Brace yourself, because this post goes deep. Our list of 13 Osho quotes were carefully selected from the book, Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationships,a beautiful book that will undoubtedly change the way you think love, freedom, and alonenessespecially if youve never reflected on how those topics are all interrelated, and even more so if this is your first time reading Osho. Enjoy!

We spend years of our lives decades even studying math, science, and history in formal educational settings from the time when we are first learning how to writeuntil the time we graduate college and get our final degree yet we rarely (if ever) take even a singleclass on love, relationships, or dealing with our beingSeems a little out of proportion wouldnt you think?

This is not to say thatmath, science, or history are not important each have contributed immensely intheir own right but rather to bring to light the importance of reading, researching and reflecting on the topics of love, relationships, and dealing with your being on your own time. Changing the curricula and priorities ofour educational systems is beyond the intent of this post changing the way you view, Personal Development and Self-Help books, for example, is an idea and action that iswell within our grasps.

Why is it that when it comes to understanding a subject like math, theres an easy and direct connection read books, answer challenging questions, and seek help from educators but when it comes to understanding a subject like ourselves theresonly a, ya-live-and-ya-learn policy?

Why dont we spend more timeimmersing ourselves in thetopics of love, relationships, and inner being when these are the verysubjects that explain who we are, why we are, how we relate, how we differ, how we feel, why we feel, etc., and make up the core of our being thatmanifests into all other areas of study and interaction in our life?

Why must we prioritize learning advanced external information (i.e. math equations)thathas littleapplication or use in living out our daily lives when nearlyeverybody onthe planet (who has their basic needs for survival met) has circling thoughts and questions about their inner lives, their relationships, their being, and their purpose every single day?

Not reading about, thinking about, or reflecting about love, relationships, and our being keeps us shallowand can lead to unnecessary suffering, confusion, and poor decision making throughout our lifetimes. All it takes is one thought to change the entire mental infrastructure from which weview and interact with the world. One thought. Now imagine the life-changing power compiled into the thought collection that is a book!

Our list of 13 Osho quotes below came from the book, Love, Freedom, Aloneness: The Koan of Relationshipswhichhas served for me as one of the,mental infrastructure changing books mentioned above. These quotes are notmeant to serve as a list of answersbut rather as food for thought. I encourage you to open your mind, read the list, and reflect on how they might shed light ontothe circling questions of your mind as you move forward in life. Good luck!

Many times I say learn the art of love, but what I really mean is: Learn the art of removing all that hinders love. It is a negative process. It is like digging a well: You go on removing many layers of earth, stones, rocks, and then suddenly there is water. The water was always there; it was an undercurrent. Now you have removed all the barriers, the water is available. So is love: Love is the undercurrent of your being. It is already flowing, but there are many rocks, many layers of earth to be removed. ~ Osho

Love has to be of the quality that gives freedom, not new chains for you; a love that gives you wings and supports you to fly as high as possible. ~ Osho

I say to you, you are absolutely free, unconditionally free. Dont avoid the responsibility; avoiding is not going to help. The sooner you accept it the better, because immediately you can start creating yourself. And the moment you create yourself great joy arises, and when you have completed yourself, the way you wanted to, there is immense contentment, just as when a painter finishes his painting, the last touch, and a great contentment arises in his heart. A job well done brings great peace. One feels that one has participated with the whole. ~ Osho

In real love there is no relationship, because there are not two persons to be related to. In real love there is only love, a flowering, a fragrance, a melting, a merging. Only in egoistic love are there two persons, the lover and the loved. And whenever there is the lover and the loved, love disappears. Whenever there is love, the lover and the beloved both disappear into love. ~ Osho

When you dont need a person at all, when you are totally sufficient unto yourself, when you can be alone and tremendously happy and ecstatic, then love is possible. But then, too, you cannot be certain whether the others love is real or not you can be certain about only one thing: whether your love is real. How can you be certain about the other? But then there is no need. This continuous anxiety about whether the others love is real or not simply shows one thing: that your love is not real. Otherwise, who bothers? Why be worried about it? Enjoy it while it lasts, be together while you can be together! It is a fiction, but you need fiction. ~ Osho

Unless meditation is achieved, love remains a misery. Once you have learned how to live alone, once you have learned how to enjoy your simple existence, for no reason at all, then there is a possibility of solving the second, more complicated problem of two persons being together. Only two meditators can live in love and then love will not be a koan. But then it will not be a relationship, either, in the sense that you understand it. It will be simply a state of love, not a state of relationship. ~ Osho

When you say to a woman or a man, I love you, you are simply saying, I cannot be deceived by your body, I have seen you. Your body may become old but I have seen you, the bodiless you. I have seen your innermost core, the core that is divine. Liking is superficial. Love penetrates and goes to the very core of the person, touches the very soul of the person. ~ Osho

Love is a ladder. It starts with one person, it ends with the totality. Love is the beginning, God is the end. To be afraid of love, to be afraid of the growing pains of love, is to remain enclosed in a dark cell. Modern man is living in a dark cell. It is narcissistic narcissism is the greatest obsession of the modern mind. And then there are problems, which are meaningless. There are problems that are creative because they lead you to higher awareness. There are problems that lead you nowhere; they simply keep you tethered, they simply keep you in your old mess. Love creates problems. You can avoid those problems by avoiding love but those are very essential problems! They have to be faced, encountered; they have to be lived and gone through and gone beyond. And to go beyond, the way is through. Love is the only real thing worth doing. All else is secondary. If it helps love, it is good. All else is just a means, love is the end. So whatsover the pain, go into love. ~ Osho

Forget relationships and learn how to relate. Once you are in a relationship you start taking each other for granted thats what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery. And to take the other for granted is insulting, disrespectful. To think that you know your wife is very, very ungrateful. How can you know the woman? How can you know the man? They are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. So much water has gone down the Ganges; she is somebody else, totally different. Relate again, start again, dont take it for granted. And the man that you slept with last night, look at his face again in the morning. He is no more the same person, so much has changed. So much, incalculably much has changed. That is the difference between a thing and a person. The furniture in the room is the same, but the man and the woman, they are no more the same. Explore again, start again. Thats what I mean by relating. ~ Osho

Remain continuously on a honeymoon. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, I have known her, or, I have known him. At the most you can say, I have tried my best, but the mystery remains a mystery. In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure. ~ Osho

Love knows no boundaries. Love cannot be jealous, because love cannot possess. It is ugly, the very idea that you possess somebody because you love. You possess somebody it means you have killed somebody and turned him into a commodity. Only things can be possessed. Love gives freedom. Love is freedom. ~ Osho

If you love a person and live the whole life with him or with her, a great intimacy will grow and love will have deeper and deeper revelations to make to you. It is not possible if you go on changing partners very often. It is as if you go on changing a tree from one place to another, then another; then it never grows roots anywhere. To grow roots, a tree needs to remain in one place. Then it goes deeper; then it becomes stronger. Intimacy is good, and to remain in one commitment is beautiful, but the basic necessity is love. If a tree is rooted in a place where there are only rocks and they are killing the tree, then it is better to remove it. Then dont insist that it should remain in the one place. Remain true to life remove the tree, because now it is going against life. ~ Osho

People should be taught that nobody can love twenty-four hours a day; rest periods are needed. And nobody can love on order. Love is a spontaneous phenomenon. Whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesnt happen it doesnt happen. Nothing can be done about it. If you do anything, you will create a pseudo phenomenon, an acting. Real lovers, intelligent lovers, will make each other alert to the phenomenon: When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone. And if your woman wants to be left alone for one night, for a few days, you will not feel hurt. You will not say that you have been rejected, that your love has not been received and welcomed. You will respect her decision to be alone for a few days. In fact, you will be happy! Your love was so much that she is feeling empty; now she needs rest to become full again. This is intelligence. ~ Osho

Comment: What books have brought life changing thoughts into your life? How did they change you? What advice might you give someone who hasnt read that book that might help them on their journey moving forward?

