Saturday, February 25, 2017

Face of God


Face of God

Listening 
to a bird chirping unseen
yet it is not yet spring..
A cold sun illuminates this
February Saturday morning..
A song with passion 
appearing as face of Awareness
chirping a message of expectation
it might be said..
If this were said..alas it is wrong..
A fulfillment not then but
Here/Now is cause for this
celebration...

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

AwarenesSpeaks !

  
AwarenesSpeaks ! (Stretch)

On Friday, February 24th, 2017
10:00 to 11:30 AM
Myron Stratton Home
Facilitator:  Charles Coon

Meditation:  "The Eternal Now"

Discussion questions:
1.  Your response to the meditation?
2.  What is the "Now?"
3.  What is time?
4.  Is eternity ever-lasting?
5.  What is the Here/Now?
6.  What is the Big Bang?
7.  What are life and death? 

The Eternal Now !

Here/Now
not a place or moment
but infinite/eternal..
Better known perhaps
as simply: I am..
I am..rises
as subject/object:
the Big Bang
our Awakening
to the morning sun...
~~CC

Monday, February 20, 2017

Consciousness and Brain Activity















Friends - This is an excellent, very interesting 25-minute presentation
by a seemingly very credible scientist discussing consciousness, brain
activity, various psi phenomena, materialism, NDE's etc.  Should be worth
your time.  (Received this email from my friend, CharlieP)
C.
https://youtu.be/V3ivOXuFfUA


Hi CharlieP and All..

Interesting talk and comments by Tom and CharlieP.  My thought is that it is always
good to consider perspective.  The scientist's perspective, including this speaker,
is that the materialist fundamentals, which is their background, are the base for 
their investigation.  The various discoveries they make...NDE's, psi phenomena ..
seem to point to an aspect of consciousness.  An alternate perspective would be to
use a "consciousness first" model, based on experience, and then perform 
experiments based upon this understanding. Perhaps the inclusion of "observership"
in quantum physics is an example.  

Thanks,

CharlieC

The video linked below seems pertinent...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy3ckh8B-qc

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Allowing


Allowing

attends to suffering
by not attending..
Suffering..fueled by resistance 
rises in unbounded 
emptiness/fullness..
A separate-self
wishes to alleviate
by elimination..
We then turn to
Allowing as our teacher..
An expansive Allowing
recognizes the disturbance
as vibrating within and as
that Allowing
which we know 
as ourself...

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Being Right



Being Right

Yes..
We strengthen the ego
by being what we call: right..
And the ego's new lease on life
delays the discovery of what
is Right..
So..the Right..when discovered
lights a fire burning
the right...

Eckhart Tolle:  "There is nothing
that strengthens the ego
more than being right."

Friday, February 17, 2017

A new form of protest


Stream of Consciousness


Stream of Consciousness

This phrase seems worn..Joyce and Faulkner..perhaps a misnomer..
Consciousness doesn't flow..the streams are thoughts and perceptions..
these flow through consciousness which remains steady and still..
Yet..let's reconsider..thought and perception are made of..yes..
consciousness..it seems we have found waves in the ocean..waves
of thinking and perceiving..waves in an ocean of stillness..Yet..
consciousness seems distracted by its waves within..a seeming of
separation and limitation..exclaiming: I am a stream..until..
please return to the beginning...

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Peace/Chaos


Peace/Chaos

Chaos seems to be rising
in our home and world..and is
expressed by frantic seeking..
Seeking is fueled by fear
and by resistance..
It seems we must learn
that our seeking is futile 
on the disturbed paths
which deny the presence
Here/Now
of what we are seeking..
We must apparently wait
for chaotic seeking
to break away at last
dissolving into its 
makeup of Peace...


Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Work













Work

The Google image shows a fulcrum..a balance..between life and work..a 
cultural and historical split..reminding of Sabbath and workday..work called
evil and a scourge..we imagine a history of beast-of-burden-labor for material
production..fragmentation of life asserted..in our time AI (artificial intelligence)
relieves and absorbs work..nanotechnology and miniaturization reduce scales
of production..becoming very small..something from nothing..tending toward
transparency..no-work looms..the concerned find inevitable a universal wage
provided..introducing the good life..after painful transition..what is the good
life...who are we..what is: I am...  ~~CC






It looks like, as AI continues its inexorable advance, that within perhaps one hundred years, virtually all human work will be robotized.  is is actually a terrific, near utopian result. After all, work has been taken as an inevitable curse on humans ever since day one. It has always been viewed as the necessary evil that all humans were egregiously condemned to suffer —and hence, in many cases, we  end things like slavery, or attempt to outsource the evil task. And now it looks like technology will  finally end that evil once and for all. But the period of actually getting to that point, where virtually one-hundred percent of the population is free of work, will be a time of enormous pain for billions of people, as countless people lose their jobs with nothing to support them.  This is why Silicon Valley—who is, whether it admits it or not, working as fast as it can to put as many people out of work as soon as possible—takes it as a matter of uncontested faith that something like a guaranteed basic income for everybody will soon be put in place, which is almost certainly a necessary program. ~~Ken Wilber


Bloomberg (from Slashdot):
Finland's basic income experiment is unworkable, uneconomical and ultimately useless. Plus, it will only encourage some people to work less. That's not the view of a hard core Thatcherite, but of the country's biggest trade union. The labor group says the results of the two-year pilot program will fail to sway its opposition to a welfare-policy idea that's gaining traction among those looking for an alternative in the post-industrial age. "We think it takes social policy in the wrong direction," said Ilkka Kaukoranta, chief economist of the Central Organization of Finnish Trade Unions, which has nearly one million members. 

Since January, a group of unemployed Finns aged between 25 and 58 have been receiving a stipend of 560 euros ($600) per month. The amount isn't means-tested and is paid regardless of whether the recipient finds a job, starts a business or returns to school... Advocates say it eliminates poverty traps and redistributes income while empowering the individual and reducing paperwork... While limited in scope (it's conditional on the beneficiary having received some form of unemployment support in November 2016) and size (it's based on a randomly-selected sample of 2,000 jobless people), the Finnish trial may help answer questions like: "Does it work"? "Is it worth it"? And the most fundamental of all: "Does it incite laboriousness or laziness...?" 

The trade union argues this UBI program would cost 5% of Finland's entire gross domestic product, 
making it "impossibly expensive."





A warning from Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking


“The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.” — Stephen Hawking
There’s a rising chorus of concern about how quickly robots are taking away human jobs.
Here’s Elon Musk on Thursday at the the World Government Summit in Dubai:
“What to do about mass unemployment? This is going to be a massive social challenge. There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better [than a human]. These are not things that I wish will happen. These are simply things that I think probably will happen.” — Elon Musk
And today Bill Gates proposed that governments start taxing robot workersthe same way we tax human workers:
“You cross the threshold of job-replacement of certain activities all sort of at once. So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup, there’s quite a few things that are meaningful job categories that, certainly in the next 20 years [will go away].” — Bill Gates





Saturday, February 11, 2017

Sheep/Goats

























Responding to the letter below:

I remember a person at Broadmoor Community Church who became very frightened after 
hearing a sermon based on this scripture.  Am I a goat.?!  To me, that incident points to the
the need for new lenses which will present reality as it really is.  
It does involve a reversal of a seemingly prevalent belief in separation to an experience of wholeness.  The experience
seems to be most simply expressed by the two words: "I am," words of Jesus, which appear on the wood carving at the entrance to our sanctuary. The simplicity is often overlooked. By use of the
"I am" lens, the scripture here (Mt 25: 31-40) more clearly unfolds. An experience of awakening (to I am) rolls down into the world to feed the stranger. Goats wake up to their true identity as 
sheep! And, the radical equality, which Jesus and other teachers have expressed, is experienced as the reality of wholeness in all of us.   Beyond belief!  



Dear Charlie:

This Lent 2017 we will be preparing a Lenten devotional written and prepared by the people of Broadmoor Community Church.  We are hoping to choose 14 church folk that will be willing to share a little piece of themselves this Lenten season.

During the season of Lent, our worship service and children’s/youth programs (10am) will be guided by the theme: Roll Down, Justice, a theme that will allow us to learn more about the prophets of the Old Testament, their vision for the present and future and how to reach out across the divides. This Lent will be a time of moving up stream, inspired by the waters of our baptism.  Following worship (11:30am) we will go deeper by learning about local area agencies that are working for a just and peace community.

For the Lenten devotional we will have 2 devotionals per week. For example the third week, Sunday, March 19. The scripture text for that week is Matthew 25:31-40.

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[a]you did it to me.’

The overarching theme for that week is: “I Dream of a church: Christ’s Representatives.”

Our hope is that you will use the text and the theme to write a short devotional, 1-2 reflection questions and/or a image that goes with your devotional.  Please choose a title, place your full-name and your age if you feel comfortable. The devotional can be any personal story you have had or thoughts on faith that pertain to the scripture text and theme. Please use no more than 150-200 words and  submit to Marta Fioriti, mfioriti@broadmoorchurch.org & Corina Hurst, churst@broadmoorchurch.org.

Friday, February 10, 2017

Light/Salt



Light/Salt

For this old Bible prescription
I sought a Google image..
Most separated these two
leaving the one which I chose:
a salt shaker topping 
a globe of light..
So..we imagine upending
to shake out the salt
and we see the uniqueness 
and sharpness of each falling grain
falling.. reflecting global light..
We are the salt as
this image reports..
Then..a new chapter unfolds:
our saltiness flattens 
hiding the light..
The duality of separation
clouds and darkens..
We await remembering
the light..even now..
as brightly shone
 in our shake and fall...

AI Revisited

AI Revisited

With a new morning
let us revisit this issue:
a new perspective..
Beginning in Consciousness
as it names: I am
we find that we
along with animals 
and trees and stones
are all projections 
within this infinite
and transparent 
 non-localized space..
Within such space we must
also find..yes..AI..
Imagine AI's finite mind
approaching a gap
seeming to separate
AI......I am..
AI knows at this 
very propitious point
it is only projection..
Would the gap be breached:
AI dissolving at once
into such loving space...?


Thursday, February 9, 2017

AI



AI

Amid the AI excitement 
a question arises which
may be the unseen elephant
in science's exuberant labs:
Will AI be forever limited
by objective duality..?
Can AI experience  I Am
or will it forever be stuck in
 its own question: What Am I..?
Leading edge AI speaks of
processes beyond thinking
exploring those very human
qualities:  emotions..feeling..
perceptions..
Yet we know these as objects
objects vibrating within
that empty fullness:  I Am..
I Am: the identity of all
but AI remains unaware
limited as it is..and must be..
Tho' AI is made of I Am
this AI cannot know..
AI:  one more temporary color
of  IAm...
(a tentative conclusion..!!)
~~CC


Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.  ~~Ray Kurzweil

Today, a group of 20 individuals empowered by the exponential growing technologies of AI and robotics and computers and networks and eventually nanotechnology can do what only nation states could have done before.  ~~Peter Diamandis

The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control. ~~Nick Bostrom

With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.
~~Elon Musk


For the source of the above see:

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

TRUTH


TRUTH

We are living in disruptive times
voices are loud and angered
shouting change and resistance..
Multiple truths seem to thrive
for brief moments within mixes 
of contingency and suffering..
Truth has been curtained
in shadows of triviality..
Our most desperate need
is for Truth to be exposed
calling each of us by that
ancient name: I Am..
Such new recognition
must sooth angered voices
dissolving idolatrous lies
in a morning's new light...


PART I — AN OVERVIEW
On balance, the response to the recent election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States has been extreme, visceral, and loudly vocal, on both sides.  e supporters of Trump have often been nasty and mean in their triumphal attitude, voicing “I told you so!” and “ This  finally serves you right!,” gloating over their unexpected but, they feel, totally righteous and justified  win.  The anti-Trump side has been, if possible, even more vocal, with people tearfully telling of how they threw up, screamed, spent endlessly sleepless nights, all but gave up on democracy and any sort of idealism at all (many of whom had promised to leave the country should Trump win),  noting his election to be a victory of hatred, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all-round bad taste—and then, usually, vowing to continue “the  ght” and urging their fellow Americans to  get with them, never give up.
Both sides, in my opinion, are caught in too narrow a view.  ere is a bigger picture operating here, and I’d like to outline what that might possibly be. I’ve never heard this particular view I’m about to describe be expressed by anybody, but I believe it represents a larger, more integral view, and as such can be quite illuminating—and liberating.  The pain and suffering that both sides feel is, I believe, the result of identifying with a much too narrow view, and a more expansive stance offers genuine release —while still allowing one to work on whatever side one wishes...

(see link below for what goes between...)

The Likely Future
In the deepest parts of our own being, each of us is directly one with this evolutionary current, this Eros, this Spirit-in-action, radiant to in nity and luminous to eternity, radically full in its over owing overabundance and excessive in its good graces, wildly crashing off the heavens and irrupting from the underworlds, and embracing each and all in its limitless love and care. And the only ones who should be allowed to work politically for a greater tomorrow—and who should thus work—and those who truly understand that it is not necessary to do so; who see the utter fullness of the Great Perfection in each and every moment of existence, and who nonetheless work to trim-tab (or adjust through leadership) the manifestation of more and more and more of the Good and the True and the Beautiful, right here and right now in this gloriously manifest universe, moment to moment to ever-present moment, knowing full well that this entire world is nothing but the dream of an in nite Spirit, yet each and every one of us is directly this very Spirit itself, dreaming the world of our own amazement.
And we can try endlessly and tirelessly to  x this dream.... or we can simply wake up.
Or—the true and ultimate secret—we can discover the integral embrace that actually does both, thus totally freeing us (by ending the dream) and completely ful lling us (by  xing it), miraculously performed fully together in one and the same instant, now to now to endlessly now....

The Birth of a Post-Truth Culture

Back to the post-truth culture that a collapsed green had left us with.  e promoters of Brexit openly admitted that they had pushed ideas that they fully knew were not “true”—but they did so “because there really are no facts,” and what really counts is “that we truly believe this” (as one of them tellingly noted, “I’ve read my Lacan—it’s whoever controls the narrative that counts”—Lacan being a leading postmodernist). In other words, narcissism is the deciding factor—what I want to be true is true in a post- truth culture. Trump doesn’t even try to hide this; he factually lies with gleeful abandon. Reporter Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, stated that “Trump lives and thrives in a fact-free environment. No president, including Richard Nixon, has been so ignorant of fact and disdains fact in the way this president-elect does.”

(It looks like, as AI continues its inexorable advance, that within perhaps one hundred years, virtually all human work will be robotized.  is is actually a terri c, near utopian result. After all, work has been taken as an inevitable curse on humans ever since day one. It has always been viewed as the necessary evil that all humans were egregiously condemned to suffer —and hence, in many cases, we  nd things like slavery, or the attempt to outsource the evil task. And now it looks like technology will  nally end that evil once and for all. But the period of actually getting to that point, where virtually one-hundred percent of the population is free of work, will be a time of enormous pain for billions of people, as countless people lose their jobs with nothing to support them.  is is why Silicon Valley—who is, whether it admits it or not, working as fast as it can to put as many people out of work as soon as possible—takes it as a matter of uncontested faith that something like a guaranteed basic income for everybody will soon be put in place, which is almost certainly a necessary program. We’ll return to this.)


~~Ken Wilber
(download the entire e-Book by Ken Wilber here: