Amxambe's Blog!

Inbound Social Marketing

2011-12-31T15:25:00.000+05:30

Rather than doing outbound marketing to the masses of people who are trying to block you out, I advocate doing "inbound marketing" where you help yourself "get found" by people already learning about and shopping in your industry.

Transform Your Marketing

View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing

21 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2012 Hyderabad

2011-12-27T14:16:00.001+05:30

21 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2012

View more presentations from DreamGrow Digital

Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions 2012

2011-12-23T11:08:00.000+05:30

Social Media & Content Marketing Predictions 2012

View more presentations from Source Content Marketing Institute

Of all the 2012 predictions, here are some of the major themes that seemed to rise to the top:

Google+ will become a force in 2012. It seems many of our prognosticators think that the best is yet to come for Google’s social networking site.
Video and mobile will finally both take center stage. This prediction has been made for years, but maybe this IS the year.
Jobs in content marketing will be robust.
Original, long-form content, due in large part to the iPad and eBooks, will make a comeback.
Brands and agencies alike will start to realize that content marketing is like advertising, only better… and will take serious steps toward integrating content processes into the organization.

LeWeb 2011 George Colony, Forrester Research "Three Social Thunderstorms"

2011-12-15T22:45:00.001+05:30

Everyone Uses E-mail, But Fewer People Blog [INFOGRAPHIC]

2010-12-16T20:21:00.000+05:30

Everyone Uses E-mail, But Fewer People Blog [INFOGRAPHIC]

The valley Story - Days of future past!

2010-05-07T22:12:00.000+05:30

Html 5 The future of Publishing

2010-05-07T22:10:00.000+05:30

Google Friend Connect: Add an event gadget to your website

2009-04-20T20:56:00.001+05:30

Google Friend Connect helps you instantly awaken and strengthen the community that visits your site. In this video, learn how to add an event gadget to your website.

Jacek Utko: Can design save the newspaper?

2009-04-06T23:16:00.001+05:30

http://www.ted.com Jacek Utko is a little-known newspaper designer whose redesigns not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might.

Poken: Extending Online Social Networking Into the Real World

2009-02-19T20:42:00.001+05:30

Website: http://www.doyoupoken.com

Picture yourself on a university campus, or in a bar. You come across some friends, and meet some new people with whom you would like stay in touch. Instead of jotting down each person's email address, you simply pull your Poken out of your pocket and touch it against the other person's Poken. Next time you log in to your favorite social network, your profiles are linked and you can access enhanced functionality and services such as viewing your social interactions in a timeline.

Poken is building a service as yet unseen on the Internet, that fits right in with the move towards more open, easily accessible social networks. Combining a low-cost designer keychain accessory, containing our patented RF communication technology, and an open web-based API, we provide the tools that enable any social network to extend their reach into the real world.

Speaker: Stephane Doutriaux
In 1999 Stephane launched a Montreal-based internet start-up developing algorithms for on-demand delivery of high-fidelity audio over digital cable networks. Following this early career experience he held various positions in the high-tech industry in Canada, France and Spain. He recently completed an MBA at Switzerlands Institute for Management Development (IMD). In 2007, Stephane grew a virtual cosmetics company and sold it to the board of LOreal, as part of the e-Strat International Business Strategy Competition.

The Impossible Dream (Quest) Lyrics

2009-02-13T00:20:00.001+05:30

The Impossible Dream (Quest) Lyrics from the movie "MAN OF LA MANCHA" (1972)
Lyrics by JOE DARION and Music by Mitch Leigh

One of the Greatest Lyrics of alltime

Gone - Animated short film.

2009-02-12T18:09:00.001+05:30

The Conversation: An Introduction to Social Media

2009-02-09T23:52:00.001+05:30

The conversation is not: controlled, organized not message” The conversation is: o organic o complex o speaks in a human voice Social media is not a strategy or a tactic – it’s simply a channel.

The Conversation: An Introduction to Social Media

View more presentations from Kevin Glasier. (tags: relations public)

Ethics -CEO's

2009-02-08T08:51:00.001+05:30

After watching Satyam Computers saga, we all have a different questions in mind....
whether we judge of un-judge the situation this video raised important ethical question for all CEOs.
This video was selected as the winner of the World Economic Forum and YouTube's "Davos Debates" program, at youtube.com/davos - see more videos and submit your own, and keep an eye this week as the leaders at Davos respond to your videos.

t is a good video, but it is not realistic enough. An international code of ethics is too idealistic. Some cultures think it is ethical to bribe, extortion, etc. Perhaps, it is time to restructure who the stakeholders of a company are; involve the community in business decisions. Look at the European model. It is about time Wall Street investors stop idolizing certain stocks -- look what happened with Enron.

Teen Millionaires...How Did They Do It?

2009-02-07T14:19:00.001+05:30

Recession Proof Industries - 3 Recession Proof Businesses to Rebound Your Falling Bank Account

2009-02-06T20:26:00.000+05:30

Recession Proof Industries - 3 Recession Proof Businesses to Rebound Your Falling Bank Account

Google Latitude

2009-02-06T09:13:00.001+05:30

Using Social Networking for Small Businesses -

2009-02-04T23:32:00.001+05:30

We've go the next big thing which is Social Media.

www.smallbusinessadvice.tv

Official Google Africa Blog: Ethiopic Transliteration in Google suggest

2009-01-30T21:21:00.000+05:30

Official Google Africa Blog: Ethiopic Transliteration in Google suggest

There are millions of web pages and documents written in the Ethiopic script, including news articles, scholarly papers, court proceedings, legislation, discussion forums, etc. Many of these contain information that is not available in non-Ethiopic scripts. Thus even though it is on the web, without an easy way for users to type their search queries in Ethiopic, that information "gold" remains in effect hidden from the vast majority of potential users behind the "wax" of query formulation.

Here are some of the ways in which this feature will help your web searches:

Ethiopic input: without having to get an Ethiopic keyboard or having to type the query in a word processor and then cutting and pasting it into the search box, you can simply search by typing phonetically in latin characters.
Users of Ethiopic as a second language can easily enter queries without making spelling mistakes.
Having automatically generated suggestions saves you many keystrokes when entering search terms.

History of the Internet

2009-01-27T12:40:00.001+05:30

"History of the internet" is an animated documentary explaining the inventions from time-sharing to filesharing, from Arpanet to Internet.
The history is told using the PICOL icons on picol.org , which are available for download soon. On blog.picol.org you can get news about this project.

Credits for subtitles:
English: Stefan Badragan | youtube.com/StevXtreme
Italian: Stefan Badragan
German: Picolsign
French: Arnaud 'dehy' DE MOUHY

Scott McCloud: Understanding comics

2009-01-23T14:17:00.001+05:30

Don't look a screen in front of you as page, Look at it as a window.... not as Microsoft, of course.

A Career Transition Panel: Making a Career Change in an Uncertain Climate

2009-01-22T18:19:00.001+05:30

Mobile Syndication Service (MSS) from InfoMedia, Inc.

2009-01-10T13:39:00.001+05:30

Joel Comm Good job.

Twittstup - show off.

2009-01-08T19:03:00.002+05:30

Screencast of the companies showing off at twiistup from Andrew Warner on Vimeo.

this is the show off over view by Andrew.
Andrew Warner is the Founder of Mixergy and the creator of some of the best tech-events in SoCal.

Their events feature several startups chosen to ‘showoff’ their products & services to the media, investors, influential bloggers, fellow technologists and those interested in learning about what’s hot in tech.

An alternative to traditional networking events, Twiistup mixes it up with tunes, video, bites, beverages, prizes, swag and the unexpected.

Twiitstup.com

Google SMS

2009-01-05T12:03:00.001+05:30

New Media Publishing (ePublishing solutions)- PressMart

2009-01-03T13:17:00.001+05:30

This is the future of publishing.

Twitter in Plain English

2008-12-30T11:30:00.001+05:30

if - free coding

2008-12-16T18:50:00.001+05:30

Google Sergey and GPhone

2008-12-08T23:21:00.001+05:30

A 3-minute story of mixed emoticons :)

2008-10-30T00:05:00.001+05:30

Google Reader in Plain English

2008-09-02T18:04:00.001+05:30

in.com shortest mail ID ever - amxambe.

2008-08-18T17:14:00.003+05:30

in.com incorporates mail, news, video, audio, games and search, all arranged and tagged by verbs. The surfer can thus “read, listen, watch, play, find and mail”.

The portal aggregates news from newspapers, magazines and dotcoms internationally, crawling to find the most read sources.

The “watch” area brings visitors videos broken currently into 14 categories ranging from news to sport to music.

The “listen” area makes it simple to listen to music and to create one’s own playlist, choosing from international and Indian tracks.

The “play” area currently offers over 8000 games.

The “find” feature allows surfers to search the net as one would with any other search engine.

The mail has all the regular features found in popular services, with one unique feature. It is arguably the shortest address one could own.

While it's hot go and grab your ID with your favourite name.....
yourname@in.com... it is cool n simple n short as it ever get!

Introduction to Google's Content Network

2008-08-16T09:26:00.001+05:30

In Part I of the Google Content Network series, Julie and Jason cover the benefits of advertising on the content network, including the tools and features available for advertisers to succeed on this platform.

For any business owner who wants to venture in web advertising this is ideal video to watch...

Microsoft oPhone

2008-08-16T07:22:00.001+05:30

Usually i'm not Microsoft fan though i really love and respect Bill and Malinda Gates...

This is some crazy thing from Microsoft. Who knows it might turned out the next iPod!....

I wish you Steve ballmer the best luck to lead Microsoft and win the race against Google and others....

What is Mashup anyways?

2008-08-13T13:26:00.012+05:30

This is the transcription of the presentation.

Description: Developers are getting creative, taking APIs from multiple Websites and merging them to form new, innovative applications. Frozenbear.com merges Google maps and Singles to let you know where the single people are in your neighborhood. Parkingcarma.com helps you track down parking spaces in the Bay Area. ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind says mashups are the fastest growing ecosystem on the Web and that by 2007, there will be 10 new mashups per day.

Hi, I'm David Berlind, Executive Editor at ZDNet. Today, we're going to talk about what a mashup is. Mashups are a really cool new breed of applications, but to understand them, you only have to look back to history and look at your existing computer, and it's a very good model for what mashups are. So here's a computer and it's running an operating system like Windows. Now operating systems are really nothing more than a collection of APIs, or application programming interfaces, that developers use to build their applications, and it's also a user interface-for example, the keyboard and the mouse that you use to get at the different applications.

So these are all the APIs, and one API might be for example to access the network that the computer is connected to. Another one might be to access the display. These APIs make it a lot easier for developers to build their applications. In the old days, developers used to have to say where every dot had to be placed on the display. Today they only have to say, give me a window from this coordinate to this coordinate, and suddenly magically the window appears.

Those are what APIs do. They do all of the heavy lifting. Maybe you have to access the file system. So you've got all of these APIs here. And this is pretty much the way a computer works. You have your display here and you've got an application running in a window over here. And the guy who developed that application usually taps about 3 or 4 different APIs, maybe a bunch more, to build that application.

This is the way computers have traditionally run over the long-term. But, now let's replace Windows, the operating system, with internet. And as it turns out, we have a bunch of companies now providing these APIs. So for example, we have Yahoo providing an API. We have Google providing APIs. There's a company called EVDB, it's a database of events that are about to take place and it tells you where and when to go sign up for those events. There's also Amazon and eBay. There's a company called Technorati All of these different companies are putting APIs on the internet that internet developers can access.

Now, let's say you're an internet developer and you access the API for where crimes took place in your neighborhood, and you access the Google Maps API, and you put them together and you get a map that shows you where each of the crimes took place in your zip code. Well, that's a mashup, because the developer is taking APIs from multiple websites and merging them or mashing them together in a way that forms a new, cool, innovative application that was never before on the web.

Now, what's happening is more APIs are showing up in this direction, and we're seeing more of these mashups that tap these different APIs show up, too. All of these different mashups are showing up at a rate right now of about 2.5 mashups a day. Over time, this is going to go up to about 10 mashups a day, probably within the next year, by 2007.

Ten mashups a day-one of the reasons that they're going so fast is because they're easy to develop. You don't have to be a C programmer to tap your creativity and create something cool and innovative like a map of where all the recent crimes took place, or where all the open parking spaces are, something that a company called ParkingCarma does in the Bay Area of California. Or maybe you have a map of where all the singles are in your neighborhood and you want to meet somebody. That actually exists, too, from a company called FrozenBear.

We have all these different mashups showing up, new APIs coming online all the time, and pretty soon the growth of this ecosystem is going to outstrip the growth of any previous operating system-based ecosystem that ever existed before. Windows, for example, you had to be a programmer to build applications for it. Linux, Macintosh, doesn't matter; this is the fastest growing application ecosystem in the world today.

It's going to only get faster, and the great thing about it is you don't have to go through anybody to put a new API on the internet. For example, before with Microsoft's Windows, you had to go through the Director of Product Management at Windows to get a new API added into Windows. Same thing went for Macintosh. Now you could add an API to Linux because its open source, but it wouldn't be generally available to all developers.

The advantage here is once you add an API to the internet and you don't have to go through anybody to approve that, then it's available to all of these developers. It doesn't matter which mashup they're developing. All of them can access all these different APIs, and it will just fuel more mashups.

The more mashups we have on the internet, the more internet users are going to get used to seeing them as the new breed of application. And the more users see those as a new breed of application and start using them, the more developers are going to start adding applications into this ecosystem. It is the fastest growing ecosystem on the internet. You'll be hearing a lot about mashups over the next couple of years. Stay tuned.

Lets mashup out life :)

Courtsy of www.zdnet.com

Mashup-ing for a 1st timers!

2008-08-13T13:26:00.009+05:30

What is a mashup anyways?

You’ve probably heard the term mashup in the context of music; someone throws Jay-Z lyrics over a Radiohead song, and suddenly something old becomes new. The web version of a mashup is pretty similar except instead of rap and rock, you’ll mix map data, photos, video, news feeds, blog entries, etc.

The official definition goes something like this: A mashup is a combination of data sources to create a unified interface and experience.

How to create a mashup
There are a few things to consider before attempting to build a mashup including but not limited to knowing what a mashup is and how much of a nerd you (or your friends) are.

Come up with an idea
The first thing you’ll need, of course, is an idea - simple is good, useful is better. A good place to start is by taking a common task, like searching for real estate on Craigslist and making it easier or more efficient (by plotting Craigslist data on Google Maps to create a unified experience).

Choose data sources
Many of the most popular APIs such as Flickr and YouTube are relatively simple to use, while others, like a shopping cart service, will require a bit more fortitude to master (and rightly so). Additionally, most APIs are built to work with a variety of programming languages, but your experience will vary. A little googling will go a long way.

Popular APIs
Twitter
Amazon
del.icio.us
Flickr
YouTube

Build the mashup
Mashups can fall almost anywhere on the scale of complexity, and starting from scratch with just an idea and a blank text file may seem frightening. Fortunately, a few leading companies have decided that mashups are more than worth the effort, so they’ve taken the time to make the process of creating a mashup just a bit easier by developing Mashup Editors.

Popular Mashup Editors
Yahoo! Pipes
Dapper
QEDWiki

Mashup hosting
You’ll also need to consider where you’ll host your mashup. Server-side language support is often something you’ll need to consider when hosting. Do they support PHP, Ruby on Rails, or might you need Windows hosting?

Courtesy of:-http://mashupawards.com/

Hakers Pwned!

2008-08-13T13:26:00.004+05:30

I was reading this yahoo news
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080812/tc_afp/usitinternetcrimehackerdefcon;_ylt=AoGBACPw6F24T0BcQ5RiDGCKfD8C
Here is the summery!

"Pwned" is popular computer and video game culture slang playing off the word "owned" and is used to describe someone being totally dominated or humiliated online or in-game.

"It's a nearly invisible exploitation," Kapela said while revealing a hack that exploits fundamental Internet routing procedure to hijack online traffic unnoticed. "A level of invisibility that is unparalled."

After three days of software cracking duels and hacking seminars, self-described computer ninjas at the infamous gathering in Las Vegas found out Sunday that their online activities were hijacked without them catching on.

A standing-room crowd cheered admiringly as Tony Kapela and Alex Pilosov showed them how they were "pwned" by a simple technique that could be used to "steal the Internet."

The presentation capped a DefCon gathering attended by more than 8,000 people.

Hackers shared ways to crack everything from mobile telephones, computer games and social networking websites to electronic hospital records and high security locks used at the White House.

One seminar included a way to remotely turn off pacemakers regulating people's heartbeats.

BarCamp7 - Hyderabad

2008-08-05T21:40:00.003+05:30

Hyderabad BarCamp7- Computing on cloud 9 (SaaS/PaaS/Virtualization) @IIIT, Aug 30th, 11am
BarCampHyderabad7 is in the seventh in the series of Barcamps being organized in Hyderabad..

