Kali the black

Parvati's slough

Kali, also known as Kalika (Bengali: কালী, Kālī / কালিকা Kālīkā ; Sanskrit: काली), is a Hindu goddess associated with death and destruction. Despite her negative connotations, she is not actually the goddess of death, but rather of Time and Change. Although sometimes presented as black and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation still has some influence. More complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the "Ultimate Reality" or Brahman. She is also revered as Bhavatarini (lit. "redeemer of the universe"). Comparatively recent devotional movements largely conceive Kali as a benevolent mother-goddess.

Kali is represented as the consort of god Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing. She is associated with many other Hindu goddesses like Durga, Bhadrakali, Sati, Rudrani, Parvati and Chamunda. She is the foremost among the Dasa-Mahavidyas, ten fierce Tantric goddesses.

In spite of her seemingly terrible form, Kali is often considered the kindest and most loving of all the Hindu goddesses, as she is regarded by her devotees as the Mother of the whole Universe. And, because of her terrible form she is also often seen as a great protector.

In Indian mythology, the origins of Kali are very interesting. Parvati (a maternal godess) was criticised heavily by her lover Shiva for many things, one of them being her point of difference to him, the darkness of her skin. She wanted to have a baby with him and he was withholding his seed, so in order to please him she sloughed off all that displeased him. The stuff sloughed off became Kali.

So reclaiming the 'dark' parts of the female nature that differentiate women from men is what Kali is about. She embodies the feminine power feared in patriarchy. By the way, Parvati ended up making a baby by moulding the dirt from her body into the form of a human, it gained the head of an elephant and became Ganesha.

St. Sara, the patron saint of the gypsies (Roma), is called Kali the black. My wife, Sara Brown, drives a black Honda, and has a 'she' tattooed on her. A goddess in so many ways. We live in a weird, wired, wacky world.

Hugs

sexual health

next month is 4th of July- Got Fireworks?

Did you know that:
As much as 75% of women cannot orgasm during intercourse, with 12% being unable to come, like, EVER.

LINK

Sex as exercise burns calories to produce health benefits. Sex also relieves stress, boosts the immune system with higher levels of immunoglobulin A, improves cardiovascular health, increases self-esteem, improves intimacy, reduces pain by production of the hormone oxytocin, reduces the risk of prostate cancer, strengthens pelvic muscles, and promotes good sleep. Sex also improves the sense of smell and urinary bladder control.

Songs

-I asked the family doctor just what I had...Good lovin'. Gimme gimme good lovin'.

-Sexual healing, makes you feel all right.

List of sexuality topics (wikipedia)

Lord of the Flies

The fly Jesus

I've had a long-running joke to myself about each species having it's own Jesus, such as an ant-Jesus, or a mosquito-Jesus, or even a Panda-Jesus. I figure if we are to believe in humans as evolutionarily designed members of the animal kingdom, with a knack for building things and recording collective knowledge to make us smart and special, then we should also consider any God of being and nature to be a Lord of the flies as well as a Lord of wo/mankind.

Flies have been associated with death. Death is the ultimate power over us. God is all-powerful. You might, therefore, think God is death, or God can kill you. Maybe I can. I choose not to. I have a consistent life ethic, and I am pro-life.

Maybe you deserve to die. Maybe you want to die. Nope, not gonna do it. Time kills all. You can consider me time, if you like. That Is ME. All good things to those who wait. All in good time.

Anyway, here's a bit about flies:
They comprise an estimated 240k species, although only roughly half that have been described. They have massive ecological, medical, and economic importance. They often feed on dung, or decayed matter, aka death, or even blood. They pollinate and disperse spores. Their young are called maggots. Their compound eyes, which they rely on heavily for survival, are composed of thousands of individual lenses and are very sensitive to movement. Some flies have very accurate 3D vision. A few, have very advanced hearing organs.

My wife has a placard that reads, "Angels are just bulldogs with wings". I would like to amend this to say "Humans become angels after they are eaten by maggots, and take flight upon the breath of the living"....or something like that. Anyway,

Maggots and flies give forensic scientists useful information, and maggots have been used in medicine to clean out necrotic wounds, and in food production, particularly of cheeses (casu marzu).

Big Fly is an important spirit being in the Navajo religion. They were in the bible as the 4th plague of Egypt.

Mosquitoes are a type of fly. They are vectors for malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, yellow fever, encephalitis and other infectious diseases.

I have swatted many of them, and seen fly ghosts.

the Hebrew name Beelzebub (בעל זבוב, Ba'al-zvuv, "god of the fly", "host of the fly" or literally "Lord of Flies"), is a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan.

Wickedness, Evil, Sin, Turpitude

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

My Super Sweet 16

Life is cruel, life is shit, life is unfair, I can't stand you fucking bastards.

In other words, God is not pleased.

British satirist Charlie Brooker compared the show My Super Sweet 16 to an "Al Qaeda recruitment film" on his tv show Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. He was joking (?).

I'm NOT.

I'm still a merciful God. I'm sorry but the money for these free cherry red Jaguars these spoiled rotten kids are getting better damn well trickle down to the most needy. That's all I have to say.

Making a killing may just be, literally, killing. Rethink your wicked lives, people.

And the next time you think life is cruel, or you've been dealt a poor hand, well... life isn't a game of cards, okay? It isn't even a game. Get real.

Make beer, not war

Make food, make love, make someone smile
Anything but war/death

I just saw No Country for Old Men, and I am certain that, despite the doctrine of the omnipresence of a benevelent God, evil exists. The murderous madness of evil, the banality of evil, even the calm, calculated, sane type of evil depicted in this movie all exist. Perhaps it is insane to say that God gave us a commandment that thou shalt not kill. In any case, we instinctively know that the powers that be like to enforce justice, if not karma, and so judge not lest ye be judged, or he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword, or the wages of sin is death, or only the good die young/if you can't beat 'em, join 'em... Well, whatever. There are a lot of concepts floating around, many if not all have competing perspectives, so choose thy operative adages wisely, such as "If you love someone, set them free." You might want to hold on tightly, and never let go. Dunno. Even I, God, am not that wise.

ANyway, as I was saying, make beer not war.

Here's the Wikipedia articles on Beer and Brewing.

Did you know there's a Beer crater on the moon, and a Beer, England?
Alcohol, I am told, merely amplifies innate tendencies. In vino, veritas. You might want to stay safe and sober. God says, "be safe" and "know when to say when." I rarely drink.

Also, completely unrelated, my wife just told me that dogs are not supposed to eat, in addition to chocolate, grapes, raisins, or wine.

Is beer good or bad for people? This is what Wikipedia says about the health effects:

The moderate consumption of alcohol, including beer, is associated with a decreased risk of cardiac disease, stroke and cognitive decline. Brewer's yeast is known to be a rich source of nutrients; therefore, as expected, beer can contain significant amounts of nutrients, including magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, biotin, and B vitamins. In fact, beer is sometimes referred to as "liquid bread". Some sources maintain that filtered beer loses much of its nutrition. A 2005 Japanese study found that low alcohol beer may possess strong anti-cancer properties. Another study found nonalcoholic beer to mirror the cardiovascular benefits associated with moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages. However, much research suggests that the primary health benefit from alcoholic beverages comes from the alcohol they contain.

