Friday, October 2, 2015

The Tao of the Tree of Life

Paradise Found David Miller www.mauiarts.com

Cosmological Science, Psychedelic Christianity and Sexy Greenpeace Buddhism

The Problem:

Every person on the planet shares a desire to see the world continue and flourish, so that there will be a habitable world for our offspring, for the future generations of humanity and for the diversity of life to continue. We also want to see a world without war and one in which justice prevails for the rich and poor alike. Even highly religious people, except for those pursuing martyrdom, often for violent ends, and a few fundamentalist rapture seekers, want to see a world in which their children and other people can survive.

The trouble is that, while we want to have a sustainable world, achieving it seems to always be beyond the horizons of economic and political realities. Economic realities keep up the pressure on for short-term thinking and political realities are contaminated by vested interests in the business world who deny the damage done to the climate and biosphere by human impact for their own self-interests, despite the obvious mounting scientific evidence that human impact is causing increasing, and possibly irreversible, detrimental change to our future.

Worse still, the world's religions, despite some very good words from a few religious leaders, including the current Pope, are more devoted to ascendency and internecine apocalyptic warfare combined with utopian visions than actual care of the planet. The two major religions Islam and Christianity both promote unrestrained population growth and have ingrained agendas to control female reproduction. One only needs to make a rough assessment of how little financing of environmental projects comes from the major religions to see the actual thrust of their activity.

The large numbers of people who would like to contribute personally to protecting the planet and its future, face an uphill battle  because, in the absence of a society-wide ethic to actually cherish and replenish the Earth, effort remains confined to protest groups such as Greenpeace and sporadic government action such as creating nature reserves. Thus investment in saving the planet is like throwing money over your shoulder in a cold shower, because one can put time and effort and money into it until one becomes destitute and depleted, while the problem still grows larger, leading to a tragedy of the commons from the failure of people to act together with a coherent common sense of purpose ,while others exploit it for gain.

The Solution:

Is there a way out of this dilemma? Yes there is! Lets simply extract the two key ideas that convey the two most world-transforming insights from major world religions:

The first is the key insight of the monotheistic tradition with subdue amended to cherish: To cherish and replenish the living planet and its diversity throughout the generations of life.

The second is the mahayana of the Buddhist and Vedantic traditions: To facilitate the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Covenant:

1. I vouchsafe to cherish and replenish the living planet and its diversity throughout the generations of life.
2. I vouchsafe to facilitate the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

These two are sufficient to bring about a common sense of purpose, both to protect and sustain the planet, and to enable all people to reach a deeper state of understanding of the universe in which they live. They are thus good cosmological science and consistent with the scientific pursuit of knowledge unhindered by beliefs and assumptions. Affirmative belief is not essential to religious meaning. In Judaism, the virtue of keeping the covenantal traditions and in Buddhism observing the dharma, or way, - i.e. actions - are what is critical to bring the blessed condition into being.

The Sanctity of Nature:

The covenant to cherish and replenish the Earth is a commitment to preserve and restore the bountiful diversity of nature planet-wide. It is the key that unites the latent energy of people across the whole face of the globe to have the confidence and energy to realize we can together, without pain or privation, actually achieve the perpetual sustenance of the Planet in the immortal passage of the generations of life. This brings with it an immeasurable sense of relief from the anxiety that we are living in an insecure world of conflict and degeneration, where the very meaning in existence is occluded, and our futures, and the future of the whole world remain in an unacceptable degree of doubt.

By drawing people together with the clear and simple purpose of sustaining the immortality of life, the covenant to cherish and replenish can potentially unite the energy of the entire planet's population around the central activity for which the human species has inherited the Earth to perform. We thus become the guardians of the perpetual diversity of life and find our place in nature not to subdue and have dominion over it, but to act as verdant guardians of a perpetual paradise in the universe at large.

Enlightenment:

By facilitating the enlightenment of all sentient beings, we are also accepting the scientific pursuit of knowledge of the natural universe and the spirit of skeptical inquiry, where we test our assumptions against the oracle of nature, rather than imposing our preconceived beliefs. Enlightenment can have no meaning if it is simply a spiritual conviction or vision in the absence of affirmation from the nature of the world around us. We need both the knowledge and the wisdom to fulfill the engagement.

Thus the quest for enlightenment is both the scientific quest to understand the universe and the sentient vision quest to understand the very foundations of conscious experience of all kinds: waking, dreaming, mystical and visionary. The emergence of conscious sentient beings is a natural cosmological process forming the most complex complete interactive manifestation of the fundamental forces of nature emerging from the cosmic origin. It is thus a cosmological sigma point and the quest for conscious enlightenment is also cosmological.

