the last part of this bloodbath, and hence God was understandably livid! Doubtless, he had never heard of racial/religious tolerance. In Islam, despite the recent attention given to “Islamic Fundamentalists”, we should not forget that the very religion of Islam was originally spread through the work of such “fanatics”. If you doubt this, you only have to visit India. There is an amazing lack of Hindu temples in the north, which was subject to the Moslem invasion, compared to the south, which the Moslems never penetrated. Arguably, modern day Moslem moderates could NEVER have got the new religion off the ground, let alone spread it across the whole of the known world in the space of a few generations. As for Christianity, it is intriguing that more Christians were killed by EACH OTHER in the early centuries of the Christian Roman Empire than were killed in ALL the previous Roman persecutions put together! Moreover, although it is generally believed that Paganism quietly died out in the face of the “superiority” of Christianity, the actual fact is that Pagans were forcibly exterminated under the order of the fanatical Christian Emperor Theodosius, in a persecution that bears favorable comparison to Nazi Germany. Temples were torn down, idols were dragged out into the streets and destroyed, and people were simply killed for their beliefs. That is how Christianity finally triumphed over Paganism. By contrast with all this, it is hard to locate a single war fought in the name of Buddhism or Taoism; faiths that do not possess the notion of a personal God. How can they go to war when there is no personal God to tell them to do so, and hence no historical justification for future wars either? However, it would be mistaken to believe, as many do, that traditions without a personal God are essentially atheistic. Both acknowledge the existence of Cosmic Intelligence. However, the latter is considered to be beyond conception and beyond name. It is not personal, but rather transcends personality and description. As the opening line of the Tao Te Ching says: “The Tao that can be spoken of is NOT the Eternal Tao”. The ideology that prevails in a society really does determine its mode of behavior. In both the Middle East and the West, we are ruled by this notion of a personal God. Hence, the actions we take must be at least partially due to this deep-seated belief. If you believe (and have scriptures that support this belief) that your God encourages war under the “right circumstances”, and even engages in wanton acts of destruction himself at appropriate instances, then it will not be long before you have an excuse to do the same. Bob Dylan’s ironically titled song, “With God On Our Side” illustrates the fact that in any conflict, both protagonists believe that God supports THEM. The classic example of this is the so-called “war on terrorism” right now. On one side you have a US President telling you that this is a war of Good against Evil, and Good will prevail. On the other side, you have Islamic extremists, who are perfectly willing to die for their God in order to strike a blow at what they consider to be the “Great Satan”. Ironically, each side worships the SAME God! It does seem that Science is revealing a universe permeated with intelligence at every level; complex beyond human conception, and with purposes than no human mind can fathom. Cosmic Intelligence is indeed everywhere around us. However, it need not be considered “personal” in any way. By adopting a viewpoint like this, which places no limits on God because it places no definition upon it, we avoid all the negative consequences of the personal God. You cannot go to war for Cosmic Intelligence, because the latter does not reveal itself through scriptures, choose one nation over another as its favorite, or order the obliteration of the infidels. The paradox of suffering, and the apparent existence of Good and Evil, is also resolved. We now see the universe as a cosmic dance of forces that must both necessarily exist. The symbol of the Yin-Yang is appropriate here; a small hint of dark within the light, and a small hint of light within the dark. Each is inseparably intertwined within the other. No longer do we need to ask absurd questions such as “Why does a good God permit suffering?”. The paradox is created by the assumptions of the questioner. Rather, we should seek the higher perspective of Cosmic Consciousness from which all apparent dualities cease to exist. We see suffering and evil now only because we perceive ourselves to be separate, finite and mortal; none of which is actually true. Hence the answer to the above question would be, “There is no PERSONAL God to permit suffering (or anything else for that matter), and there is no suffering when viewed from the perspective of Cosmic Consciousness”. A personal God served our ancestors and helped them survive in a complex and incomprehensible world. However, the world of the 21st century is a very different place. The personal God is a carry-over from the past, and the suffering it causes is evident for those who have eyes to see. If we did not already cherish this conception so dearly, it is extremely unlikely it could ever have originated from scratch in the modern world. The human race is hopefully moving into a new phase of spiritual evolution, in a united world of mutual understanding and cultural cooperation. The concept of transcendent Cosmic Intelligence serves us better than the personal God ever did. To paraphrase the words of St. Paul: “When I was a child, I thought like a child. But now, let me put away childish things…” Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2002. All Rights Reserved.