It is considered that overeating and lack of muscle tone is the main cause of a beer belly, rather than beer consumption. A recent study, however, found a link between binge drinking and a beer belly. But with most overconsumption it is more a problem of improper exercise and overconsumption of carbohydrates than the product itself.

There is conclusive evidence that heavy and prolonged consumption of alcohol leads to liver disease including cirrhosis and malignancy. Heavy alcohol consumption has also been linked to pancreatitis and gout.

Several diet books quote beer as having the same glycemic index as maltose, a very high (and therefore undesirable) 110. Critics rejoin that beer consists mostly of water, hop oils and only trace amounts of sugars, including maltose.

I think I heard somewhere, 2 glasses of beer a day, for men, and I dunno for women, is good.

List of wars (under a million dead)

I'm trying to calculate if Buddha was right
Buddha stated that we have all killed each other in past lives
(so there is no need for attachment to other people).

580,000 - Bar Kokhba’s revolt (132–135CE)
570,000 - Eritrean War of Independence (1961-1991)
550,000 - Somali Civil War (1988 - )
500,000 - 1,000,000 - Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
500,000 - Angolan Civil War (1975–2002)
500,000 - Ugandan Civil War (1979–1986)
400,000–1,000,000 - War of the Triple Alliance in Paraguay (1864–1870)
400,000 - War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714)
371,000 - Continuation War (1941-1944)
350,000 - Great Northern War (1700-1721)
315,000 - 735,000 - Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1651)
English campaign ~40,000,
Scottish 73,000,
Irish 200,000-620,000
300,000 - Russian-Circassian War (1763-1864)
300,000 - First Burundi Civil War (1972)
300,000 - Darfur conflict (2003-)
270,000–300,000 - Crimean War (1854–1856)
255,000-1,120,000 - Philippine-American War (1898-1913)
230,000–1,400,000 - Ethiopian Civil War (1974–1991)
220,000 - Liberian Civil War (1989 - )
214,000 - 655,000+ - Iraq War (2003-Present)
200,000 - 1,000,000- Albigensian Crusade (1208-1259)
200,000–800,000 - Warlord era in China (1917–1928)
200,000 - Second Punic War (BC218-BC204)
200,000 - Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2000)
200,000 - Algerian Civil War (1991 - )
200,000 - Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996)
190,000 - Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871)
180,000 - 300,000 - La Violencia (1948-1958)
170,000 - Greek War of Independence (1821-1829)
150,000 - Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990)
150,000 - North Yemen Civil War (1962–1970)
150,000 - Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905)
148,000-1,000,000 - Winter War (1939)
125,000 - Eritrean-Ethiopian War (1998–2000)
120,000 - 384,000 Great Turkish War (1683-1699)
120,000 - Bosnian War (1992–1995)
120,000 - Third Servile War (BC73-BC71)
117,000 - 500,000 - Revolt in the Vendée (1793-1796)
101,000 - 115,000 - Arab-Israeli conflict (1929- )
100,500 - Chaco War (1932–1935)
100,000 - 1,000,000 - War of the two brothers (1531–1532)
100,000 - 400,000 - Western New Guinea (1984 - )
100,000 - 200,000 - Indonesian invasion of East Timor (1975-1978)
100,000 - Persian Gulf War (1991)
100,000–1,000,000 - Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962)
100,000 - Thousand Days War (1899–1901)
100,000 - Peasants' War (1524-1525)
80,000 - Third Punic War (BC149-BC146)
75,000 - 200,000? - Conquests of Alexander the Great (BC336-BC323)
75,000 - El Salvador Civil War (1980–1992)
75,000 - Second Boer War (1898–1902)
70,000 - Boudica's uprising (AD60-AD61)
69,000 - Internal conflict in Peru (1980 - )
60,000 - Sri Lanka/Tamil conflict (1983-)
60,000 - Nicaraguan Rebellion (1972-91)
55,000 - War of the Pacific (1879-1885)
50,000 - 200,000 - First Chechen War (1994–1996)
50,000 - 100,000 - Tajikistan Civil War (1992–1997)
50,000 - Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)
45,000 - Greek Civil War (1945-1949)
41,00–100,000 - Kashmiri insurgency (1989 - )
36,000 - Finnish Civil War (1918)
35,000 - 40,000 - War of the Pacific (1879–1884)
35,000 - 45,000 - Siege of Malta (1565)
30,000 - Turkey/PKKconflict (1984 - )
30,000 - Sino-Vietnamese War (1979)
25,000 - Second Chechen War (1999 - 2006)
23,384 - Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 (December 1971)
23,000 - Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994)
20,000 - 49,600 U.S. Invasion of Afghanistan (2001 – 2002)
15,000–20,000 - Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995)
11,053 - Malayan Emergency (1948-1960)
10,000 - Amadu's Jihad (1810-1818)
7,264–10,000 - Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 (August-September 1965)
7,000–24,000 - American War of 1812 (1812-1815)
7,000 - Kosovo War (1996–1999) (disputed)
5,000 - Turkish invasion of Cyprus (1974)
4,588 - Sino-Indian War (1962)
4,000 - Waziristan War (2004-2006)
4,000 - Irish Civil War (1922-23)
3,700 - Northern Ireland conflict (1969 - 1998)
3,000 - Civil war in Côte d'Ivoire (2002 - )
2,899 - New Zealand Land Wars (1845 - 1872)
2,604–7,000 - Indo-Pakistani War of 1947 (October 1947 - December 1948)
2,000 - Football War (1969)
2,000 - Irish War of Independence (1919-21)
1,975–4,500+ - violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (2000 -)
1,547–2,173+ - 2006 Lebanon War
1,724 - War of Lapland (1945)
1,500 - Romanian Revolution (December 1989)
1,000 - Zapatista uprising
907- Falklands war (1987)

The sum of casualties for these (91) wars is (counting the larger estimates):
22,016,828 people.
Adding the 380,970,000 figure for the (34) wars over a million casualties,

the total of war dead in human history comes to: 402,986,828 (according to the Wikipedia figures). Almost 403 million people. In 125 wars. That's alot.

That's nothing like the 6.6B people in the world now, though. So Buddha's statement would not be true, if said today (Maybe it could have been said to be true, then? I'll leave that for you to calculate). On the other hand, there are two points to be made. Murders not associated with war haven't been factored in. And maybe he's counting reincarnations across-species, in which case my whole calculus is completely screwed, because people swat a lot of flies and eat a lot of meat.

I still think Siddartha was nuts. Is the Star Wars saga trying to associate Darth and Sidious with Siddartha? Well, whatever, I guess.

Apparently, 90-95% of societies before civilization engaged in warfare, too, but I don't think they can compete with industrialized warfare for sheer volume of death (we coined megadeath, after all). Perhaps there have been 6 billion, 193 thousand (non-war) murders, in human history? I don't think so.

There's the oft-repeated adage that "most wars are caused by religion." I'll have to check up on that. Out of 125 wars, x of them, representing x deaths, were caused by religion.

Buddha controversy

Will there ever be justice?

In some very direct words of the Buddha:

"I have killed all of you before.
I was chopped up by all of you in previous lives.
We have all killed each other as enemies.
So why should we be attached to each other?"