With SaaS gaining mainstream recognition, amplified by the advent of virtualization platforms and web based computing options,, the enterpirse infrastructure is rapidly morphing into a large computing blurb- a 'computing cloud'. This spans dedicated servers, virtualized platforms, web based hosting, solutions in SaaS model, solutions built on PaaS, and much of these ready for interactions in a Web2.0 model , and integration using the SOA backbone. This brings forth new possibilities for solution architectures, infrastructure and tools, and a deployment considerations for applications and business applciations/products. This camp will discuss different facets of this emerging space.

Where? IIIT Hyderabad, Gachibowli
When? August 9th 2008. Saturday
Time? 9 AM

C ya all there....

George Dyson: The birth of the computer

2008-06-26T21:01:00.001+05:30

amxambe.com

www.amxambe.com

2008-06-23T12:16:00.000+05:30

It has been about a month since i lunched my new website called http://amxambe.com

Thank you for my visitors so far you've been with me all the way your comments and suggestions are wonderful both the negative and positive one. i'm sure this is just the beginning. We all have long way to go so does amxambe.com too.

amxambe.com

Amxambe.com

2008-06-23T11:18:00.003+05:30

GTUG - Open Social

2008-06-06T19:09:00.001+05:30

amxambe.com Emmauel Amberber

2008-06-05T18:53:00.001+05:30

Blog for Dough:)

2008-05-21T16:01:00.000+05:30

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Blog styles

2008-05-21T15:44:00.000+05:30

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Still Life

2008-05-21T14:29:00.000+05:30

| View | From Amanuel Amberber

Adding Google Friend Connect To Sample Website

2008-05-14T16:10:00.001+05:30

Google Apps and Small Businesses

2008-04-22T15:24:00.001+05:30

Hyderabadi Biryani song

2008-03-03T16:23:00.000+05:30

Business paln

2008-03-02T03:15:00.000+05:30

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Geeky...Geek

2008-02-28T18:07:00.002+05:30

Make ya'slef Geek!.....
guys we'r livin' in a world which is faster than light.
As world changes so fast The Technology also does.....
Tell me yo..... where r ya?.... run with the flow!
I'm runnin to....to catch the uncatch able technology!

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Hyderabad bloggers @ Microsoft

2008-02-26T22:35:00.003+05:30

Scheduled for 01/03/2008 at 16:00
City: Hyderabad

Description
Hi, if you know how I'm happy to meet other bloggers in Hyderabad. That would be great. Let's meet up and discuss about a collaborative effort.

Venue

Microsoft Campus
Gachibowli, Hyderabad - 500032

BarCamp5 @ google office....

2008-02-26T18:32:00.004+05:30

The meeting was held @ Google office....... it was priceless event....

BarCamp- Hyderabad5

2008-02-17T22:05:00.002+05:30

Theme: Social web and beyond Technologies, demos and startups- betting on Web2.0, Social web, Semantics Web and beyond!
Entrepreneurship
Social Web & Beyond
Opensource and Emerging TechnologiesProduct/Prototype/Idea Demos

The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, California, from August 19-21, 2005, in the offices of Socialtext. It was organized in less than one week, from concept to event, with 200 attendees. Since then, BarCamps have been held in over 31 cities around the world, in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Australasia and Asia. To mark the one-year anniversary of BarCamp, BarCampEarth was held in multiple locations world wide on August 25-27, 2006.

2007-12-06T19:30:00.000+05:30

Value of Time - this will help you value life, time, friends, familyand etc! What's it really worth to you?Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400.It carries over no balance from day to day.Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to useduring the day.What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course!Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failedto invest to good purpose.It carries over no balance.It allows no overdraft.Each day it opens a new account for you.Each night it burns the remains of the day.If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow".You must live in the present on today's deposits.Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness and success!The clock is running. Make the most of today.
To realize the value of ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
To realize the value of ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to apre-mature baby.
To realize the value of ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
To realize the value of ONE DAY, ask a daily wage laborer with kids to feed.
To realize the value of ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
To realize the value of ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
To realize the value of ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
To realize the value of ONE MILLI-SECOND, ask the person who won asilver medal in the Olympics.Treasure every moment that you have! And treasure it more because youshared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time.And remember that time waits for no one.Yesterday is history.Tomorrow a mystery.Today is a gift.That's why it's called the present!
"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near.
Repent and
believe the good news!
"Mark 1:15

The Handle's on the Other Side!

2007-12-06T19:26:00.000+05:30

vI remember this painting of Jesus in a garden, and He's knocking onwhat looks to be a big oak door. Holman Hunt painted it and when he wasready to unveil it, he called his friends and family together. It wasquiet as each person stood there. Then, people began to comment on whatimpressed them. But one friend said hesitantly, "Uh, Holman, it's abeautiful painting. But, well, didn't you forget something?" "What didI forget?" The friend said, "The handle. There's no handle on thedoor." To which the artist simply replied, "Oh! No, I didn't forget thehandle. When Jesus knocks on the door of your heart, the handle's onthe INSIDE.
"This painting was based on Jesus' own words in Revelation 3:20. It wasa statement made originally to believers who had left Jesus out. "HereI am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opensthe door, I will come in."
------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------Friends,
The above story might be a familiar one to some. I know it is afamiliar story to me, but it never hurts to be reminded. This story isa true story and really touches my heart every time I see it. Have youreached out lately to take hold of that handle? The Lord presentsHimself to you in many ways. Are you listening?

In His Love,

Happy New year!

Fill me

2007-12-06T19:23:00.000+05:30

Fill me with the fruits of your Spirit, Lord.Fill me with love, so that I seek to understand and appreciate the richvariety and diversity of life that surrounds me.Fill me with joy, so that I celebrate your presence in each and everymoment I am on this earth.Fill me with peace, so that I know how to ease those angry andsometimes violent urges that well up inside of me.Fill me with patience, so that I stop rushing long enough to witnessyour miraculous work taking place all around me (and within me!)Fill me with kindness, so that I take the extra time to help the one inneed, even when it isn't convenient for me.Fill me with faithfulness, so that I place my mind, heart and all thatI do in the service of your Gospel.Fill me with gentleness, so that others know that I believe in a Godwho loves and cares for all people.Fill me with self-control, so that I act not on my impulses and urges,but rather on my beliefs and values, which are rooted in you.Fill me with these fruits of your spirit, Lord!Amen

Prayer of .....

2007-12-06T19:17:00.000+05:30

Lord,I pray for a man, that will be a part of my lifeA man that really loves You more than everythingA man that will take me in the second place of his heartA man that lives not for himself but for UFace and phsysical attraction isn't importantThe most important isI want a heart that really loves and thristy of U and have a desire tobe like JesusAnd he must know for whom and for what he livesSo his life isnt uselessSomeone that have a wise heartNot only a smart brainA man that not only loves me but also respect meA man that not only can adore meBut can warning me when I'm wrongA man that loves me not from my beauty but from my heartA man that can be my best friend in every time and situationA man that make me feel like a woman when I beside himI'm not ask a perfect manBut I ask for imperfect manSo I can make him perfect in Your eyes.A man that need my support for his strengthA man that need my prayer for his lifeA man that need my smile to cover his sadnessA man that need my love so he could feel belovedA man that need me to make his life perfectAnd I also askMake me to be a woman that can made him proudGive me a heart that really love YouSo I could love him with Your loveNot love him with my loveGive me Your gentle spiritSo my beauty not come from my outside but come fromYou Give me Your HandsThat I always able to pray for himGive me Your eyesSo I could see many good things in him and not the bad one Give meYour mouth That fullfil with Your words of wisdom andencourange So I could support him every day Give me Your lips And Iwill smile at him every morningAnd I want that when finally we meetBoth of us can sayHow great Thou Artthat You give me someone that can make my life perfectI know that You want we meet at the right time
In Jesus Precious name I pray
And You will make everything beautiful in Your timeIn Jesus Precious name I prayAmen.

God Speaks

2007-12-06T19:15:00.000+05:30

The man whispered, "God, speak to me"
And a meadowlark sang.
But the man did not hear.

So the man yelled "God, speak to me"
And the thunder & lightning rolled across the sky.
But the man did not listen.

The man looked around and said, "God, let me see you."
And a star shined brightly.
But the man did not see.

And, the man shouted, "God, show me a miracle"
And a life was born.
But the man did not notice.

So, the man cried out in despair, "Touch me, God, and let me know you
are here"
Whereupon, God reached down and touched the man.
But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.

I found this to be a great reminder that God is always around us in the
little and simple things that we take for granted.. even in our
electronic age... so I would like to add one more:
The man cried "God, I need your help"
And an e-mail arrived reaching out with good news and encouragement.
But the man deleted it and continued crying...

Nov

2007-11-26T16:00:00.000+05:30

November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.
With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate
.The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring.-

Clyde Watson

The Brick

2007-11-23T02:17:00.000+05:30

A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door! He slammed on the brakes and spun the Jag back to the spot from where the brick had been thrown. He jumped out of the car, grabbed some kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, "What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing?!!" Building up a head of steam he went on. "That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?""Please, mister, please. I'm sorry, I didn't know what else to do!" pleaded the youngster. "I threw the brick because no one else would stop.."Tears were dripping down the boys chin as he pointed around the parked car."It's my brother," he said. "He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up." Sobbing, the boy asked the executive, "Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me."Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He lifted the young man back into the wheelchair and took out his handkerchief and wiped the scrapes and cuts, checking to see that everything was going to be okay. "Thank you and God bless you," the grateful child said to him. The man then watched the little boy push his brother down the sidewalk toward their home.It was a long walk back to his Jaguar.. a long, slow walk. He never did repair the side door. He kept the dent to remind him not to go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.God whispers in your soul and speaks to your heart. Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw "a brick" at you. It's your choice: Listen to the whisper--or wait for the brick.

You never know...

2007-11-23T01:48:00.000+05:30

You Never KnowA kind word may help someone’s day glow, and the simple fact is that you may never know.A gentle smile may light up someone’s life; it may ease their burden and relieve their strife.A word of encouragement may help them to bear, burdens and sorrows of which you aren’t aware.A perky “hello” and “how do you do” may change their perspective and brighten their view.We never know how the Lord uses a loving act, but it may give someone the hope they lack.It may be the added strength they need for today, to face the difficult trials that come their way.It may be the joy they’d otherwise not know, the love God is sending and wants you to show.Take a moment to share what God has given to you, whether it’s simply a kind word or a positive view.Take a second in your day to lift another’s spirit, its God’s saving grace and they need to hear it!You may never know the effect you have on another, but one simple act may make them your brother.You may never see the result of each thing you’ve done, but others may be drawn to accept the Son.You may never know but it could be a part of His plan, your loving act could save another man.Every day seeds are planted that God helps to grow, the next one harvested may be yours you never know!GOD BLESS YOU !

If tomorrow starts without me

2007-11-20T23:53:00.000+05:30

If tomorrow starts without me, And I'm not there to see,If the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me;I wish so much you wouldn't cry the way you did todayWhile thinking of the many things, we didn't get to sayI know how much you love me, As much as I love youAnd each time that you think of me, I know you'll miss me tooBut when tomorrow starts without me, Please try to understandThat an angel came and called my name, And took me by the handAnd said my place was ready, In heaven far aboveAnd that I'd have to leave behind; All those I dearly love.But as I turned to walk away, A tear fell from my eyeFor all my life, I'd always thought, I didn't want to dieI had so much to live for, So much left yet to doIt seemed almost impossible, That I was leaving youI thought of all the yesterdays, The good ones and the badI thought of all the love we shared, And all the fun we had.If I could relive yesterday, Just even for a whileI'd say good-bye and kiss you And maybe see you smile.But then I fully realized, That this could never beFor emptiness and memories, Would take the place of me.And when I thought of worldly things, I might miss come tomorrowI thought of you, and when I did, My heart was filled with sorrowBut when I walked through heaven's gates, I felt so much at home.When God looked down and smiled at me, From His great golden throneHe said, "This is eternity, And all I've promised you."Today your life on earth is past, But here life starts anew.I promise no tomorrow, But today will always lastAnd since each day's the same way, There's no longing for the past.You have been so faithful, So trusting and so true.Though there were times you did some things, You knew you shouldn't do.But you have been forgiven, and now at last you're free.So won't you come and take my hand, and share my life with me?So when tomorrow starts without me, don't think we're far apartFor every time you think of me, I'm right here, in your heart.

Da Vinci Code - book of old woman!

2007-05-29T22:30:00.001+05:30

The Jesus Family Tomb:
Fact or Fiction?

Printer-Friendly Version

Get out of the way Dan Brown–The Da Vinci Code hype may be surpassed by an even bigger controversy about Jesus Christ–the claim that archaeologists have discovered his tomb! In a new Discovery Channel TV documentary, producer James Cameron (The Titanic) and Jewish director, Simcha Jacobovici, attempt to prove that Jesus’ burial cave and body were discovered near Jerusalem. Cameron and Jacobovici further cite evidence that Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdalene.

Dan Brown’s enormous success with The Da Vinci Code was largely due to his leveraging some facts into a gigantic stretch of the imagination. And The Da Vinci Code set records in the bookstores as well as becoming an international movie blockbuster. But once scholars had a chance to plow through Brown’s claims, (Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married, the New Testament was rewritten, and Constantine invented Jesus’ divinity) his theories proved to be spurious scholarship, judged by historians as mere hype to sell books and movie tickets.

So now the sensational claim is that the account of Jesus Christ’s bodily resurrection and ascension was a hoax---at least that’s what Jacobovici’s book, The Family Tomb of Jesus and Cameron’s Discovery TV documentary attempt to prove. And if Jesus Christ’s tomb has really been discovered, then all of Christian history has been based upon a false claim---that Jesus physically rose from the dead, was seen alive by over 500 followers at once, spent 40 days teaching his disciples, and then ascended into heaven. But before we get caught up in another Da Vinci type conspiracy, let’s look at the facts behind Cameron’s claims.

The facts claimed:

1. In 1980 ten limestone bone boxes (ossuaries) dated to the first century, were discovered in an excavated tomb in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiot.

2. Six inscriptions were discovered with names similar to or the same as some of Jesus Christ’s family and disciples:
• Jesua, son of Joseph,
• Mary
• Mariamene e Mara
• Mathew
• Jofa
• Judah, son of Jesua.

3. Cameron attempts to prove that Mariamene e Mara is Mary of Magdalene, and that she and Jesus had a son named "Judah son of Jesua".

4. DNA analysis identifies that tissues from the ossuaries of Jesua and Mariamene e Mara were not related, raising the possibility they may have been married and had a child.

So, what are the odds that this is Jesus’ tomb? According to Cameron and Jacobovici, the statistical improbability of these names belonging to another family than that of Jesus Christ is 600 to 1. However, scholars challenge many of the assumptions in their interpretation of the facts. Let’s look:

1. It is true that these ossuaries were discovered in an ancient tomb. But thousands of similar tombs have been discovered in Jerusalem. And ossuaries were often used for the bones of more than one individual. In fact, according to Dr. Craig Evans, PhD, author of Jesus and the Ossuaries, the tomb carried the bones of about 35 different individuals, and about half were from these ossuaries. Evans also notes that there was considerable contamination of the site.

2. Are Cameron and Jacobovici correct about the names they assert are on the ossuaries? Not according to many experts. Some were written in Aramaic, others in Hebrew, and another in Greek. This indicates they were not buried in a similar time period. It is not even clear that “Jesus” is named on any of the ossuaries. Dr. Evans’s personal examination of the ossuary was inconclusive. Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem, is also unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun." Ancient Semitic script is notoriously difficult to decipher.

Additionally, it should be noted that the names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were extremely common in the first century. About 25% of the women in Jesus’ day were named Mary. Joseph was also a common name. And about one in ten had the name, “Jesua”. Dr. Evans indicates that approximately 100 tombs have been discovered in Jerusalem with the name “Jesus” and 200 with the name “Joseph.” The name “Mary” is on far more.

"Each name with the exception of Mariamene seemed common to their period, and it was only in 1996 that the BBC made a film suggesting that, given the combination, it might be that family. The idea was eventually discounted, however, because, as New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham asserted 'the names with Biblical resonance are so common that even when you run the probabilities on the group, the odds of it being the famous Jesus' family are "very low."

3. The statistical support for the entire “Jesus tomb” theory rises or falls on the question of Mary Magdalene. So did the name Mariamene e Mara mean Mary Magdalene, as Cameron and Jacobovici attempt to prove? Not according to most experts. Their interpretation is simply not supported by evidence. Bauckham notes, “The first use of ‘Mariamene’ for Magdalene dates to a scholar who was born in 185, suggesting that Magdalene wouldn't have been called that at her death. “

So, even though Cameron and Jacobovici employed a statistician, Andrey Feuerverger, to support their case, his numbers were based upon assumptions disputed by the majority of scholars. In fact, Feuerverger himself admits that the assumptions were given to him by Jacobovici, and that the single biggest factor in his 600 to 1 odds was the identity of Mariamene e Mara being Mary of Magdalene. Feuerverger defends his role in an interview with Scientific American, "I did permit the number one in 600 to be used in the film—I'm prepared to stand behind that but on the understanding that these numbers were calculated based on assumptions that I was asked to use."

