The current situation in the world has caused many people to feel lost, anxious, and rethinking their purpose in life. The quarantine situation amidst the Covid-19 crisis may leave an individual overwhelmed with their emotions which is why it becomes important to surround your mind with positive thoughts. This can be achieved by reading, watching, and listening to any good stuff. Conscious Moon Podcast is one such source, that may allow the listener to get out of such emotional turmoil and see things from a higher perspective. This podcast is designed to bring spiritual enlightenment to the listeners through a variety of topics like alternative ways of healing, astrology, concepts of chakras, 5D consciousness, and more.

Conscious Moon Podcast helps the listeners inspire and guide through their lifes transformational experiences, by enabling them to learn about consciousness and spirituality based topics that strive to improve the overall well-being of mind, body, and soul. The podcast is created by Keyera, a person of color to build a community of people who are or wish to walk on the path to spirituality and enlightenment. She created this podcast after having multiple experiences with spiritual awakening. She always found herself curious to learn more about lifes true purpose, existence, and things that mainstream science wont talk about.

Keyera frequently invites several guests on her podcasts, mostly experts in different fields of spirituality and alternative healing. Her podcast on Sound Healing features Dante Baker, a throat singing sound healer based in the DC area, and for her podcast on Astrology, she sits with renowned astrologer Shakirah Tabourn to talk about her entrepreneurial journey, transits in 2020 and working with the moon's energy. In some of her other podcasts, Keyera discusses topics like root Chakra, and UFO, Vortex, and 5D Consciousness.

Conscious Moon Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts.

More information can be found on theconsciousmoon.com.

Instagram: @Iamconsciousmoon @Thekeyerag

Twitter: @moon_conscious

Media Contact Company Name: Conscious Moon Podcast Contact Person: Press Executive Email: Send Email Country: United States Website: http://www.theconsciousmoon.com

See the article here:
Conscious Moon Podcast is spreading spiritual enlightenment through topics like alternative healing, 5D consciousness and more - Press Release -...

Written by Brian Boucher, CNN

What was the Buddha's great wisdom, and how do the artworks of the Buddhist tradition convey it to us today?

Buddhist art has been created over two millennia across India, China, Japan and throughout Asia, and takes some distinctive forms in various regions, but generally speaking it was created to guide followers of the Buddha, known as "the Awakened One," in their religious practice.

Whether they depict the Buddha himself, episodes from his life, or boddhisattvas (those who have taken a vow to seek enlightenment), this art was meant to inspire the Buddha's devotees and remind them of his teachings, whose core message is about compassion and the path to relieving suffering.

One thing Jeff Durham, associate curator of Himalayan art at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, stresses is that the very role of Buddhist art is fundamentally different from that of art in the Western world.

"Buddhist art isn't just a picture of anything," he said over the phone. "It's active art designed to reflect and project a certain mental state. These works are meant to change the mind from a state of obsession to one of friendliness."

The Buddha triumphing over Mara, a statue in stone from Bihar state, India (approximately 800-900). Part of the Avery Brundage Collection at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco Credit: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

Despite the broad geographic reach of Buddhism and its centuries-long history, the teachings are consistent. Our actions, or karma, define our destiny. The Buddha, who was born as the Prince Siddhartha into a royal family in Lumbini, close to the border with India in what is now Nepal, taught that the cycle of death and rebirth, called samsara, is caused by our mental attachment to earthly concerns, and that a mind disciplined by meditation can release us from this endless cycle of suffering.

How can photographers capture human connection in the age of coronavirus?

One classic representation of the Buddha, depicting a key moment in his life, is the museum's "The Buddha triumphing over Mara," a ninth-century Indian stone sculpture. In it, the Buddha is seated in meditation at the very moment of his awakening, or enlightenment, when he realized the causes of suffering in human life, and understood that meditation could release humankind from such suffering. The Buddha went into Vipassana meditation, a technique practiced throughout the world today, Durham explained, after making the resolution that, "My bones may break, my blood may dry up, but I will not move from this position until I have solved the mystery of the universe."

He would not rise, he determined, until he had divined a means to banish suffering.

A basalt statue: "Standing crowned Buddha with four scenes of his life," approx. 1050--1100. southern Magadha region, Bihar state, India. Part of the Brundage Collection at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. Credit: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

There is a way to read what these sculptures are saying, Durham explained. Here, the clue that the sculpture shows the moment of Buddha's awakening is the gesture he is making with his right hand. When the demon Mara -- who in Buddhist cosmology is associated with desire -- tried to challenge the Buddha by demanding a witness to his awakening, the Buddha touched the Earth itself, calling upon it to testify to his enlightenment. When the Earth testified, "I am your witness," it drove the demon away.

Another exceptionally fine representation is the brass "Buddha Shakyamuni" from the twelfth or thirteenth century in central Tibet, explained John Guy, curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. This particular sculpture is rare since it avoided destruction in a historical purge: "It's one of the rare survivors of Tibetan art to have come down to us from this very early period," he said over the phone. "They survived in greater numbers until the 1950s, when the Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet and destroyed so much art."

It's not only gestures that clue viewers in to the fact that a sculpture represents the Buddha and conveys his teachings, but also distinctive physical attributes. One common feature of the Buddha among Tibetan renditions, Guy explained, is the fire atop his head, seen in this work. "Kings and rulers are understood to have distinguishing body marks, of which this is one," he said.

Buddha Shakyamuni, 12th century, central Tibet. Credit: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Another telltale mark is the profile of the Buddha's cranium. That's not a headdress you see creating a conical shape on top of the Buddha's skull -- it's actually a bodily attribute called the ushnisha (cranial protuberance), which signifies great wisdom.

Other identifying marks of the Buddha are long earlobes (a relic of his earlier, wealthier life, when he wore earrings), flat soles of the feet, and fingers all the same length. ("That continues to this day," Guy added. "The Dalai Lama, too, was chosen because of the body marks on the infant.")

Famous shoe designer Christian Louboutin explores the world's treasures

The Met's seventh-century Indian bronze sculpture "Buddha Offering Protection," meanwhile, shows how some of the earliest artists to depict the Buddha combined attributes that were unique to Buddhist teachings, with those associated with regal figures in other art historical traditions, such as the raised right hand, palm outward, which extends protection to his followers. They also used umbrellas, fans, and thrones, which were meant to help followers of other traditions shift their loyalties to the Awakened One, said Guy.

"The Buddha triumphing over Mara" provides a great example of an artwork that doesn't just remind you of an episode from the Buddha's life, but also includes the Awakened One's teachings too," Durham said. The writing around the Buddha's head reads, "Everything has a cause." The Buddha realized at his moment of enlightenment that nothing in the world is disconnected from anything else; samsara, remember, is caused by our own minds.

Buddha Offering Protection, Late 6th-early 7th century, India. Credit: Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

"You can actually read off the sculpture that it's the enlightenment experience," Durham said. "And you can understand what the Buddha actually understood that woke him up."

If you're not quite ready to accept that your own mind causes the endless cycle of death, rebirth and suffering, there's still plenty to be gleaned from this ancient tradition and its artworks.

"The Buddha's teachings can be read on many levels," Guy said. "But at a fundamental level, all the storytelling was a way of conveying ethical values. One of them is the peaceful coexistence of all life forms, which is very germane today. We've wandered dangerously far from that principle in the era of climate change."

Yayoi Kusama orders coronavirus to 'Disappear from this earth' in a new poem

Referring to the seated Buddha sculpture in San Francisco, which is inscribed with the message that all things are connected by causality (in contrast with the deterministic belief that our fate is out of our hands), Durham, too, brings matters from the time of the Awakened One to today.

"What he saw when he woke up is that things don't happen by chance, that everything is connected by causality," he said. "And if nothing else, Covid-19 is waking us up to the fact that we are all connected."

Note: This story has been updated to correct the Buddha's birthplace.

Go here to see the original:
Buddhist art: These ancient images are more timely than you think - CNN

"The Conversion of St. Augustine," by Fra Angelico. (Wikimedia Commons)

In his latest book On the Road with St. Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts (Brazos Press, $19), James K.A. Smith offers a multifaceted reflection that intertwines his own life and the life of the African bishop from Hippo to illuminate the human experience.

This book is a journey with Augustine as a journey into oneself. Its a travelogue of the heart. Its a road trip with a prodigal whos already been where you think you need to go. Smith offers a fresh and compelling portrait of St. Augustine, centered on the Confessions but informed by his letters, preaching, and other works, perhaps especially On Christian Teaching.

Interspersed are references from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac, the memoir of Jay-Z, and the everyday life of Smiths own family.

Augustines Confessions, in Smiths understanding, is a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son who departs from his fathers house and who is welcomed home by the same father, who was keeping watch for him and who greets him with merciful love (Luke 15:1132). The story of St. Augustine is also the story of every human person who searches for an identity, for freedom, for accomplishment, for enlightenment, and for true love with family and friends. We are already Augustinian, writes Smith, we just didnt know it.

Perhaps nothing is more Augustinian than addiction. Smith articulates St. Augustines experience, which is an experience reenacted in countless troubled lives: Insofar as I keep choosing to try to find that satisfaction in finite, created things whether its sex or adoration or beauty or power Im going to be caught in a cycle where Im more and more disappointed in those things and more and more dependent on those things. Disordered use of freedom, the abuse of freedom, leads into the claustrophobic crawl space of the self, as Leslie Jamison puts it.

St. Augustines story also teaches us about evangelization. Smith writes, Illumination depends upon trust: enlightenment is communal. Its not that Augustine immediately comes to affirm the Catholic faith; rather, Ambroses kindness and hospitality to a precocious outsider was the affective condition for him to reconsider the faith hes spurned. I fell in love with him, as it were, not at first as a teacher of the truth as I had no hope for that whatsoever in your church but simply as a person who was kind to me. You can feel in this encounter something of the gratitude of the African outsider not being marginalized by an intellectual at the center of power.

Love is a necessary condition for the possibility of evangelization. The words of faith become plausible after reception of the deeds of love. Its not just that reason needs love in order to know, writes Smith. I need to be loved into such knowing, welcomed into such believing, embraced for such hoping. If the arguments are going to change your mind, its only because an Ambrose welcomes you home.

Perhaps the most deeply moving part of the book comes in its penultimate chapter. To be comforted by the word of Gods grace, writes Augustine, is to return after a long journey to obtain from a father the kiss of love. St. Augustines father, Patrick, was abusive, adulterous, and absent.

Smith writes, Maybe this is what has drawn me to Augustine on an unconscious level: a shared longing for a father Ive never known. I suspect Im not alone in this. I know Im not the only one whose father has left, whose stepfather left, whos been left bereft of fathers despite their multiplication in serial marriages. Smith hasnt seen or heard from his father or his stepfather in decades.

At the heart of the madness of the gospel is an almost unbelievable mystery that speaks to a deep human hunger only intensified by a generation of broken homes: to be seen and known and loved by a father. The Christian story is meeting a Father who adopts you, who chooses you, who sees you a long way off and comes running, and says, Ive been waiting for you. Smith sees in the Church, at its best, a family of brothers and sisters in Christ adopted by a loving Father.

But the journey does not end with adoption. We have not come to our final home as long as we walk on earth. This incompleteness is felt even by a saint. As Smith notes, This is why book 10 of Augustines Confessions is such a gift: it is the testimony of a broken bishop in the present. You realize Augustine isnt just narrating past temptations he has escaped: hes confessing all the ways hes still tempted to camp out in alcoves of creation as if they were home. I struggle every day, he admits, and I love him for doing so.

If you love St. Augustine, if you love learning about the human condition, youll love this elegantly written book.

Original post:
Augustines restless heart, and our own - Angelus News

Kevin Walthall, Columnist Published 11:32 a.m. PT April 26, 2020

Can we trust the media? The World Health Organization? The Centers for Disease Control? Dr. Fauci? Whos fact-checking the fact-checkers? How do we know the earth isn'tflat?

It seems the line between free-thinking and conspiracy theorizing has been blurring. A seemingly healthy distrust of authority has bled over into an unhealthy distrust of authoritative fact, with little room for nuance. The governor and the state legislature, informed by the most qualified medical experts in the nation, have decided on a path that isnt happy, easy or prosperous for anyone. Its bitter medicine we have to take to prevent loss of life. And yet, Im taken aback by the insanity of the quarantine protests, the random individualistic belligerence, and the conspiracy theories Im seeing. How did we get to the point where the average person feels qualified to rebuke and disregard actual experts? And why do average people feel compelled to do so?

In my own lifetime, it seems weve gone from qualifying our opinions with "I'm no expert, but it seems to me like..." to cavalierly dismissing actual experts. The same general sentiments are more irreverent and destructive now that accountability to authoritative truth has been abolished. This hyper-vigilance against institutional bias smells like personal bias -- the desire for control, for answers, and for woke status. Its more comforting to believe seismic forces are under the control of some shadowy cabal than it is to believe the terrifying truth that nobody controls this thing. Conspiracy theories are comforting because they offer the illusion of order where there is none.

Im comforted by some sober truths of human nature: If youve done what it takes to become powerful, you have powerful enemies waiting to protect and publicize any whistleblower with the information to bring you down. Thats a guarantee. And if Bush did 9/11 or Democrats are destroying the economy to make Trump look bad, youd better believe there would be powerful players on the other side of the aisle actively seeking to reveal concrete proof. The fact is, there is none.

The media (which is apparently monolithic) makes its money off scandals. The media outlet that covers up a political or corporate scandal goes bankrupt. You dont have to trust in altruism to trust the media. You can trust self-interest.

When it comes to anecdotes of authorities getting information wrong, our response should be analogous to Russell Wilson throwing an interception -- sure, the person in the spotlight made a mistake, but that doesnt mean someone can come in off the couch and do a better job. The solution to media bias seems to be The media is biased, therefore Im going to believe whatever I want. I think we lose faith in institutions when we expect those institutions to somehow be perfect, but thats unrealistic. Journalism has always been a very human, flawed thing. It historically goes through cycles from muckraking on one end, to borderline propaganda on the other. Its reporting has always referenced an assumed common lexicon of values, but that commonality is disintegrating, and the media is left trying to deliver public health announcements to Babel.

The CDC, WHO and Dr. Fauci represents the worlds most qualified medical expertise -- but if youre willing to second-guess the credentials of the worlds leading experts, youre probably willing to second-guess the people who determine those credentials in the first place. In fact, youre probably willing to second guess everything -- everything except yourself. And thats at the root of the problem. Well go through extremely inconvenient mental gymnastics to arrive at convenient conclusions.

Ive never seen deep-dives into fringe sources result in a more nuanced worldview. Ive never seen a Republican gain respect for a Democrat, or vice-versa through secret revelations for the faithful. Ive never seen a paranoid, distrustful person enter the wormhole of selective fact-finding and emerge with faith in an imperfect system held together by checks and balances. I fear the sum effect of the Information Age has been the ability to find the facts we want to believe. Weve been empowered to launder opinions through a network of shell sources and truths presented with falsified contexts.

To be clear, Im not asking anyone to slide into any one entrenched position, nor am I advocating for total agnosticism. By all means, fact-check and think critically, but embrace some humility before the face of messy reality and absolute -- but often obscured -- truth. Im asking us to address the fact that real life is not a comic book filled with heroes and villains, and if were going to live in real life, were going to live with unresolved tensions. Were going to live with a lack of answers. Were going to live with some frustrations. But hopefully we can all be frustrated and humble together, seeing the human tensions within one another.

The older I get, the more I want to be simple. The word integrity derives from integer, a whole number. This word, often thrown around as a synonym for morality, means a lack of duplicity. It means wholeness and consistency within oneself. I am not a bastion of integrity, but I want to be.

I want to recognize a good idea when I hear it, regardless of who it comes from. I want to be the same person in front of my Bible that I am on social media. I want to be the same person with my daughter that I am with people who annoy me. I want her to master this ethos better than I have.

The Enlightenment places a high value on individualism, the mind, and questioning traditions and institutions. I find it ironic that the Enlightenment is, itself, a tradition institutionalized in our Constitution that often goes unquestioned. While the Enlightenment produced our constitution, it also produced the French Reign of Terror. Many Enlightenment thinkers, James Madison and several notable founding fathers included, were concerned that the American system was too populist an interpretation of these ideals, enabling our basest desires to be preyed upon and politicized in a system that would eventually devolve through sensationalism into mob rule.

As individuals, the Enlightenment creates its own system of honor and shame. How do we prove our intelligence to the world, and thus win honor? I submit that its through expressing opinions. This is where I find the Dunning-Kruger Effect to be fascinating. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias where people of low ability in a task often overestimate their competency because they dont fully understand what competency looks like. Basically, they dont know what they dont know. Those who have the strongest opinions on a subject often have strong opinions because they dont fully understand the subject - confidence in an opinion is usually a symptom of ignorance.

Believe me, the irony of this coming from an opinion columnist is not lost on me. Wise King Solomon says it better:

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. -Proverbs 18:2

Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues. - Proverbs 17:28

Side note: Whatever happened to philosopher-kings?

Theres integrity in the simple words I dont know. Theres integrity in qualifying opinions with based on what Ive learned, this is what I think - but I may be wrong. I have a Bachelors in American History. I know more than the average bear in that department, but if I encounter someone more educated, Im going to listen more than I speak. I might know something they dont. They might be wrong about something. Were all human. But spending several years studying under true experts has taught me that theres a lot I dont know. At this time when knowledge can literally mean life or death, if you are not a qualified medical expert, the time has come to listen to qualified medical experts.

The simple can have honor. It is a moral and honorable thing to exercise self-restraint and humility of thought. It is a moral and honorable thing to examine ones own soul with a scalpel before lazily applying the scalpel to others. It is a moral and honorable thing to topple the tyrant of pride within before assailing tyrants without.

Kevin Walthall is a Bremerton resident and a regular contributor tothe Kitsap Sun. He also writes for the blog Urban Bremerton. Contact him atkswalthall@gmail.com.

Kevin Walthall(Photo: Contributed image)

Read or Share this story: https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/columnists/2020/04/26/integrity-saying-i-dont-know/3022602001/

Visit link:
The integrity of saying 'I don't know' - Kitsap Sun

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, by Joseph Wright of Derby 1766 Derby Museum of Art, Derby, England

Gospel of 29th April 2020 - Matthew 11:25-30

The reading today is one that over the years has always somewhat puzzled me. He prays to His father and says: 'I bless you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children'. At first glance we may think that Jesus is thanking His Father because he hid the Gospel from the wise and intelligent, but revealed it instead to uneducated fishermen like Peter. Does this therefore mean that it is wrong to be intellectual? Does this mean that God does not care for the educated? Of course not. But the problem lays within the attitude such people can display towards the Gospels.

Having an overly scientific approach to the Christian faith would lead to the danger of wanting to prove the existence of God using scientific methods. Or such an approach could trivialise God's greatest miracles and fail to see the divine nature in the. Unfortunately, science can be used only to explore creation. It cannot explore the Creator. So Jesus presents us with the need for us to have a childlike faith. This isn't a childish faith, but a childlike faith. A child is completely dependent on adults for safety, love, nurturing, education and knowledge. Similarly, a faithful person depends on God in a way that is absolutely dependent.

Reflection on the Painting

The painting by Joseph Wright of Derby was painted in 1766, in the midst of the Age of Enlightenment, when science took centre stage and was widely celebrated. It is then that in a way our 21st Century phenomenon of Scientism (excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge to provide the only genuine knowledge of reality) started. The painting shows a philosopher giving a lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put symbolising the Sun, and explaining how the Planets revolve around the sun. Wright's depiction of the wonder produced by scientific research, marked a break with previous painting traditions in which the artistic depiction of such wonder was reserved mainly for religious events. It is a very striking painting though. The single light-source is masterfully lighting the faces. To Wright, the marvels of the scientific age were as awe-inspiring as the subjects of the great religious paintings

But Scripture cannot be approached just with the mind. The word of God also speaks to the heart and only then fully comes to life!

LINKS

Today's story - https://christianart.today/reading.php?id=406

Christian Art Today - https://christianart.today

and Holy Week through 100 paintings - http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/39289

Tags: Christian Art Today, Patrick van de Vorst, Joseph Wright of Derby

ICN aims to provide speedy and accurate news coverage of all subjects of interest to Catholics and the wider Christian community. As our audience increases - so do our costs. We need your help to continue this work.

Please support our journalism by donating today.

Read this article:
Today's Gospel in Art - You have hidden these things from the wise - Independent Catholic News

Everything is One - A New Documentary Film that Decodes the Mystery of Life, Released by Center for Introspection & Enlightenment Initiatives for a Utopian world based on Science & Technology GlobeNewswire April 23, 2020

SURREY, British Columbia, April 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Center for Introspection & Enlightenment, Canada has released a new documentary film called Everything is One as a part of its outreach program.

The documentary film meant for scientists & technologists is available worldwide on Vimeo.

Everything is One has 2 parts, each with duration of 90 min.

Origin, Evolution & Nature of life describes the design & architecture of the human system. It is the journey of life as it evolved through time.

Purpose of life. Connecting the dots describes the functional specifications & application axiom of the human system.

The Center's initiatives are aimed at enlarging the human vision, redefining the purpose of life and evolving into an advanced species.

The Center aims to bring scientists & technologists together on the same page.

Ramesh Kulkarni, the author of these films, has worked in IT industry for 25 years.

According to Mr Kulkarni, Understanding the schematics of the complete human system would make it easier to identify problems, segregate issues and troubleshoot the subsystems without adversely affecting and harming the whole.

The author expects that the film Everything is One will help scientists & technologists in the areas of Cellular Development, Bio Technology, Embryo Science, Medical Oncology, Human Biology, Bioinformatics, Medical Engineering, Genomics Science, Immunology, Neuro-Sciences, Humanities & Artificial Intelligence, and especially in Medical & Healthcare.

Mr Kulkarni feels the film would provide new insights and open up new areas for research & development in these disciplines.

In 2006, the Center had launched The American Way. Connecting the dots,a film for eradicating global poverty.

The American Way explores how the US creates & distributes material wealth.

It provides a road-map for poor & developing countries for eradicating poverty through systemic changes.

The American Way was screened to the Planning Commission & Govt of India in 2006.

All 3 documentary films are available worldwide on Vimeo.

The Center is a non-profit foundation based in British Columbia, Canada.

Website is http://www.ci-e.com

Email- rk@ci-e.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3cad6966-e5ff-40c1-95d3-7f7f1552bb22

More here:
Everything is One - A New Documentary Film that Decodes the Mystery of Life, Released by Center for Introspection & Enlightenment - AsiaOne

With its theme of Possible Worlds, the third season of Cosmos was awkwardly timed. The series, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, concluded last week on Fox and the National Geographic Channel. It conjures dreams of interstellar travel at a moment when most people are much more concerned about whether they can make it to the grocery store and back without contracting COVID-19.

The backdrop of a pandemic was, of course, unique to this season. It probably contributed to a lower-than-hoped-for viewership. But as writers for Evolution News have demonstrated in recent weeks, Cosmos 3.0, as we call it, is in other ways right in line with its predecessors. Like the 1980 original with Carl Sagan and the 2014 reboot with Dr. Tyson, this Cosmos series advances numerous myths about the relationship between science and faith.

Here is the final narration from Cosmos 2020:

Stars make worlds, and a world made life. And there came a time when heat shot out from the molten heart of this world and it warmed the waters. And the matter that had rained down from the stars came alive. And that star stuff became aware. And that life was sculpted by the earth, and it struggles with the other living things. And a great tree grew up, one with many branches. And six times it was almost felled, but still it grows. And we are but one small branch, one that cannot live without its tree. And slowly we learned to read the book of nature, to learn her laws, to nurture the tree, to become a way for the cosmos to know itself, and to return to the stars.

Tyson ends his summary of cosmic history since the Big Bang with this soaring narrative focused on earth. It sounds like the exalted prose of the book of Genesis minus God. It is a worldview-shaping narrative, a myth in the anthropological sense.

When connected with earlier Cosmos episodes that give details (typically without sufficient evidence), this narrative answers profound questions. Or it seeks to answer them. Where did we come from? Answer: we are star stuff shaped by the branching tree of evolution, powered by unguided material processes. What is our purpose (teleology)? Answer: to be one of the ways, along with extraterrestrial civilizations, that the universe knows itself through science. Where are we going (eschatology)? Answer: our destiny is to become connected with civilizations located around countless other stars, and thereby be liberated from terrestrial religions and scientific infancy (Tyson earlier held a baby to make this point). Six times terrestrial life worked hard to avoid total extinction and succeeded, but in the seventh period we will enter our cosmic rest of extraterrestrial enlightenment.

While resting in the lap of ET we will read the Encyclopedia Galactica, Tyson suggests. This book represents the fantastically advanced accumulated knowledge of cosmic communal intelligent life, an idea that Carl Sagan helped transfer from science fiction to documentary film back in the 1980 Cosmos series. Well enjoy heavenly bliss while reading the good book. Thats a key message from the Cosmos franchise.

The season finale is titled: Seven Wonders of the New World. In Biblical terms, seven symbolizes completion. Are we uncovering Team Tysons numerological opium for the masses? The Cosmos storytellers invented a 2039 New York Worlds Fair with seven theme park attractions that celebrate cosmic history and lifes heroic accomplishments. The year 2039 would be the centennial of the 1939 New York Worlds Fair that helped awaken Carl Sagans scientific-materialist imagination (also depicted endearingly in this final episode). Sagans legacy grows with each multimillion-dollar retelling.

Such Worlds Fair science-fiction storytelling works well as it builds upon a certain measure of legitimate science. There are five widely recognized mass extinction events in our planets history. Throw in human-caused global warming as the sixth catastrophe (allegedly in the making in our own time) and you have a great recipe for cosmic mythology. Lets save our Mother Earth in act six and join the extraterrestrial choir of enlightened ETs in the triumphant seventh act. Hey everyone, make sure you oppose those fanatically religious geocentric, flat-earth-believing, climate-science deniers who are destined for extinction. Science is our only salvation. (See my historical analyses of Christianity as being responsible for flat-earth-belief here and unthinking resistance to Copernicanism here).

The makers of Cosmos wish to reach your heart with their message. Its a materialistic imitation of biblical religion and eschatology. Mother Nature is god and Tyson is her prophet. Learn her laws, he declares, echoing Moses. Nurture the Tree of Life she has mindlessly created. Countless times in the series Tyson says Come with me, imitating Jesus call for disciples.

The grand story is dressed up to look scientific, but at heart it is mostly materialistic mythology. Its bipolar identity teeters between atheism and pantheism. I make a rigorous case for this conclusion in my book Unbelievable, which includes the chapters Extraterrestrial Enlightenment and Preaching Anti-theism on TV: Cosmos. In the Cosmos chapter I discuss Cosmos 1980 and 2014. Cosmos 2020 dishes up more of the same. Many will swallow it.

Did you notice the timing of the season finale, on April 20? It aired two days before Earth Day, which this year celebrated its 50th anniversary. Many now celebrate Earth Day within a Deep Ecology worldview that owes much to pre-modern pagan earth worship. Easter, which also falls at this time of year, had long ago largely displaced the old earth-worshipping holidays in Europe. Do the makers of Cosmos hope that Earth Day will win back this time of year from Easter? It sure looks that way when you combine my analysis here with this critique of the flimsy Cosmos treatment of global warming. It is no surprise that the National Geographic Channel blasted Cosmos viewers with many Earth Day-related TV advertisements (I lost count of just how many).

Meanwhile, after celebrating or ignoring Easter and Earth Day, many coronavirus-besieged earthlings toggle between anxiety and quarantined boredom. Cosmos 3.0 doesnt seem to be helping much. But for some people false hope is better than no hope at all. For some, futuristic dreams via Cosmos might bring comfort. Team Tyson envisions how in the near future a persons neural network (connectome) might be resurrected. In this future world, maybe with ETs help (or so the story goes), we will be able to recreate a deceased persons connectome. Its your own personal techno-Easter, if you will (provided that others in the future approve of your reappearance). The details for how this could happen are not provided. Sci-fi is under no such obligation. The constraints on this kind of storytelling are minimal.

Carl Sagans widow, Ann Druyan, is the key figure who made the Cosmos series rise again (twice now). She had this to say about her teams storytelling:

Every story that we tell has to satisfy different criteria. It has to be a way into a complex scientific idea or an important scientific idea. Were aiming for your brain, your eye, your heart, your senses, your ear via effects. Everything has to be working together in concert to give you a consummate experience, and to attract you to want to know more.

Referring to traditional religions, especially the one that celebrates Easter, she finally says in the same interview: I think we have a much better story to tell than they do. I doubt this even if both were treated as fictional narratives. Of course the truth or fiction of each story is the subject of the main debate.

Seth MacFarlane (a Hollywood atheist worried about the influence of intelligent design) introduced Ann Druyan to atheist Brannon Braga, who helped Ms. Druyan produce the two reboots of Cosmos. Heres a sample of how I treat Bragas key role in the Cosmos franchise. Its from the Cosmos chapter of my book Unbelievable. The materialist agenda of Braga is documented below and in my books footnotes (omitted here).

The executive producer of Cosmos 2014 says that he has spent most of his professional life creating myths for the greater truth of atheism. His name is Brannon Braga. Speaking at the 2006 International Atheist Conference, he celebrated his part in creating atheistic mythology in more than 150 episodes of Star Trek: Next Generation. He summed up his mission which violates the original Star Trek prime directive of not altering native culture as showing that religion sucks, isnt science great, and finally how the hell do we get the other 95 percent of the population to come to their senses? These are remarkable confessions. As we saw in Chapter 8, Kepler helped establish sci-fi as a way to promote very different ideas: God rules the cosmos, isnt science great, and finally how for heavens sake do we get the other 99.9 percent of the population to come to their senses so they can embrace Copernican astronomy?

According to Braga, teaching atheistic myth is the work of sci-fi films and TV documentaries like Cosmos. Indeed, he said that Cosmos 2014 was designed to combat dark forces of irrational thinking. He emphasized: Religion doesnt own awe and mystery. Science does it better. But as we have seen, rendering Christianity as the historical enemy of science is itself an exercise in unreasonable and reckless historiography. Myth, not science, recognizes the cosmos as all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Sagan knew this statement would inspire awe because it imitated the biblical description of God. No doubt, Braga and his team of like-minded creators were delighted to rerun this mythical mantra at the beginning of Cosmos 2014. It served well the greater good of anti-theism.

Theres much more where that came from: Its Unbelievable!

Editors note: Find further reviews and commentary on the third season ofCosmos, Possible Worlds, here:

Image: Host Neil deGrasse Tyson in a screenshot from the trailerfor Cosmos 3.0, Possible Worlds.

Read this article:
Echoing the Bible, Cosmos Concludes with a Materialist Origins Myth and Future Heavenly Bliss - Discovery Institute

Vinod Khanna with son Rahul.

OnApril 27, 2017 when Vinod Khanna died in a Mumbai hospital, Indian cinema lost one of its most handsome and successful stars. Vinod was unlike any other in the Indian film firmament - a star who quit it all at the height of success only to return five years later to reclaim much of what had been lost. As a successful actor, handsome star, with a successful career in politics later on, Vinod had it all but nothing defined his life the way his association with Osho would. On his 3rd death anniversary, heres a look at how can be such a big part of his life.

Vinod as born in Peshawar in 1946 in undivided India. A year later, when Partition happened, his family comprising his parents, three sisters and a brother moved to Bombay (now Mumbai). His younger days - school and college - were spent in Mumbai, Delhi and Deolali, near Nashik in Maharashtra. Though Vinod made his film debut in 1968 with Sunil Dutt in Man Ka Meet, his heart truly was in cricket. He loved the game and played a fair bit of it while in Bombay. The public may think I am just another filmstar but there was a time when I played fair cricket with (test player) Budhi Kunderan. Later, I played with Eknath Solkar at the Hindu Gym. I used to bat at No 4 but settled for films the moment I realised I couldnt be Vishwanath! Even so cricket not films, is my first love, he had written in The Illustrated Weekly of India in 1979.

Yet films would be where he would earn name, fame and money. In the 70s era, he was one of the highest earning stars alogwith Amitabh Bachchan. Starting off playing the roles of villains, Vinod soon graduate to playing hero. Between the late 70s and early 80s, he had starred in a string of successful films such as Kuchhe Dhaage, Gaddaar, Imtihaan, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Inkaar, Amar Akbar Anthony, Rajput, The Burning Train, Qurbani, Kudrat, Parvarish and Khoon Pasina.

In his personal life too, life couldnt have been better - he married his college sweetheart, Gitanjali Taleyarkhan and a proud parent to two boys - Rahul and Akshaye - both of whom would go on to become actors. Life couldnt have been better and yet, in early 1980s he quit it all and moved into Rajneeshpuram with his spiritual guru Rajneesh. He had become his disciple in 1975. The developments shocked India.

Speaking about it, his younger son Akshaye in an interview to Mid Day had said how he was only about five or six years old when his father left them. At that time, it meant nothing to him. It was only when Akshaye turned 15 or 16 that he began to learn and listen about the man who influenced his father so much that he was willing to renunciate life and take sanyaas. Akshaye said, To not only leave his family, but to take sanyaas (renunciation). Sanyaas means giving up your life in totality family is [only] a part of it. Its a life-changing decision, which he felt that he needed to take at the time. As a five-year-old, it was impossible [for me] to understand it. I can understand it now.

It is indeed life coming a full circle when ones child, most impacted by ones decisions, turns empathetic. Akshaye went on to explain how he now understood what his father must have felt. In the sense that something must have moved him so deeply inside, that he felt that that kind of decision was worth it for him. Especially, when you have everything in life. And when life doesnt look as though theres much more that you can have.

A very basic fault-line/ earthquake has to occur within oneself to make that decision. But also stick by it. One can make the decision and say this doesnt suit me lets go back. But that didnt happen.

Akshaye explained how Vinods renunciation was complete and had it not been for the unfortunate developments vis-a-vis Rajneeshpuram and the US government then, Vinod would never have come back. And circumstances in America with Osho and the colony, friction with the US government that was the reason he came back.

There were constant murmurs that Vinod was disillusioned; Akshaye thought the contrary. He added, From whatever memories I have about my father talking about that time in his life, I dont think that was a reason at all. It was just the fact that the commune was disbanded, destroyed, and everybody had to find their own way. Thats when he came back. Otherwise I dont think he wouldve ever come back.

By the time Vinod returned to India, he and Gitanjali had divorced. He went back to working in Bollywood, working in films like Dayavan. Vinod married again, this time to Kavita Daftary, daughter of industrialist Sharayu Daftary and had two more children. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and won four Lok Sabha elections from Gurdaspur and remains the most successful Bollywood star in politics. He successfully launched his son Akshayes film career too. All his life, Oshos philosophy remained central to his existence.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

Originally posted here:
On Vinod Khannas 3rd death anniversary, a look at how joining Osho became the most defining moment... - Hindustan Times

Who is Amala Paul's new boyfriend? The name and photos of her Mr Right revealed

Amala Paul is reading 'The Book of Woman', written by Osho and the influence of the author can be seen on her as the actress has raised pertinent questions about love, marriage and notable about the women's treatment in the society.

Amala Paul.Instagram

Amala Paul's Bold Message on Social Media The 27-year old talks about how the women are subject to slavery and claims that pregnancy brings death to child in her. Amala Paul stated that the men uses women as an object of lust to fulfil his sexual desire.

The complete unedited text can be read below:

All the best questions in THE PROPHET are asked by women- about love, about marriage, about children, about pain-authentic, real. . Not about God, not about any philosophical system, but about life itself. Why has the question arisen in a woman and not in a man ? Because the woman has suffered slavery, the woman has suffered humiliation, the woman has suffered economic dependence, and, above all, she has suffered a constant state of pregnancy. . For centuries she has lived in pain and pain. The growing child in her does not allow her to eat. She is always feeling like throwing up, vomiting. .

He simply uses the woman as an object to fulfill his lust and sexuality

When child has grown to nine months, the birth of the child is almost the death of the woman. And when she is not even free of one pregnancy, the husband is ready to make her pregnant again. It seems that the woman's only function is to be a factory to produce crowds. . And what is man's function ? He does not participate in her pain. Nine months she suffers, the birth of the child she suffers- and what does the man do ?

As far as the man is concerned, he simply uses the woman as an object to fulfill his lust and sexuality. He is not concerned at all about what the consequence will be for the woman. . And still he goes on saying, 'I LOVE YOU'. If he had really loved her, the world would not have been over populated. His word 'love' is absolutely empty. He has treated her almost like cattle. . #osho #thebookofwoman #woman #slaverystillexists #ancestralhealing #powerfulwords

Amala Paul.PR Handout

Amala Paulon Work Front: On the work front, she is busy with South Indian version of Hindi web series Lust Stories. She is also part of Mahesh Bhatt's yesteryear actress Parveen Babhi's biopic.

Visit link:
Amala Paul: 'When she is not even free of one pregnancy, the husband is ready to make her pregnant again' - International Business Times, India...

Charged and complex Edwin Morgan in 2003. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Three poems from The New Divan

1.Hafiz, old nightingale, what fires there have been in the groves, white dust, wretchedness, how could you ever get your song together? Someone stands by your tomb, thinks as a shadow thinks: much, little, any? You swore youd be found shrouded in another grave-cloth of pure smoke from a heart as burning dead as beating but the names of cinders are thick where passions were. Whole cities could be ash. But not the song the Sufi says we have but our dying song, you knew, gives us our beings.

86.Not in Kings Regulations, to be in love. Cosgrove I gave the flower to, joking, jumping down the rocky terraces above Sidon, my heart bursting as a village twilight spread its tent over us and promontories swam far below through goat-bells into an unearthly red. He dribbled a ball through shrieking children and they laughed at our bad Arabic, and the flower. To tell the truth he knew no more of what I felt than of tomorrow. Gallus, he cared little for that. Ive not lost his photograph. Yesterday, tomorrow he slumbers in a word.

92.Angels with abacuses called their calculations once, in an ancient scene of souls. They shrug now, its not calculable, dive in pools, dry out half human with their wings on rocks and let computers mass the injuries let computers mess the injuries let computers miss the injuries let computers moss the injuries let computers muss the injuries of merely mortal times. Consequently waters break on earth but not for them. And those who see them in this labouring place have shadows watching them, not angels. It doesnt matter which. When was our ACHTUNG MINEN ever their concern, or the tears where our bodies were?

Edwin Morgan (1920-2010) considered his 100-poem sequence, The New Divan, his war poem.

A conscientious objector, Morgan served in a non-combatant role in the Royal Army Medical Corps in north Africa during the second world war. He wrote the sequence years after the experience, and published it in 1977, by which time his major collections, The Second Life (1968) and From Glasgow to Saturn (1973) had established his reputation. He chose the right moment for himself as a poet: its as if the poem had always been waiting for him to find his hail voice.

The sequence is non-linear. There are narrative glimpses only. Many of the poems have a swift, strange jostle of images, like vivid dreams, almost surreal. Wars violence is more often hinted than described, part of the symbolism of red, a favourite colour in the swirling weave. Blood, roses, sunset, fire, wine, the eyes after drinking all shades and moods of red connect Morgans divan (the word means in Persian a collection of poems) to the original Divan by the 14th-century Sufi poet Hafiz.

Love, for Morgan as for Hafiz, is the major theme. In a context where homosexual relationships were officially forbidden, its a charged and complex business. As the second poem here affirms, to be in love was against Kings Regulations. It would not have been an easy subject for Morgan at the time of writing, either.

Sufi mysticism and carnal ecstasy merge for both poets. Of course, Morgans persona isnt seeking union with God, but the ecstatic union with the man he desires, Cosgrove, is a spiritual matter in that its a quest for the utmost personal authenticity. The shapes, colours and syntax of Morgans poems, so unlike Hafizs stately ghazals, make them seem to dance like whirling dervishes, the Sufi worshippers who seek divine connection through bodily movement. As the Indian mystic, Acharya Rajneesh, (Osho), explained, Sufis sing, they dont give sermons, because life is more like a song and less like a sermon. And they dance, and they dont talk about dogmas, because a dance is more alive, more like existence, more like the birds singing in the trees ... The whole life is a dance, vibrating, throbbing, with infinite life. Sufis like to dance; they are not interested in dogmas.

In Poem 1, Morgan addresses the old nightingale Hafiz himself, and refers to the text where Hafiz declares: Open my grave when I am dead, and thou shalt see a cloud of smoke rising out from it; then shalt thou know that the fire still burns in my dead heart; yea, it has set my very winding-sheet alight. (Gertrude Bells translation). Death in Morgans poem is retrospective transformation: But / not the song the Sufi says we have / but our dying song, you knew, gives us our beings. It seems likely that Morgan wrote the Divan after Cosgroves death; it was certainly written when the realisation of that love was no longer a possibility. But the love gives Morgan his song.

No 82 is a long way ahead in the sequence or would be if The New Divan were chronologically structured. This poem has a lighter, airier voice: insouciant as well as sad, it captures the character of Cosgrove, and the obligatory playfulness which both defuses and heightens the relationship. Gallus (line 10) is an adjective in Scots . The fact that Gallus is a proper noun in Latin creates an ambiguity: might it also be read as a reference to the Roman prefect-in-Egypt, Aelius Gallus, whose expedition was described by Strabo, among others?

No 92 laments the disunity jarring the heart of Morgans wartime experience. Angels are imperfect, or invisible. Capital letters shout, Beware Landmines. An excursion into concrete poetry results in a mechanical, anti-creation hymn . Mass, mess, miss, moss, muss: the hissing litany of words chancily formed by the sequence of vowels, recalls a device used humorously in The Computers First Christmas Card. Poem 92 is a cry of pain, but still a word-dance.

Edwin Morgans 100th birthday would have been on 27 April. Im delighted to have an excuse to return to his work, and for PotW to play a small part in his centenary celebrations. No 20th-century poetry has brought me more varied, intense and unfading pleasure than Morgans. His is the song of our time the living, not the dying, song which gives us our being.

See the rest here:
Poem of the week: The New Divan by Edwin Morgan - The Guardian