I have to admit learning that the founder of Buddhism, Siddartha himself, said this, was a bit surprising for me to discover.

I must say I disagree.

If I am to agree with past/future lives, and being reborn/born again, or reincarnation, I would have to couch the whole deal within the context of a single lifetime. In other words, people experience conversions and epiphanies and satori and whatnot, or undergo a ritual, or have a life-altering experience, and start anew/fresh. Psychology is weird. People can join a cult, and wear new clothes, and change their hair...Some people can even forget their pasts. So this is how I interpret "previous lives." You can be a Christian who is "born again", or you can be reborn with every new day, for example. Anyway, the Buddha sounds like a dick. Attachments may sometimes cause suffering, but that doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe in the possibility of finding soul mates (even if I don't believe in souls). I also believe in the value of attachments to family, friends, even country, race, or humanity as a whole, if not all of nature. Yes, we will all die. But I feel I would be less than human if I did not feel some kinship, and clinging to our precious life, and thus mourn loss. I understand, though, if you're enlightened and hard, or whatever, though, accepting all (with a smile, of course).

No, we have not all killed each other before. That's just plain obvious to me. The population keeps increasing, for one. The total of all the people ever killed...I don't think that equals the current human population. Maybe I'm wrong. Who cares. Buddha was nuts.

Maybe, in the interests of justice, Buddhists believe we should lock everyone up? Or, even worse, consider it proper karma for all of humanity to die (capital punishment)?

Read my next post, for the answer (above).

Why I'm God

God deigns to speak to all you lowly people :-)

Hello everyone,

Why do I say I am?

I formally self-apotheosize mainly for fun, but then again, I really may (prove to) be (god or God, take your pick). I know, hold on, I have my reasons. Why does his holiness (I have seven holes, plus a lot of pores) consider himself thus? Mainly, the bible says only God is good, and I want a better world, now. Other reasons are my name, my wife, popular culture, cars, Harry Potter, various corporations, and possible effects I have observed. Mostly, I think of myself as good, and thus, ergo, God.

First of all, there's my name: (I know, there's a lot of Jesse's. There's even another Jesse Teshara). But, I'll explain anyway: Jesse was the father of King David in the bible (the Jesse Tree). Jesse means 'Jehovah makes forget.' Jesse, without vowels, as in hebrew, is JSS, like a certain someone. In spanish, it's 'Jesus', pronounced hey-Zeus, another god. It translates in spanish to Chuy, too (pronounced 'chewy,' which could describe a eucharist wafer). It anagrams to 'see s.j.', referencing the Society of Jesus, i.e. the Jesuits, a scholarly Catholic order of priests and brothers. Jesuits, like Sufis, see God in all things, such as the letter S, which I have seen to represent Allah; or J, as in WWJD; or the Holy See, the former cardinal Ratzinger (who renamed himself Benedict, my grandfather's name (on my dad's side)); or my wife Sara, because God is love. J sums to 1, and 'esse' means 'being' in latin; 1 being. God is One. In Chinese, Jesse is Jie Xi, which means 'best hope.' Lawrence is my dad's name (Larry), which has law and war and clean and clear and real, for example, in it. Apparently, though, I come from a family of Gods. The surname Teshara contains Ra, Hara, Shara, Eshara, Ar, Har, and Set: all ancient Gods. The name is Portuguese, from Texeira. Some anagrams for Teshara include 'he's a rat' (That's a zinger), 'the sara' (my wife Sara's initials are SLB: what if God was one of us, just a SLoB like one of us..-Joan Osborne), and 'as earth'.

Other things I see God in: The name 'Jesse' is in popular culture. There's Jesse Jackson, James, Owens, Helms, Ventura, McCartney, etc. There's JT's like John Travolta or Justin Timberlake. There's JLT in Jolt cola. None of this is indicative of any divinity. Perhaps I'm reaching for vicarious fame and aggrandizing. And, I am not my name. But then again, there's the movie 'Dude, where's my car?' with the main characters Jesse and Chester. I crashed my car, (a brown Honda civic), and worked with a Chester at Walgreens. I also worked with a Jesus at Walgreens. There was the sitcom Jesse with Christina Applegate. There is Jesse Wells on all the Wells Fargo atm's. A Verizon commercial used my name. Jesse's girl is Sara Brown. She drives a black Honda. My sister, Sarah Salazar, died in the car crash. And, of course, there's Sarah Jessica Parker. I sometimes wonder if I didn't make her career. Put it on the "fast track," so to speak. What all this does indicate is I am seemingly perpetually at the vortex of a lot of mind control. Then again, aren't we all?

Speaking of cars, Jeep is Jesse with an emoticon ack (P) for the S.S. Sara's mom is a Montero, and her mom a Ramsey. There's the Ram and the Z71. My birthday is 9-3-71, and there's a Saab 9-3, too. My brother is GLT (like the Volvo). My mom is PT (like the cruiser). My dad is LT. My uncles are Jimmy and TT. My mom is a Hennessy (don't drink and drive, says M.A.D.D.), and thus an H. Sara has the SRS airbag, the SR5, the Sahara, the SL, and, for both of us, there's the S10 (J is the tenth letter), and the Jaguar XJS. I am reminded of myself and family all over the highway.

Like Harry Potter, I am adopted. I am caucasian, but I have less of a sense of ethnic or national identity, by nature. My blood could have been anyone. My birthfather may have been a Mudd..mudblood. My birthfamily links to Harry Potter in other weird ways. My birthmom is Annette Riddle. Voldemort (lord move t) is a Riddle. Sarah, my birthsister, was a Salazar. Salazar Slytherin founded his namesake's school. Maybe all this says I'm more of a wizard than God.

The word 'Christ,' as you may know, just means annointed. So I could splash some olive oil on myself and dub myself Christ if I so chose. I'm not really all that fond of Jesus, though. Since the prince of peace, we've had two world wars... I read the (apocryphal) Gospel of Thomas, where Jesus killed people. No one makes fish appear out of thin air or walks on water without a little hocus-pocus. Sorry, Christians. Jesus was basically just a wizard. (No, I don't believe in a holographic universe. If I explain Jesus' miracles at all, it's that he created a virtual dreamworld, in which people thought they saw Jesus walking on water. The human brain, used to it's full potential, can be a wondrous thing).

So Harry Potter, the powerful wizard, as Godly as any of us can ever hope to be, is, in a way, personal.

Organizations and corporations: (The Jesuits, Walgreens, and Democrats): I went to a jesuit high school, St. Ignatius, in San Francisco, after going to St. Stephen's (three catholic saints). I was taught English (the word is God), by Fr. John Murphy, who, one could imagine, popularizes the eucharist by making Papa John's or Papa Murphy's pizza "the body of Christ." I worked at Woodstock's Pizza in Davis, after working at Walgreens. I am a flower child. I wanted the 2000 election to be decided by one vote (and it was), to empower voters. Walgreens= W/Al/Greens. In Davis, I met a David (a self-proclaimed "vampire") who told me Al Gore was the antichrist. In numerology, antichrist sums to 4, as does Jesse and David and Al. I have met a Four. The book of numbers is the 4th book of the bible. I voted for Gore, anyway. Al Green is a pastor in Tennessee. As J is the tenth letter, Jesse is somewhat Tennesseean. My, what a tangled web we weave. How deep does the rabbit hole go? Jesse also means 'gift,' which in spanish is regalo, rearranged of which is al gore. I had a globe that melted. Sauron was called the 'lord of gifts.' (ur a son?) So maybe I am a God of elections. (Is that what the electorate is all supposed to think of themselves?)

