esotericvoyage.com

The Higher Balance journey program is still in beta testing.  Keep checking back because soon it will be ready to accept new people.  It is an absolutely amazing program and will forever change the landscape of training available for spiritual seekers.

I thought this photo had a very powerful emotion attached.  From http://www.parentdish.com/2009/10/07/little-girl-cant-let-go-as-daddy-leaves-for-iraq/

Paige Bennethum, 4, holds her daddy’s hand as he lines up in formation before heading to Iraq. Credit: Abby Bennethum

I came across this quote from the 16th century and found it interesting:

“God is infinite, so His universe must be too. Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of His kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds.”

-Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy.  His wikipedia article is interesting.  Here are some exerpts:

…he is the first man to have conceptualized the universe as a continuum where the stars we see at night are of identical nature as the sun.

…Bruno’s taste for free thinking and forbidden books soon caused him difficulties, and given the controversy he caused in later life it is surprising that he was able to remain within the monastic system for eleven years.

…were twice taken against him for having cast away images of the saints, retaining only a crucifix, and for having made controversial reading recommendations to a novice. Such behavior could perhaps be overlooked, but Bruno’s situation became much more serious when he was reported to have defended the Arian heresy, and when a copy of the banned writings of Erasmus, annotated by him, was discovered hidden in the convent privy. When he learned that an indictment was being prepared against him in Naples he fled, shedding his religious habit, at least for a time.

In Paris Bruno enjoyed the protection of his powerful French patrons. During this period, he published several works on mnemonics, including De umbris idearum (On The Shadows of Ideas, 1582), Ars Memoriae (The Art of Memory, 1582), and Cantus Circaeus (Circe’s Song, 1582). All of these were based on his mnemonic models of organised knowledge and experience, as opposed to the simplistic logic-based mnemonic techniques of Petrus Ramus then becoming popular.

Some of the works that Bruno published in London, notably the The Ash Wednesday Supper, appear to have given offense. It was not the first time, nor was it to be the last, that Bruno’s controversial views coupled with his abrasive sarcasm lost him the support of his friends. While conclusive proof is wanting, the theory has been advanced that, while he was staying in the French Embassy in London, Bruno was also spying on Catholic conspirators under the pseudonym ‘Fagot’ for Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State.

The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. Luigi Firpo lists them as follows:

• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
• Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ’s divinity and Incarnation.
• Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.
• Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.
• Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.
• Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.
• Dealing in magics and divination.
• Denying the Virginity of Mary.

 On the 400th anniversary of Bruno’s death, Cardinal Angelo Sodano declared Bruno’s death to be a “sad episode”. However he added that people should not judge those who condemned Bruno and maintained – invoking “historical records” – that the inquisitors had in fact “had the desire to preserve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life” by trying to make him recant and subsequently by appealing the capital punishment with the secular authorities of Rome.

from The Daily Mail:

Stone Age satnav: Did ancient man use 5,000-year-old travel chart to navigate across Britain

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 9:07 AM on 15th September 2009

It’s considered to be one of the more recent innovations to help the hapless traveller.

But the satnav system may not be as modern as we think.

According to a new theory, prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a similar system based on stone circles and other markers.

Connected by triangles: Some of the sites created by Stone Age man (below)

The complex network of stones, hill forts and earthworks allowed travellers to trek hundreds of miles with ‘pinpoint accuracy’ more than 5,000 years ago, amateur historian Tom Brooks says. The grid covered much of southern England

and Wales and included landmarks such as Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, claims Mr Brooks, a retired marketing executive of Honiton, Devon.

He analysed 1,500 prehistoric sites in England and Wales and was able to connect all of them to at least two other sites using isosceles triangles  -  these are triangles with two sides the same length.

This, he says, is proof that the landmarks were deliberately created as navigational aides. Many were built within sight of each other and provided a simple way to get from A to B.

For more complex journeys, they would have broken up the route into a series of easy to navigate steps.

Anyone starting at Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, for instance, could have used the grid to get to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.

Mr Brooks added: ‘The sides of some of the triangles are over 100 miles across, yet the distances are accurate to within 100 metres. You cannot do that by chance.