4. But what about the DNA tests? Doesn’t that prove Jesus was in the tomb? Let’s look closer at what the DNA test measured. It took residue (there were no bones to examine) from the ossuaries Jacobovici identified as belonging to both Jesua and Mariamene, and used mitochondrial DNA testing to see if they were related. The results proved to be negative, indicating to him that the two individuals were not related maternally. He thus assumes the two were married. But Bauckham isn’t impressed. He writes, “If ‘Jesus’ and ‘Mariamene’ weren't related matrilineally, why jump to the conclusion that they were husband and wife, rather than being related through their fathers? “

It is the fact that these particular names have been discovered in the same tomb that has fueled speculation that it really could be Jesus’ tomb. But many scholars believe Cameron and Jacobovici have skewed the evidence to build a case that just isn’t there. Additionally, there are many contradictory questions that need to be answered before one jumps to a conclusion that overturns centuries of historical scholarship.

IF IT REALLY WAS JESUS’ TOMB––

1. Why don’t Cameron and Jacobovici cite scholars who disagree with their conclusions? For example, in 1996, when the British Broadcasting Corp. aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. In fact, the vast majority of archaeologists dispute their claim.

2. Since the custom was to bury the dead in their home town, why would Mary and Joseph’s family tomb be in Jerusalem instead of Nazareth? Middle East researcher and biblical anthropologist Joe Zias states, "It has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus, he was known as Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Jerusalem, and if the family was wealthy enough to afford a tomb, which they probably weren't, it would have been in Nazareth, not here in Jerusalem.” Zias dismisses Cameron's claims as "dishonest".

3. Why didn’t Jesus’ enemies, the Jewish leaders, expose the tomb? They searched unsuccessfully throughout Jerusalem for any evidence of Jesus’ body, claiming that Jesus’ disciples had stolen it. They hated Jesus enough to want him crucified, and would have been elated to discover his tomb, if it indeed existed.

4. Why didn’t the Romans expose the inscriptions as belonging to Jesus? Roman soldiers controlled the entire city of Jerusalem, and they knew his body was missing from a tomb they had been guarding.

5. Why didn’t contemporary Roman or Jewish historians write about the tomb? Not one single contemporary historian mentions the tomb in question.

6. Why was the James Ossuary, which has been labeled a forgery, cited by Cameron and Jacobovici as one of the reasons for the tomb‘s validity? CBS News correspondent Mark Philips reports “the archeological establishment has lined up to label this claim as bunk. This is the second time The Discovery Channel has been involved in a disputed claim about an ancient tomb,” reports Phillips. The man at the center of the previous case is now facing trial for forgery.” Ben Witherington, an early Christianity expert who was deeply involved with the James Ossuary, says “there are physical reasons to believe it couldn't have originated in the Talpiot plot.”

7. Why are Jacobovici and Cameron waiting until just prior to Easter to launch both the book and documentary? Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television. "They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.

8. Why would Jesus’ disciples endure torture for claiming he was resurrected, if they knew it was a hoax? New Testament scholar Darrell Bock asks, “why would Jesus' family or followers bury his bones in a family plot and then turn around and preach that he had been physically raised from the dead?"

ASKING THE EXPERTS

Stephen Pfann, who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight. "I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," Pfann said. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear." "How possible is it?" Pfann said. "On a scale of one through 10 – 10 being completely possible – it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half."

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government agency responsible for archaeology, said the Antiquities Authority agreed to send two ossuaries to New York, but they did not contain human remains. "We agreed to send the ossuaries, but it doesn't mean that we agree with" the filmmakers, she said.

William Dever, an expert on near eastern archaeology and anthropology, who has worked with Israeli archeologists for five decades, said specialists have known about the ossuaries for years. "The fact that it's been ignored tells you something," said Dever, professor emeritus at the University of Arizona. "It would be amusing if it didn't mislead so many people."

In fact, Cameron and Jacobovici are not the only ones to assert Jesus’ tomb has been discovered. Let’s look at others who have cited “evidence” in books and on websites:

JESUS’ TOMB DISCOVERED IN INDIA?

So called experts claim to have discovered Jesus’ tomb in India. The website [http://www.tombofjesus.com] cites eight lines of evidence that leads to the conclusion that Jesus was buried in Srinagar, Kashmir, India. Among other “evidence” it cites:

“The Tomb of Yus Asaph is a fascinating site. The tomb is said to be that of a Prophet who came from a foreign land. His parables, teachings, and burial direction all suggest he was Jesus Christ.”

JESUS’ TOMB DISCOVERED IN JAPAN?

Another theory puts Jesus’ tomb in the Shingo Village (Herai) in Japan. This is also supposedly based upon solid evidence from scholars. For example, the website, http://www.thiaoouba.com/tomb.htm cites the following as evidence:

“In 1935, Kiyomaro Takeuchi discovered a 1900 year old document stored in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, containing evidence Jesus (Joshua) born in Bethlehem to virgin Mary is buried in Herai Village in Aomori district of Japan….The document was SO authentic and new, and so explosive at the time that the Japanese government banned the document from public view and locked it in a museum in Tokyo.”

SCHOLARS’ VERDICT

So has Jesus’ tomb really been discovered? If so, is it in Jerusalem, Japan, or India---or somewhere else? They can’t all be true.

Jodi Magness, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, expressed irritation that the claims were made at a news conference rather than in a peer-reviewed scientific article. By going directly to the media, she said, the filmmakers "have set it up as if it's a legitimate academic debate, when the vast majority of scholars who specialize in archaeology of this period have flatly rejected this," she said.

Magness noted that at the time of Jesus, wealthy families buried their dead in tombs cut by hand from solid rock, putting the bones in niches in the walls and then, later, transferring them to ossuaries.

She said Jesus came from a poor family that, like most Jews of the time, probably buried their dead in ordinary graves. "If Jesus' family had been wealthy enough to afford a rock-cut tomb, it would have been in Nazareth, not Jerusalem," she said.

Magness also said the names on the Talpiyot ossuaries indicate that the tomb belonged to a family from Judea, the area around Jerusalem, where people were known by their first name and father's name. As Galileans, Jesus and his family members would have used their first name and home town, she said.

"This whole case [for the tomb of Jesus] is flawed from beginning to end," she said.

And that conclusion seems to be the consensus of the vast number of archaeologists. As an unbiased scholar who has been excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years,William G. Dever shares that view. He is widely considered the dean of biblical archaeology among U.S. scholars. Dever writes, "I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer. I don't have a dog in this fight, I just think it's a shame the way this story is being hyped and manipulated."

But aside from the tomb, the unanswered question for many is: what evidence exists in the 21^st century that proves or disproves Jesus’ resurrection? Some skeptics thought there wasn’t any evidence and began writing books to disprove Jesus' resurrection. What surprising evidence did they discover?

Click here to take a look at the evidence for the most fantastic claim ever made---the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS: MYTH OR REALITY?

“Body Count” deals with the most important question one can ask about Jesus Christ---did he really return from the dead? The recent media attention about “The Jesus Family Tomb” calls for an honest investigation into the evidence. Do Christians need to accept Jesus’ resurrection by blind faith, or is there compelling evidence that this unprecedented event really occurred?

Click here to examine the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

CAN JESUS BRING MEANING TO LIFE?

“Why Jesus” looks at the question of whether or not Jesus is relevant today. Can Jesus answer the big questions of life: “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” And, “Where am I going?” Dead cathedrals and crucifixes have led some to believe that he can’t, and that Jesus has left us to cope with a world out of control. But Jesus made claims about life and our purpose here on earth that need to be examined before we write him off as uncaring or impotent. This article examines the mystery of why Jesus came to earth.

Click here to discover how Jesus can bring meaning to life.

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George Fox

2007-05-16T12:19:00.000+05:30

Upon the Fourth-day of the First month, 1650,I felt the power of the word to spread over all the world in praise.
Praise, honor, and glory be to the Lord of heaven and earth! Lord of peace, Lord of joy! Your countenance makes my heart glad. Lord of glory, Lord of mercy, Lord of strength, Lord of life, and of power over death, and Lord of lords, and King of kings! In the world there are lords many, but to us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things: to whom be all glory, who is worthy! In the world are many lords, and many gods, and the earth makes lords, coveting after riches, and oppressing the creatures; and so, the covetous mind getting to itself, lords it above others. This nature of lordly pride is head, until subdued by the power of God: for everyone, in that state, strives to be above another; few will strive to be the lowest. Oh, that everyone would strive to put down, in themselves, mastery and honor, that the Lord of heaven and earth might be exalted!
George Fox

EPISTLE 1.
Friends,Forsake the company of wild people, and choose the company of sober men, and that will be creditable in the end. And choosing the company of wild and light people, who delight in vain fashions and ill courses, is dangerous, and of a bad report among sober people; for the eyes of such will be upon you: and if they see you are wild, you will come under their censure. Therefore love gravity, and soberness, and wisdom, that preserves.
George Fox
2.
Friends,The children of the devil, how expert are they in evil, in all deceit in his kingdom; and yet they may speak of the things of God: but no vulturous eye or venomous beast ever trod in the steps of the just, though they may talk of the way. For who have their conversation in this world, and only mind the things of this world, in vain do they profess godliness.But the children of God, who are conceived and begotten of him, are not of this world, neither do they mind only the things of this world, but the things which are eternal.But the children of this world do mostly mind the external things,and their love is in them, and the other live by faith; the one is sanctified by the word, the other painted with the words.The children of God are pure in heart, not looking only at the outside. The favor of the world and friendship thereof is enmity to God. Man may soon be stained with it. Oh! Love the stranger, and be as strangers in the world, and to the world! For they that followed Christ in his cross, they were strangers in the world, and wonders to the world, and condemned by the world; and the world knew him not, neither does it them that follow him now. So, marvel not if the world hates you; for the world lies in hatred and wickedness. Who love this world, are enemies to Christ; and who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and have him for their Lord over them, they are redeemed out of the world. The world would have a Christ, but not to rule over them; the nature of the world chains down Christ in man, until Christ has subdued that nature in man. While the nature of the world rules in man, oh, the deaf ears and blind eyes, and the understandings, that are all shut up among them, with which they judge! But who love the Lord Jesus Christ, do not mind the world's judgment, nor are troubled at it; but consider all our brethren, who have gone before us.
When you think you are past all crosses, when the trial does come, you will find a cross to that will which meddles with the things of God presumptuously; that man may live in joy, but the spirit is in bondage. Rejoice not in the flesh, but rather in the spirit, which crucifies all fleshly boastings: if the fleshly will be fed, then carelessness comes up, and they fall into flatness, (from the spirit), and are mindless of the Lord God; such are soon up and down. The serpent tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit, and she took and gave to her husband, and so they fell under the serpent's power, and the creatures, out of the power of God, which would have kept them in dominion. And so, Adam and Eve, and the serpent, all went out of truth. And Eve eating of the tree of knowledge, she had knowledge and wisdom after the fall, but not in the dominion, in the power of God. But the seed Christ, which was in the beginning, bruises the serpent's head, and he is the wisdom of God.
George Fox
3. - A little note to Friends at first.
Friends,There is an eye, that has looked to see the good seed, that was sown, and queried, where came these weeds? The answer was and is; "The wicked one has sown them." Now read the weeds, and what is the effect of them, and their work? And what they do, and have done? How they hang among the wheat? But now is the time of harvest where both wheat and weeds are seen, and each distinguished, the one from the other. George Fox
4.
All Friends, Mind that which is pure in you to guide you to God, out of Babylon, out of confusion: there all the world is; there is the seat of the beast; there are the false prophets and deceivers, as well within as without. One voice of deceit knows not another, nor any of them the voice of the living God.But, dear friends, mind the light of God in your consciences, which will show you all deceit; dwelling in it, guides out of the many things into one spirit, which cannot lie, nor deceive. They that are guided by it, are one, who have been made to drink into one spirit; and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. All quarrels, all schisms, all rents are out of the spirit, for God has tempered the body together, that there should be no schism in the body, but all worship him with one consent. And as the power and life of truth are made manifest, watch in the discerning one over another.
And beware of discouraging any in the work of God: the laborers are few, that are faithful for God. Take heed of hurting the gift, with which God has given to profit, whereby you have received life through death, and a measure of peace by the destruction of evil. Pray, that peace may be multiplied, and the ministration of life, to the raising of the dead, that 'the seed of the woman may bruise the serpent's head,' discover all deceit, and rend all veils and coverings, that the pure may come to life, which deceit has trampled upon.
And all take heed to your spirits; that which is hasty, discerns not the good seed. Take heed of being corrupted by flatteries; they that know their God, shall be strong. But take heed of laboring to turn the just aside for a thing of nothing, but know the precious from the vile, the clean from the unclean; 'These shall be as my mouth,' said the Lord,for his work is great, and his gifts diverse. And therefore all mind your gift, mind your measure; mind your calling and your work. Some speak to the conscience; some plough and break the clods; some weed out, and some sow; some wait, that fowls devour not the seed. But wait all for the gathering of the simple-hearted ones; for 'they that turn many to righteousness, shall shine forever. ' Mind the light, that all may be refreshed one in another, and all in one. And the God of power and love keep all Friends in power, in love, that there be no surmisings, but pure refreshingsin the unlimited love of God, which makes one another known in the conscience, to read one another's hearts. Being comprehended into this love, it is inseparable, and all are here one. And keep in the oneness, and note them that cause dissension, contrary to the gospel you have received; that one pure faith may be held in all, to guide and preserve all in the unity of the spirit and bond of peace; all one family of love, children of one father, and of the household of God.
George Fox
. 5.- To his Parents.
Dear father and mother in the flesh, but not of that birth which speaks to you: for like to that which does beget, is that which is begotten. Praises, praises be given to my heavenly Father, who has begotten me again by the immortal word. To that of God in you both I speak, and do beseech you both for the Lord's sake, to return within, and wait to hear the voice of the Lord there; and waiting there, and keeping close to the Lord, a discerning will grow, that you may distinguish the voice of the stranger, when you hear it. Oh! Be faithful, be faithful to the Lord in that you knew; for in the backslider the Lord has no pleasure, neither shall their damnation slumber. Oh! Be faithful! Look not back, nor be too forward, further than you have attained; for you have no time, but this present time: therefore prize your time for your souls' sake! And so, grow up in that which is pure, and keep to the oneness; then shall my joy be full. So fare you well! And the Lord God of Power keep you in his power! To him be praises for evermore.
George Fox
6. - To Friends.
Friends,
No one is justified, breaking the commands of Christ; no one is justified, living in iniquity; and no one is justified in professing only Christ's words, and the prophets', and the apostles' words, and living out of their lives; and no one is justified living in the first birth and nature, and false faith and hope, which does not purify, as God is pure. No man is justified not believing in the light, as Christ commands, but with the light is condemned; for the light is the condemnation of all them that walk contrary to it: therefore the power of God mind. No man is justified, acting contrary to that spirit which does convince.
George Fox
7. - To Friends at Swarthmore.
Friends,
Love that which judges the carnal mind, and crosses it, which makes an entrance to God, and keeps you open; and then refreshment will come into your souls from the Lord. Dwell in the power, and know the power of words in one another; and take heed of deceit. Farewell, and the God of love and power keep you to himself!
George Fox
8.
Dear Friends,
Those that will live godly in Christ Jesus, must suffer persecution. God is righteous, God is pure, holy, and just; God is clean. He that is godly and holy, suffers by the ungodly, and unrighteous, and unclean, and unjust, and filthy. And so the just suffers by the unjust; and he that is born of the flesh, persecutes him that is born of the spirit.
George Fox
9.
Friends,
That which is set up by the sword, is held up by the sword; and that which is set up by spiritual weapons, is held up by spiritual weapons, and not by carnal weapons. The peacemaker has the kingdom, and is in it; and has the dominion over the peace-breaker, to calm him in the power of God. And friends, let the waves break over your heads. There is rising a new and living way out of the north, which makes the nations like waters. Hurt not the vines, nor the oil, nor such as know that 'the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.' The days of virtue, love, and peace are come and coming, and the Lamb had and has the kings of the earthto war withal, and to fight with, who will overcome with the sword of the spirit, the word of his mouth; for the Lamb shall have the victory. And are not some like Ephraim, with a miscarrying womb?which have not brought forth the substance, the birth from above; but have brought forth children to murder?
George Fox
10. To Friends, to stand still in trouble, and see the strength of the Lord.
Friends,
Whatever you are addicted to, the tempter will come in that thing;and when he can trouble you, then he gets advantage over you, and then you are gone. Stand still in that which is pure, after you see yourselves; and then mercy comes in. After you see your thoughts, and the temptations, do not think, but submit; and then power comes. Stand still in that which shows and discovers; and there does strength immediately come. And stand still in the light, and submit to it, and the other will be hushed and gone; and then content comes. And when temptations and troubles appear, sink down in that which is pure, and all will be hushed, and fly away. Your strength is to stand still, after you see yourselves; whatsoever you see yourselves addicted to, temptations, corruption, uncleanness, etc. then you think you shall never overcome. And earthly reason will tell you, what you shall lose; pay no attention to that, but stand still in the light that shows them to you, and then strength comes from the Lord, and help contrary to your expectation. Then you grow up in peace, and no trouble shall move you. David fretted himself, when he looked out; but when he was still, no trouble could move him. When your thoughts are out, abroad, then troubles move you. But come to stay your minds upon that spirit which was before the letter; here you learn to read the scriptures aright. If you do any thing in your own wills, then you tempt God; but stand still in that power which brings peace.
George Fox
11.
Dear hearts, brethren, and babes of Christ, wait to feed on the immortal food, and walk in the truth, and God Almighty be among you! And in it you will see him; stand all naked, bare, and uncovered before the Lord. And take heed of your wills, for that (as Herod) slays the just, and shipwrecks the faith, and runs you into the flesh. Return back, and stay yourselves upon the Lord in every particular, to have your minds guided by his spirit; growing up in that which is precious and immortal, there is no feigned love. So, the eternal God keep you in his eternal love pure unto himself, and naked, and knit your hearts together! God Almighty bless you, and water you with the showers of his mercy, and with the dew of heaven!
George Fox
12.
Friends,
If you love the light, and walk in it, you love Christ, and will all walk in unity together. And if you hate the light, you hate Christ. Here is your teacher, who love the light; here is your condemnation, who hate the light. And the conscience being seared, there is a returning to teachers without. For the carnal will have its vain invented form;but the spirit's form stands in the power. Prove yourselves where you are.
George Fox
13. - To the flock of God about Sedburgh.
Everyone in your measure wait upon God, who is the true shepherd, and leads his flock into the green pastures, and fresh springs he opens daily; this you will see and experience. And mind that which is pure in one another, which joins you together; for nothing will join, or make fit, but what is pure; nor unite, nor build but what is pure. Therefore in every particular, fear God; for whatsoever you build of yourselves will not stand, but will tumble down again; although it be as gold, or silver, or brass, or iron, the strength of all these things, which is above the pure in you, will come to nothing, and this will not unite with the pure. Therefore wait everyone in the measure which God has given you; and none of you be hearers only, but doers of the word. And so, walk in the truth, and be you all servants to it, and it will lead you out of the world. The world would have the truth to serve them to talk of, to trade with, and to contend with; these are the wells without water, these are the trees without fruit. But they who dwell in the spirit of the Lord, which is pure, which joins together, and unites and builds up all in one spirit, see all these things, and are separated from them. So if you live in the spirit, and walk in it, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, which will lead into uncleanness, and into adultery, and into that which despises dignity, which defiles the flesh, and goes from the pure. Therefore the pure faith is to be contended for; and those who were sanctified by God the Father, did contend for it, and were preserved by it in Christ Jesus. Therefore wait upon God for the living bread, that never fades away; which he that eats of, lives forever. So God Almighty bless you, and keep you in the measure of his gift, faithful to himself!
Dear hearts! To that which is pure in you I speak, which the presumptuous mind would veil, that God alone may be exalted, and all flesh shattered down. And all are to take warning, and not one to exalt himself above another; but that God alone may be exalted among you all, and in you all, who alone is blessed forever. And you may see, from where your heavenly food comes, and grow up by it; for God has done great things in these northern parts, and the Lord is doing great things to the exaltation of his great name, and astonishing the heathen; notwithstanding the raging of the beast, and the opening of his mouth, to the blaspheming of God and his temple. Therefore all be valiant in the Lord God; and so fare you well! And the Lord God of power keep you.George Fox