Besides these things, among others, and the fact that I am (exist), divinity could perchance lie in character: I am a genuinely concerned and kind person. I was even voted most kind in grammar school. That was in '85, lol. I majored in Third World Studies at UC Davis. The kindest people have the most to be angry about. I read Anne Rice then and became kind of obsessed with vampires and Hannibal Lecter. Helping or killing, both make a "difference." Everybody, even criminals, want a better world. Anne has since written about Jesus. And ol' H has become ubiquitous. Hannibal the cannibal is an archetype that has penetrated the american psyche, subconscious, conscious, what-have-you. Perhaps the most righteous villain in cinema. Perhaps even a paragon of virtue, although I'll stick to ritualistic eucharistic cannibalism on Sundays, myself. Admittedly, he lives in my head with a personality all his own, perhaps divergent from the books and cinema, as a nice (possibly too perfectionist) fellow. The most popular children's name in America was Hannah, at some point, I believe. I imagine Hannibal Lecter thought of himself as God, as I am now doing. Like Jesus, his name sums to 2 (I explain in the numerology post). And no one wants to be crucified. So I can see how one could go on the offense, especially as "vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord." As you are what you eat, maybe a little vengeance is in order for the Catholic cannibals. I imagine this fictional HL character as a self-conceived good guy.

I'm not like that, though. 4+6 (forensics)=10. I studied some forensics on my own, at Davis. Also in college, I wrote about malaria, and Bill Gates and others have since made strides to reduce the impact of this disease. I like to think I have made a difference, in the collective unconscious, perhaps even as a global telepath. Perhaps I am the same as everyone else (and as little or great as I think of myself as). Psychology can be trippy. Although I identify with one of the scariest villains in cinema (who was called a pure sociopath), I'm all about peaceful assistance to the poor, sick, suffering, and unhappy. I do so because I am perceptive and empathic. Maybe I would make a better world by killing bad guys. That's not who I am, though. Let the law do that.

As to whether a being created the universe, I, God, am agnostic. There are agnostic theists and agnostic atheists. I do not believe I am a figment of my own imagination. I think, therefore I am, I think. If I'm omniscient, I don't know it. I may yet create the universe, lol. Mainly though, I'm just crazy and like to think I am, and act accordingly, yet without vengeance. For fun. When cynical, I chaulk just about everything, including the God meme, up to mind control.

In sum, and in time for Hollywood (the love guru movie) -as my life so often seems to be-, I believe myself to be a person capable of causing great change, and barring that, that I, like and in regards to Shirdi Sai Baba, "Living with him is like carnival miracle for the daily life and spiritual progress. Even the Sai Baba photos or Sai Baba pictures responds." By joining my world in this blog, I hope you access some happiness.

Enjoy! -Jess
(feel free to ask me to write on any topic, send a prayer, or make comments/suggestions)

Numbers

Down for the Count

One (1)
God is One. One is the loneliest number. We're #1! My wife pronounces 'won' as "wahn" (she's weird). It invokes unity, sex, love (Bob Marley sang 1 love), harmony, spirituality, meditation (one with the universe, om..), and the individual. We call all "everyone." This is why you're God, too. A, J, and S sum to 1 (in English). One is 6,5,5 which sums to 7.

There are only 10 numbers, including zero. (0123456789)

One is the only number beginning with an O. O looks like zero.
1 is half of binary, with zero.
A zero is a circle, and a one is a line, almost like an orifice and a phallus.
a 1 and 0 make 10, which could make Tennessee and Jesse (J is the tenth letter).
Ten is associated with 'a perfect ten,' the 10 numbers (base 10), and 10 fingers or toes

beginning letters
Two and Three begin with T
Four and Five begin with F
Six and Seven begin with S
I'm from the high school (St. Ignatius, S.F.) class of '89.
Eight and Nine make 'EN', which means "in" in Spanish, and sounds like N.
So, the numbers go ZOTTFFSSENT, which has ZOT, TTFFSS, and SENT in it.

Zero (0)
Z is the last letter... It sounds like zorro. It has ero, which is in eros and erotic. Zero looks like a hole. It's a holy number. It's at the center between positive and negative numbers. It could therefore be called a neutral number (perhaps I'm coining this?). There was a movie called the Zero Effect (which I enjoyed). I had a psychotic episode where I found myself shouting zero. There's absolute zero, the (unreachable) temperature of absolute stillness. Zero is 8,5,9,6 which sums to 1.

Two (2)
It takes two. Me and you. The self and other. A pair. Two starts with T.
B, K, and T all sum to 2. (There was the bind, torture, kill sociopath, the "btk killer").
T looks like a cross. Jesus sums to 2. There was the movie T2.
My dad and my grandpa both go by Mr. T. I could, too, if I wanted, I guess, in addition to the mohawked guy on the A-team. It reminds me of TWA airlines, and the WTO (world trade organization), and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. A salute is crisply terminated with the term "two!" It is homonymous with "to and tu, too". Tu means you (personal) in Spanish. Sara is my significant other (my wife). Two is 2,5,6 which sums to 4.

Three (3)
I drove a Mercury comet once with "Three on the tree." It makes me think of H-tree. So I could start talking about H, but I won't. There's that song about 3 is a magic number with"You and me and baby make three, we're a happy family.." There's trinities and triumvirates and triangles and tricycles... There's father, son, holy ghost. There's Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu. There's faith, hope, love. There's triple plays, and three-pointers, and triple-threats. The Boy Scout sign holds up 3 fingers (the cub scouts two, the peace/victory sign). There's of course oral, anal, and vaginal; or good, bad, and neutral; or whatever else you can think of. C, L, and U all sum to 3. Sara sums to 3. C is the 3rd letter, which makes me think of center, and computer, and seeing. Three is 2,8,9,5,5 which sums to 2.

Four (4)
There's metaphors, and then there's me, who met a Four (that's his name). Jesse sums to 4. D,M, and V all sum to 4. Sara and I have two dogs that sleep with us, the 4 of us make the family. Four is homonymous with "fore!" and "for." It can be split into "our F." My name, Jesse Teshara, is 49, which is also just 4, like Dr. or Mr. Male sums to 4. There are squares, and the symbol on my keyboard above 4 is money. Four is 6,6,3,9 which sums to 6. F is the sixth letter. Six sounds like sex.

Five (5)
A hand, or foot has five fingers or toes, respectively. The pentagon has 5 sides. There's a Take 5 candy bar. Allah is like 5, with Arm Leg Leg Arm Head... (around the trunk, which reminds me of 3). E, N, and W sum to 5. You can form East, North, and West or the word 'new' from them. What's a 5-Alive? Is that a product, like V8? Anyway, 5 form stars and pentagrams and pentacles, associated with witches and black magic. Evil backwards almost forms five. I had sex with an elle (n). 'She' sums to 5. Sara has the chinese character for 'she' tattooed on her. Five is 6,9,4,5 which sums to 6. I've F.