One One of the monuments was on Silbury Hill, Wiltshire. It was part of a giant geometric grid used for navigating

‘So advanced, sophisticated and accurate is the geometrical surveying now discovered, that we must review fundamentally the perception of our Stone Age forebears as primitive, or conclude that they received some form of external guidance.’

On the question of ‘external guidance’, he does not rule out extraterrestrial help.

However, Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology, said: ‘The landscape of southern Britain was intensively settled and there are many earth works and archaeological finds. It is very easy to find patterns in the landscape, but it doesn’t mean that they are real.’

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8117915.stm

‘Oldest musical instrument’ found

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News Scientists in Germany have published details of flutes dating back to the time that modern humans began colonising Europe, 35,000 years ago. The flutes are the oldest musical instruments found to date. The researchers say in the Journal Nature that music was widespread in pre-historic times. Music, they suggest, may have been one of a suite of behaviours displayed by our own species which helped give them an edge over the Neanderthals. The team from Tubingen University have published details of three flutes found in the Hohle Fels cavern in southwest Germany. The cavern is already well known as a site for signs of early human efforts; in May, members of the same team unveiled a Hohle Fels find that could be the world’s oldest Venus figure.

The most well-preserved of the flutes is made from a vulture’s wing bone, measuring 20cm long with five finger holes and two “V”-shaped notches on one end of the instrument into which the researchers assume the player blew.

The archaeologists also found fragments of two other flutes carved from ivory that they believe was taken from the tusks of mammoths.

Creative origins

The find brings the total number of flutes discovered from this era to eight, four made from mammoth ivory and four made from bird bones.

According to Professor Nicholas Conard of Tubingen University, this suggests that the playing of music was common as far back as 40,000 years ago when modern humans spread across Europe.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that music was part of day-to-day life,” he said.

“Music was used in many kinds of social contexts: possibly religious, possibly recreational – much like we use music today in many kinds of settings.”

The researchers also suggest that not only was music widespread much earlier than previously thought, but so was humanity’s creative spirit.

“The modern humans that came into our area already had a whole range of symbolic artifacts, figurative art, depictions of mythological creatures, many kinds of personal ornaments and also a well-developed musical tradition,” Professor Conard explained.

The team argues that the emergence of art and culture so early might explain why early modern humans survived and Neanderthals, with whom they co-existed at the time, became extinct.

“Music could have contributed to the maintenance of larger social networks, and thereby perhaps have helped facilitate the demographic and territorial expansion of modern humans relative to a culturally more conservative and demographically more isolated Neanderthal populations,” they wrote.

That is a view supported by Professor Chris Stringer, a human origins researcher at the Natural History Museum in London.

“These flutes provide yet more evidence of the sophistication of the people that lived at that time and the probable behavioural and cognitive gulf between them and Neanderthals,” he said.

“I think the occurrence of these flutes and animal and human figurines about 40,000 years ago implies that the traditions that produced them must go back even further in the evolutionary history of modern humans – perhaps even into Africa more than 50,000 years ago.

“But that evidence has still to be discovered.”

Follow the link to listen to a reconstruction of the sound from the flute.

There is a little known restaurent in Playa del Carmen, Mexico called Alux (pronounced Aloosh) that is built entirely underground. It is an amazing place off the beaten path that spiritual people should experience.  It is a maze of interesting nooks and rooms built in harmony with the cavern.  It also has a very interesting and unique energy about it.

Affecting One Billion People

Here is an idea that could potentially affect 1 billon people; a sustainable fridge. Just heat it up on a cooking fire for 30 minutes, let it cool for 1 hour, finally place it inside the container to cool. No electricity required. It will cool a 15 litter vessel down to near freezing for 24 hours. Great for storing vacines, food, etc. Cost $25 in high volumes and $40 in low volumes.

Adam Grosser and his Sustainable Fridge

Changing A Continent

Neil Turok has a dream about the next Einstein comming from the continent of his youth. He also has been working to create that reality (in addition to his day job). He worked to create a successful model in the the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences. That model can be scaled to cover the whole of Africa. Neil lectures about his wish here .