14.-A word from the Lord to Friends.
All Friends, That are grown up in the life and power of the truth, see that when you appoint your meetings in any open place, in the fields, on the moors, or on the mountains, that none appoint meetings in your own wills; for that lets in the wills of the world upon the life of Friends, and so you come to suffer by the world. But at such meetings let the wisdom of God guide you, that some may be there to preserve the truth from suffering by the world; that all burdens may be kept off, and taken away. So will you grow pure and strong. And when there are any meetings in unbroken places, you that go to minister to the world, take not the whole meeting of Friends with you, there, to suffer with and by the world's spirit; but let Friends keep together, and wait in their own meeting place. So will the life, (in the truth), be preserved and grow. And let three, or four, or six, that are grown up strong, and are in the truth, go to such unbroken places, and thresh the heathenish nature; and there is true service for the Lord. And to you all this is the counsel of the Lord. The grace of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with your spirits! Amen.
George Fox
15.-To the Church of God in Lancashire.
Friends,
Every one in particular, who are of God, and not of the world, walk out of the world's vain customs, ordinances, and commands; and stand a witness against them all, in the testimony of Jesus, and witness him the substance of all, waiting in the light of God, and walking in it, then will you have unity one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse you from all sin; for through it and by it we do overcome; which blood of the new covenant is but one. There shall you witness the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world. Oh! Wait all in that which is pure,to be fed alone of God with the eternal, living food! Go not out among the swine, who feed upon the outside, the husk, among the merchants of Babylon, and so forsake the living bread; but as you have received Christ Jesus, in him walk,that you may all honor the Lord Jesus Christ, and adorn his gospel. And be famous in his light, and bold in his strength, which will carry you above the world, and above all the deceits of it. Oh, in love watch over one another for good, and for the better, and not for the worse! And dwell in that which is pure of God in you, for fear that your thoughts get forth, and then evil thoughts get up, and surmising one against another, which arises out of the veiled mind, which darkens the pure discerning. But as you dwell in that which is of God, it guides you up out of the elementary life,and out of the mortal into the immortal, which is hid from all the fleshly ones, where is peace and joy eternal to all that can witness the new birth. Babes in Christ, born again of the immortal seed, in it wait,my life is with you in perfect unity; bow down to nothing but the Lord God. Satan would have had Christ to have bowed down, but he would not;the same seed now, the same birth born in you now, which is the same today, yesterday, and forever. The tempter will come to you; and if you look forth, and hearken to his words, and let them in, then you bow down under him, and worship him. But I say unto you, and charge you in the presence of the Lord, mind the pure seed of God in you, and the mighty power of God will cherish you up to the Lord God above all temptations, not to bow down to anything; but feeding upon the immortal food, you will feel yourselves supported, and carried over him by your Father and your God, who is over all, blessed forever! Who is the virtue of all creatures, the wisdom of all things; all holy praises be unto the holy, glorious Lord God forever!
George Fox
16.
To all you, my dear friends, who have tasted of the immediate, working power of the Lord, and do find an alteration in your minds, and do see from where virtue comes, and strength, that renews the inward man, and refreshes you; which draws you in love to forsake the world, and that which has form and beauty in it to the eye of the world; and has turned your minds within, who see your houses foul, and corruptions strong, and the way narrow and straight, which leads to life eternal; to you all I say, wait upon God in that which is pure. Though you see little, and know little, and have little, and see your emptiness, and see your nakedness, and barrenness, and unfruitfulness, and see the hardness of your hearts, and your own unworthiness; it is the light, that discovers all this, and the love of God to you, and it is that which is present, but the dark understanding cannot comprehend it. So, wait upon God in that which is pure, in your measure, and stand still in it everyone, to see your Savior, to make you free from that which the light discovers in you to be evil. For the voice of the bridegroom is heard in our land; and Christ is come among the prisoners, to visit them in the prison houses; they have all hopes of release and free pardon, and to come out freely, for the debt is paid; wait for the manifestation of it, and he that comes out of prison shall reign. So, meet together all you that fear the Lord God, and think upon his name, his mercies endure forever; his mercies are in temptations and troubles, his mercies are in afflictions, in reproaches, and in scorns. Therefore rejoice, you simple ones, who love simplicity, and meet and wait together to receive strength and wisdom from the Lord God; and in departing from sin and evil, you will be able to speak to the praise of the Lord. And meeting and waiting in his power, which you have received, in it all to improve your measure that God has given you;for you never improve your measure, so long as you rely upon any visible thing without you; but when you come alone to wait upon God, you shall everyone have a reward according to your deserts, and every one your penny who are called into the vineyard to labor. Therefore be faithful to God, and mind that which is committed to you, as faithful servants, laboring in love; some threshing, and some ploughing, and some to keep the sheep.He that can receive this let him. And all to watch over one another in the spirit of God. So God Almighty bless, guide, and prosper you unto his kingdom, where there is no tribulation. When your minds run into anything outwardly, without the power, it covers and veils the pure in you.
George Fox
17.
Dear Friends,
Prize your time, and the love of the Lord to your souls above all things; and mind that light in you that shows you sin and evil. The light checks you, when you speak an evil word, and tells you that you should not be proud or unrestrained, nor fashion yourselves like unto the world; for the fashion of this world passes away. And if you hearken to that, it will keep you in humbleness of mind and lowliness of heart, and turn your minds within to wait upon the Lord, to be guided by it; and bring you to lay aside all sin and evil, and keep you faithful to the Lord; and bring you to wait on him for teaching, until an entrance thereof be made to your souls, and refreshment come to them from the presence of the Lord. There is your teacher, the light, obeying it; there is your condemnation, disobeying it. If you hearken to the light in you, it will not allow you to conform to the evil ways, customs, fashions, delights, and vanities of the world; but lead you to purity, to holiness, to uprightness, even up to the Lord. Dear hearts, listen to it, to be guided by it. For if you love the light, you love Christ; if you hate that, you hate Christ. Therefore in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ consider of it; and the Lord open your understandings to know him. George Fox
18.
All dear Friends everywhere,who have tasted of the everlasting power, and are made partakers of his divine nature, be faithful, and dwell in that which is pure. And take heed of the world's evil ways, words, worships, customs, and fashions; neither let fair speeches draw you out, nor hard speeches trouble you and make you afraid: but fear the Lord God of heaven and earth, who by his mighty power upholds all things. And be bold in the power of truth, and valiant for it upon the earth; treading, triumphing over, and trampling all deceit under foot, inward and outward. Having done it in yourselves in particular, you have power over the world in general. And meet together everywhere, and keep the unity of the spirit, which is the bond or peace; which circumcises inwardly, and puts off the body of sin, and baptizes all into one body with one spirit. And being written all in one another's hearts, have all one voice, and the pure language of truth, where in all plainness of speech, things may be spoken in nakedness of heart one unto another, in the eternal unity in the one spirit, which draws off and weans you from all things, that are created and external, (which fade and pass away), up to God, the fountain of life, and head of all things; to whom be glory, wisdom, riches, and honor, God blessed forever! Who has blessed us, and given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son; and he that has the son, has the Father also. And that which the world professes and makes a business, the saints do enjoy and possess; which the world know not, but in the letter.
And all Friends and brethren, in what you know, be faithful, rejoicing and praising the Lord with all thankfulness, that the wise God should call you, and elect you. Oh! dwell in love in your hearts to God, and one to another! And the God of love and life keep you all in his power, and love, and spirit to himself, that you may all be kept pure, and stand pure and clean before him. The work and harvest of the Lord is great. My prayers to God are for you, that you may be faithful, and be kept faithful in the work.
George Fox
19.
Dear and tender Friends,
My love is to you all in the truth of God; and my prayers and soul's desire are to God, that you may be kept in the simplicity of the truth in Christ Jesus, growing up in the power of his resurrection, and be made conformable to his death, and have fellowship with him in his sufferings; and that all your hearts may be knit together in love, and in one spirit to God, and be kept out of all the world's evil customs, fashions, words, works, manners, ordinances, and commandments, which will all perish, which the world holds up in the carnal mind, and the carnal man does act them. For whatsoever is seen with a carnal eye, is carnal.See, if you do find something in your understandings made manifest, which is eternal, to guide your minds out of all external things, which wither away, and fade. For the cross is to the carnal mind; your carnal minds going into the carnal and earthly things, or your eyes and lusts into the earth, where lightness, rashness, crossness, bitterness, and presumption are, then the tongue will run at random, and is at liberty; and he that has not power over his own tongue, his religion is vain, and the light mind rules. But the light within, which does convince you, will show you, when the mind goes forth; and show you the daily cross, which is to crucify that carnal mind; for the carnal mind minds carnal things; and the cross is to the will of man, for it shall never enter.
Therefore give not way to your wills,nor busy yourselves nor minds with needless and careless words, or such things, for they will veil you, and draw your minds from God. But keep within. And when they shall say, 'lo here,' or 'lo there is Christ,' go not forth; for Christ is within you. And they are seducers and antichrists, which draw your minds out from the teaching within you. For the measure is within, and the light of God is within, and the pearl is within you, which is hid; and the word of God is within you, and you are the temples of God; and God has said, he will dwell in you, and walk in you. And then what need you go to the idols' temples without you? The true church (the saints) is in God;but the imitation of the church is in the world, without God. The seducers are in the world; antichrists and deceivers are in the world, and false prophets are in the world; and covetousness is in the world; and all hypocrisy, and all heresy, and dissimulation, and all pride, and looking for honor is in the world; and he that seeks for it, is of the devil. And all idle, foolish jesting, and all light, vain talking, which are not seemly nor convenient, are in the world.
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and fear God, and give glory to him, and worship not the beast; for the beast and the false prophet must be cast into the lake of fire. The true figures and types were outward, and visible to the outward eye and mind; but the carnal mind is to be taken away, and destroyed. For the figures did type forth the substance; when the substance was come, the figures were taken away, and types were ended. And the (false) imitations of Christ and of God are in the world; and the vain worships of the world are the worships of the beast, and are not of God. For 'God is a spirit; and he that worships him, must worship him in spirit and truth.' The beastly nature in man and woman holds up the beast, and his customs and worships; and the plagues of God are to be poured upon the beast, and all them that worship the beast and false prophet. And they that abide in the truth, worship not the beast inwardly, nor outwardly, but deny all the beast's worships and false prophets', and worship God in spirit and truth. And they which do not abide in the truth, hold up the beast's worship, and the false prophets;and they that do so, shall have their portion together. Plagues will be poured upon such. And you that know God, dwell in the truth, and tread upon the deceit; for God will be glorified alone. To whom be glory and honor forever! Amen.George Fox
20.
To all my dear brethren, whom the God of power has enlightened with his eternal light, and discovered unto you his way of truth, and brought you out of the dark ways, wherein you have walked; which dark ways all the world walk in. But where the pure light of God is witnessed, it guides to himself. The light is but one, which leads out of darkness and the dark world, into the world which is without end. Therefore all Friends and brethren in the eternal truth of God, walk in it up to God, and be not sayers only, nor backsliders; for the backslider is a sayer, and not a doer, and there arises ambition, pride and presumption out of that nature. But dwell in the pure light, which God has made manifest to you in your understanding; and turn your minds to him, and walk as children of the light, and of the day, and be not drunken in anything, nor run to extremes in anything; but be moderate and patient. Wait for the presence of the great God, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; and be not so childish as to be tossed with men's words without life. And run not out after others' liberties, which they have got in their notions; for you that do so, will not abide in the truth; and so you may come to be shaken, and shake others, who look at words. But wait everyone in particular, (in the measure that God has given you), upon God, in the fear of God, then your hearts will be kept clean; and this is the sure way. And wait all to have the son made manifest in you, and the son alone to set you free in yourselves in particular; and all that are made free by the son, are one. But the first nature, that would have liberty, must go into captivity; which those who live in their carnal reasoning, seek freedom for. But here is man deceived in his first birth.
But you all, in whom the immortal seed is brought to light, who are raised up to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, and are become children of the day, walk as children of the day, and as children of the light, and 'let your light so shine before men, that they may glorify your Father, which is in heaven.' All loving the light, you love the one thing, which gathers your hearts together to the fountain of light and life; and walking in it, you have unity one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ c1eanses you from all sin.' The knowledge of the letter, which you formerly got into your notions and comprehensions, the dark mind gave dark meanings to it, and so kept you in the broad way; but now wait all to have the same spirit manifested in your understandings, which was in them who gave forth the scriptures, who were come out of the broad way, holy men of God, who had escaped the pollutions of the world. And if every particular of you know not a principle within, which is of God, to guide you to wait upon God, you are still in your own knowledge, which is brutish and sensual. But waiting all upon God in that which is of God, you are kept open to receive the teachings of God. And the pure wisdom and knowledge comes from above, which is to know God, and Jesus Christ, the way, which is hidden from the world; and to walk out of your own ways, and out of your own thoughts. And dwelling in that which is pure, up to God, it commands your own reason to keep silent, and to cast your own thoughts out; and dwelling in that which is pure, it discovers all this. So dwelling in the spirit, it keeps all your hearts to God. To whom be all praise, honor, and glory forever!
George Fox
From Judge Fell's, in Lancashire, the 3rd of the 11th month, 1652