Six (6)
Six is homonymous with sicks and sics and sounds like sex. Six is 1,9,6 and so sums to seven. F,O, and X sum to 6. Fox is the network of the beast, or something. Sum-thing (4). Or Vicente Fox is a wily beast. Or Michael J. Fox. Or the nearest porn star, foxy lady, in a XXX video. Anyway, 6 is the devil's number they say, and also the number of Virgo, my sign. It's just a number, though. The Star of David has 6 points. IX is 9 in Roman numerals. S is the 19th letter. The 1909S vdb is the rarest U.S. penny (okay, I'm getting a little crazy).

Seven (7)
This number is referenced over 400 times in the bible. There are 7 holes in the male body. Therefore, it's a holy number, like eight. Every 7th day is the Lord's day, the bible declares. A menorah has 7 branches. Rome was founded on 7 hills. There's 7 virtues and 7 sins (deadly, anyway). In Kabbalah and Muslim teaching, God dwells in 7th heaven. There's the 7-layer burrito. In Asia, there's the 7 God's of luck, and the movie the 7 Samurai. There's the 7 wonders of the world. Lucky 7: Of the 11 possible sums for a pair of rolled dice, 7 is the most likely (6 of the 36 combinations sum to 7). Seven is S even. S is the symbol for Allah, I read once. It's also my symbol for Sara. I got a mailing that said 7 meant spiritual perfection. G,P, and Y each sum to 7, reminiscent of the words 'Peggy' and 'Egypt' and 'gypsy' for me. St. Sara is the patron saint of the gypsies. Seven is 1,5,4,5,5 which sums to 2.

Eight (8)
Eight is homonymous with ate, of course. H is the 8th letter. Combine these two facts, and you may come up with hate. God sums to 8. No, God does not hate you. God is love. Maybe hate loves you. As my wife said once, you can "f-- 'em or fight 'em." Anyway, 8 sideways is the symbol for infinity. H is the symbol for Honda, and there's also the infiniti. Eight is 5,9,7,8,2 which sums to 4. Infinity is a heck of a thing.

Nine (9)
Nine makes me think of the homonym in german, however it's spelled (nein?). Doesn't it mean 'no'? Anais Nin wrote erotica. NIN is a band, which stands for nine inch nails, fronted by Trent Reznor. I associate 9 with power, for some reason, possibly because a power hitter best hits a homerun in baseball by blasting it at a 45 degree angle. Power is in anyone. In n.e./ any. Nine is 5,9,5,5 which sums to 6. So 459 is 666, in a weird way. 459 is DEI, which means God. God has the number of the beast. God is a beast. Humans are animals. I have 3 dogs in my house.

ANYway...
I may have already done this number thing. Oh well.
Add to that, it's summer. A summer of love!
The Heat scored x points in their last game.
Don't forget the Sum of All Fears. That book was scary. And it wasn't 42.

Social Networks

and the "herd mentality"




(from an article on msnbc)
Facebook, MySpace and other Web sites have unleashed a potent new phenomenon of social networking in cyberspace. But at the same time, a growing body of evidence is suggesting that traditional social networks, in the real world, play a surprisingly powerful and underrecognized role in influencing how people behave.

The latest research comes from Nicholas A. Christakis, a medical sociologist at the Harvard Medical School, and James H. Fowler, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. The pair reported last summer that obesity appeared to spread from one person to another through social networks, almost like a virus or a fad.

In a follow-up to that provocative research, the team has produced similar findings about another major health issue: smoking. In a study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the team found that a person's decision to kick the habit is strongly affected by whether other people in their social network quit -- even people they do not know. And, surprisingly, entire networks of smokers appear to quit virtually simultaneously.

Taken together, these studies and others are fueling a growing recognition that many behaviors are swayed by social networks in ways that have not been fully understood. And it may be possible, the researchers say, to harness the power of these networks for many purposes, such as encouraging safe sex, getting more people to exercise or even fighting crime.

"What all these studies do is force us to start to kind of rethink our mental model of how we behave," said Duncan Watts, a Columbia University sociologist. "Public policy in general treats people as if they are sort of atomized individuals and puts policies in place to try to get them to stop smoking, eat right, start exercising or make better decisions about retirement, et cetera. What we see in this research is that we are missing a lot of what is happening if we think only that way."

In a study encompassing 12,067 people over 30 years, researchers analyzed the patterns of those who managed to quit smoking over the period, they found that the decision appeared to be highly influenced by whether someone close to them stopped. A person whose spouse quit was 67 percent more likely to kick the habit. If a friend gave it up, a person was 36 percent more likely to do so. If a sibling quit, the chances increased by 25 percent. "You appear to have to have a close relationship with the person for it to be influential," Fowler said. Even though the overall number of smokers plummeted, from 45 percent to 21 percent of the population during that time, the researchers realized that what happened was that entire networks of smokers would quit almost simultaneously.

It's sort of like an ant colony or a flock of birds. A single bird doesn't decide to turn to the right or the left; the whole flock has mind of its own." Another intriguing -- and disturbing -- finding was that as more people quit, the remaining smokers tended to wind up on the edges of society, the periphery, with fewer and fewer social connections.

This use of the word periphery makes me wonder if the global economy, and the Third World economy, is a result of any similar phenomenon.

This knowledge can be applied to the obesity epidemic. For smokers, the anti-smoking campaign has unintentionally been hurting them by wreaking havoc on their social lives, so one of the implications is it's harder to reach smokers. Increasingly, they are huddled together in groups that are not connected to other people who don't smoke.



So if, in the fight for better health, we stigmatize the state of being overweight, obese people could lose friends, I guess is the implication, in addition to feeling bad about themselves. "Smoking is an example of how we can create problems at the same time we solve others." Perhaps it's cruelty to be kind?

Literal Buddhism

Compassion sounds like sex...

By that, I mean, cum passion.
Which is weird, because: "From a Buddhist perspective, helping others to reduce their physical or mental suffering is very good, but the ultimate goal is to extinguish all suffering by stopping the process of rebirth and the suffering that automatically comes with living (enlightenment)."

I say this is weird, because sex leads to a literal re-birth. In two respects, the mother's genes are passed on to the next generation, which could be considered a rebirth of sorts, especially if there are two children. The other respect is the Tibetan sense of a rebirth of a historical soul or whatever into it's next life, if you believe in this (which I don't; I could, but I'm stubborn, I just don't). Compassion stops rebirth, but cum passion starts it. hmm.

Also, the word compassion could be more strangely split into compass / ion. Ions act on a magnetic compass, so I suspect there is something to this, as well. I'll leave that for you to ponder (I'm stumped, frankly). All I can think are ions are negative, which term has a dual meaning (just like meaning means mean-ing, which can be signify, average, or unkind).

Also, what inspired me to write this post was, "the ultimate goal is to extinguish all suffering by stopping the process of rebirth and the suffering that automatically comes with living (enlightenment)" made me think of the contradistinction between dark and light, extinguishing (like what you do with a snuffer to a candle) and enlightenment (like lighting a candle).

There's definitely some linguistic weirdness going on. Paradoxes, in fact. Compassion could be interpreted as the opposite of cum passion, and enlightenment is defined as extinguishing.

