A German who escaped just before all the Jews were hoarded into concentration camps in Germany, came to the United States.
His name was Robert Hartman.
His experience with evil uniquely qualified him to set out to deal with the age long question: what is evil, what is good?
He took on himself to define good… the strait and narrow. Many philosophers failed in that: after all the strait and narrow is delineated by the land that encloses it, not by itself…
But he succeeded.
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In this series of Osho talks he examines stories from different ancient cultures. This is an excellent companion to what I teach. Enjoy!
ONCE, WHEN THE HASIDIM WERE SEATED TOGETHER
IN ALL BROTHERLINESS,
PIPE IN HAND, RABBI ISRAEL JOINED THEM.
BECAUSE HE WAS SO FRIENDLY THEY ASKED HIM,
‘TELL US, DEAR RABBI, HOW SHOULD WE SERVE GOD?’
HE WAS SURPRISED AT THE QUESTION,
AND REPLIED, ‘HOW SHOULD I KNOW?’
BUT THEN HE WENT ON TO TELL THEM THIS STORY..
THERE WERE TWO FRIENDS OF THE KING,
AND BOTH WERE PROVED GUILTY OF A CRIME.
SINCE HE LOVED THEM THE KING WANTED TO SHOW THEM MERCY,
BUT HE COULD NOT
What you are, instead alive, is a walking dead, resigned, and settled for the little that, it seems, life has to offer. To you. You see others, seemingly happy, seemingly alive, and you feel regret, shame, and envy.
Your heart, where rain forests and colorful birds, and life used to live, is devastated. The lush rain forests gone, the birds gone, life: gone.
Your ups and downs are tiny, not like a roller coaster. They are about money, or noise, or that you are fat, or skinny, or that you are aging. Irrelevant circumstances.
Maybe it is about someone being sick, maybe dying… but that is also a circumstance.
Some ten years ago I learned a valuable way of looking at making life meaningful, or living a meaningful life. The teacher suggested that we pick a horizon, a direction, and then look what’s blocking the way of getting there.
Since then I saw that even seeing the horizon is blocked… Blocked by seven boulders, lined up one behind the other, blocking your view, blocking your movement.
So, in my coaching practice, when I ask people to set a direction, and they can’t see any, I am inclined to suggest that they choose the direction: living a meaningful live, or a fulfilled life… without specifying what it is.
I lead a workshop on Sunday. I had knowledge, I had strategy. I executed it. It was sloppy. What was missing?
I didn’t know. But “god” works in mysterious ways, the book I am reading has an answer that shows me what has been missing for me on Sunday and all my life.
The book, Peak, the new science of expertise, calls it Mental Representation.
Mental Representation is being able to see the finished product in your mind’s eye, and also see the process getting there, so you can anticipate missteps, and can correct, given that you
When you managed to open yourself up to the guidance of consciousness, the guidance is pouring abundantly.
Before, it is a trickle of guidance here, and trickle of guidance there.
In the previous article I told you what I did to get guidance from consciousness in the area of defining the five stages of consciousness, through my methodology can take you through… all the way to the top.
I wrote the article, and then I went to cook some lunch for myself.
As I was slicing onions, then cubing turkey, I saw another way to illustrate the l
I mean this article to be the first installment in a series.
The underlying principle is the Anna Karenina principle
The Anna Karenina principle
The Anna Karenina principle is: good systems must meet simultaneously a number of requirements. All good systems are alike, bad systems are bad in their own way
Tolstoy said: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
Aristotle said: success/failure: …it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the
I am reading Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. The genes that use humans as vehicles, and are only interested in procreation, and not in the life experience of the vehicle.
But, as I have said before, there are 160 intangible capacities, mostly dormant, in the human DNA. The ones that we are going to look at in this article are the capacities (genes) of generosity (altruism) and trust.
Trust and generosity seem to be at odds with the selfishness of the genes… but they don’t have to be.
The crucial decider… is that a word?, is whether the gene of envy is turned on, or
First things first: the saying is “become worth a damn.” But a lot of people consider damn a curse word, so they say “become worth a dime”… Oh well, here you have it. Become worth a dime… lol.
Second: let me explain the picture: no teacher is worth a darn, unless the student is able to handle, utilize what the teacher teaches. And therein lies all the difficulty you are experiencing.
As you can, maybe, track, I am becoming obsessed with learning to learn… or more precisely said, teaching you to learn to learn…
A German who escaped just before all the Jews were hoarded into concentration camps in Germany, came to the United States.
In this series of Osho talks he examines stories from different ancient cultures. This is an excellent companion to what I teach. Enjoy!
What you are, instead alive, is a walking dead, resigned, and settled for the little that, it seems, life has to offer. To you. You see others, seemingly happy, seemingly alive, and you feel regret, shame, and envy.
Some ten years ago I learned a valuable way of looking at making life meaningful, or living a meaningful life. The teacher suggested that we pick a horizon, a direction, and then look what’s blocking the way of getting there.
I lead a workshop on Sunday. I had knowledge, I had strategy. I executed it. It was sloppy. What was missing?
When you managed to open yourself up to the guidance of consciousness, the guidance is pouring abundantly.
I mean this article to be the first installment in a series.
What kind of deserving is in that title?
I am reading Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. The genes that use humans as vehicles, and are only interested in procreation, and not in the life experience of the vehicle.
First things first: the saying is “become worth a damn.” But a lot of people consider damn a curse word, so they say “become worth a dime”… Oh well, here you have it. Become worth a dime… lol.