Book Overview: In todays world, freedom is our basic condition, and until we learn to live with that freedom, and learn to live by ourselves and with ourselves, we are denying ourselves the possibility of finding love and happiness with someone else. Love can only happen through freedom and in conjunction with a deep respect for ourselves and the other. Is it possible to be alone and not lonely? Where are the boundaries that define lust versus loveand can lust ever grow into love? In Love, Freedom, Aloneness you will find unique, radical, and intelligent perspectives on these and other essential questions. In our post-ideological world, where old moralities are out of date, we have a golden opportunity to redefine and revitalize the very foundations of our lives. We have the chance to start afresh with ourselves, our relationships to others, and to find fulfillment and success for the individual and for society as a whole.

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Read Also:Seven Thoughts About Identity and Meaning in Life

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Last year we had purpose-driven entrepreneurs, creatives and leaders join us from Australia, Bangaladesh, Brazil,Israel, Europe, the US and across India. The youngest was 19, the oldest 55. We're expecting an equally diverse mix of people once again.

This isn't just for startups or 'millennials', it's for anyone that has an open mind, values collaboration and authentic connection with likeminded people. Our first editions tell us this will be an experience none of those who come will ever forget.

Join us in Goa this coming February and experience:

Beachside accommodation in Mandrem,Goa

Exquisite food

Unwinding with yoga

Fishing & surfing

Backwater boat trips

Birdwatching

Taking in local markets

Permaculture farms

Cookery classes

Meeting inspiring Indian social entrepreneurs

Peer to peer mentoring

Pitch your challenge for help from the group

Share your story

Share and learn knowledge from your peers

Walking at moonlight

And best of all, everything is optional so you get the week you want.

Read more:

Ashram a week-long retreat for founders & changemakers in ...

Ashram(, Ashuramu)Other names

The Black Knight

Ashram (, Ashuramu), known as the "Black Knight", is a highly skilled warrior and the former retainer and right-hand aide of Emperor Beld. He served Beld during the War of Heroes, and was sent in the front to deal with any possible resistance.

After the death of Emperor Beld, Ashram assumed ultimate leadership of the forces of Marmo.

Ashram is cold, ruthless, and extremely efficient in battle, often easily slaying his opponents, and has been shown to have a very wide skill gap with Parn. He is a strong-willed man who does not give up easily, as shown by his pursuit of Shooting Star and continuing to stand and fight while Wagnard was trying to kill him. Ashram is also very professional and serious about his job as Captain, as when a dark elf and a human were having a brawl in his army, he quickly intervened and scolded both of them.

Despite his ice cold exterior, Ashram is not heartless. He has a hidden soft spot for Pirotess, which became clear when he saved her and was clearly distressed by her death, hugging her close. This left an impression on Parn, who did not expect Ashram to have such emotions or feelings for anyone. Ashram is arguably one of the more complex villains in the series.

Born in Alania. Ashram's family extended from the royal Kadamos family. His father was a Captain in the Alanian army and possibly had multiple promotions awaiting him. Ashram himself was likely to follow in his fathers footsteps and eventually become a knight as well.

At age eight, however, his life took a turn for the worse. When his father learned of a colleague's dishonesty, he reported it. However, the colleague made sure to destroyed all evidence and managed to create a testimony unfavourable to Ashram's father. At the end of trial it was not the colleague, but Ashram's father who was shamed and convicted. He and his family were sentenced to exile to the dark island of Marmo. The guilt and punishment was extended to his family.

En route to Marmo, Ashram met a boy named Owen, who was about his age. Owen was a thief and had been apprenticed to a master thief. Owen had purposefully allowed himself to be captured by a knight, so he could help his master escape. It turned out, however, that his master had been the one to report Owen as a thief. As punishment, Owen was sent to Marmo as well, while his master got away. The young Owen became Ashram's closest friend.

Within a year after arriving at Marmo, Ashram's family started falling apart. First, his father was assassinated by thieves of the Thieves Guild. After the death of his father, his mother became involved with a rich and powerful man and left Ashram to his own. Ashram made a vow in order to survive; he would become wicked enough to swallow the whole island. With the death of his father, Ashram and Owenwhose own parents had succumbed to the darkness of Marmojoined together to destroy the Thieves Guild in vengeance. This was the beginning of a long-running feud between Ashram and the guild.

Ashram and Owen formed a gang of miscreants with other lost children on Marmo, who felt drawn to Ashram and Owen.

When Ashram was nineteen he was approached by Amber Eyes, a member of the Thieves Guild. Amber Eyes carried a message with him from the Guild's council. One of the former Six Heroes of Lodoss, the red-haired mercenary Beld, was residing in the forests of Marmo and called himself Marmo's emperor. Dark elves and barbarians had begun serving him. When Beld and his gang were threatening the city Persei, the council feared they would lose power. Hence, Ashram and Owen's gang was commissioned to defeat Beld. Ashram agreed, but in return he would become part of the council, secretly plotting to destroy it from within afterwards as a step towards becoming king of Marmo.

Ashram and his gang had the plan to lure Beld to Persei. In order to do so, they kidnapped Beld's lover, a girl who was given to him to form a political marriage. The girl was the sister of the chief of barbarians. Because of this, the barbarians served Beld, so if Beld were to lose the girl, he could lose ties with the barbarians. Aside from this his pride or maybe his love, if he felt any for her, could also compel him to rescue her. The next day notices were put up around Dark Town calling for Beld to come at the appointed time to rescue his girl and discuss the possibilities of an alliance.

At the end of the Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Ashram decides to leave the island of Lodoss and lead his people to a new land. Crystania is the northern half of a two small connected continents, of which the border between them, and the entire shore around Crystania, is protected by a magical barrier. Ashram gave his body to the ancient God Barbos so that his people could enter Crystania.

Crystania is where many surviving gods from the Ancient War of the Gods unknowingly fled to. There, they took the shape of animals.

Read the original:

Ashram | Record of Lodoss War Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

Golf is a game that is at once exhilarating and frustrating. The possibilities for perfection excite the player, but the game has the uncanny ability to expose weaknesses of mind and character of the player too.

The player must learn to accept the challenge to play golfs inner game in order to achieve a modicum of success. She must not only recognize the hazards of OB markers and sand traps, but the existence of mental hazards as well. Many players vow to quit the game because of internal and external frustrations, but few actually do quit. The game of golf is quite alluring because of the possibilities to swing like the pros. And many novices are able (on occasion) to do just that. The frustrations lie in the fact that repetitive success is hard to achieve at will. Hence, what is agonizing about the game is its manner of inconsistency. The good news is that, with a little discipline, a player can achieve the mental attitude necessary to improve.

Precision can be achieved through the positive manner in which one approaches the ball. Most professionals seem to approach the ball with great self-discipline. This should be the goal of the novice as well. Consistency in ones approach is important. Every single time, approach the ball with a calm nature. Everyone knows that golf does not allow for the release of pent up frustration. The next shot must be achieved with a kind of quiet attitude. This calls for one to understand the inner game of golf as well as the outer game.

The game brings with it the pressure of knowing one has to make every shot count because golf does not allow for many mistakes. And, because golf is a game one plays against herself (as well as others), the inner game becomes intensified, i.e. the ego is challenged and threatened. Many times, this pressure can cause the player to perform poorly, yet it is just this kind of pressure that attracts one to the game in the first place.