Furthermore, birth is a process of coming into the light - so rebirth IS enlightenment.

Is the Buddhist philosophy defining up as down?
To be fair, they do say that compassion means with passion, with feeling.
Also, it sounds like you're supposed to suicide and not have children (!)
Why not just stop being so ponderous and meditative and start having fun?

Something to meditate on, I guess. (Yes, I ate my med)

History of Hell

Arghhh!

My thesaurus has a lot of fun with the concept: Hell, Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, Erebus, Acheron, Tartarus, Tophet, Abaddon, Pandemonium, Dis, Avernus
aka
underworld, infernal regions, abode of the damned, abyss, inferno, hellfire, lower world, nether regions, bottomless pit, PASTMAD (pain agony suffering torment

misery anguish despair)

I just ran across a u-tube video of a purported actual recording of the screams of the damned coming from hell, discovered by Russians drilling into the earth, and lowering a microphone down the hole. If you believe in heaven, and it seems most of us want to, then it's not so hard to consequently dream up a place of corresponding damnation for those who don't please God, the sinners, those who break his law. You might even live in fear of being a member of such a class.

Also on u-tube, there are videos describing experiences with RSD (reflexive sympathetic dystrophy), a rare disease in which the constant pain can be worse than childbirth or amputation. Also called CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome), this mysterious and misunderstood disease suffered by over 1 million Americans, in which the body overreacts to injury (like a spider bite), who I would imagine are often suicidal, can require, in the patients most unresponsive to treatment, going to Germany (the fda hasn't approved the procedure) to be put into a coma to allow the body to reset. It has worked for almost half the patients.

Another such experience of incredible pain, besides burning, was a torture I've read about in which the judged were sentenced to receive tattoos covering the entire body. There's a guy who voluntarily did this, and is in the Guinness Book of World Records, but people have different tolerances.

Well, I, God, am telling you...Don't worry, Be happy. All pain shall pass. Death is like sleeping. What dreams may come in this sleep of death? Well, none. You won't have a brain.

Anyway, where was I. Oh yes, hell.

Mythology has not dealt kindly with the direction of down. D words in general, I've noticed, have gotten quite a rough deal. Demons, death, decay, destruction, depravity, despair, disaster, danger, devil, degradation, depression, demoralization, defenestration, depreciation, delay, devaluation, dunno what else... Dad? dungeons and dragons? Anyway, the invisibility and inaccessibility and darkness has led to the association of unhappiness with the underworld, where most people are buried.

Hades, the predecessor to the Christian hell, the very concept of which may have sent Jesus straight to his creation, was originally the name given to the god who ruled the "infernal regions." That god later became Pluto. It was a real place for the ancients, which Virgil located near Mt. Vesuvius, "from which sulfurous flames arise, while the ground is shaken with pent-up vapors, and mysterious sounds issue from the bowels of the earth."

It was not so much a place of perpetual torment as it was of boredom and frustration. Sisyphus was condemned to keep pushing a boulder up a hill. Tantalus was condemned to eternal hunger and thirst. It was cold and dark, not fiery with flaming brimstone.

As portrayed in Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism, it's the final dwelling place of the dead after they've been condemned at the Last Judgment.

The traditional Christian notion of a heinous hell of fiery torment stems from Judaism, in which Jerusalem's real city dump, Ge (valley of) Hinnom (once a site where children were burned as sacrifices to the god Moloch), was transformed into the fiery but mythical Gehenna.

From there, it was a short step to the blazing domain of Satan and his evil angels and minions, portrayed by such artists as Hieronymus Bosch, William Blake, and Gustave Dore.

A poll taken in 1990 revealed that 60% of Americans still believe in a literal hell.

I actually haven't reached a conclusive decision on the matter, for myself. I figure I won't experience anything after I'm dead, but maybe my atoms will. Then again, most of the atoms that made up my body in the past have long since been replaced, and I have not heard one update from them (how unthoughtful!). I've had such thoughts as: incarceration could be hell, torture could be hell, being burnt alive could be hell. Being buried alive with a spider could be hell. After death: is there consciousness in dead matter? Will the army's microwave weapon cause hell for rocks and such? Will burning my body, if I'm not buried but cremated, cause my dead neurons any pain? Could a nuclear weapon, by vaporizing a body, cause any part of it (soul, thetan, ghost) to suffer? Could the expansion of the sun, heating up or engulfing the earth, cause everyone who is not taken up into space like Jesus to suffer? Could there be a virtual consciousness, where pain is experienced, separate from a body? Okay, I'm starting to think I've been pretty nuts. I'm fairly certain that when you're dead, that's it, and if there is a God, including me, there is not going to be any eternal torment from a jolly ol' soul like Him, benevelent, all-merciful, loving, kind, compassionate, and such.

As Ionesco said, "only the ephemeral is of lasting value."
And, since hell seems to be a result of hate, as Dale Evans said, "I'm so busy loving everybody, I don't have any time to hate anybody."

Hell is a way to put the fear of God into people. "Guilt is the mafia of the mind." -Bob Mandel
"Guilt is never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion."

Never feel guilty about having warm human feelings toward anyone.

Wonder

Excerpts and quotes from "Everyday Wonders"
by Barry Evans

The premise is that we need to keep our sense of childlike wonder, and that aging often alienates us from what gives us our strength, as we become bored, disenchanted, and preocuppied with things that are artificial.

How high is up? Is the sea alive? What shape is red? When will I grow up? Where is heaven? What are the birds singing? Why does ice cream taste happy?

That was then. This is now.

Other perspectives
-Gary Larson's cow monk advice: "As you travel life's highways, don't forget to stop and eat the roses."
-"The fish is the last to see the water." -Ruth Benedict

WATER
Water is a supermolecule. In fact, the author says the entire ocean is one big molecule, connected also through pipes to lakes and such. This is because each individual water molecule, with hydrogen atoms at a 105 degree angle with their oxygen atom, has relatively strong hydrogen bonds with its neighbors. About 2/3 of a man's weight is water (less for women -a 3 day old fetus is 97% water). Water-ice comes in 9 forms. No, ice 9 will not solidify the ocean.

BREATH
Meditate on your breath:
(Some call it vipassana, or mindfulness meditation, where you simply count breaths) Every breath links us with everyone who died more than 100 years ago. The Earth's atmosphere contains 1.6x10^44 atoms; each breath contains 8x10^22 atoms. Get this: if each of these atoms was a grain of sand, you could cover the entire U.S. up to 8 stories with each breath exhaled. So, about 40 atoms, or say 20 molecules, of breath from any particular member from the past 100years ago dead, passes through our lips. In 80 years, a human breathes 200m breaths. On average, each of us breathes 15m cubic feet of air in our lifetime, equivalent to that enclosed by the Houston Astrodome. The earth's atmosphere weighs 5000 trillion tons. One ounce of air contains 1kBT atoms.

What is breathing? When co2 builds up in our bloodstream to a critical level every few seconds, we inhale. The underwater record for holding your breath is x, by y.

For peace, happiness, harmony, love, understanding, beauty, truth, and goodness, make each breath signify and remind you of nonjudgmental comforting relaxation, like a childhood teddy bear. That way you can access at any given moment your inner calm, when the moment requires.