21. To Friends at Kendal.
To that of God in you I speak, that you may watch over the weak, and see how the plants of the Lord grow. And walk in the joy and love of the truth, serving God with joyfulness of heart; and to you this is the word of the Lord. And keep all that is bad, down and, out with the light, which condemns all ungodliness; so keep all that out, which is for condemnation; that you may be preserved clean and pure, that out of condemnation you may be kept, and walk in the living light. So God Almighty be with you all! And I charge you to read this among the brethren, and these words mind with the light, that no looseness be among you; but own and be obedient to the commands of the Lord, that you may stand out of, and above all the contrary commands of man. And so farewell.
George Fox
22.
Oh Friends!Keep close to the light in you, and do not look forth at words that proceed from a vain and light mind; but at the power of words. For the words of God that proceed from him, are powerful and mighty in operation, to the throwing down of all the strongholds of the man of sin. The Lord is coming in power, to gather his chosen ones to himself, and to judge and condemn the wicked one for evermore. He will plague the beast, and burn the whore, and plague and torment the disobedient, and rebellious, and backsliders very sore. Therefore, you that know the voice of the Lord, hearken to it, and see how you stand in his fear, and how you are brought into the obedience of the truth. And take heed of looking forth at man; but keep close to the light in you, and see that your minds be kept close to that, and guided by that; and being guided by that, the light will keep you clear and pure to receive the teaching of the Lord. Have salt in yourselves, and let your words be few and seasoned, that they may be savory. And watch over one another in love, and walk in wisdom, and sobriety, and gravity, and sincerity, in purity, and cleanness. And keep free from deceit, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful words of darkness, but rather reprove them.
And be faithful to the Lord; walk so that the world may be confounded and ashamed, when they speak evil of you, as evil doers. Walking in humbleness, lowliness, and uprightness before them, it will take away all just occasion of speaking evil against the truth. And be bold and valiant for the truth, and press forward, towards the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and let no man take your crown.
Dear Friends,watch over one another in love, and stir up that which is pure in one another, and exhort one another daily. And the Lord keep you all in his fear, and in his obedience now and evermore!
George Fox
23.
Friends,
Fear not the powers of darkness, but keep your meetings, and meet in that which keeps you over them; and in the power of God you will have unity. And dwell in love and unity one with another, and know one another in the power of an endless life, which does not change. And know the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, which is above the first Adam, the earthly, where all strife and transgression is. And all Friends everywhere, be faithful in the life and power of God, and keep your meetings (above all the world) in that which changes not, that nothing but Christ may reign among you, the power of God, and wisdom of God, the sanctification and redemption; that the just over all may reign, and the seed of God may have the dominion in you all; that with that you may all be ordered to the glory of God, and kept in the bond of peace, and reign in the love of God,which is out of the iniquity, and rejoices not in it, which thinks no evil. And have this love shed abroad in all your hearts, and feel it abiding in you; which love of God edifies the body. And know the word of God abiding in you, which was in the beginning, and brings to the beginning; which word being in grafted, it saves the soul, and hammers down, and throws down, and burns up that which wars against it.
George Fox
24.
To all Friends everywhere, dwell in the truth, and walk in the love of the truth, in patience, and everyone in your measure keep your habitations, and learn that good lesson of Jesus Christ, to be low and meek in heart, giving no occasion to the adversary by evil doing. But walk all honestly and uprightly; for the upright and meek in heart know God, and God delights in the upright and righteous. And walking in righteousness, you will be bold as lions, resisting the wicked with your spiritual weapons, not by bloody hands, as the wicked are tearing and rending the just that dwell in the truth. For the lions want, and hunger, and rage; but you that fear the Lord, shall want no good thing; and they that wait upon the Lord, he will give them their hearts desire. I witness the words of the Lord to be true, praised be his name! Oh! Friends, dwell in the fear of the Lord, and take heed of presumption, that your minds run not out into vanity and lightness, that the world may not take occasion, and the truth suffer. But everyone keep your habitation where God has called you; and take heed of deceit, and form nothing in your own wills or minds, but grow up in the inner man, (putting off the old man with his deeds), as trees of righteousness, which the Lord has planted, growing in wisdom and understanding to do the will of God, and not your own wills. He that does the will of God abides in that which endures forever, and sees all flesh to be as grass, and the glory of the world to pass away. Woe unto you proud men, who compass the earth, to set your nests on high! All your gods of gold and silver must perish, and that mind that holds them up must perish. But all Friends, mind that which is eternal, which gathers your hearts together up to the Lord, and lets you see that you are written in one another's hearts; meet together everywhere , growing up in the spirit to the Lord,the fountain of life, the head of all things, God blessed forever! Let not hard words trouble you nor fair speeches win you; but dwell in the power of truth, in the mighty God, and have salt in yourselves to savor all words, and to stand against all the wiles of the devil, in the mighty power of God.
For God has raised up his own seed in his saints, which seed, Christ, is but one in all, and spreads over all, and throughout all; and we now are through him come to have dominion and power over the evil one, and to tread upon that which has been too strong for us, the enemy of our peace, and the enemy of our unity with God and one with another. So in that, which is raised up in us, which tramples upon the earthly, dark power, have we unity with God, and fellowship with his son, and unity one with another; so are known to one another in that, which none, who are of the world, knows. So our life is hid, and our happiness, joy, and delight hid from all, who are ruled and governed by the prince of the air, from under whose dominion and government we are redeemed by the only redeemer Christ Jesus, not with corruptible things, neither is our redemption of man, nor by man, nor according to the will of man, but contrary to man's will. And so, our, unity and fellowship with vain man are lost, and all his evil ways are now turned into enmity; and all his profession is now found to be deceit, and in all his fairest pretences lodges cruelty; and the bottom and ground of all his knowledge of God and Christ is found sandy, and cannot endure the tempest. For being brought off from that foundation, and having suffered the loss of all, which seemed beautiful upon the sand, which was there built according to that wisdom which was not eternal, but was earthly, upon which the curse of God was, and yet does remain, where it is standing, we declare against that bottom and foundation, by the power of God, in that light of Christ, which discovers all false foundations, and makes manifest all sandy bottoms, which man has built upon. For where the only true seed takes root, there all man's plants and plantations are plucked up; for there the earth, in which the earthly plants grow, is broken up, ploughed up, and ripped up, and all things made manifest, which have lain hid in it. For in the earth dwell all the noisome creatures, and the evil beasts, which are hurtful to the creation: for in the earth the devil dwells and walks; but the earth being ploughed up, he is made manifest, and the seat of his dwelling is broken up. That mind, which does speak of God, but lives not, dwells not, nor abides in the fear of God, that mind must suffer, and pass under the judgment of God, for the curse of God is upon that mind: for that mind is earthly, and of the earth, upon which the curse of God is. And that mind may talk of God, and speak of God, but not in union with God, nor from enjoyment of God in the spirit,nor from having purchased the knowledge of him through death and sufferings; but from hearsay of him, and from custom and tradition. But the true fear of God does destroy that mind, which speaks of him, but does not live in his fear: and that mind is raised up, which does abide in his fear; and this is acceptable sacrifice, which is pure, clean, holy, and without spot. Then that which knows God, speaks of him, which has purchased the true knowledge of him through suffering; and to such there is no condemnation, but joy and peace. And this mind sings true praises to God, the other in hypocrisy; and therefore the woe is unto it. And this mind is stayed upon God, the other is gadding after the creatures, committing fornication with other lovers; and speaks of God, but is not subject to God, and must pass through condemnation.
George Fox
25. - To Friends in the Truth.
Friends,the love of God is to you, the springs are opening, and the plants are refreshing with the living waters. Now friends, walk in the truth, as you have received it; and wait in that which keeps you in the yes and no,in the pure communication, in the good manners. In the pure conversation over all the world you will reign, whose conversation is in heaven; and here the world you will judge, walking in the life. And you which turn from the light, which Jesus Christ has enlightened you with, here are the corrupt manners, the evil communication, the filthy conversation, which with the light are all to be condemned; you which turn from the light, are in Esau's nature, and choosing the earth, there is profaneness; therefore take heed to the light, and wait to receive power from God, to stand against that which the light discovers to be evil. And you who are turned from the light, with which Jesus Christ has enlightened you, and do turn to the hireling priests who are changeable,from the priest who never changes, you walk in Judas' steps, and woe will be your end; you had better never have been born, you are betrayers of the just; you that turn from the light, you turn from Christ, as Judas did; and you that walk in the light, you walk after Christ, and he is your way;but you that turn from it to the hireling priests, Judas is your way, which is destruction. And you that turn from the light, turn from the command of God; Cain is your way. And you that turn from the spirit, Balaam is your way. And you that get up into presumption, Cora is your way, which leads into self-separation. And this fruit will wither, which is natural knowledge, which is seen with the light, and is to be condemned with the light, which never withers, which is the condemnation of the world; which all the children of the light walk in. Walking in which light, it will bring you to receive Christ, from whom it comes. Here is the way to salvation; and as many as receive him, to them he gives power to become the sons of God. And the son of God is but one in all, male and female; and the light of God is but one. So all walk in it, to receive the son; in which light is the unity, which brings to fellowship with the Father and the son. And the oneness is in the light, as the Father and the son are one, and brings you to where he is, out of the world, from the world, and not to be of the world. Therefore walk in the light, which is all the world's condemnation, even them of the highest religion, who act contrary to the light. And to you this is given forth from the word of the living God. And you that love your soul, love the light, to wait for Christ, the Savior of your soul; and you that hear the word, wait in the light, which comes from the word, which leads up to the word which was in the beginning, which breaks the world to pieces that lies in wickedness, and burns it as with a fire; and divides asunder the precious from the vile. This is the word, which makes all clean, which is received into the heart; and this is the word of faith which we preach; and the world preaches the words without, being out of the life, and in the brutish knowledge, which is condemned of God, and by all who are of God, that have (and are in) the life of the holy scriptures. Therefore I charge you all in the presence of the living God, (jump to another persence statement) to wait in the light which comes from Christ, that with it you may receive the life; that with the light and life, which are one, you may come to have the scriptures opened to you, which were given from the light. And so all the world, who have not the light guiding their understandings, nor the life, but are strangers to it, there are the sects, there are the many opinions, there is the heresy, which makes a profession of the letter declared from the light, but are out of the life; with the light all this is condemned; and the children of light are in unity, in that which gave forth the holy scriptures. And so to you all this testimony is from the word of God. This is to be read among all Friends everywhere; for this was I moved to send among you.
George Fox

Life, THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY

2007-05-13T13:28:00.000+05:30

LIFE, THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY
I would like to speak today about life, the ultimate journey. And what a precious journey and precious minutes on the earth life can be. It's all in your approach, my children. It's all in your approach, it all in how you look at a day, a month, a year. Life is exactly what you make of it and your attitude and how you approach and go into each day will determine the kind of life that you live will determine what you get on the earth.
So, I hear so many of you complain, 'my life is miserable, I don't have this, I'm not in a relationship, my relationship sucks, my kids are so awful I can't control them.' God asks you today to turn around and look inside yourself.
Why is that I hear so many of you, so many of my children unhappy, distraught, distressed, frustrated, depressed? What is this all about? What have you have chosen for your life? Where is it that you wish to go and why is it that when you get up each day you drag yourself to do the things that are necessary to perpetuate your life? Why is it that you have come to this state of frustration, depression, so many of you on anti-depressants that it amazes me, so many of you drinking alcohol to numb the pain, so many of you taking drugs, not to feel.
Do you believe for one moment that God wishes this for you to destroy this beautiful temple that I have given you to walk the earth. Do I sound distressed today? Well, I am. God is frustrated and furious that so many of you care so little about your body, your health, your being. I think of you as precious and you don't even love yourself.
There is no other time but now to evaluate, to evaluate who you are, where you are at and what you wish and where you wish to go. And you cannot approach even the next moment of this day in a negative posture and think you will ever get more than that. For it is with positive thinking, for it is with love for oneself, for it is with unconditional love for all things on earth that you bring a different life to you. Your approach brings you exactly what you get. What approach will you take? Today, tomorrow, this week, next week, next month? If you continue on the path you have chosen this path and you do not change then you will get exactly what you have gotten up until now.
So, my children, each and every one of you, what is your choice today? Will you choose another path, will you work long and hard to put out position so you will receive positive in your life, or will you just complain, go on your merry way, and just repeat the patterns that you have repeated up until now. For it is not, for it is not with negativity that you will have a positive impact on your life. For it is not with negative thinking and holding onto pain, and anger and sadness that you will have a happy productive life without alcohol and drugs. For it is not without working on your inner being to come to a point where you love yourself that you will ever change one iota of the life you are living that you are complaining about.
And I must put in now, without, without a belief in God, something greater than yourself, without a connection to a supreme power, without that you will have always have a piece that will be missing and a void. Your life will never feel totally complete.
A lot to think about today in this message. I, I ask of any of my children who are unhappy, distraught, stressed, not believing in themselves, not loving themselves, to take out today a pen and paper to write out today what is the path you wish to take, and I ask that you make the greatest decision that you have ever made in your life and the wisest choice for yourself, to change, to come to positive thinking and to find me. For it only with those first steps and with a change in attitude and a belief that you can do this, that you can actually get your life on track.
Be with us, feel my love and know that I, God, believe in you and that all things are possible.

U2 worship....

2007-05-12T15:44:00.000+05:30

U2 Rocks the House (of God)
Bono inspires worship with an edge.
by Elizabeth Diffin

Where the Streets Have No Name. Beautiful Day. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. Yahweh. For fans of the Irish band U2, these are familiar rock songs. But to a growing number of Christians, they're becoming tunes for worship, and for the Eucharist.

Services using U2's music, commonly called U2charist, were begun by Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation. The services combine the music of the rock band with traditional communion. They focus on a message of global reconciliation, justice, and care for neighbors as advocated by Bono, the lead singer of U2. Bono, a dedicated Christian, is also a global ambassador for Millennium Development Goals, a movement by the United Nations to eradicate poverty and disease by the year 2015.

U2charist first took hold in the U.S. at St. George's Episcopal Church in York Harbor, Maine, drawing 130 people. Many of those in attendance were in a younger demographic and did not usually attend the church. Since then, dozens of the services have been held worldwide in churches of many denominations.

In a U2charist service, the liturgy remains the same, although the music is markedly different. U2 songs are repurposed as the opening hymn, song of praise, sermon response, and offertory. Most of the songs are seen as metaphors, with lyrics that are layered with meaning.

"In church, you hear [the music] in a different way. It's like new," said Natalie Williams, a 17-year-old who attended a U2charist at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Briarcliff Manor, New York.

Eric Johnson, who attended the service at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Lakeland, Florida, had no doubt about the effectiveness of the music.

"The crowd, the enthusiasm, the energy—I felt like the Holy Spirit was in the room. The message was getting through, and we were worshiping together," he said.

The offerings that are collected at U2charists go to charities fighting extreme poverty and AIDS, as worked out in an agreement with the band's publishing company. Paige Blair, rector of St. George's, estimates that more than $36,000 has been raised from the U2charist services for the cause.

"People are learning there is something they can do to change the world," she said. "And they leave feeling that they really can."

At St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Encinitas, California, the U2charist service was well-received by young and old alike. Teens connected to the "hip factor," while adults found deeper meaning in the music.

At St. Andrew's, the service drew a crowd that compares to normal Christmas or Easter attendance. St. George's is beginning a U2charist team to help others implement the service. And this year, a U2charist service will be broadcast in Great Britain on Easter Sunday.

"It spread like wildfire," Blair said. "We're giving people a way to engage their faith in a meaningful way."

And letting them rock out at the same time.

—with information from the San Diego Union-Tribune, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation, The Ledger, and USA Today

Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Leadership Journal.
Click here for reprint information onLeadership Journal.
Spring 2007, Vol. XXVIII, No. 2, Page 12

Christianity in the 21st Century

2007-05-12T15:31:00.000+05:30

Christianity in the 21st Century

In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in Christian spirituality, especially in its more contemplative aspects. This is an enthusiasm that has a practical more than a theoretical orientation, and is to be found among lay people as well as priests and religious.

Contemporary Christian Spirituality

If we were to survey the contemporary scene today with no pretensions at being exhaustive, we would notice a renewed interest in traditional spiritual paths together with an almost bewildering variety of new developments. For reasons that will become evident in a moment, these developments can be roughly sorted into the following four groups: 1) centering prayer and the work of Thomas Merton, the charismatic movement, fresh approaches to Carmelite, Benedictine, and Ignatian spirituality, the revival of spiritual direction, etc.; 2) dream work, active imagination, focus on mid-life transitions, use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Enneagram, journaling, the Twelve Steps, etc.; 3) Zen-Christian dialogue, Moslem-Christian dialogue, Hindu-Christian dialogue, Kundalini, the works of Anthony de Mello, etc.; and 4) creation spirituality, Christian ecology movement, the new cosmologies, Native American spiritualities, the simple monastic movement, spiritualities derived from the peace and justice movements and liberation theology, etc.