If you thought Money and Metaphysics could never mix, you have obviously never heard of Bob Proctor! He is one of the modern masters of teaching you how to harness the power of the mind, through tapping into the energy of the universe, to achieve most anything you want in life. That can be money, relationships, inner wisdom, or whatever else Success means to you. This “Born Rich” program is literally a seminar. It was filmed over a weekend in front of a live audience. The title comes from Proctor’s conviction that we are all born wealthy; rich in talent and ability. We need only be shown how to tap into it, and we can achieve whatever we set out minds upon. He gives us a model for how the mind interacts with the universe, shows us the common factors that all successful people have, introduces us to real people whose lives have been transformed by these ideas, and much more. The program contains six videos, 8 audios, a workbook, plus a copy of Bob Proctor’s bestselling book “Born Rich”. The program is not cheap, but it IS the finest program of its kind in existence. Compared to the admission fee to most seminars, plus travel and hotel costs, it is an total bargain. Also, It IS a genuine “seminar in a box”; 11.5 solid hours you can watch/listen to repeatedly until the ideas sink firmly into your subconscious. In fact, that is exactly what you are recommended to do throughout the seminar. It is intended as a tool for deep inner transformation through repetition. If you watch or listen to 20 minutes of it each day, every day, you will be a different person at the end of the year. And your life will show the visible results! I have the “Born Rich” program myself, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Proctor has changed countless people’s lives for the better. He can do it for you too, if you sincerely apply the simple principles taught in the seminar. Click Here For More Information: http://www.aksworld.com/BornRich.htm If you were to check the list of Fortune 500 company bosses, you would find that more than half of them never attended university. In fact, many of them never even finished High School. If you look around in your own life circumstances, you will find that the smart and the “best” invariably do NOT get to the top, despite all the myths to the contrary. They often end up working for someone less smart and less talented than themselves, whose chief talent is self-promotion and a street-savvy capacity for self preservation. Why is this? Why do the dumb guys get rich and the smart guys stay poor? (Note for the ladies: no sexism intended here. For “guy”, read “gal” throughout this article). There are a number of good reasons. The first is that the intelligent deep thinking person often suffers from “paralysis through analysis”. They will analyze and analyze a particular opportunity, and doubtless find all sorts of reasons why it just won’t work. However, they will DO nothing! Graduates are bad enough at this, but Ph.Ds are much worse (and I am one, so trust me on this!) By contrast, the dumb guy just comes in and does it. And succeeds! Why? Because he/she is too dumb to do anything else. It never occurs to this person to sit around contemplating his navel all day. They have little self-doubt (doubtless because they haven’t sat around reading Nietzsche and Kant all day), and generally have a can-do mentality. Most smart guys suffer from the syndrome of the over-talented. This means that they are pretty good at learning most anything they put their hand to. Hence, they can achieve proficiency at most anything. However, persistence is another matter altogether. You see, the smart guy is drowning in opportunity. He doesn’t know which of the many paths to take. Once he takes one, he changes direction as soon as the going gets tough (or worse, just as soon as he gets bored!). By contrast, there are some people who are only good at one thing and can do nothing else. Through focusing relentlessly on this ONE THING, they get astonishingly good at it. Bruce Springsteen jokingly refers to this at times in his concerts when he says that he couldn’t play sports, he was no good at math, and he couldn’t get a girl. The only thing he was any good at was playing guitar! And the rest is history. Another example of single-mindedness is Michael Jackson. We all marvel at his singing, dancing and songwriting ability at the age of 40+. But really… give yourself a break! How good would YOU be at his age if you had also started when you were only five years old, and done nothing else all your life?!! I would hazard a guess that you’d be pretty damn good! Smart guys won’t stoop too low. They won’t touch things that are beneath them. They think that once they have a degree qualification, the world is theirs for the asking. If you have a Law degree from Harvard, would you work in a restaurant, or start a shoe shop? Yet, in the NY Times bestseller, “The Millionaire Next Door”, the authors revealed that the vast majority of millionaires in America made their money in standard businesses like restaurants, dry cleaners, shoe shops and so on. Yet, how many university graduates will enter such professions? Most would rather work for someone else in return for a higher than national average salary, the right to wear fancy expensive clothes on the job, and the faint promise of a company car somewhere down the line (provided you don’t get fired first). Dumb guys by comparison will do whatever it takes to reach their goal. If their goal is money, and they are single-minded about it, they will just keep beating away at it until they finally succeed. Well, I guess they’re just too dumb to stop, aren’t they? There’s no running home to cry to mummy. There’s no Jungian Analysis about how their childhood suffering and wicked parents left them infallibly conditioned to remain poor all their lives. Heck, they just keep going and going and going! They don’t know when to stop and one day… well, they end up richer and more successful than you or me. In fact, we end up working for them! Strange thing that, isn’t it? You know what? Smart guys think the world owes them a living. Dumb guys don’t. Smart guys whine something like “I’ve got this degree in Fine Art, and I’ve self-published a book of poems, etc., etc. But I just can’t seem to get a break. I’m talented and I’m being ignored. It’s a closed shop. You’ve either got to know someone, or have money. And me, I don’t have either…”. In my first job in Investment Banking, I recall being told to spend a couple of DAYS typing numbers into a computer like a secretary. What was I thinking? “I’m a Physics PH.D! I shouldn’t have to be doing this!!”