HEMICENTRISM
The world is Hemicentric.
Maps can just as easily have south on top, as north, (and some do, in the southern hemisphere).
Clockwise is the direction of the sundial, which goes the other direction down south.
Compass needles would have the distinctive red color on the south pointing end instead.
Constellations would connect the dots differently so that everything wouldn't be upside down.
The seasons are opposite down south, so Winter would be Summer, and vice versa.
Of course, the earth's magnetic field reverses every 100,000 years. Those poor magnetotactic bacteria! (they don't have brains, but they swim down because they have magnetized cells in their bodies that orient them safely downward).
The book says the art of navigation would have been different, not arisen as fast as it did, if the world were upside down, as there is no South Star, like there is Polaris, the North Star.
The author even says the 90% predilection for right-handedness may have been reversed if civilization had arisen south of the equator, although he's just getting a bit nuts, perhaps.

TIME
In different countries and cultures, a "week" is anything from 4-19 days. Our lives last 2-3 billion seconds. The universe is 15 billion years old. A fly has a reaction time of 1/100th of a second. In any average second,
-a man's testicles manufacture over 2k sperm.
The human genome, of which each sperm carries (half?) is equivalent to 6 billion bits, or 750 megabytes of information. (A Harvard molecular biologist sees a future in which we all carry our genome, on disk, with us to the dr.'s office).
-Eight million blood cells in a normal, healthy, human body die every second.
-A quartz crystal in a digital wristwatch vibrates 32,768x.
-What is the amount spent every second by the world for it's militaries? ($32k in '93)
-How much interest is accrued on the national debt? ($7k in '93)

-The 15B y.o. Universe is, more accurately, half a million trillion seconds old (or young, if you want to see the glass as half empty). -For life and mind, scientists think you only need hydrogen to make helium to make the heavier elements of carbon, oxygen, silicon, and iron. This simply requires time for stars to whip these elements up. -The human brain has x neurons. (1/100th of a trillion). 10B, I guess.-If all of time since the Big Bang were a timeline the size of the Washington Monument (555 feet and 5 and 1/8 inches) all of recorded history (the last 10k years) would only be the thickness of a postage stamp.

Our eyes process images at about 10 images per second at night (50 during the day). A bee processes 300. Almost all mammals have a natural lifespan of between 600-1200 million heartbeats, averaging out at nearly a billion (consider that an elephant weighs as much as 25 million times as much as some shrews). Mammals take about 1 breath for every 4 heartbeats. Humans, therefore, live about 3 times as long as we "should." We have what is called an eternal youth, a long adolescence. A cat's heart beats 200 beats per minute.

Odds of us (and some of us are pretty odd)
-Normally, only 1 out of 5,000,000 spermatozoa penetrates an egg during conception (which makes you wonder about the scientists doing the counting). -None of us would be here if evolution hadn't taken the turn it did upon the KT (Cretaceous-Tertiary) impact of the Manhattan Island sized asteroid that hit our planet 65 million years ago, wiping out dinosaurs and opening up niches for the mammals that evolved into us. Scientists, however, say dinosaurs were dwindling with or without the impact: 61 species 6 million years before the impact and 18 species 2 million years before, the book says. (I thought there were alot more types of dinosaurs). It was a 6 mile diameter asteroid/meteorite that left a 150 mile diameter crater. The resulting extinction event eliminated 2/3 of the earth's species, including all land animals over 50 pounds, and, in the ocean, 90% of marine invertebrates. Madonna sings about lucky star.

Creativity
-Linus Pauling, the only person to have received two unshared Nobel prizes, one in chemistry and the other (more appreciated, he says) in peace, (the guy who recommends up to 300x the US RDA of vitamin C, for health and longevity) said that there are 10m chemical substances described in the literature, with only about 1500 chemical nuclei. On good ideas, he said "If you want to get a good idea, you've got to have a lot of ideas, and throw away the bad ones." Sometimes you might work on a single idea for 30 years.

The Earth
The central core is hotter than the sun's surface. The entire core is about 5000 miles across, compared to a total diameter of about 8000 miles.

Quotes
-Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? -Friedrich Nietzsche
-"In modern industrialized society the pace of our lives is determined largely by economic considerations rather than by the rhythms of human life or natural growing things...The average human being seems to move from task to task with almost no time." -Patricia Carrington
-Do you know on what day of the week you were born? -Barry Evans
-Answer this question with a "yes" or "no". Will your next word be "no"?
-"Hey out there- is that you reading me, or is it someone else?"
-The creative process cannot be summoned at will. It occurs (most readily) when relaxed and the imagination/mind can wander freely.
-The larger the island of knowledge, the larger the shoreline of wonder. -Ralph Stockman
-They are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea. -Francis Bacon
-There is a distance incomparable between the things men imagine by natural reason and those which illuminated men behole by contemplation. -Thomas a Kempis
-A pile of rocks ceases to be a pile of rocks when somebody contemplates it with the idea of a cathedral in mind. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
-What is called understanding is often no more than a state where one has become familiar with what one does not understand.-Edward Teller
-If the eye could see the demons that people the universe, existence would be impossible. -Talmud
-We are born princes and the civilizing process makes us all frogs. -Eric Bern
-We all agree your theory is crazy; what divides us is whether it is crazy enough to be correct. -Niels Bohr (commenting on a proposal regarding the ultimate nature of matter).
-The brain is a 3 lb mass you can hold in your hand that can conceive of a universe a hundred billion light years across. -Marion Diamond
-Live this life as if you live eternally, and live this life as if you die tomorrow -Prophet Mohammed
-If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. -Taisen Deshimaru
-In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain comparing this moment with other moments in the past. -Andre Gide
-The happiest person is the one who thinks the most interesting thoughts. -Timothy Dwight
-Pain will come, just like pleasure. Hate will come, just like love. And when both are accepted, unaffected by the mind, then there will be peace. -Baba Hari Das
-The bible contains more than 400 references to the number 7.
-Get a job you love and you'll never have to work again
-Mere existence is so much better than nothing, that one would rather exist even in pain than not exist. -Samuel Johnson
-The question to ask is not whether you are a success or a failure, but whether you are a learner or a non-learner. -Benjamin Barber
-Doing science is like growing a garden. You sow seeds, you have to water them, you've got to tend them, and when you bring in the harvest, you have to think of next year. And not everybody gets magnificent flowers and fruits. -Phillip Morrison
-The universe is simply one of those things that happen from time to time. -Edward Tyron
-Man errs so long as he is striving. -Goethe
-Doubt that which you would most believe. -Robert Scott Root-Bernstein

Buddhism on Love

LOVE is all you need?

The definition of love in Buddhism is: wanting others to be happy.

This love is unconditional and it requires a lot of courage and acceptance (including self-acceptance). The "near enemy" of love, or a quality which appears similar, but is more an opposite is: conditional love (selfish love, see also the page on attachment).
The opposite is wanting others to be unhappy: anger, hatred. A result which one needs to avoid is: attachment.

This definition means that 'love' in Buddhism refers to something quite different from the ordinary term of love which is usually about attachment, more or less successful relationships and sex; all of which are rarely without self-interest. Instead, in Buddhism it refers to de-tachment and the unselfish interest in others' welfare.