What we are seeing in this widespread ferment, I believe, is the emergence of what could become a vigorous Christian spirituality for this new century, and these four groups already point to four major characteristics that such a spirituality would have: (1) the rediscovery and reevaluation of the riches of the Christian spiritual tradition, (2) a new psychological awareness born out of an encounter with depth psychology, (3) a living and loving contact at the level of practice with other spiritual paths, and (4) a new sense of closeness and reverence for the earth.

Starting from these four characteristics I don’t think it would be particularly difficult to reach some kind of consensus about what is happening today and what the future might hold. My next point, however, is much more difficult and controversial. There is no guarantee that we will ever see the birth of this spirituality for the twenty-first century. In every one of these four areas we are faced with problems so serious that we might not be equal to the challenges they pose. And these problems are compounded by our slowness to acknowledge that they even exist. As practitioners making our way enthusiastically along these new spiritual paths we often have little inclination to look up and see the storm clouds forming on the far horizons. As professional philosophers and theologians we have our own agendas that have rarely included the specific problems faced by Christian spirituality. Both sides still suffer from the deep divisions that have separated spirituality from theology in recent centuries, yet it is only through a close collaboration of practitioner and theologian that we will be able to overcome the difficulties we face. Let’s look at just one problem related to each of these four characteristics.

Rediscovery of Christian Mysticism

It would be a mistake to think that we are in such firm possession of our own mystical tradition that we can devote all our energy to our partners in dialogue, whether they be Jungian psychology, Zen Buddhism or the new cosmologies. For all our interest in and talk about contemplation today we don’t even possess a commonly agreed upon vocabulary; still less have we come to grips with long unresolved problems about the nature and call to contemplation.

The last time we had such a widespread practical interest in contemplation in the Church was in the seventeenth century, and that ended in a disastrous distrust of mysticism that we are only now beginning to recover from. What is to prevent our own mystical revival from ending in a similar manner? We can make light of this possibility by imagining that the failure of the seventeenth century stemmed from the gross distortions of genuine mysticism introduced by the Quietists, and that we are not about to repeat their errors. In actual fact that is an oversimplified view of history, and I would like to sketch a possible alternative.

John of the Cross died in 1591, and it was not until 1618 that his works were published, with alterations and the absence of the Spiritual Canticle. In those intervening years his writings were not hidden away but circulated widely in manuscript and, more importantly, were already being analyzed and interpreted both within and outside his own religious community. The chief place among these commentators must be given to one of the most talented of the early discalced Carmelites, Thomas of Jesus. In the first years of the seventeenth century he had already begun to prepare St. John’s writings for publication, and a little later, after careful reflection upon them, wrote his own major work on the spiritual life entitled The Spiritual Path.¹ This work in various ways was to play a critical but often clandestine role in how John of the Cross was understood by later generations, especially on the vitally important transition from meditation to contemplation.

Once the writings of St. Teresa and St. John had begun to circulate throughout Europe they sparked a widespread enthusiasm for the contemplative life of prayer. People of all walks of life felt compelled to ask themselves whether they, too, were being called to become contemplatives. Perhaps one of the earliest and most acute forms of this kind of questioning took place in the desert monastery of Las Batuecas where Thomas of Jesus was devoting himself to the life of prayer, spiritual direction, and the writings of John of the Cross. In order to answer this question Thomas and a long line of spiritual writers after him turned to John of the Cross’s famous "three signs" for judging when it is appropriate to discontinue discursive meditation and pass on to contemplative prayer (see 2 Ascent 13-15; 1 Night 9). The first sign of potential contemplatives, according to John, is their inability to meditate as they were accustomed to do before. This the commentators often found verified, for as John made clear in his writings, the inability to meditate often occurs not long after a serious beginning had been made in the life of prayer. The second sign is the spiritual persons’ lack of desire to turn energy and attention to other things once they can no longer find their accustomed path to God. This sign was to safeguard against sin and lukewarmness. But for St. John the third sign is that the persons in question "like to remain alone in loving awareness of God, without particular considerations," according to the description in the Ascent was the most crucial of all. The first two signs could come about, John thought, for psychological reasons - a tantalizing lead that most of his readers failed to follow up - so the third sign was crucial because it was the actual beginning of infused contemplation itself, even though this new beginning was sometimes imperceptible (see 2 Ascent 13, 7) to those long used to working with the natural faculties of sense, imagination, intellect, memory and will. And it was around this third sign that various interpretations of what John of the Cross meant by contemplation began to crystallize, starting with Thomas of Jesus. These people, sincerely aspiring to contemplation, reasoned: "I see that I have the first and second signs, for I cannot pray as I did before and I cannot discover any conscious fault to account for the darkness that I find myself in. As for the third sign, when John of the Cross talks of loving attentiveness he must mean trying to be lovingly attentive to God whom I know by faith is present to me. Therefore I am a contemplative in whom, as John of the Cross says, contemplation is imperceptible even to the one who receives it."

This kind of interpretation by those who very much desired to be contemplatives but had not experienced the gift of infused contemplation was to give rise to the theory that alongside of the contemplation that St. John and St. Teresa described there was another kind of active or "acquired" contemplation. In fact, early in the history of the discalced Carmelite school Francisco de Quiroga put John of the Cross forward as the father of this active contemplation.

What is at stake is our very understanding of the nature of contemplation according to John of the Cross, and yet very little has been done to unravel these historical issues. Even the remarkable discoveries of the Carmelite scholar, Simeon of the Holy Family, forty years ago have been almost completely neglected.² It is only by elucidating such matters that we will be in a position to understand the intimate but distorted relationship that exists between the writings of John of the Cross and writers accused of Quietism like Juan Falconi, Antonio Rojas and Miguel Molinos. These kinds of studies would, in turn, allow us to understand the great decline of mysticism that set in at the end of the seventeenth century. Only then could we put the current revival of mysticism in the proper historical perspective and begin to match this historical work with careful empirical studies aimed at discovering just what passes for contemplative life today and how we should cope if, indeed, we can verify in ourselves the first two signs of John of the Cross but not the third. Our first conclusion is simply that we cannot assume that we are in firm possession of our own mystical tradition, but have to take a long and careful look at it.

Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality

Christian spirituality has a tremendous need for a partnership with an empirical psychology, a natural science of the psyche, for where else does the life of prayer take place but in the soul or psyche? Spirituality is in the midst of fulfilling that need in a variety of ways, one of which is by using Jung’s psychology. At first glance this meeting of Christian spirituality and Jungian psychology can appear innocent of complications. Aren’t there a growing number of clergy and religious with a deep grasp of Jungian psychology? What difficulty could there be in the use of a psychological type test and discerning in this way different styles of prayer?

Yet we have only to remember the story of Victor White, the Dominican theologian, and his close but stormy friendship with Jung to be reminded that the Jungian-Christian dialogue has never fulfilled the golden expectations that its participants often held out for it and, in fact, has often ended in bitter conflict. Out of these struggles has emerged a spectrum of opinions that range from the outright rejection of Jung’s psychology as a danger to Christianity to an identification of the Jungian process of individuation with the Christian mysteries themselves. And these radically divergent opinions have come from people who can claim a more than superficial knowledge of both Jung’s psychology and Christianity.

What is at the root of such short and intractable divergences? We have, in large part, failed to come to grips with the philosophical presuppositions or substructures in which Jung’s psychology is wrapped. Jung set out to create an empirical science of the psyche in which his careful and attentive observation of psychic images would lead him to hypotheses which would attempt to explain the phenomena he was examining. Thus, for example, the observation of recurrent patterns of images in myths and fairy tales and dreams from all ages and from around the world eventually gave rise to his theory of archetypes. All this is relatively straightforward, even when applied to religious matters, for it is legitimate for the psychologist to look at religion from his distinctive point of view. And if this were all there was to Jung’s psychology, the decades of debates about it would be inexplicable. There is, of course, something more, and this something more is quite elusive. Jung at once looked at Christianity from his distinctive scientific perspective in which it became a storehouse of images that illustrated more or less adequately the fundamental process of individuation, but that is not all he did. Then he more or less unconsciously extended this legitimate scientific attitude so that it took on a quasi-philosophical character that said that "Christians may believe that they know something more than what my psychology reveals, but in fact they don’t." In short, Jung denied that philosophy, faith or theology were legitimate ways of knowing; they do not have their distinctive methods and objects, but rather reflect, often deficiently, what Jung’s psychology knows in a more scientific and less pretentious manner. There is, therefore, an ambivalence in Jung’s writings that leaps from its pages once we have become sensitized to it. While it in no way invalidates his properly psychological work, it does wrap it in adventitious philosophical garments of a Kantian variety. What we can know becomes the image that points to the archetype, but never the thing in itself. Theology is, therefore, still living in a pre-Kantian world and presumes to knowledge that it cannot attain. When such an attitude is brought to bear on Christian spirituality it evacuates what is distinctively Christian and retains whatever reflects Jung’s psychology. What is needed, instead, is a genuinely interactive approach in which philosophy, theology and psychology all retain their distinctive natures and make their own contributions. Then the way is opened for an enriched Christian spirituality in which the life of prayer and the process of individuation, while viewed as distinct processes, are also seen as interpenetrating and vitally interacting in the one concrete psyche.

Such an interactive approach could be brought to bear with good effect on many pressing questions in the spiritual life, for example, our understanding of the inner nature of charismatic experiences such as speaking in tongues, healing and the falling phenomena. While it would be unfair to fail to recognize the real good that the charismatic movement has done by bringing people to a serious dedication to the life of prayer, it has sometimes suffered from a lack of awareness of the role of the unconscious in these experiences. Another way of putting the matter is that it is by no means necessary to canonize all the phenomena of the charismatic movement as being produced by the direct working of the Holy Spirit. The role of the unconscious immediately leaps out at psychologically trained observers when they witness the dynamics of charismatic gatherings. An interactive approach embracing both Christian spirituality and Jungian psychology would allow us to begin to see the unconscious not only as the locus of natural psychological processes, but also as the arena in which and through which God can act and the life of prayer can manifest itself. Then we would begin to understand why the tongues spoken have no connection with actual languages and why the urge to speak them can diminish and even disappear, matters that would be less comprehensible if we were constrained to admit that these tongues were always a result of the direct working of the Holy Spirit. Such an interactive approach puts the charismatic movement on firmer psychological and theological foundations.

Our second conclusion is that we have only just begun to enrich Christian spirituality with the fruits of a natural science of the psyche, and this process will greatly accelerate if we can see the promises and problems of the partnership between Christianity and psychology more clearly.³

Zen Enlightenment and Christian Contemplation

Christian spirituality is already being deeply influenced by contact with other spiritual paths like Hinduism and Buddhism. The Zen-Christian dialogue, for example, has advanced to the point where priests and sisters have completed training under recognized Zen masters and have been authorized to teach. Many of the Catholic Zen teachers were students of the late Koun Yamada, heir to a Soto Zen lineage that blended with it many elements of the Rinzai school.

As the process continues of bringing Zen and Christian spiritual paths together, the question of how they relate to each other will become more acute and inescapable. When David Loy, himself a student of Yamada Roshi, wrote to Yamada’s Christian students concerning this coming together, the replies, though few, were highly intriguing: "The most interesting result of my inquiries was a division among Christian Zen teachers (most of them in Europe), between those who want to maintain a strong distinction between Zen practice and Christian practice, and those who see them as the same thing and therefore to be united-which seems to mean using mostly Zen practice with Christian terminology."⁴

This divergence is quite similar to the one that can be found in the Jungian-Christian world, and I believe it points to the same kind of deep unresolved issues, in this case the difficulties that Christians have in understanding the nature of Zen enlightenment. A certain reticence may mark the first generation of Christian-Zen teachers stemming from the very nature of Zen practice, or the fear that too forthright a statement of the relationship of Christian prayer to the Zen journey might call forth a repressive response from the powers that be, or even because they are not yet sure of what this relationship is. But Zen practice is spreading widely in the church and meeting a real hunger among Christians for deeper spiritual lives, a hunger that has long gone unfilled in many places. And as Zen spreads, the question of its relationship with Christian prayer will loom ever larger.

It is here that the split between philosophers and theologians and spiritual practitioners makes itself felt again. Christians vacillate about what to draw from the storehouse of Christian tradition in order to compare it to Zen. Should it be monasticism, or mysticism, or something else again? One popular choice by people on both sides has been Meister Eckhart. But why Meister Eckhart? Is it because of his Christian mystical doctrine that he shares with the church’s mystical tradition? I don’t think so. There is something in Meister Eckhart that resonates with Zen practitioners, and if we could focus upon it, it would give us a clue to the nature of Zen enlightenment and point to the one choice that is almost never considered as a suitable partner for the Zen-Christian dialogue, which is the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas. It seems almost incomprehensible that a dynamic Zen Buddhism would have anything in common with a Thomism already in eclipse. Yet Zen is highly metaphysical, not, of course, in the traditional Western philosophical sense, but as a deep metaphysical insight into the ultimate nature of reality, an insight that is not turned to subsequent conceptual elaboration, but is geared to liberation or awakening from our delusive existential state.

This kind of metaphysical insight finds a counterpart in the living heart of the metaphysics of St. Thomas, in what Jacques Maritain called the intuition of being. Maritain, in fact, has already given us a penetrating explanation of Hindu mystical experience that could be adapted to help us understand the nature of Zen enlightenment. Its initial formulation was born out of discussions he had with Olivier Lacombe, who presented him with the facts of the mystical experience of India. Maritain first formulated his ideas in the fifth appendix of his Degrees of Knowledge, and later in an essay entitled, "Natural Mysticism and the Void.⁵ This theme was then developed by Lacombe and Louis Gardet and found a fine articulation in their jointly written, L’Exp�rience de Soi.⁶ Unfortunately, this vital current of thought has remained virtually unknown in the English-speaking world and its application to the current Zen-Christian dialogue unexploited and, incidentally, the riddle of Meister Eckhart unsolved.

Our third conclusion: important philosophical and theological issues need to be resolved if Christian spirituality is ever to benefit as it could from Zen Buddhism. We need to situate Zen enlightenment in relationship to the metaphysics of St. Thomas and the mysticism of John of the Cross. This will allow us to avoid seeing Zen as a threat to Christianity, or facilely identifying Zen practice with the Christian life of prayer.

Christian Spirituality and the New Cosmologies

A new awareness of the earth is beginning to enter into Christian spirituality. One aspect of this development is the increasing utilization of the new cosmologies that have been one of the finest creations of modern physics. What could be the problem here, we might ask, in making use of the hard-won insights of modern science, from quantum mechanics to cosmic strings? These theories are certainly fascinating and stimulating, and deserve our careful attention. But modern physics is what Maritain characterized as an "empiriometrical" science. It gathers physical facts through its measuring devices and then submits them to the formal rule of mathematics. The results are physico-mathematical constructs of undeniable operative power and efficacy, but these concepts do not aim at a point-to-point correspondence with reality, still less an explanation of the inner nature of things. In short, they do not have ontological pretensions, but issue rather in hypotheses that will help us predict further physical results inasmuch as they are measurable. Maritain spent a great deal of time and energy trying to define precisely the epistemological type of modern physics, and this accomplishment ought to be considered as one of the most important and definitive results of the twentieth century Thomistic renaissance.⁷

But what has this to do with contemporary spirituality? There is no way to erect a philosophy or theology directly on the foundation of modern physical theories because these theories are physico-mathematical constructs whose ontological implications are not readily discernible. Even when these highly mathematized theories give rise to accompanying images and stories, we cannot unreflectively turn to them in order to draw philosophical and theological conclusions. They have no more directly readable ontological content than the measurements and mathematical theories they are based upon.

More concretely, the central importance of quantum mechanics does not mean that our traditional notions of causality have been overturned and now we must grope about for various sorts of acausal or synchronistic explanations. Nor does the facility with which the modern physicist talks of multiple dimensions and the interconnections between space and time mean that our traditional notions of space and time no longer have any validity.

It is going to be an extremely delicate job to penetrate the hypotheses of the physicist and discern their ontological and theological implications. If we erect a spirituality directly upon these physical theories it is liable to have no more permanence than many of these theories themselves. The actual road stretching from the new cosmologies to Christian spirituality is much more difficult. It demands the resurrection of a genuine philosophy of nature. Unfortunately, our traditional philosophy of nature has been in decline and on the defensive from the days of the birth of the modern sciences when it failed to grant them the autonomy they needed to develop. On the other side, many scientists during the course of the twentieth century have been led by the inner direction of their explorations to the frontier their science shares with the philosophy of nature, but deep-seated misconceptions have prevented them from realizing this fact; even if they had, the weakness of the philosophy of nature born out of centuries of isolation would have prevented real dialogue. Our fourth conclusion: The scientific cosmologists of today are hardly aware that philosophical cosmologists exist, still less that they could have something important to say. It will be unfortunate if the architects of the dialogue between Christian spirituality and the new cosmologies come to share that same blindness.