I have been contemplating about the conflict between conservative and liberal values… related to many different arenas of thought… including politics. For the last 10 years or so, the world of open source software has been in conflict with profit producing companies in the areas such as software, internet content, internet searches, and telecommunications. Many things affect the future of this conflict, including laws, judicial rulings and governmental agency policies.

I recommend you watch the TED talk from Yochai Benkler on Open Source Economics for an introduction.

Then checkout:

• The recent developments between Apache web server vs. Microsoft web server.
• Yahoo vs. the open directory project.
• skype vs. the telecoms
• wikipedia vs. encarta

Imagine how open source might explode if the $200 laptop project became a reality and every child in the world was connected to the internet. I hope that fear is not the thing that keeps us from embracing new economic ideas. I think fear is the motivation that makes many people embrace conservative values.

I recieved this response to my previous post.  It is long but well worth reading. 

I was reading your site articles and saw an article related to sex. If you have time, read some of what I have to say regarding that subject and marriage.

I have some of my friends and … [a relative] studying in… [the USA] and for sure they might be feeling the same way too.  I mean getting used to American culture.

Nobody here talks about sex and they leave it to their children to figure it out by themselves. Now it would not have been a big problem but for the invention of internet and the easily available information regarding sex it is very easy for people to get misguided.

We have a lot of castes with in Hindus; I mean divisions within a division. I will list some here: Gounder, Brahmins, Naykar, Chettiar, Nadaar and many more.

It is not only a sin to have sex before marriage; it is a great sin to marry people from other caste.

For example: My caste is Gounder and if I marry some one from Brahmin caste, I will lose respect and support from my relatives who all will see me as some one who has just committed a crime.

We are not allowed to choose our life partner until after we complete our studies and go for work… [A]t the age of may be 27 or 28 our parents will take our horoscope and go to our caste office where they will have similar horoscopes of men and women who are ready for marriage within our caste only(strictly). And select a suitable match. This matching is done solely based on the word of an astrologer who will look for matching horoscopes (I don’t know how they match but they look at some old astrology books written by sages) and tell our parents.

If we don’t marry them and try to convince our parents of love marriage (…choosing our own partners), even though some times our parents will accept our decision because of their love for us, our relatives wont respect us and wont want to talk to us.

How could they decide who we should live our life with and what if for a girl the guy who was selected was… [of poor] character?  Why should she put up with such a boy, while she has the option of finding the man of her dreams and living life to the fullest?

If you go in to a Brahmin family and look at their life style and…  look at my family’s life style it would be very different, We eat differently, talk the same language with a different slang, it would feel as though you have left… [the] country and entered another one.

…[I]nter-caste marriage does not have the convenience of mother-in-law [or] father-in-law relationships because, a Brahmin will not like the way we live and we won’t like the way they live. If some one goes against the norm and marries outside of the caste they are by themselves for their entire life. This is changing slowly now and people are now trying to learn different cultures, because they have no choice. At least that is what my mother is doing, because she has no other choice. My sister married a Brahmin boy. But the rate of change is very slow.

Now people in India want their daughters and sons to be settled in USA, but want their cultures to be preserved. I don’t understand how this works. They want their children to live in USA because it is a developed country and it gives them a sense of pride to tell everyone that their son has got married to some one in their culture and it is arranged marriage and they are living in USA which is a dream in it’s self for them. But they did not know that, if and when, their son puts his children in an American school he would only follow that culture and this caste differences would vanish. If they want the luxuries and opportunities and the American life style, they have to leave behind their cultural differences.

So slowly due to globalization and because more and more Indians are settling in US and some are coming back, I see that US culture is spreading rapidly in INDIA.

I can understand when you once told me, it will take some time for Indians to wake up to HBI knowledge. Because every one here wants to experience western way of living, which is what they are told when they are very young, they have to go USA for their studies. No one will think about life and its inner meanings until they experience that way of living (American) and which will in turn break away the cultural differences…