'Even offering three hundred bowls of food three times a day does not match the spiritual merit gained in one moment of love.' Nagarjuna

"If there is love, there is hope that one may have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue"His Holiness the Dalai Lama from 'The little book of Buddhism'

In addition to love, the 4 immeasurables include compassion, equanimity, and joy.
All about it: the source of this page.

I have to disagree with Nagarjuna AND the Dalai Lama. If one moment of love, i.e. wanting others to be happy, is better than 900 bowls of food (presumably to hungry poor), then we'd have a lot of good will and sex (it sounds like sex may have been what Nagarjuna meant), without the concrete action, that if taken by even a fraction of humanity, would alleviate so much of the suffering that Buddhism aims to prevent. Besides, if the food is good, a good meal makes people happy.

As for the Dalai Lama, well, he's perhaps in a cocoon of goodwill. Some people, or vampires if you want to call them that, genuinely enjoy other's suffering. So, if you want them to be happy, you want others to be unhappy. As I'm sure the Dalai knows, pretty much everyone is or has been pissed off at someone, and a nearly ubiquitous response to that is to wish your tormentor ill. Don't lamas spit? Have you heard the song Happiness is a warm gun? Have you ever in your whole life wanted to smash someone's head into a wall? I want to say "get real", but then again, you probably don't have a tormenting voice in your head. Do you wish happy those who seem to define their happiness by your UNhappiness?

The Koran on Love

Allah (God) loves those who love Him

Love quotes:
30:21 And among His wonders is this: He creates for you mates out of your own kind. Asad(30,15) so that you might incline towards them, and He engenders love and tenderness between you: in this, behold, there are messages indeed for people who think!

10 other quotes (in English, sorry) from the Koran on love:

God loves
1. doers of good.
2. those who turn to Him in repentance
3. those who keep themselves pure
4. those who place their trust in Him
5. all who purify themselves.
6. those who act equitably
7. [only] those who fight in His cause in [solid] ranks
8. those who are conscious of Him

9. Al-Baqara (The Cow) passage talks about those who are conscious of Him:

(2:177) True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the west but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation, and the prophets; and spends his substance - however much he himself may cherish - it - upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage; and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God. (Asad)

10. The Koran shows how the poor can find happiness through love:

Al-Hashr (The Gathering)
(59:9) And [it shall be offered, too, unto the poor from among] those who, before them, had their abode in this realm and in faith - [those] who love all that come to them in search of refuge, and who harbour in their hearts no grudge for whatever the others may have been given, but rather give them preference over themselves, even though poverty be their own lot: for, such as from their own covetousness are saved - it is they, they that shall attain to a happy state! (Asad)

I'm just beginning my Quran book. These passages were from the online Quran Search.

Bible quotes on Love

God is love

He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8

What is God?

Love can be agape, eros, or philia. APE, for short. God is kind of an APE. Agape, the self-giving love of God, is at the heart of the gospel, my New American Bible glossary says. It comes from the Father through Jesus, makes us "sons of God," and gives us the saving "knowledge" of God (1 Jn 4:7-5:4). Love is the one thing necessary (1 Cor 13:1-3), and to love is to fulfill the whole law of Christ (Gal 4:14; Rom 13:8-10).

1Cor13:4 says "love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

There are 280 bible verses with the word "love" in them, says Seek and You shall Find, a free online bible verse lookup service, of the KJV. A sampling:

Love is...
Deu 6:5And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Neh 1:5And said, I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments

44. Psa 109:4For my love they are my adversaries: but I [give myself unto] prayer.
45. Psa 109:5And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
46. Psa 116:1I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice [and] my supplications.
57. Psa 145:20The Lord preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy.

59. Pro 4:6Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.
64. Pro 8:36But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.
66. Pro 10:12Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

73. Ecc 3:8A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

76. Sol 1:2Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love [is] better than wine.
90. Sol 4:7Thou [art] all fair, my love; [there is] no spot in thee.
98. Sol 8:7Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if [a] man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

118. Hos 14:4I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.

126. Mat 5:44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;139. Luk 6:27But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

131. Mat 22:37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.132. Mat 22:39And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.143. Luk 10:27And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.

148. Joh 5:42But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.
159. Joh 15:12This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
160. Joh 15:13Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
(That's the love of a soldier, God bless 'em)

175. Rom 13:9For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if [there be] any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
176. Rom 13:10Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love [is] the fulfilling of the law.

181. 1Cor 16:22If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
185. 2Cor 5:14For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:186.
2Cor 6:6By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,

197. Gal 5:22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

201. Eph 3:17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

207. Eph 5:25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;208. Eph 5:28So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.219. Col 3:19Husbands, love [your] wives, and be not bitter against them.

228. 1Ti 6:10For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

237. Phm 1:7For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother. 240. Heb 13:1Let brotherly love continue. 241. Jam 1:12Blessed [is] the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

244. 1Pe 1:8Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see [him] not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

248. 1Pe 3:10For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:

250. 1Jo 2:15Love not the world, neither the things [that are] in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
252. 1Jo 3:11For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
256. 1Jo 3:18My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
258. 1Jo 4:7Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
259. 1Jo 4:8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
264. 1Jo 4:16And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
266. 1Jo 4:18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

277. Jud 1:2Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.

279. Rev 2:4Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

280.Rev 3:19As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

As I couldn't find a Book of Mormon versefinder online, I'll leave you with this link on love and relationships for Mormons. They of course use the bible, as well.

Permaculture

What is Permaculture?

The Permaculture Institute defines it, of course. They define permaculture as an “ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor.”The word itself comes from “permanent agriculture” and “permanent culture,” and at its foundation is developing agricultural and other systems that are interconnected and dependent on one another. In other words, they mimic the natural ecologies found in nature. The focus is not on any one element of the system, rather the focus is on the relationships between animals, plants, insects, soil, water and habitat -- and how to use these relationships to create synergistic, self-supporting ecosystems.“Though the problems of the world are increasingly more complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple,” said Bill Mollison, co-founder of the world-wide permaculture movement.

I'll get back to this. It's a/the proposed solution to the food crisis.

Okay, the founder's model farm (in the American southwest) is described as: "Fruit trees’ bloom, native and honey bees, medley of medicinal herbs, milk goats, heirloom chickens and turkeys, a gang of loud guinea fowl, a restored wetlands teeming with fish, dragonflies, bugs and native waterfowl; rich gardens, pastures and orchards surround our natural home with its cutting edge energy and water management design. It is truly beautiful and rewarding to be alive in a permaculture oasis!"

If I may add my own bit, I think we should open our borders, and intensively work our land with more people (it seems small farms and people are replaced by big farms using machines) and ideas like this, in addition to/instead of the huge mechanized industrial farms we have now, that I would think are possibly producing only a fraction of their true potential. Basically, I'm thinking of rice farmers in Asia doing their back-breaking work, and if we had that kind of intensiveness in America, combined with a permaculture sensibility, wouldn't that be the best of all worlds? We have all this good land; Shouldn't we have lots of farmers doing sustainable practice, sharing ideas in a thriving permaculture.

I of course am not a farmer, and don't know what the hell I'm talking about, really.
I'm just throwing this out there.
I'm just intuitively guessing that more people with more education would equal better farming.