Conclusions

These four problems can serve as examples of the kinds of challenges that exist in each of the four areas that are converging to create a Christian spirituality of the future. It would be possible to arrive at this same point by means of other examples, for example, an evaluation of the mystical elements in early Ignatian spirituality, or an examination of the Enneagram, or the Hindu-Christian dialogue, or the difficulty in integrating a practical ecological awareness into a mainstream, middle-class American Catholic Church. But it is more important, I think, to carry our analysis further and see what these problems have in common.

First of all, they share a climate in which the old structures of authority and the transmission of ideas are being transformed. The initiative in the field of spirituality is no longer just in the hands of church authorities or a relatively cohesive group of theologically trained priests and religious. Creative impulses are coming from all parts of the church community and from beyond its visible boundaries. This has the good effect of drawing on a wider range of talents, but it presents its own particular kind of difficulties. It is possible for a new development to sprout and grow for a considerable period of time without any serious sustained interchange with the riches of Christian philosophy, theology and spirituality, or even sustained contact with the very discipline that practitioners would like to see integrated into Christian spirituality. The use of the Enneagram is, for example, expanding rapidly in Catholic circles, but its psychological foundations remain unclarified and its theological implications are only beginning to be explored.

This is certainly not a plea for the reinstitution of some sort of centralized control, but simply a statement of what is actually happening. And why it is happening is significant. It happens in part because of the wider freedom given to creative impulses from all directions, as I mentioned before. It happens, as well, because a certain expertise is necessary in things like the Jungian-Christian dialogue, or the Hindu-Christian one, and this reduces many people to silence, even church leaders, even when they are confronted with something that rubs them the wrong way. New channels are not yet in place that would allow a free and open interchange between the people on the cutting edge of these developments and those in traditional positions of leadership. And breaking silence without truly understanding what is going on is no remedy either.

And finally it happens because we imagine that we are in firm possession of our metaphysical, theological and mystical heritage, because we have grown up hearing about it or have studied it in the classroom. What we often lack, however, is the living, experiential possession of our own Christian tradition, and this kind of orientation to experience is what we admire so much in our various partners in dialogue.

The failure to assimilate our own wisdom traditions in this living way leads to another characteristic that these various problems have in common: our genuine discoveries overwhelm us. If we have emerged out of a narrow Christian practice that we have seen damage people psychologically, and have found the health and freedom that can come from Jung’s psychology, we will be tempted to swallow Jung’s psychology whole, including its philosophical presuppositions, and feel justified in allowing it to devour and transform Christian theology into its own image and likeness. In a similar way, if our life of prayer has become dark, arid, and seemingly impotent and dead-ended, then the discovery of Zen meditation can appear as the next and contemplative step on the Christian journey of prayer, a step that Christianity itself had not been able to provide. Once we have this sort of experience, then it is not a great step to begin to equate Zen enlightenment with Christian contemplation. A similar process takes place when we flee the uncertainty and torpor within our own tradition’s approach to creation, find hard answers and bright vistas in modern physics, and then want to make them the foundations of a new theology and spirituality. Etienne Gilson was fond of delineating this kind of process in the history of philosophy, and it is certainly operative here in our nascent Christian spirituality of the future as well. But when it gains the upper hand the possibility of genuine dialogue fades and the Christian message begins to be emptied of its distinctive meaning.

It is a poignant experience to attend a Hindu or Buddhist event and find that perhaps half the people there are at least nominally Catholic, and they have come out of a spiritual hunger that has not been filled in their own communities. We need the Christian spirituality that is beginning to take shape, but we will only create it by the long and difficult process of awakening the various degrees of Christian wisdom from their sleep and learning how to "distinguish in order to unite" so that the treasures of our own spiritual path can meet the riches of other traditions and the discoveries of modern science.

NOTES

1. Thomas’ El Camino Espiritual remains unedited (see following note.) For a fuller presentation of the historical situation see my St. John of the Cross and Dr. C. G. Jung and From St.John of the Cross to Us. Chiloquin, OR: Inner Growth Books, and Jean Krynen, Saint Jean de la Croix et l’aventure de la mystique espagnole. Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1990.

2. Simeon de la Sagrada Familia, "La Obra Fundamental del P. Tom�s de Jesus, Inedita y Desconocida," Ephemerides Carmeliticae 4 (1950): 431-518, and "Un Nuevo C�dice Manuscrito de las Obras de San Juan de la Cruz, usado y anotado por el P. Tom�s de Jesus," Ephemerides Carmeliticae 4 (1950): 95-148

3. See James Arraj, Jungian and Catholic? Chiloquin, OR: Inner Growth Books, 1991, Part 1.

4. David Loy, "Comparing Zen Koan Practice with The Cloud of Unknowing" in Buddhist-Christian Studies. 1989: 59, note 2.

5. Jacques Maritain, "L’Experience mystique et le vide," in Quatre essais sur l’esprit. Paris: Descl�e de Brouwer, 1956. The first edition appeared in 1939. See also Jacques Maritain, Distinguish to Unite, or The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. from fourth French Edition by Gerald B. Phelan. NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1959.

6. Olivier Lacombe and Louis Gardet, L’Experience de Soi. Paris: Descl�e de Brouwer, 1981. For an application of Maritain’s mysticism of the self to Zen Buddhism see my God, Zen and the Intuition of Being. Chiloquin, OR: Inner Growth Books, 1988.

7. This is best seen in Maritain’s Degrees of Knowledge.

In christ alone

2007-04-19T11:29:00.000+05:30

iN cHrIsT aLoNe.........!
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who [k] have been called according to his purpose.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?

Romans 8:33
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Romans 8:35
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

Romans 8:37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

2 Timothy 1:7
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Hebrews 4:16
Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

God Bless You !

fear not......

2007-04-19T11:24:00.000+05:30

fEaR nOt
Psalm 31:24
Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.

Psalm 56:
in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

Romans 8:31
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

2 Timothy 1:7
For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Romans 8:15
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

Psalm 91:10-11
then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

Isaiah 54:14
In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you.

Hebrews 13:16
And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

God Bless You !

Give Thanks

2007-02-20T20:59:00.000+05:30

Give Thanks
DEAR GOD:

I want to thank you for what you have already done.
I am not going to wait until I see results or receive rewards,
I am thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until I feel better or things look better,
I am thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until people say they are sorry or
until they stop talking about me,
I am thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until the pain in my body disappears,
I am thanking you right now.

I am not going to wait until my financial situation improves,
I am going to thank you right now.

I am not going to wait until the children are asleep and
the house is quiet,
I am going to thank you right now.

I am not going to wait until I get promoted at work or
until I get the job,
I am going to thank you right now.

I am not going to wait until I understand every
experience in my life that has caused me pain or grief,
I am going thank you right now.

I am not going to wait until the journey gets easier or
the challenges are removed.
I am thanking you right now.

I am thanking you because I am alive,
so I may continue being your vessel
I am thanking you because I made it through the day's difficulties.
I am thanking you because I have walked around the obstacles.

I am thanking you because I have the ability
and the opportunity to do more and do better.
I am thanking you because you have not given up on me.

Please don't wait....
Let's Thank HIM Right Now

U R Blessed ...If ......?!!!!

2007-02-06T00:12:00.000+05:30

You Are Blessed Person.

If you own a Bible, you are abundantly blessed-about 1/3 of the world does not have access to one.

If you wake up each morning with more health than illness, you are blessed to rise and shine, to live and to serve in a new day.

If you have anyone on the planet, just one person that loves you and listens to you; count this a blessing.

If you can freely attend a church meeting without fear, then you are more blessed than over 1/3 of the world.

If you have a yearning in your heart to parent a child, you are blessed because you still desire what you cannot see.

If you pray today or any day, you are blessed because you believe in God's willingness to hear your prayer.

If you pray for someone else, you are blessed because you want to help others also.

If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep; all at the same time; you are rich in this world.

If you have a brother or sister in Christ that will pray with you and for you, then you benefit from a spiritual unity, bond, and agreement, which the gates of hell cannot stand against.

If you have any earthly family that even halfway loves you and support you, then you are blessed beyond measure.

If you attend a church with a church family that offers you one word of encouragement, you are blessed with some form of fellowship.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, or some spare change in a dish someplace you are among the world's wealthy.

If you can go to bed each night, knowing that God loves you, then you are blessed beyond measure.

If you try each day to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ for even a minute, you are blessed because you show a willingness to grow up in Him.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than about 2/3 of the world.

If you have never had to endure the hardship and agony of battle, imprisonment, or torture, you are blessed in indescribable measure.

If you have a voice to sing His praises, a voice to witness God's love, and a voice to share the gospel, you are blessed. About 1/3 of the world does not even know who the one true God is.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug another person, touch someone on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer God's healing touch.

If you can share a word of encouragement with someone else, and do it with His love in your heart, you are blessed because you have learned how to give.

If you have the conviction to stand fast upon His Word and His promises, no matter what, you are blessed because you are learning patience, endurance, and tenacity.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because most people 'can' -- but won't.

Go Now... And... Enjoy The Day... Knowing You Are Blessed.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006

2007-02-05T19:23:00.000+05:30

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.

Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.

Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.

Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.

Yunus's long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.

Be!

2007-02-03T10:23:00.000+05:30

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

Chapter One

The Beatitudes

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall he comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake"

Matthew 5:3-11

Life Goal! dare 2 achive.

2007-02-02T19:33:00.000+05:30

http://www.relfe.com/life_purpose.html

Have you ever set a goal and achieved it? And then felt flat afterwards?

This has happened to most of us.

If we feel flat after achieving a goal, then maybe the goal isn't what's important. So if it's not important, why do we set goals? I'll get to that.

We all know of the many problems facing the earth and its people. And I believe that most people would like to do something about it, but they don't do much about it because they believe that what they do will not make any difference. That was how I used to feel.

Then one day I did a seminar where I learned about the teachings of American Buckminster Fuller. I learned about my life purpose, and how I can make a big difference.

Buckminster Fuller is one of the greatest inventors and thinkers of the twentieth century. There is a story that his life was once like most people's, full of going to parties, football etc. He was a bit of a ``wild lad" in the early days. Then something happened which changed his life forever. His daughter Alexandra who was only around 6 years old was very sick at that time. He left the house one day, promising to be back soon. Before he left, he promised Alexandra he would bring her back one of the small flags that they have at the football, as it was her birthday.

Buckminster Fuller didn't return home after the football. He didn't return home for three days. Presumably he was partying. When he finally arrived home, his wife told him to not waste time apologising to her, but to go upstairs and see his daughter immediately. Alexandra had taken a turn for the worse. When Fuller picked up his daughter up in his arms, he said hello to her. Then she asked him if he had it. This disappointment was enough to end her slender hold on life. She died in his arms.

After that Fuller felt so bad he went for a walk, and decided to end his life. But , the story goes that he heard a voice saying something along the lines -

``You do not have the right to end your life. It is not yours to end. Your life has a purpose. You have not yet done what you came here to do."

After that he began to search for the purpose of life, God and the universe. He sought to discover what, if anything, could be done by a penniless, unknown man working on behalf of all humanity.

First of all, he stopped talking for two years! He realised that words had tremendous power. Words had often got him into trouble. He vowed to not speak until he was sure exactly what was the effect and meaning of any word.

He believed that there was a force (call it evolution, great spirit, God) which is intent upon making people so successful that they can all live at a standard of living much higher than that achieved by ANYONE else before.

He wanted to know what rules God used in setting up this universe. He went onto to discover what he called "Generalised Principles" of the universe. These are principles that are true in all cases.

Most of these principles are in the form of advanced mathematics which I have not gone into. If you are interested, read his books "Synergetics".

I will be explaining some of the Generalised Principles that you can apply to your life. Using these principles will help you to:

Make a big positive difference in the world.
Increase the amount of happiness and blessings in your life.
Fulfill your life's purpose.

PRECESSION

The first Generalised Principle we will look at is called:

Precession is not PROcession, which means movement in a line.

Precession is:

I will give you a few examples to explain this.

What happens when you drop a stone into some water?

Ripples go out. That is, there is a side effect to the main effect. And the side effect can be very large.

Here is another example.

It is possible, just possible, that the honey bee has a life purpose. What would that life purpose be? To pollinate plants, to keep life on earth going. We wouldn't exist if it wasn't for honey bees.

But do you think the honey bee gets up each morning and says to herself that she has to cross pollinate plants? No. She just has - what goal? To collect nectar to make honey.

Precession happens at right angles to the direction of motion. It's a side effect. In the case of the honey bee, the side effect is what? The pollination of plants, and the maintenance of life on earth.

So, it's just possible that pollinating plants is the bee's TRUE PURPOSE.

Now, if the honey bee has a true purpose, who else do you think may have a true purpose in life?

Us of course.

So here's the cosmic joke. If the goal was your life purpose, and you achieved it, what would happen? You'd stop. But once you stop, there is no precession, no side-effects - and it's the side -effect, not the goal, that is your life purpose.

Humans are MEANT to be IN MOTION.

Fuller looked at the fact that NO ANIMAL HAD TO EARN A LIVING. They are just doing what they are supposed to do. If they do that, then nature & God looks after them.

So he hypothesized that perhaps that is the way that it is meant to run for us. Maybe we don't have to go after money. Maybe for each one of us, there is something that we are supposed to be doing. And if we do that, then God and the universe will look after us.

The real fruit of what we would be doing would not be obvious to us, because it would be at right angles to the goal we set. It would happen as a side effect.

The trick is to set the right goals. How do we know if the goal we set is creating the right side effects?

He said that we are not meant to go after money. He suggested that instead we set a goal that 'adds value'. That is, that improves the quality of people's lives or of the earth.

Maybe that's why people like to help each other. Subconsciously they know that through doing that they are achieving their life purpose.

Listen to the 'Taps on the Shoulder'

One way of knowing whether or not we have set the right goals is by listening to the 'taps on the shoulder'. These can be positive taps (blessings) or negative taps.

If something bad happens to us, we could take this as a 'learning experience'. We can also consider that it may be a negative tap on the shoulder. Perhaps there is something that we are doing (or not doing) that is different from what we are supposed to be doing.

The trouble with most people, and a reason why their lives may be in a mess, is that they don't listen to the taps on the shoulder. They think that they are just `bad luck' - and don't stop to consider whether or not the fact that they themselves have anything to do with this `bad luck'.

For ten years I have run my life on this information. Bit by bit, more and more blessings came into my life. I kept meeting people who would help me, or give me information or material support that I would normally never have got hold of. Eventually even my cashflow improved. Certainly my health and happiness and the love in my life improved.

And perhaps best of all was a sense of knowing that there really IS a purpose to my life. Life gained a meaning and a quiet excitement that it didn't have before.

Our purpose is to ADD VALUE to the lives of others, and to the earth - to improve QUALITY OF LIFE. Our purpose is not to make money.

Precession is a Generalised Principle that can make good come out of bad. For example, in the early days the king asked the men to make metal swords. What was the precession, the side-effect, from this? The metal plough, which meant that more people could be fed with less work.

What was a side effect of the space program that put man on the moon? The transistor radio.

Get into MOTION! With other people who are IN MOTION! And improve the QUALITY of life!

What is the most important word in the definition of precession? In MOTION.

So do you think that there's much precession while your sitting watching TV? Nope. Get into action. Do SOMETHING. Preferably do something that ADDS VALUE. Then start to watch for the positive taps on the shoulder.

Also note that part of the definition of precession is "the effect of bodies in motion on OTHER BODIES IN MOTION ".

Don't waste time talking to people who don't want to hear what you have to say. Or who are watching TV. Interact with others who are in motion.

What is the life expectancy of most people after they retire? ONLY THREE YEARS! Once they are not in motion, they are no longer achieving their life purpose - and so there is no more point in them being alive.

But people don't need to stop being in motion just because they don't have a job. On the contrary, once they retire there are plenty of things to do.

Here are just a few ideas of how you can cause precession and make a positive difference to your life and the people of earth, no matter what your current situation:

Volunteer to help WaterAid.org. One Billion people do not have any access to clean water. The average woman has to walk 6 miles a day to collect filthy, muddy, manure-filled water. Just $25 gives clean water to one person for life. This gets these people out of extreme poverty because they no loner waste money on medicine and the children have enough health and time to go to school.
Run for office. We need honest people who are cannot be bought by anyone.
Plant trees
Learn about natural health. Start by learning kinesiology.
Do educational travel with a purpose.
Teach children the things that are REALLY important
Teach adults the things that are really important
Learn a new language & translate useful information for a website for those people
Learn a new skill
Lean about investments
Homeschool your children
Find ways to solve the world's problems and start to implement them
Learn to build a concrete house properly (that is safe from hurricanes)
Learn to build an underground house (that is safe from tornadoes)
Teach the homeless how to build
Attend conferences and seminars
Research a favorite topic
Pray for improvements in our world
Protect the environment
Teach people in foreign countries
Write a magazine or website article that makes a difference

I heard that the American revolution was not won by the people. It was won by about 10% of the people. Presumably the people who were IN MOTION.