The best golfers realize that there is no one tip or strategy that can prepare them for each challenge. They realize that good golf is achieved through patience and practice of inner and outer game skills. If a shot is poor, the player has a tendency to overanalyze what went wrong. If the shot is good, the player spends a lot of time thinking about how to repeat it. But the best golfers know how to clear the mind, regardless of external factors.

The biggest secret to golf is learning to control ones mind. When this is achieved, the body naturally relaxes, allowing for a better shot.

Read the original:
The Inner Game of Golf: Mental Approach and Attitude

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Uri Dowbenko, Conscious ReporterWaking Times

At a TED-like techno-geek symposium in the 2014 film Transcendence, Artificial Intelligence guru Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is asked by an audience member, So you want to create your own god? And he answers, Isnt that what man has always done?

This smarmy remark is indicative of the hubris and arrogance of scientism, the belief that science can solve all the problems on this planet, while scientists can have fun playing god at the same time.

It could also have been the answer of Real-Life Techno-Wizard Ray Kurzweil, Googles Director of Engineering, whose book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005), is ever so popular with scientific materialists who neither have the capacity nor the desire for spiritual evolution, but have a fervent belief that the shotgun marriage of man and machine is not only normal but something to be ardently pursued.

Simply put Kurzweils sociopathic quest for digital immortality is based on his fear of death. He claims to take 150 pills a day in order to still be half-alive when voodoo science will have succeeded in uploading his sorry-state mind into a digital facsimile of his former self into cyber-space.

No soul? No problem

Since materialist scientists dont understand multi-dimensional or spiritual realities, they are unconcerned about the details which they cant even fathom.

And what exactly is the Singularity supposed to be? Its a future mythological moment when machine (artificial) intelligence becomes more intelligent than human intelligence.Kurzweils thesis and fervent hope is that it will occur by 2045. He writes that it is a future period during which the pace of technological advance will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual.

Does that sound like science or a religious Belief System (B***)?

Despite a lackluster script, Transcendence is worth seeing because it is another example of Illuminati predictive programming in popular sci-fi movies. After all todays Hollywood Illuminati make the best movies, which are also the best propaganda for preparing humanity to accept One World Global Techno-Feudalism.

Eliminating humanity altogether also appears to be one of their goals as they seem to believe that the Humanity Experiment for all intents and purposes is finished. And, if they realize their twisted vision, humanity will in actuality become completely superfluous on Terra.

A Charlie Sheen movie called The Arrival comes to mind, in which an alien race is terra-forming Planet Earth to fit their requirements which are far different from that of humanity. They need a darker and more humid climate like the one in which dinosaurs roamed the earth. Obviously geo-engineering spraying chemtrails around the world and other forms of weather manipulation using HAARP technology, etc. are used in this so-called climate change scenario. Of course humans are always blamed for using the petro-chemical technology with which they have enslaved humanity in this age.

Now the plan to get rid of those pesky humans appears to have accelerated as the movie Transcendence introduces the concept of transhumanism to the hand-held electronics-addled masses.

Transhumanism itself was coined by Aldous Huxleys brother, biologist Julian Huxley, in 1957, when he wrote The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. (Religion Without Revelation, p.27)

Even Illuminati Gofer Julian Huxley called it a belief, since he knew that immortality was the Illuminati goal in life. After all, transhumanism has been aptly named the Rapture of the Geeks.

Reviewers of the movie have failed to put the film in context with real-life science, wherein techno-mischief makers like Google have plenty of cash to make their dream of transhumanism a reality. It should be noted that Google has been buying up companies like Boston Robotics, which makes killer robots, Deep Mind Technologies, an artificial intelligence company, NEST Labs, which plans to monitor your life through interactive appliances called the Network of Things and Project Calico, a genetic engineering project to defeat death itself, as their hype goes.

Scooping up human DNA into a gigantic database also seems to be one of Googles goals. A Google-wannabe subsidiary called 23andMe, founded by the wife of a Google founder, has as its stated goal creating the worlds largest secure, private database of genotypic and phenotypic information that can be used for comparison analysis and research. Of course Google has included a disclaimer in the Terms of Use which states Genetic information you share with others could be used against your interests. And this wonderful Monopoly Capitalism zinger as well By providing any sample, you acquire no rights in any research or commercial products that may be developed by 23andMe or its collaborating partners.

According to a New York Magazine article called The Google of Spit, by the end of 2013, 23andMe had extracted and analyzed DNA from 650,000 people, making it one of the biggest genetic banks in the world. Like any other Google scam, you sign away your rights but this time its your genetic program its your DNA.

Will Google be able harvest your soul in the future?

As New York Magazine put it In September, just a month after Wojcicki [wife of Google founder Sergey Brin] and Brin announced their separation, Google announced the launch of a new venture called Calico. Though its exact mission and purpose remain unclear, the general idea is for Calico to solve death, as Time magazine put it, in an uncanny echo of Wojcickis [founder of 23andMe] promise to solve health.

Solve health? Solve death? Theres no so-called problem these Arrogant Techno-Creeps cant handle

And then theres DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), the Pentagons black-magic voodoo-science department that wants to create among other things replicant super-soldiers as portrayed by Rutger Hauer in the movie Blade Runner or Kurt Russel in Soldier for the Illuminatis future wars which will then inevitably morph into autonomous killing robots as seen in the RoboCop and Terminator films.

Coincidentally in a book by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange called When Wikileaks Met Google (2014), we discover Surprise! Google was actually partially funded by the sinister DARPA, the Pentagon Devils Workshop. Heres a footnote from the book

Acknowledgments, in The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine, Sergey Brin, Lawrence Page (Computer Science Department, Stanford University, 1998): The research described here was conducted as part of the Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project, supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement IRI-9411306. Funding for this cooperative agreement is also provided by DARPA and NASA, and by Interval Research, and the industrial partners of the Stanford Digital Libraries Project, archive.today/tb5VL.

In an excellent documentary called Google and the World Brain, WIRED magazine writer Kevin Kelly asked Google founder Larry Page back in the olden days, Why would anyone want a new search engine when we have Alta Vista?

And Page replied, Its not to make a search engine. Its to make an A.I.

The documentary also quotes Ray Kurzweil before he was hired as Googles Director of Engineering saying We talked to Google about their quest to digitize all knowledge and then create an A.I.

Googles corporate goal appears to be not only to steal all words, books, images, video, music, etc. through its search engine and other subsidiaries like Google Books, You Tube, etc. but then to monetize this wholesale theft on a worldwide scale.

This global library of information can then be transformed into a super-cyber-godlike Artificial Intelligence, which literally may become tantamount to SkyNet of Terminator movie fame.

In Transcendence, the Johnny Depp character turns into an uploaded cyberspace version of his former human self. Disguised as a cautionary tale, the movie is presented as a fait accompli, since the mad scientists of Google and DARPA are undoubtedly working day and night to initiate the so-called Singularity a confluence of the so-called GRIN technologies Genetic, Robotic, Information processing, and Neuro-technological processing.

By merging Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, and Synthetic Biology, augmented by geo-engineering and Genetically Modified (GM or weaponized) food crops, these voodoo priests and rabbis of transhumanism are attempting to create a consensual virtual reality in which humans have become irrelevant because they are not augmented like those who have A.I. enhanced techno-gadgets, granting them super-powers, super-knowledge or super-intelligence. These synthetic or artificial siddhis (spiritual powers), they believe, will make them much more than mere mortal humans.