Sacred Sexuality:

At the same time, accepting the sacredness of sex as the foundation of the passage of the generations of life, from which we all come transforms religions of renunciation such as most of Buddhism, the implicit sexual guilt of Christianity from Eve's 'transgression', and the explicit sexual oppression of Islam, through lethal penalties for adultery, enforced veiling and sequestering and seclusion of women into traditions celebrating in the mutual ecstasy and joy of sexual union and the full abundance of the flow of life, rather than the negation and control of it. Sacred sex has long been central to the Vedantic tradition and is one of the highest rites of illumination in Tibetan Buddhism as well.

Sex is a central part of social bonding key to deep human relationships and the stability of family life and is not just for reproduction, but sacred sex transcends social sex as the deepest celebration of the fertility principle between woman and man.  The sacredness of sex also implies mutual respect between men and women and the right of women to reproductive choice, not to be controlled by men or patriarchal religious dictates, because they the bearers of the principal responsibility for parental commitment in pregnancy, a sometimes perilous delivery, lactation and long-term child care. The passage of the living generations comes through sex, so it must needs command the uttermost sacred respect as the holy grail of life itself.

Sacramental Mysticism:

Complementing the meditative and contemplative traditions, the use of the visionary power plants and fungi as sacraments, which are already incorporated into religious traditions in the Americas, including an ongoing Christian movements, which identify them as holy sacraments, provide a democratic avenue to the mystical experiences that are the foundation of religious illumination - forming the psychedelic face of a new Christianity, thus healing the Eucharist which is otherwise a decadent empty sacramental religion celebrating in its central rite the consumption of human flesh and blood in remembrance of a homicidal sacrificial death two millennia ago.

Psychedelics are not dangerous drugs  and have been shown in recent experiments using mature people who are not drug takers that they can provide genuine spiritual experiences which have lasting benefits months and years later. The core of religious experience is mystical experience, so a genuine sacrament to replace the empty sacrament of the Eucharist is a pivotal step in making Christianity a real sacramental religion with the integrity to protect the Earth and one in which every person can share in the spiritual vision, rather than having to stoop to the conformity of unquestioning doctrines and a dominant hierarchy of the priesthood for instruction.

Universality:

At its most universal, the way, or Tao of the Tree of Life would involve just these two points as a simple all-embracing covenant, leaving everyone free to express this in an endless variety of creative ways in both acts of restoration and celebration of life.

This evokes a path of true compassion and a human movement of empowerment, which can celebrate its existence in diverse rites of passage, from birth, partnership and death, to the fertility of the seasons, and the agape of creative musical and artistic performance. Just as people across the planet love to party and experience life to the full, the path provides the zest of life with the added sense of meaning and fulfillment and joy of living which actually bringing our energy and activity to its natural fruition brings forth in overflowing abundance.

One can think of the Tao of the Tree of Life as an integration of cosmological science, psychedelic Christianity and sexy Greenpeace Buddhism, taking the best out of each, but really it is the foundation of all spirituality. It is the common thread of sentient survival and the science of nature and cosmology because it is rooted in the realities of the natural universe discovered by the scientific pursuit of knowledge.

This Tree of Life is not just the Biblical notion of a tree in Eden hidden since the foundation of the world but is the tree of evolution of the diversity of life as it has emerged and flourished on the planet over geological time scales.

In a metaphysical way, this brings the two trees in Eden of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life together into one. Knowledge only gains the capacity and temptation for evil when it becomes divorced from our primary goal in life, which is to sustain the passage of life itself. Once this integration with our life meaning and purpose occurs evil fades away as simply a form of ignorance of the whole picture.

This is a covenant, which religious and non-religious people alike can accept and fulfill together, because its foundation lies in the very truth of the nature of existence. It can thus have a wider basis for collective action than traditional religions, which are fragmented into competing factions each vying with one another as the one 'true' way. By becoming a common affirmation of a wider section of society it would actually become possible for collective action to restore the living planet to become globally effective as well as applying ethical influence to government and business decision-making.

Unveiling Apocalypse: Reflowering the tree of Life

Reflowering Apocalypse in the Tree of Life
Chris King
http://dhushara.com
Sep 15 Logos Genotype 1.0.15 PDF Please repost it!



Two views of planetary apocalypse, the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba and Amazon deforestation by fire.
The world is still in a state of 15 times nuclear overkill and habitat destruction goes on unabated.

1.           The Dilemma and Healing of Apocalypse
2.           Planetary Apocalypse Now
3.           The Deeper Origins of Apocalypse
5.           Paradoxes of Parousia
14.        References

The Dilemma and Healing of Apocalypse

This work is a "Rosetta Stone", to unveil the entire phenomenon of apocalypse, so we can finally come to terms with it, in a reckoning that includes both the tortured religious history and the complex cosmological and biological science our world-view now encompasses. Although it is daunting in its complexity, it has an outcome that is so world-transforming towards resplendent paradise on Earth, that there is no other work in existence that can have such bounteous potential. The reader needs to have patience and persistence to seek to unfold its full ramifications, for it is the Resplendence Codex, reflowering the immortal Tree of Life.

We are living in a world in which human impact on the living habitats and climate of the planet on a vast scale is becoming ever more severe, taking us towards a tipping point that could both threaten our long-term survival as a species and will certainly cause a mass extinction of the diversity of life. At the same time as the covers have well and truly been thrown off reality by the scientific and technological revolution that is sweeping the planet, religious forces with an avowed agenda of world domination are fomenting violence in the name of the one true God. In the name of Islam, believers are committing genocide, mass beheadings, sexual slavery and other inhuman actions, taking us right back to the tribal law of the seventh century, while innocent people are being blown apart by Islamic 'martyrs' in the vain hope of seeing the face of al-Llah in paradise, with 72 black-eyed virgins at one's beck and call. In the Christian sphere, in slavish adherence to the Sabbatical Creation, people continue to deny the natural evolution of life in anticipation of a "late planet Earth" rapture in the heavens. Amid this turmoil, we still have the insecurity of enough nuclear weapons of mass destruction to devastate the planet, should they become unleashed.

Whether we are religious and believe in a day of judgment, or are simply people trying to look to a sustainable world, where our offspring and those of society around us can have the confidence to survive, we have to acknowledge that we are living in a very troubled world, where the future remains uncertain and where potential violence and tumult burgeon. We thus need urgently to come to terms with why we are living in this state, in a world which would otherwise be capable of sustaining a perpetual paradise, how we got ourselves into this dire situation, and how to find the way through to a soft-landing outcome that does protect the generations of life from the tumultuous threats that humanity has wrought upon the world.

The word apocalypse is both a beacon and a plague to the human consciousness. It is our destination in the final awakening in the end of days and it is the feverish fantasy that leads countless people to commit violence and genocide in the name of the rule of God, from the Muslim Caliphate to the Heavenly Jerusalem, with the Jewish Mashiach, the Parousia of the Second Coming of Christ and the Mahdi of the Shi'ities playing the role of healing, or avenging, hero in the piece. We can love it and hate it. We can try to ignore it, but it keeps creeping up on us as a fascinating and terrifying vision, no matter how much, in the interests of common sense, protecting the sanctity of life, we try to set it aside, so here is a key unraveling to come to terms with it, to understand its roots in our existential condition and how we can turn the tide of misfortune and the tumult of genocide into a new epoch of paradise under the banner of the Tree of Life - hidden since the foundation of the world.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Revelation



Revelation

I am resurrected! I have ascended!
I am transfigured, I am redeemed sufficient unto the day thereof,
to bring some consolation to a very troubled world.
Jesus, you are tired - please just come down from that cross.
It's time for an end to all the blood, to the death, the guilt and remorse.
I am a phoenix from the ashes. A new man of the Morning Star,
A feathery serpent of two ways now, the Lord of both dark and light.

I am resurrected! I have ascended!
Life has given me another day, living here on a borrowed fate,t
o do the things that were left undone, before it's all just too late,
Freed from the past, hurtling into an uncertain future,
on a mission of salvation, to give back what we owe.
For all the glory of this life, for all its pain and agony,
let's make this world a better place, where we can all find sanctuary

I am resurrected! I have ascended!
I was clutched into the jaws of death, but the old grim reaper spat me out,
so I have the chance to run another round, and discover what its all about.
I am here to love the world all over, and help turn crisis into survival,
for all the living creatures who scuttle upon this Earth,
for all the finny fishes, for the forests and their dappled trees,
for the birds that fly up in the sky, and human beings like you and me.

I am resurrected! I have ascended!
We are here to make the world anew in an all-too fleeting existence,
suspended between birth and annihilation, suffering and strife.
Not just in the halls of the rich and famous, and the corridors of power,
but those clinging on to life in the ghettos, and the refugees of war.
The only way we can find redemption, is to give our very heart and soul,
to the flowering of the living planet, our golden shining love-bird goal.

Finale

This is the hour of Resurrection! It is the time of Ascension! It is our Transfiguration!
It is our very own true Redemption! It is our Salvation!
This is our consummating Unveiling! It is our Revelation!