There's a lot to this. I will try to cover as much of the important things as I can.

Don't Give up your Job (yet)

When I first learned about Precession I got excited. I thought my job was to save the world. That sounded a lot more fun than my 9-5 job, so I quit my job. Guess what? That wasn't it, at that time in my life. It was hard to be in motion when I didn't have enough money to pay the rent.

One should not become a rescuer. In some way, my job was adding value. One secret of happiness is not doing what you love, but loving what you do.

Instead, for now, start to see how you can add value FROM your job. You are there for a reason. And while you're doing that, you may want to start thinking of a new type of job or career, one that adds more value than your present one does.

Buckminster Fuller's theory that your job was not to make money. It was to add value to others. He believed that 70% of the jobs on earth were not directly contributing to the life-support of the people. Many are making money from money. Or moving paper from one desk to another.

The key is balance. It is unbalanced to work only for money, and only for yourself and your family. It is also unbalanced to NOT work for yourself and your family, to work only for others.

While you are in your present job, work out how you can add value in your spare time. You are there for a reason.

I started doing things in the evenings and on the weekend. Eventually enough positive taps came into my life where I got a much better and higher paying job. And year's later was able to work full time at what I loved to do.

Find a Goal that Adds Value to others or to the earth, that you can commit to for at least 20 years

Have you ever known (or been) someone who just couldn't stick to one line of work for long? Precession explains why this happens.

What happens when we get in motion? The waves go out. Suddenly, off to the left and right new opportunities appear.

So what do some people do? They get bored with what they're doing, and go after the new things that they see. Trouble is, once they do that, the waves then go out again, to either side of their line of motion.

Again, they see new opportunities arise off to the side. Again they change direction.

This goes on forever.

Which is not to say that it is bad. It is good to experience many different things. But these people end up going around in circles. They never stick with any one thing long enough to become a MASTER at it. They don't build up a network of contacts and a store of knowledge, expertise, wealth etc. to make as big a difference as they would have if they had stayed in roughly one direction for a longer period of time.

The answer? Find a goal that ADDS VALUE and that you REALLY LOVE. That you REALLY CARE about. And CLEARLY CHOOSE to commit to stick with that for a long period of time, say at least 20 years. You may find that changes occur along the way. You may end up achieving your goal in a way that you would never have thought possible. For example, if your goal is to improve health, you may end up not being a doctor. You may work in health food stores, write books and work with natural health instead. If your goal is to improve education, you may end up running for office rather than becoming a teacher.

Work out what you want to ACHIEVE. Work out what the final end result will look like. Don't work out how you are going to do it, or what your are going to be to do it. For example, make a goal "To have cancer no more on the face of the earth" rather than to "Be a doctor". For more information on this, see ``How to have what you want".

As well as work which provides money for you, you may do things that earn you no monetary reward directly. The blessings (positive taps) will flow to you in other ways (and sometimes in the form of money as well).

If other goals occur to you along your journey, you may want to do them as well. Just so long as your main eye is still on your main goal which adds value. The other goals will probably end up helping your main goal.

Knowing Your True Life Purpose

So the joke is - you will probably never fully know your true life purpose. But know that if you are in motion and adding value (improving the quality of life), you are achieving it. Especially if you are getting positive taps on the shoulder.

Some people sit around meditating to "find out what their life purpose is". Guess what, this is not how to do it. Meditation is good if that helps people to work out what goals to set. And to be more effective and aware. But if there's no motion, there's no precession. People don't start achieving their purpose until they get into motion. Imagine if the honey bees decided to start meditating and stopped collecting nectar!

What goal should you set? It is suggested that if you know of something which needs doing, and nobody's doing it, THEN THAT'S YOUR JOB.

PRECESSION BY ARTEFACT

An artefact is "an object produced or shaped by human workmanship". It could be a book, song, invention, webpage, movie, building or magazine article that adds value. Once it is made, and 'out there', it will be producing it's own precession. This is a very powerful way to make a difference.

If you want to learn more about Precession, read ``Critical Path" by Buckminster Fuller. Details of this book are given at the end of this article.

MAKE MISTAKES AND LEARN FROM THEM

It is possible that a major reason why more people don't get into motion is the fear of making mistakes.

This is unfortunate because one of the MAIN ways we learn is by making mistakes.

When a baby makes its first efforts to walk - what happens? He stands up - then falls down. Does the baby then think - "I'm so embarrassed. I'll never do that again". No. He stands up - falls down - stands up - falls down - and keeps on going until he makes it. We can all walk, so we have probably all been through this.

But somewhere along the line the ego and fear of other's opinions seems to get in the way. People start wanting to never make mistakes. The only way to do that is to do nothing. So they do nothing.

But once we do nothing, there is no precession. The magic dies. Our purpose in life is no longer being fulfilled.

We are MEANT to make mistakes! The only thing wrong with making mistakes is when we don't admit them, or don't' learn from them.

Luckily we can speed up this process by learning from the mistakes of others.

Who invented the lightbulb? Thomas Eddison. How many mistakes did he make before he it worked? I have heard 10,000. I have heard a story that someone said to him – "How do you feel making 10,000 mistakes?". He replied "I didn't make any mistakes. I found out 10,000 ways that it wouldn't work".

Colonel Sanders (founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken), when he was 65 years old, was broke and living in his car. The only thing he had of any value was a recipe. He had to knock on 1,009 doors before someone agreed to his deal - to give him a royalty from every piece of chicken cooked with his recipe. His wife kept the statistics.

Another story: About Tom Watson (Not the golfer, the founder of IBM). A worker lost his division $10M. in 3 months. The worker got a memo from Tom Watson – "Please see me Monday at 3pm." That weekend was the worst weekend of the worker's life. He told his wife he was going to be fired. At the meeting on Monday he walked into Tom's office. Tom was at the board saying, "I want you to run this new division." The worker couldn't work out what was going on. He said "Aren't you going to fire me?" Tom replied "Fire you! Fire you! Why would I fire you when I just spent $10M. educating you!" Tom understood the value of making mistakes and learning from them.

If you make too many mistakes in school, what do they call you? A …

I suggest that life is a game. And in this game -

In this life we don't have winners and losers. We have winners and learners!

What is the difference between a professional and an amateur?

A professional knows more what?

Distinctions.

What are distinctions?

LITTLE differences that make ALL the difference.

How many words do eskimos have for snow? 30 - 300 words!

How many words to Hawaiians have for snow? One word! Hawaiians have less distinctions around snow, because it's not important to them.

What the difference between a racing car driver and the best racing car driver in the world? Not much - just a few distinctions.

Professionals get paid to practise. That is, professionals get paid to make mistakes!

We have only one word for love. But the ancient greeks had a dozen or so words for love. They made a distinction, for example, between the love for children, the love for parents and the love for a spouse. Maybe that's why some people have a problem saying ``I love you".

By the way, once you decide to take action, remember -

And whenever you make a mistake, there are two ways that I know of to help you to not beat yourself up.

Think of all the great movie stars there were in the past. Think about how we remember hardly any of them today Realise that before long, no one will remember your mistake either!!!! Most people are too busy worrying what everyone else thinks about them to spend any energy thinking about your mistake.

2. Remember when we first went to the moon. And what a great achievement that was.

When the rocket went to the moon, how often was it on course?

ONLY 2.5 % of the time!!!

What was it doing the rest of the time?

Correcting!

So, as long as you correct after each mistake, and keep in motion, you will achieve what you set out to achieve. And even if you don't, as long as you are aiming to add value, you will still be achieving your purpose in life - and blessings will be coming to you from all kinds of directions.

LEVERAGE

If you want to make a BIG difference or if you want to be rich (in money terms), then you need to understand and use leverage.

What is leverage?

Doing more with less.

What were the first computers like? Big, expensive, difficult to run and they didn't hold much information.

What are computers like today? Small, cheap, easy to run, with lots of information. Computers do more with less.

The Japanese did as well as they did (before the current economic collapse) because they focused on adding value, by doing more with less.

Prices are meant to go down, not up. Just like with computers.

(It is likely that the main reason why some prices go up is because of the game that some bankers are playing. This is explained in "I want the Earth plus 5%").

Don't focus on working for money. Instead, focus on adding value.

Leverage is one of the Generalised Principles of the Universe. It has helped us get to where we are today.

Here's leverage: The Lord's Prayer contains 56 words, the Gettysburg address 266, the Ten Commandments 297, the Declaration of Independence 300.

Here's negative leverage: a U.S. government order setting the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words!!! At the state level, over 250,000 bills are introduced each year. 25,000 are passed, to disappear into the mazes of the law (Reference: "Positioning" by Ries and Trout).

Some more examples of leverage:

International communications used to be done by 175,000 tons of transatlantic copper cable. Now a 1/4 ton satellite transmits more and clearer messages.
Automobile engines are 15% efficient. Whereas turbines (30% efficient) and jet engines (60% efficient) do more with less.
In World War I the practical limit of electrical power delivery was 350 miles. In 1960 it was 1500 miles.
Garth Brooks - He makes ONE CD and sells it to millions.
Manhattan was bought for how much from the American Indians? $24! BUT if the Indians had invested that $24 at 8%, do you know how much that would be worth today? 24 Trillion Dollars!!! That is definitely doing more with less.
Electrical lighting
Tidying up your house and office so that you can find things!
A website that provides valuable information.
Write one book - and make it available to thousands to read.
Hiring a plumber to fix your leaking pipes.
Reading. Read the biography of people who have done what you want to do. Then you can profit from their experience.
Write one seminar or lesson. Then teach it to many people.
Praying to God.

One of the highest forms of leverage is EDUCATION. I am not talking here about the kind of things that are taught in school or university. Schools are at least 70 years out of date. And many universities teach only the one-sided views of the peers running the university.

Educate yourself. For example, read the books recommended by this website. Read about new ways of alternative, natural health care, energy production (books on Nikola Tesla and Viktor Schauberger) and farming ("Secrets of the Soil" by Peter Tomkins). Learn about Accelerated Learning. Learn about the powers of the mind (Read "The Holographic Universe"). These things are not taught in universities - possibly because it is not profitable to the multinationals that directly or indirectly influence what is taught in universities.

Leverage is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to know if you want to get wealthy. Unconsciously, or consciously, all wealthy people know this.

By the way, borrowing money may not be the best type of leverage to use. Because while it can go up, but it can also go down. Use leverage that can only benefit you in a positive way. Live on 80%-50% your income and don't pay interest.

Start thinking about how you can do more with less - in your own life and in your goal to add value.

The more you focus on doing more with less, the bigger difference you will make.

SYSTEMS: Dr W. Edwards Deming

This next part will be especially interesting for anyone who is interested in business. Most of this information comes from the work of Dr W. Edwards Deming.

What were Japanese products known for before WW2? Being shoddy, cheap and copy cats.

What are Japanese products known for today? Being good quality, still cheap and innovators.

What changed Japan? A man called Dr W. Edwards Deming.

After the Second World War, what was the demand for cars like? Great. Do you think the USA was interested in hearing about quality and adding value? No.

So American Dr W. Edwards Deming went to Japan. The Japanese had just been beaten in the war. They listened.

Deming taught a number of things, which are very different to standard American management principles. Normal management blames the worker for lack of quality. Instead Deming taught that in most business situations -

Deming said "Don't blame the people. Change the SYSTEM."

Buckminster Fuller said much the same thing. He said to change the environment. Leave the people alone. You CAN'T change people! You CAN change the environment. You CAN change systems!

This is a good rule to apply in your personal life as well. Don't blame yourself or your partner or children if things go wrong. Change the system that caused the problem.

For example, if you get upset because you lose your keys, don't blame yourself. Change the system. Hide a spare key in your wallet, in the garden etc.

If you have a health problem, don't blame it on bad luck. Find out what is in your health `systems'. Find out what you are doing that is causing the health problem. For example, if you ingest any coffee, tea or chocolate, read ``Caffeine Blues". If you take aspartame, learn what it does to your body.

The two best books that I have found which explain this much better than I can are given at the end of this article.

SYNERGY

What is Synergy?

Synergy is when the sum of two or more things together is greater than the sum of the things when considered individually.

In other words,

I'll give you an example. This comes from "Critical Path" by Fuller. Take some tin, which is a soft metal. Mix it with copper, which is also a soft metal. What do they produce? Bronze, which is a hard metal.

When there is synergy, an extra 'magic' appears from the mixing of two or more things.

Another example of synergy is when the Australian sailing team won the America's Cup - the first time that it had been won outside of America for 100 years. It was said that the America's team was a "team of champions" but the Australian team was a "champion team".

Because of synergy, a chain is NOT as weak as its weakest link. And a team is not as good as its best player.

If you work to get synergy, you can create extra magic which helps you make a big difference.

Synergy does not just happen between people. There are certain things that they need to do which help it to manifest. Some keys to achieving synergy are

1. "LISTEN ACTIVELY". If anyone in your group (or your relationship) is an 'expert' then you are unlikely to achieve synergy. If you want to achieve synergy, then the ego has to be put to one side. The 'expert' is the kiss of death to synergy.

2. "TRUST YOUR INTUITION - SPEAK UP". The second kiss of death for synergy is not as obvious as the expert. This is the person who knows the answers but KEEPS IT TO THEMSELVES. These people need to speak up and be heard.

3. "AGREE TO AGREE". The third key to synergy is to "agree to agree". This means to agree to reach a resolution. Compromise is not an option.

What does compromise mean? A settlement of a disagreement where each side makes concessions. The end result is usually unsatisfactory to both.

What does Resolution mean? Both sides are happy.

In order for this to happen, what do you usually need? A third option. If you are going to achieve synergy, you are going to start being creative thinking up 'third options'.

4. 'BE FLEXIBLE. The fourth key to achieving synergy is to "Be flexible".

The first solution proposed is not necessarily the best one. Groups that fail to acknowledge and consider multiple courses of action run the risk of accepting a suboptimal solution.

5. "BE COMPASSIONATE". The fifth key to achieving synergy is to be compassionate.

We tend to put other people's ideas down. When we do this, we stop people from thinking and contributing. Thinking is the hardest work there is, so we need to encourage people to do it.

To get synergy we need to support others efforts to do well. When we differ from others we need to do it in a manner which is constructive rather than defensive.

For example, state differences as being your own concern, without implying that the person with whom you are differing is wrong. That is, use the word "I". Don't use the word "you"

CHANGE FROM SCARCITY TO ABUNDANCE

Scarcity is an outdated theory, which is still taught in Harvard university. A theory is a good idea - it is not a fact.

Thanks to technology, leverage and synergy, since the industrial revolution we now have abundance on the planet. For example, there is enough food to feed everyone at least twice over. It's only problems with distribution that have people lacking in food.

The main reason why we don't see abundance is partly because we still believe in scarcity, and because of problems in distribution - which arise because of the belief in scarcity. It is also because of people in power who like to maintain scarcity because they can more easily control us and they love to do that. See "I want the earth plus 5%".

Also search on "Nikola Tesla" who was a genius who invented AC electrical systems and also knew how we could have free, unlimited, clean energy way back in the early 1900s. These facts are not taught in schools.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Sometimes the trouble with making a difference is that a person's old behavior can pop up. When things don't go the way we want, what do we sometimes do? We -

Have you ever been blamed for others' mistakes? Have you ever blamed others for your own mistakes? Or blamed yourself?

Sometimes we don't lay blame on others or on ourselves. Instead we do something else. What do we do? We-

This means that we come up with reasons to explain why things are the way they are.

Some examples of justifying are "There's a recession", "There are no good men or women available", ``I'm too old / too young", ``That's the way it is".

But will anything improve if all we do is justify or lay blame?

No way.

Whether or not it's your fault -

This is not saying that you ARE responsible. For example, some people have problems because of things their parents did. But their parents were like that because of what THEIR parents did. But does knowing that really change anything? No.

The buck stops here. The ONLY way that things will change is when we take the position that we are responsible for any changes we want. Change the system. And change yourself. Don't blame the people to justify why things have to be the way they are.

To Conclude:

Precession is "the effect of bodies in motion on other bodies in motion". When you get into motion, with others who are in motion, focus on adding value, doing more with less, changing systems and achieving synergy. Then watch the blessings come in!

I will leave you with the following words from W.N. Murray, from the Scottish Himalayan Expedition in 1951.

COMMITMENT

"Until one is committed
there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation)
there is one elementary truth,
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:

that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then Providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one
that would otherwise never have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner
of unforeseen incidents and meetings
and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt
would have come his way.

I have learned a deep respect
for one of Goethe's couplets:

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can … begin it

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

For more information on Precession and Generalised Principles read: