You’re walking down the street and then suddenly you hear two loud voices shouting at each other. You turn around the curb and see on the opposite sidewalk, a parent and a child engaged in a lively argument.
« I’m telling you, you should be looking left and right before you cross the street ! »
« I did ! You just didn’t notice ! You’re just super stressed out, as usual. You underestimate me all the time ! »
« No, I saw you. You just crossed blindly without looking ! »
« I knew there were no cars around, I looked long before crossing, you just weren’t paying attention ! …
A man and a woman find themselves stranded on a desert island. In order to survive, one must go fishing, the other collect wood and start a fire.
On the first day, the man goes fishing and the woman collects wood for the fire. After a fruitful cooperation and a good meal, the man lays down, kicks his heels up, grabs a newspaper and a beer and asks the woman to clean up the fire camp and give him a massage.
The woman is outraged and asks « why should I be the one to do that, didn’t we both contribute to today’s dinner ? …
Human rights are talked about a lot lately, mostly because of the regress experienced in many countries around the world, as authoritarian dictatorships pop up here and there, and democracy is under heavy strain for many reasons, including the failure of solving major economic and financial problems. Repetitive violation of human rights has almost become banal, especially on the part of States, but also by individuals who « say things as they are » or fight « political correctness » when in fact they are just openly calling for racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny etc. These are not easy times, and the saddest part is that those who should be defending human rights seem to have forgotten one human right which has never really been formally written down. Indeed, all too often, those who should be defending human rights have fallen into a radical line of thought as well. A perfect mirror image to the authoritarian dictatorships : authoritarian human rights which forget the subtleties of balancing various contradicting rights like the right to free speech and fighting racism etc. But its especially a simplistic kind of discourse where human rights lead to a human Utopia where everyone is happy dandy. …
In our modern societies, it would seem certain actions are more important than others. We have created a whole system of rewarding certain actions and punishing others, categories of acts which are admirable, and others which one should be ashamed of. …
And so I’m back. Even though I thought my 30th article would be my last, it seems this more philosophical and esoteric series is not over yet. I have to thank paul a, one of my most fervant readers, for this latest instalment as it is directly inspired by one of his great comments.
The topic of this article is to discuss the usefulness to « think » about things, to use the mind to understand things, to « conceptualize » things. …
You often read, whether in extreme quantum physics or “woo woo” spiritual circles, about the concept of “time” being non-existent and everything co-existing at the same time in an eternal present moment, which changes depending on our “observation” or point of focus. This article tries to distill these esoteric and very difficult concepts and find a practical way in which they can be used in our daily lives. Let’s start off with a little story.
Day 1: You’re on your way out of work and you stumble upon a lady holding a petition form, seemingly mute from the sound of her voice as she tries to grab your attention as you’re walking by. You decide that you would like to help with the petition. After all, it’s just a signature. As you’re in a hurry, you don’t really read what’s written on it, you assume it’s for a good cause. As you fill in your name and address, you realize that the next collum lists the voluntary contributions from people. 20€, 40€… Wow, these people are generous! …
The following installment of the “practical spirituality” series will focus on transportation. As you may know, the “practical spirituality” series tries to implement in practice the teachings you find in esoteric circles like the idea that we are all one, or put more simply, that each human is like one cell inside a larger global organism.
Our cells move around all the time in our bodies, but the biological equivalent of traffic jams is much more serious in the case of our bodies then what we experience every morning on the highway going to work. If one of your arteries is clogged, that can have disastrous consequences for your health and can be potentially life threatening. …
Welcome to my “practical spirituality” series which tries to translate very abstract esoteric concepts into practical implications and actions.
I invite you to discover my “Spiritual Journey” series if you want a to know about the abstract, theoretical spiritual background these articles rely on. In short, the “main” idea which will be explored in this series is the implication of the “we are all one” idea that you hear, time and again, in esoteric teachings. What if each human is one cell inside the body of a “larger being” or entity? …
So here it is. My first practical spirituality article, which tries to translate very abstract esoteric concepts into practical implications and actions.
I invite you to discover my “Spiritual Journey” series if you want to know about the abstract, theoretical spiritual background these articles rely on. In short, the “main” idea which will be explored in this series is the implication of the “we are all one” idea that you hear, time and again, in esoteric teachings. What if each human is one cell inside the body of a “larger being” or entity? …
For those of you who are familiar with my “Spiritual Journey” series, you will have noticed my fascination with answering the classical existential questions: “who am I, why am I here, who/what is God?” In short, to summarize that whole series, it was an attempt to give infinity a specific “form”, to try to reverse engineer how we got the this moment in infinity. What I have learned, is that ultimately, whatever “beliefs” you hold about infinity determines which part of it you will experience. If you stick to scientific dogma, you will experience a mechanical clockwork Universe. If you’re a religious fundamentalist, you will be certain to hear the voice of God. …
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