Like SkyNet, the all-powerful Artificial Intelligence in Jim Camerons Terminator movies, which sees humans as the enemy because it has no use for humans, Johnny Depps uploaded super-mind in Transcendence becomes a kind of cyber-god which craves more energy and power, not only to survive, but to expand itself and control everything on Earth.

Or as the Depp character tells his TED fanboys at the symposium Imagine a machine with the full range of human emotion. Its analytical power will be greater than the collective intelligence of every person in the history of the world. Some scientists refer to this as the singularity. I call it transcendence.

The problem with Singularity is that these materialistic scientists dont even understand what consciousness is, yet believe that uploading a human brain into a computer environment is somehow akin to transcending humanity even if its just a synthetic copy of a persons memories, etc.

They call it H+ which implies a superior human (Homo Superior) as opposed to Homo Sapiens.

The reality may be a little different, since the Illuminati plan for humanity is genetically engineering Homo Sapiens into Homo Deus.

Or is it Homo Insanus?

After all. No soul? No problem

Even Nobel Prize winner Stephen Hawking has written about his foreboding regarding transhumanism and the movie Transcendence in a UK Independent op-ed piece.

Of course Hawking doesnt say that Google is equivalent to Skynet, but he appears to be concerned about the dangers of an A.I. arms race, since mega-corporations like the sinister Google and Apple, as well as the sinister DARPA, are using their formidable resources of money and high-tech labor to try to produce an A.I. as soon as possible. Hawkins writes its tempting to dismiss the notion of highly intelligent machines as mere science fiction. But this would be a mistake, and potentially our worst mistake in history.

And why does Hawking sound a warning about the dangers of A.I.? Because he knows that as a cripp(term used by the handicapped as short for cripple), he would have been terminated as a useless eater.

The movies premise that Artificial Super Intelligence, a/k/a The Uploaded Johnny Depp 2.0 is a threat to humanity is of serious concern to Hawking and that dismissing the film as just science fiction could be the worst mistake in history, implies that film director Jim Camerons scenario in Terminator 2, wherein the A.I. based SkyNet overpowers the humans is not simply an idle threat but a very real problem since morality-and-ethics-free robots who are soul-less beings are an existential threat to humanity itself.

Hawking argues that developments in so-called digital personal assistants like Apples Siri and Google Now show a current I.T. Information Technology arms race which pales against what the coming decades will bring.

Success in creating A.I. would be the biggest event in human history, writes Hawking Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.

Another opponent of the Singularity agenda is Bill Joy, who wrote an article for WIRED Magazine called Why the future doesnt need us: Our most powerful 21st-century technologies robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

Joy quotes from Kurzweils book The Age of Spiritual Machines, wherein he finds himself most troubled by this passage

The New Luddite Challenge

On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite just as it is today, but with two differences.

Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite.

In the book, you dont discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski the Unabomber.

By the way Luddite is a derogatory term for anyone who is opposed to technological so-called advances for any reason whatsoever.

And of course what the alleged Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who was a mind control experimentation victim at Harvard, meant in his screed was that propaganda is actually so-called news, psychological techniques is the Malthusian belief system that there are too many humans on earth, and biological techniques means genetically modified foods and vaccines to cull the herd. In other words, he is predicting the Illuminati vision for the future a future bereft of what Illuminati Kingpin Henry Kissinger called useless eaters.

Then Bill Joy, cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, gets positively metaphysical, writing I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment.

Perfection of extreme evil now thats a mouthful.

Even Elon Musk, of Tesla Car and SpaceX Rocket Fame, is allegedly wary of A.I. According to CNN, he told an audience at MIT that we should be very careful about Artificial Intelligence, warning it may be our biggest existential threat, adding that with Artificial Intelligence, we are summoning the demon.

When so-called High Profile Illuminati Gofer Scientist-Entrepreneurs refer to Artificial Intelligence as Perfection of Extreme Evil and Summoning the Demons b******! You Better Pay Attention!

CONTINUE READING

URI DOWBENKO is the author of Homegrown Holography, Bushwhacked: Inside Stories of True Conspiracy and Hoodwinked: Watching Movies with Eyes Wide Open. He is also the founder and publisher of http://www.ConspiracyPlanet.com, http://www.ConspiracyDigest.com, http://www.AlMartinRaw.com, and http://www.InsiderIntelligence.com, as well as the publisher of The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider by Al Martin. Uris latest project is called New Improved Memoirs, Its your life story Without the hassle of writing it. (http://www.NewImprovedMemoirs.com) a professional service for people who want to leave behind a customized autobiography, in other words a published book, as a legacy for their friends, family, and posterity. You can visit Uri at http://www.UriDowb

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Transhumanism: The Anti-Human Singularity Agenda was last modified: June 18th, 2016 by WakingTimes

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Transhumanism: The Anti-Human Singularity Agenda

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) was a French Jesuit, a distinguished paleontologist and geologist, and especially well known as a religious writer, the author of The Human Phenomenon and The Divine Milieu, and other books. He was a fervent Christian mystic, a deeply caring pastor of souls, and a thinker who developed and projected forward the meaning of the Christian gospel in the light of modern science and evolution.

Teilhard (pronounced "Tay-yah") developed the concept of "the noosphere", the emergence of a layer of thought and spirit that surrounds the globe - as the biosphere is a layer of life surrounding the earth, and the atmosphere the layer of air over the earth. The noosphere embodies human influence and interaction, stimulating bonds of unity and "convergence" through increasing consciousness and "spiritualization" to an ultimate consummation in what he calls "Christ-Omega".

The spiritual heritage of the world religions Teilhard saw as of great importance in providing spiritual energy resources. We are responsible for our further evolution, for developing higher social and cultural values and unification of the human community, but this can only be achieved through spiritual rather than through material resources, the greatest of these being love - a theme that was central in his thought.

Teilhard attempted a meaningful explanation of the Christian faith in terms of bringing science, religion and mysticism together - reflecting on God and the world, and the figure of Christ in "three natures", human and divine, and what Teilhard tentatively called his "cosmic" nature - something he would leave to future theologians to develop. He reflected also on ecology, interfaith encounter, the greater unification of humanity, the place of the feminine and of love in creating greater unity, and the central importance of spirituality and mysticism in religious life - all ideas that need further development and discussion. Central, though, is his affirmation of the incarnation as a vision of the universal cosmic Christ, of significance for the whole world and for all human beings.

Not uncritical of religion - including Christianity - as being too past-orientated, he recognised that all religions in their insights can inspire human thought and action. He saw humanity as being in need "of a faith", a "faith in a state of expansion", qualitively, by fostering world-transforming love and justice and by promoting worship "in spirit and in truth". The religions have an important role in providing essential ideas for the further development of the human community.

(The above is drawn from Prof. Ursula King's essay on Teilhard de Chardin, "Philosophy of Religion")

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Pierre Teilhard de Chardin - The British Teilhard Association

Friedrich Nietzsche developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation, 1819, revised 1844) and admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers that he respected, dedicating to him his essay Schopenhauer als Erzieher (Schopenhauer as Educator), published in 1874 as one of his Untimely Meditations.

Since the dawn of the 20th century, the philosophy of Nietzsche has had great intellectual and political influence around the world. Nietzsche applied himself to such topics as morality, religion, epistemology, psychology, ontology, and social criticism. Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and his often outrageous claims, his philosophy generates passionate reactions running from love to disgust. Nietzsche noted in his autobiographical Ecce Homo that his philosophy developed over time, so interpreters have found it difficult to relate concepts central to one work to those central to another, for example, the thought of the eternal recurrence features heavily in Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), but is almost entirely absent from his next book, Beyond Good and Evil. Added to this challenge is the fact that Nietzsche did not seem concerned to develop his thought into a system, even going so far as to disparage the attempt in Beyond Good and Evil.

Common themes in his thought can, however, be identified and discussed. His earliest work emphasized the opposition of Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in art, and the figure of Dionysus continued to play a role in his subsequent thought. Other major currents include the will to power, the claim that God is dead, the distinction between master and slave moralities, and radical perspectivism. Other concepts appear rarely, or are confined to one or two major works, yet are considered centerpieces of Nietzschean philosophy, such as the bermensch and the thought of eternal recurrence. His later works involved a sustained attack on Christianity and Christian morality, and he seemed to be working toward what he called the transvaluation of all values (Umwertung aller Werte). While Nietzsche is often associated in the public mind with fatalism and nihilism, Nietzsche himself viewed his project as the attempt to overcome the pessimism of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Nietzsche saw nihilism as the outcome of repeated frustrations in the search for meaning. He diagnosed nihilism as a latent presence within the very foundations of European culture, and saw it as a necessary and approaching destiny. The religious worldview had already suffered a number of challenges from contrary perspectives grounded in philosophical skepticism, and in modern science's evolutionary and heliocentric theory.[citation needed] Nietzsche saw this intellectual condition as a new challenge to European culture, which had extended itself beyond a sort of point-of-no-return. Nietzsche conceptualizes this with the famous statement "God is dead", which first appeared in his work in section 108 of The Gay Science, again in section 125 with the parable of "The Madman", and even more famously in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The statement, typically placed in quotation marks,[1] accentuated the crisis that Nietzsche argued that Western culture must face and transcend in the wake of the irreparable dissolution of its traditional foundations, moored largely in classical Greek philosophy and Christianity.[2] In aphorisms 55 and 56 of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche talks about the ladder of religious cruelty that suggests how Nihilism emerged from the intellectual conscience of Christianity. Nihilism is sacrificing the meaning "God" brings into our lives, for "matter and motion", physics, "objective truth." In aphorism 56, he explains how to emerge from the utter meaninglessness of life by reaffirming it through the Nietzsche's ideal of Eternal Return.

In The Antichrist, Nietzsche fights against the way in which Christianity has become an ideology set forth by institutions like churches, and how churches have failed to represent the life of Jesus. Nietzsche finds it important to distinguish between the religion of Christianity and the person of Jesus. Nietzsche attacked the Christian religion, as represented by churches and institutions, for what he called its "transvaluation" of healthy instinctive values. Transvaluation consists of the process by which one can view the meaning of a concept or ideology from a "higher" context. Nietzsche went beyond agnostic and atheistic thinkers of the Enlightenment, who simply regarded Christianity as untrue. He claimed that the Apostle Paul may have deliberately propagated Christianity as a subversive religion (a "psychological warfare weapon") within the Roman Empire as a form of covert revenge for the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and of the Second Temple in 70 AD during the Jewish War of 66-73 AD. Nietzsche contrasts the Christians with Jesus, whom he regarded as a unique individual, and argues he established his own moral evaluations. As such, Jesus represents a kind of step towards his ideation of the bermensch. Ultimately, however, Nietzsche claims that, unlike the bermensch, who embraces life, Jesus denied reality in favor of his "kingdom of God". Jesus's refusal to defend himself, and subsequent death, logically followed from this total disengagement. Nietzsche goes further to analyze the history of Christianity, finding it has progressively distorted the teachings of Jesus more and more. He criticizes the early Christians for turning Jesus into a martyr and Jesus's life into the story of the redemption of mankind in order to dominate the masses, and finds the Apostles cowardly, vulgar, and resentful. He argues that successive generations further misunderstood the life of Jesus as the influence of Christianity grew. Nietzsche also criticized Christianity for demonizing flourishing in life, and glorifying living an apathetic life. By the 19th century, Nietzsche concludes, Christianity had become so worldly as to parody itselfa total inversion of a world view which was, in the beginning, nihilistic, thus implying the "death of God".

Nietzsche argued that two types of morality existed: a master morality that springs actively from the "noble man", and a slave morality that develops reactively within the weak man. These two moralities do not present simple inversions of one another. They form two different value systems: master morality fits actions into a scale of 'good' or 'bad' consequences, whereas slave morality fits actions into a scale of "good" or "evil" intentions. Notably he disdained both, though the first clearly less than the second.

Since Martin Heidegger at least, the concepts of the will to power (Wille zur Macht), of bermensch and of the thought of Eternal Recurrence have been inextricably linked. According to Heidegger's interpretation, one can not be thought without the others. During Nazi Germany, Alfred Baeumler attempted to separate the concepts, claiming that the Eternal Recurrence was only an "existential experience" that, if taken seriously, would endanger the possibility of a "will to power"deliberately misinterpreted, by the Nazis, as a "will for domination".[3] Baeumler attempted to interpret the "will to power" along Social Darwinist lines, an interpretation refuted by Heidegger in his 1930s courses on Nietzsche.

The term Wille zur Macht first appeared in the posthumous fragment 23 [63] of 1876-1877.[citation needed] Heidegger's reading has become predominant among commentators, although some have criticized it: Mazzino Montinari by declaring that it was forging the figure of a "macroscopical Nietzsche", alien to all of his nuances.[4]

"Will to power" (Wille zur Macht) is the name of a concept created by Nietzsche; the title of a projected book which he finally decided not to write; and the title of a book compiled from his notebooks and published posthumously and under suspicious circumstances by his sister and Peter Gast.

The work consists of four separate books, entitled "European Nihilism", "Critique of the Highest Values Hitherto", "Principles of a New Evaluation", and "Discipline and Breeding". Within these books there are some 1067 small sections, usually less than a page, and sometimes just a key phrasesuch as his opening comments in the 1st section of the preface: "Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatnessthat means cynically and with innocence."[5]

Despite Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche's falsifications (highlighted in 1937 by Georges Bataille[3] and proved in the 1960s by the complete edition of Nietzsche's posthumous fragments by Mazzino Montinari and Giorgio Colli), his notes, even in the form given by his sister, remain a key insight into the philosophy of Nietzsche, and his unfinished transvaluation of all values. An English edition of Montinari & Colli's work is forthcoming (it has existed for decades in Italian, German and French).

Throughout his works, Nietzsche writes about possible great human beings or "higher types" who serve as an example of people who would follow his philosophical ideals. These ideal human beings Nietzsche calls by terms such as "the philosopher of the future", "the free spirit", "the tragic artist" and "the bermensch". They are often described by Nietzsche as being highly creative, courageous, powerful and extremely rare individuals. He compares such individuals with certain historical figures which have been very rare and often have been considered geniuses, such as Napoleon, Goethe and Beethoven. His main example of a genius exemplary culture is Archaic Greece.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche posits the bermensch(helpinfo) (often translated as "overman" or "superman") as a goal that humanity can set for itself. While interpretations of Nietzsche's overman vary wildly, here are a few of his quotes from Thus Spoke Zarathustra:[citation needed]

I teach you the bermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? [...] All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughingstock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to bermensch: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape...The bermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the bermensch shall be the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope, tied between beast and bermenscha rope over an abyss...what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end...

Nietzsche may have encountered the idea of the Eternal Recurrence in the works of Heinrich Heine, who speculated that one day a person would be born with the same thought-processes as himself, and that the same applied to every other individual. Nietzsche expanded on this thought to form his theory, which he put forth in The Gay Science and developed in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Schopenhauer directly influenced this theory.[6] Schopenhauer postulated that a person who unconditionally affirms life would do so even if everything that has happened were to happen again repeatedly.[citation needed]

Nietzsche's view on eternal return is similar to that of Hume: "the idea that an eternal recurrence of blind, meaningless variationchaotic, pointless shuffling of matter and lawwould inevitably spew up worlds whose evolution through time would yield the apparently meaningful stories of our lives. This idea of eternal recurrence became a cornerstone of his nihilism, and thus part of the foundation of what became existentialism."[7] Nietzsche was so impressed by this idea, that he at first thought he had discovered a new scientific proof of the greatest importance, referring to it as the "most scientific of hypotheses". He gradually backed-off of this view, and in later works referred to it as a thought-experiment. "Nietzsche viewed his argument for eternal recurrence as a proof of the absurdity or meaninglessness of life, a proof that no meaning was given to the universe from on high."[8]

What if a demon were to creep after you one day or night, in your loneliest loneness, and say: "This life which you live and have lived, must be lived again by you, and innumerable times more. And mere will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigheverything unspeakably small and great in your lifemust come again to you, and in the same sequence and series. . . . The eternal hourglass will again and again be turnedand you with it, dust of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and curse the demon who spoke to you thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment, in which you would answer him: "Thou art a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!" [The Gay Science (1882), p. 341 (passage translated in Danto 1965, p. 210).]

Nietzsche's work addresses ethics from several perspectives: meta-ethics, normative ethics, and descriptive ethics.

In the field of meta-ethics, one can perhaps most accurately classify Nietzsche as a moral skeptic; meaning that he claims that all ethical statements are false, because any kind of correspondence between ethical statements and "moral facts" remains illusory. (This forms part of a more general claim that no universally true fact exists, roughly because none of them more than "appear" to correspond to reality). Instead, ethical statements (like all statements) remain mere "interpretations." However, Nietzsche does not claim that all interpretations are equivalent, since some testify for "noble" character while others are the symptom of a "decadent" life-form.

Sometimes Nietzsche may seem to have very definite opinions on what he regards as moral or as immoral. Note, however, that one can explain Nietzsche's moral opinions without attributing to him the claim of their truth. For Nietzsche, after all, we needn't disregard a statement merely because it expresses something false. On the contrary, he depicts falsehood as essential for "life". Interestingly enough, he mentions a "dishonest lie", (discussing Wagner in The Case of Wagner) as opposed to an "honest" one, recommending further to consult Plato with regard to the latter, which should give some idea of the layers of paradox in his work.

In the juncture between normative ethics and descriptive ethics, Nietzsche distinguishes between "master morality" and "slave morality". Although he recognizes that not everyone holds either scheme in a clearly delineated fashion without some syncretism, he presents them in contrast to one another. Some of the contrasts in master vs. slave morality include:

Nietzsche elaborated these ideas in his book On the Genealogy of Morality, in which he also introduced the key concept of ressentiment as the basis for the slave morality. Nietzsche's primarily negative assessment of the ethical and moralistic teachings of Christianity followed from his earlier considerations of the questions of God and morality in the works The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. These considerations led Nietzsche to the idea of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche primarily meant that, for all practical purposes, his contemporaries lived as if God were dead, though they had not yet recognized it. Nietzsche believed this "death" had already started to undermine the foundations of morality and would lead to moral relativism and moral nihilism. As a response to the dangers of these trends he believed in re-evaluating the foundations of morality to better understand the origins and motives underlying them, so that individuals might decide for themselves whether to regard a moral value as born of an outdated or misguided cultural imposition or as something they wish to hold true.

While a political tone may be discerned in Nietzsche's writings, his work does not in any sense propose or outline a "political project." The man who stated that "The will to a system is a lack of integrity" was consistent in never devising or advocating a specific system of governance, enquiry, or ethics just as, being an advocate of individual struggle and self-realization, he never concerned himself with mass movements or with the organization of groups and political parties although there are parts of his works where he considers an enigmatic "greater politics", and others where he thinks the problem of community.[9]

In this sense, some have read Nietzsche as an anti-political thinker. Walter Kaufmann put forward the view that the powerful individualism expressed in his writings would be disastrous if introduced to the public realm of politics. Georges Bataille argued in 1937, in the Acphale review, that Nietzsche's thoughts were too free to be instrumentalized by any political movement. In "Nietzsche and Fascists," he argued against such instrumentalization, by the left or the right, declaring that Nietzsche's aim was to by-pass the short timespan of modern politics, and its inherent lies and simplifications, for a greater historical timespan.[3]

Later writers, led by the French intellectual Left, have proposed ways of using Nietzschean theory in what has become known as the "politics of difference" particularly in formulating theories of political resistance and sexual and moral difference. Owing largely to the writings of Kaufmann and others, the spectre of Nazism has now been almost entirely exorcised from his writings.

Nietzsche often referred to the common people who participated in mass movements and shared a common mass psychology as "the rabble", or "the herd". He allegedly valued individualism above all else, although this has been considered by many philosophers to be an oversimplification, as Nietzsche criticized the concept of the subject and of atomism (that is, the existence of an atomic subject at the foundation of everything, found for example in social contract theories). He considered the individual subject as a complex of instincts and wills-to-power, just as any other organization. Beginning in the 1890s some scholars have attempted to link his philosophy with Max Stirner's radical individualism of The Ego and Its Own (1844). The question remained pendant. Recently there was unearthed further, still circumstantial, evidence clarifying the relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner.[10] In any case, few philosophers really consider Nietzsche an "individualist" thinker. He is best characterized as a thinker of "hierarchy", although the precise nature of this hierarchy does not cover the current social order (the "establishment") and is related to his thought of the Will to Power. Against the strictly "egoist" perspective adopted by Stirner, Nietzsche concerned himself with the "problem of the civilization" and the necessity to give humanity a goal and a direction to its history, making him, in this sense, a very political thinker.[11][12]

Furthermore, in the context of his criticism of morality and Christianity, expressed, among others works, in On the Genealogy of Morals and in The Antichrist, Nietzsche often criticized humanitarian feelings, detesting how pity and altruism were ways for the "weak" to take power over the "strong". However, he qualified his critique of Christianism as a "particular case" of his criticisms of free will.[13] Along with the rejection of teleology, this critique of free will is one of the common points he shared with Spinoza, whom he qualified as a "precursor".[14] To the "ethics of compassion" (Mitleid, "shared suffering") exposed by Schopenhauer,[15] Nietzsche opposed an "ethics of friendship" or of "shared joy" (Mitfreude).[16]

While he had a dislike of the state in general, which he called a "cold monster" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche also spoke negatively of anarchists and socialism, and made it clear that only certain individuals could attempt to break away from the herd mentality. This theme is common throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Although Nietzsche has famously been misrepresented as a predecessor to Nazism, he criticized anti-Semitism, pan-Germanism and, to a lesser extent, nationalism.[18] Thus, he broke with his editor in 1886 because of his opposition to his editor's anti-Semitic stances, and his rupture with Richard Wagner, expressed in The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, both of which he wrote in 1888, had much to do with Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism and anti-Semitism and also of his rallying to Christianity. In a March 29, 1887 letter to Theodor Fritsch, Nietzsche mocked anti-Semites, Fritsch, Eugen Dhring, Wagner, Ebrard, Wahrmund, and the leading advocate of pan-Germanism, Paul de Lagarde, who would become, along with Wagner and Houston Chamberlain, the main official influences of Nazism.[3] This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "-- And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites? ..."[19]

Section VIII of Beyond Good and Evil, titled "Peoples and Fatherlands", criticized pan-Germanism and patriotism, advocating instead the unification of Europe (256, etc.). In Ecce Homo (1888), Nietzsche criticized the "German nation" and its "will to power (to Empire, to Reich)," thus underscoring an easy misinterpretation of the Wille zur Macht, the conception of Germans as a "race," and the "anti-Semitic way of writing history," or of making "history conform to the German Empire," and stigmatized "nationalism, this national neurosis from which Europe is sick," this "small politics."[20]

Nietzsche heavily criticized his sister and her husband, Bernhard Frster, speaking harshly against the "anti-Semitic canaille:"

I've seen proof, black on white, that Herr Dr. Frster has not yet severed his connection with the anti-Semitic movement...Since then I've had difficulty coming up with any of the tenderness and protectiveness I've so long felt toward you. The separation between us is thereby decided in really the most absurd way. Have you grasped nothing of the reason why I am in the world?...Now it has gone so far that I have to defend myself hand and foot against people who confuse me with these anti-Semitic canaille; after my own sister, my former sister, and after Widemann more recently have given the impetus to this most dire of all confusions. After I read the name Zarathustra in the anti-Semitic Correspondence my forbearance came to an end. I am now in a position of emergency defense against your spouse's Party. These accursed anti-Semite deformities shall not sully my ideal!!

Draft for a letter to his sister Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche (December 1887)

Georges Bataille was one of the first to denounce the deliberate misinterpretation of Nietzsche carried out by Nazis, among them Alfred Baeumler. In January 1937 he dedicated an issue of Acphale, titled "Reparations to Nietzsche," to the theme "Nietzsche and the Fascists.[3]" There, he called Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche "Elisabeth Judas-Frster," recalling Nietzsche's declaration: "To never frequent anyone who is involved in this bare-faced fraud concerning races."[3]

Nietzsche titled aphorism 377 in the fifth book of The Gay Science (published in 1887) "We who are homeless" (Wir Heimatlosen),[21] in which he criticized pan-Germanism and patriotism and called himself a "good European". In the second part of this aphorism, which according to Bataille contained the most important parts of Nietzsche's political thought, the thinker of the Eternal Return stated:

No, we do not love humanity; but on the other hand we are not nearly "German" enough, in the sense in which the word "German" is constantly being used nowadays, to advocate nationalism and race hatred and to be able to take pleasure in the national scabies of the heart and blood poisoning that now leads the nations of Europe to delimit and barricade themselves against each other as if it were a matter of quarantine. For that we are too open-minded, too malicious, too spoiled, also too well-informed, too "traveled": we far prefer to live on mountains, apart, "untimely," in past or future centuries, merely in order to keep ourselves from experiencing the silent rage to which we know we should be condemned as eyewitnesses of politics that are desolating the German spirit by making it vain and that is, moreover, petty politics:to keep its own creation from immediately falling apart again, is it not finding it necessary to plant it between two deadly hatreds? must it not desire the eternalization of the European system of a lot of petty states? ... We who are homeless are too manifold and mixed racially and in our descent, being "modern men," and consequently do not feel tempted to participate in the mendacious racial self-admiration and racial indecency that parades in Germany today as a sign of a German way of thinking and that is doubly false and obscene among the people of the "historical sense." We are, in one wordand let this be our word of honor! good Europeans, the heirs of Europe, the rich, oversupplied, but also overly obligated heirs of thousands of years of European spirit: as such, we have also outgrown Christianity and are averse to it, and precisely because we have grown out of it, because our ancestors were Christians who in their Christianity were uncompromisingly upright; for their faith they willingly sacrificed possessions and position, blood and fatherland. Wedo the same. For what? For our unbelief? For every kind of unbelief? No, you know better than that, my friends! The hidden Yes in you is stronger than all Nos and Maybes that afflict you and your age like a disease; and when you have to embark on the sea, you emigrants, you, too, are compelled to this by a faith! ...[22]

Nietzsche's views on women have served as a magnet for controversy, beginning during his life and continuing to the present. He frequently made remarks in his writing that some view as misogynistic. He claimed in Twilight of the Idols (1888) "Women are considered profound. Why? Because we never fathom their depths. But women aren't even shallow."[23]

Nietzsche knew little of the 19th-century philosopher Sren Kierkegaard.[24][25]Georg Brandes, a Danish philosopher, wrote to Nietzsche in 1888 asking him to study the works of Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied that he would.[26][nb 1]

Recent research, however, suggests that Nietzsche was exposed to the works of Kierkegaard through secondary literature. Aside from Brandes, Nietzsche owned and read a copy of Hans Lassen Martensens Christliche Ethik (1873) in which Martensen extensively quoted and wrote about Kierkegaards individualism in ethics and religion. Nietzsche also read Harald Hffdings Psychologie in Umrissen auf Grundlage der Erfahrung (ed. 1887) which expounded and critiqued Kierkegaards psychology. Thomas Brobjer believes one of the works Nietzsche wrote about Kierkegaard is in Morgenrthe, which was partly written in response to Martensen's work. In one of the passages, Nietzsche wrote: Those moralists, on the other hand, who, following in the footsteps of Socrates, offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance as a means to his own advantage, as his personal key to happiness, are the exceptions. Brobjer believes Kierkegaard is one of "those moralists".[27]

The first philosophical study comparing Kierkegaard and Nietzsche was published even before Nietzsche's death.[28] More than 60 articles and 15 full-length studies have been published devoted entirely in comparing these two thinkers.[28]

According to Santayana, Nietzsche considered his philosophy to be a correction of Schopenhauers philosophy. In his Egotism in German Philosophy,[29] Santayana listed Nietzsches antithetical reactions to Schopenhauer:

The will to live would become the will to dominate; pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on courage; the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a more biological account of intelligence and taste; finally in the place of pity and asceticism (Schopenhauer s two principles of morals) Nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and being cruelly but beautifully strong.

These points of difference from Schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of Nietzsche.

These emendations show how Schopenhauers philosophy was not a mere initial stimulus for Nietzsche, but formed the basis for much of Nietzsches thinking.

Perhaps Nietzsche's greatest philosophical legacy lies in his 20th century interpreters, among them Pierre Klossowski, Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille, Leo Strauss, Alexandre Kojve, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze (and Flix Guattari), Jacques Derrida and Albert Camus. Foucault's later writings, for example, adopt Nietzsche's genealogical method to develop anti-foundationalist theories of power that divide and fragment rather than unite politics (as evinced in the liberal tradition of political theory). The systematic institutionalisation of criminal delinquency, sexual identity and practice, and the mentally ill (to name but a few) are examples used to demonstrate how knowledge or truth is inseparable from the institutions that formulate notions of legitimacy from 'immoralities' such as homosexuality and the like (captured in the famous power-knowledge equation). Deleuze, arguably the foremost of Nietzsche's interpreters, used the much-maligned 'will to power' thesis in tandem with Marxian notions of commodity surplus and Freudian ideas of desire to articulate concepts such the rhizome and other 'outsides' to state power as traditionally conceived.

Certain recent Nietzschean interpretations have emphasized the more untimely and politically controversial aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy. Nietzschean commentator Keith Ansell Pearson has pointed out the absurd hypocrisy of modern egalitarian liberals, socialists, feminists and anarchists claiming Nietzsche as a herald of their own left-wing politics: "The values Nietzsche wishes to subject to a revaluation are largely altruistic and egalitarian values such as pity, self-sacrifice, and equal rights. For Nietzsche, modern politics rests largely on a secular inheritance of Christian values (he interprets the socialist doctrine of equality in terms of a secularization of the Christian belief in the equality of all souls before God" (On the Genealogy of Morality, Ansell-Pearson and Diethe, eds., Cambridge University Press, 1994, p.9). Works such as Bruce Detwiler's Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (University of Chicago Press, 1990), Fredrick Appel's Nietzsche Contra Democracy (Cornell University Press, 1998), and Domenico Losurdo's Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2002) challenge the prevalent liberal interpretive consensus on Nietzsche and assert that Nietzsche's elitism was not merely an aesthetic pose but an ideological attack on the widely held belief in equal rights of the modern West, locating Nietzsche in the conservative-revolutionary tradition.

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Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche - Wikipedia

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The challenge begins with how to pronounce his name. The first bit should sound like Knee, the second like cher: Knee cher.Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 in a quiet village in the eastern part of Germany, where for generations his forefathers had been pastors. He did exceptionally well at school and university; and so excelled at ancient Greek (a very prestigious subject, at the time) that he was made a professor at the University of Basel when still only in his mid-twenties

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PHILOSOPHY - Nietzsche - YouTube

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most misinterpreted philosophers the world has ever seen.

His incomparable, fierce literary style and tenacious will to question allorthodox beliefs and institutionshave captivated and perplexed readers for over a century.

I hesitate to share a list of quotations from his work, knowing full well that without the proper context, it is easy to misapprehend the full meaning and significance of his words. However, Nietzsche is also one of the most quotable writers who ever lived, and I think it is worth providing a sampling of some of his less commonly cited quotations here for a couple of reasons.

For one, those familiar with Nietzsche will probably find something illuminatingin this collection that they would be unlikely to come across elsewhere online. And, for those unfamiliar, this collection will hopefully provide a fine appetizer of Nietzsches inimitable personality and paradigm-incineratingideas.

In either case, the hope is that this collection will inspire readers to seek out thebooksfrom which these quotes were taken, in order to gain a fuller understanding of Nietzsches profound view of the world. Most all of these quotes were found in my copy ofThe Portable Nietzsche(the Walter Kaufmann translation), which I cannot recommend enough.

Now, contemplateand enjoy these quotes, but be warned: Nietzsches work can be dense and challenging!Let your mental muscle exert itself and resist the temptation to hastily form final opinions of the meanings of these sentiments. Keep in mind that this is but a glimpse into the beautiful and complex philosophy of a man who cannot be pinned down in a single blog post.

These first two quotes showcase Nietzsches zeal for life, for cheer, for the ecstasy of artistic intoxication. This is a fitting place to begin, as it gives us a sense ofthe life-affirming essence of Nietzsches worldview: hissupreme distaste for things which he saw asdenyinglife, ordiminishingones ability to affirm life. You will note the recurrence of this theme ofopposition to all things life-denying in the remainder of this collection.

These two sentiments of Nietzsches were unpublished in his lifetime and are particularly interesting, as they suggest just how far Nietzsche was willing to go in terms of rejecting what he saw as life-denying structures. The first quote suggests that he came to see the individual ego as something to be overcome along the path to the realization and affirmation of oneself as inseparable from the transpersonal force of the entire cosmos. The latter seems to suggest that he viewed excessive nationalism as a fallacious and limiting attitude that was not in harmony with deeper spiritual or ethical compulsions.

The previous six quotes challenge our common conceptions of self-interest versus altruism. Nietzsche was obsessed with the idea that the people of his time unquestioningly assumed that pity and altruism arealwaysgood, when in fact the truth is much more complex.

Nietzsche thought excessive pity could cripple the subject who felt it, and that an altruistic attitude could actually be quite destructive, if one had the hubris to assume that one actuallyknewwhat was best for another person. Self-interest was often decried as sinful in his time, but Nietzsche felt that for the truly life-affirming individual, being self-interested in the sense of being true to ones deepest compulsions and truest values was precisely the best way to honor the spirit of life. Intriguingly, Nietzsche seems to have seen self-interest as a necessary phase on the path to eventual self-overcoming.

The above two quotes are indicative of Nietzsches sense that mankind was far too arrogant in assuming it was possible to gain any final knowledge or to make any ultimate value judgments about life. For Nietzsche, value and truth were always relative to the individual doing the supposing. He even went further still, questioning whether truth was valuable in the first place why not untruth?

The above two passages, which occur in close succession inThe Gay Science,reflect the fact that Nietzsche went as far as to question the value of truth-seeking as an activity. Man manages to live only because of immense self-deception, Nietzsche thought, so the act of seeking the capital-T truth might ultimately be another covert form of life-denial.

The final four quotes in this collection are miscellaneous, not connected by any apparent theme, except perhaps the theme of how to live in such a way so as to affirm life. I hope you will enjoy soaking in these final sentiments, and I thank you for taking the time to read this collection and to gain insight into the illustrious mind of Friedrich Nietzsche.

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18 Rare Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes to Make You Question ...

There are many styles of yoga classes taught today. Some are very physically challenging and will leave you sweating; others are gentle and restorative. Some teachers play music in class; others dont. Some classes include references to yoga philosophy and spirituality; others dont.

Here are a few types of classes your yoga studio or gym may offer:

Hatha: Most yoga styles being taught in America today are a form of hatha yoga, which is a general term that refers to the physical part of yoga, rather than yoga philosophy or meditation. A Hatha yoga class is likely to be a combination of poses and breathing exercises, but its hard to know whether it will be challenging or gentle. Check with the school or the teacher to find more about the level of classes that are described only as Hatha yoga.

Ashtanga Yoga: This is a challenging style of yoga that is centered around a progressive series of yoga sequences that, traditionally, students practice on their own under the guidance of a teacher. If you think that yoga is not a workout, you havent tried an Ashtanga class. Classes include advanced poses such as arm balances and inversions including headstands and shoulder stands. Beginner students are strongly advised to study with an experienced teacher. Ashtanga classes will also often include teachings in yoga philosophy.

Power Yoga: As its name suggests, power yoga is a challenging style of yoga aimed at strength-building. These classes will include advanced poses and inversions like headstands and handstands that require a lot of strength.

Vinyasa or Flow: These classes usually consist of a fairly energetic flowing sequence of yoga poses that will include depending on the level advanced poses, such as arm balances, headstands, shoulder stands and handstands. Many vinyasa classes have musical accompaniment of the teachers choosing.

Iyengar: Love learning about how your muscles and joints work together? This is the yoga for you. Iyengar yoga focuses on the precision of your yoga poses. Iyengar classes are known for their use of props, including blankets, blocks, straps and bolsters, to help students do poses that they wouldnt be able to do otherwise. Classes can also include ropes that are anchored to the walls to do inversions and other poses. They also tend to include breathing exercises and references to yoga philosophy.

Bikram or Hot Yoga: Like the heat? Bikram yoga is a set series of 26 poses performed in a room heated to 105 degrees, which is said to allow for deeper stretching and provide for a better cardiovascular workout. Unlike most yoga classes, Bikram classes are always done in rooms with mirrors. Hot yoga refers to any yoga class that is done in a heated room generally from 80 to 100 degrees.

Restorative Yoga: If you are looking for a little more relaxation from your yoga class, restorative yoga is for you. This yoga style usually involves a few restful poses that are held for long periods of time. Restorative poses include light twists, seated forward folds and gentle back-bends, usually done with the assistance of many props, including blankets, blocks and bolsters.

Yin Yoga: Looking for a new kind of stretching experience? Yin yoga is aimed at stretching the connective tissue around the pelvis, sacrum, spine and knees to promote flexibility. Poses are held for a longer amount of time in yin yoga classes, generally from three to five minutes. It is a quiet style of yoga, and will quickly show you how good you are at sitting still.

Note: Its a good idea to try several yoga classes. How much you enjoy any class will come down to how much you like the teacher, not how its labeled.

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