. Here’s a simple fact the dumb guys know that the smart guys usually don’t. Success, and Wealth (IF you choose to measure success that way), takes effort, persistence, determination, large amounts of disappointment, and sheer guts. Crying to mummy doesn’t cut it. Giving up first time, saying “I tried it and it doesn’t work. It’s a scam”, won’t do. As Napoleon Hill said, you need “definiteness of purpose”. This means you need to decide on the one thing you really want and stick at it, come what may, until you get it. Most people simply cannot do that. That is why most people end up dissatisfied and unhappy, especially the smart ones. Smart guys don’t even use 10% of what they’ve got, while dumb guys give it all (after all, they don’t have that much to give, do they? So they may as well give it all they’ve got!). Smart guys don’t know how to market themselves. They think if they build a better mousetrap, the world is duty-bound to beat a path to their door. So they just sit there, swapping high-brow intellectual witticisms, and wait. And wait. And wait… Here’s an interesting story. It seems that two highly brilliant “professor” types invented this new type of psychological analysis a few years ago. They called it NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and, given that it could produce lasting behavior change in people INSTANTLY, it was arguably the biggest thing since Freud and Jung. Now the only problem was that these two geniuses didn’t know a jot about marketing the stupendous discovery they had made to the general public. Meanwhile, enter stage-right a tall guy – an excellent marketer – whose biggest deal up to that point had been to get company executives to walk across red-hot coals chanting a self-help mantra. This tall guy, who was not a deep thinker compared to the two geniuses, had the nerve to think he could take up this NLP thing and present it to the masses in huge seminars, with scarcely a mention (if ever) of the two geniuses. What ingratitude! And heck, before you could blink an eye, there was the tall guy: meeting US presidents, coaching film stars and world-class sports personalities, appearing on worldwide TV, being a household name, and being financially worth OVER $500 MILLION!! And what about the two geniuses who invented the roadshow? Oh, they’re still out there somewhere; unknown to the masses, poor (certainly compared to the tall guy), fighting over the crumbs, lamenting the unfairness of the world, and doubtless being fed up about the whole thing. And to prove my point, you probably know the name of the tall guy, don’t you? And do you think he deserves his huge success? You bet! But if I gave you a million guesses to name the two geniuses (i.e. the CREATORS of the whole game), would you be able to?!….. Look. I’ve been pretty irreverent in this article, and I hope you’ve seen the humorous side of it. And if anyone’s allowed to say these things, it’s me. Why? Because, with a Ph.D in Nuclear Physics, I guess I’m one of the “smart guys”. I’m writing from personal and bitter experience here. I’ve seen versions of everything I’ve just described… in my own life. I’m telling it like it is. Anyway, who is really “smart” here? Is it the person with a lot of degree certificates, who knows how to play that game well, but is seemingly incapable of playing the game of life? Or is it the person who, perhaps without any fancy education, knows how to interact with the world in a way that optimizes the results that he or she gets? So please, take the point and get the lesson. Don’t be too smart for your own good. Don’t be blind to opportunity simply because your eyes are too busy contemplating your degree certificate. Don’t be over-sensitive. Get out there. Success is a contact sport. Take chances. Get beat up once in a while. Be willing to LOSE (yes, LOSE – and forget what other people will say about it) once in a while. Be prepared to be scammed once or twice too in your pursuit to find out what actually works. Regard everything as a learning experience, and keep on trying. And remember this: between where you are now and where you want to be in life, there are an unknown, but finite, number of mistakes to be made. So, resolve to make those mistakes just as fast as you possibly can. So … Let’s shed the over-sensitive skin, get off your backside, get
a little “DUMB”… and … MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Copyright Asoka Selvarajah 2002. All Rights Reserved.
Dr. Asoka Selvarajah is the author of “The 7 Golden Secrets To
Knowing Your Higher Self”. His work helps you achieve your life
dreams through learning practical, effective spiritual and
personal growth strategies. You can learn more at:
Although Aspire To Wisdom is interested in presenting
you with advertisements for quality products and
services, Aspire To Wisdom cannot spend the time to do
the due diligence it takes to ensure that only reliable
services and products are advertised with us.
So you should understand that Aspire To Wisdom does not
represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any
of the advertisements in our newsletter or the
quality of any products, information or other
materials displayed, purchased, or obtained by you
as a result of an offer in connection with any
advertisement.
Aspire To Wisdom encourages you to do your due
diligence before purchasing any product, whether it is
offered here or anywhere else for that matter, before
purchasing. Please use your judgment and carefully
check out those products that interest you.
We accept no
responsibility whatsoever for the content, profitability
or legality of any published articles or advertisements
contained within Aspire To Wisdom.
And, although all of the articles have been chosen for
their content, the publishing of such articles within
this newsletter does NOT constitute a recommendation of
the products or services mentioned or advertised within
those articles.
Be responsible! Always do your Due Diligence before
responding to any offer.
![[Bloglines]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/bloglines.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[MyWeb]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myweb.png)
![[Squidoo]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/squidoo.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://www.aksworld.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
