Friday, 8 July 2016



A hospital doctor enters a ward for sick children who have a variety of ailments and disabilities.

Ideally, the doctor avoids being infected by any 'germs' that the children might be carrying.

Ideally the doctor avoids being 'infected' by any physical and emotional pains that the children might be suffering from.

There are a lot of children with 'problems'.

In the USA, 'child disabilities due to neurodevelopmental and mental health problems have increased greatly.'

'Nearly six million kids had a disability in 2010 - almost one million more than in 2001.'


If we were to be infected by the physical and emotional pains of all these millions of children we would be in trouble.


However, we can have an influence for good on someone who is suffering.

1. Scientists have discovered that pairs of tiny particles can be invisibly connected even when they are some distance apart.

When the scientists carry out an action on one particle, the other particle is instananeously affected, even though it is many miles apart.

A Dutch team has proven that 'spooky action at a distance' is real.


2. According to some research at Princeton University

We can mentally influence - and are influenced by - the thoughts of others.

We can mentally influence biological processes in bodies other than our own.

We can mentally influence the functioning of non-biological systems.

The Next Great Turning - Context Institute

Sia Furler's 'Chandelier', from the album 1000 Forms of Fear, suggests mind-control?

3. A team of psychologists from Saint Louis University claims that stress can be spread from person to person like a virus.

We can be infected by the stressed person's odour, posture, facial expression and tone of voice.

The researchers put the participants into pairs.

One member of the pair had to make a public speech and the other had simply to watch the speech.

The researchers measured the levels of cortisol and a stress-related salivary enzyme in both the stressed speaker and in the observer.

The researchers found that the stress response in the witnesses was 'proportional to that of their paired speakers'.

ABC. / dailymail.

Saint Louis University is associated with the CIA's MK-ULTRA mind control programme.

Now, if stress can spread like a virus, so too can love and healing spread like a virus.

Can we feel compassion without feeling some of the suffering of the person in distress?

1. Imagine the doctor entering the hospital ward.

It does not help if the doctor is shaking and weeping.

The good doctor, while feeling compassion, detaches himself from suffering.

The good doctor detaches himself from his selfish ego.

It is the selfish ego which produces anger, grief, worry, and despair.

The good doctor is positive, loving and calm.

This helps the sick patient.

2. Imagine you are the pilot of a passenger plane which has just been struck by some dangerous emergency.

It does not help you, nor the passengers, if your ego feels extreme fear.

On the other hand, a little fear might prevent you from taking foolish risks.

A game of golf would not be real if there were not some minor irritations; but you want to avoid the extremes.

3. Imagine you are the parent of a child who has just been killed by agents of the US government.

Ask yourself - why does the government carry out such acts of terrorism as part of its 'Strategy of Tension'?

They want to get you angry with, and scared of, the 'terrorists'.

When people are scared they will obey their 'big brother' government.

So, detach yourself from fear and anger.

Fear and anger make you sick.

4. There may be times when we are hit by extreme fear, anger, grief, worry and despair.

But we should practise non-attachment to such extremes.

This means not holding on. ...

5. We should practise non-attachment to lots of things.
"All the delightful things of the world - sweet sounds, lovely forms, all the pleasant tastes and touches and thoughts - these are all agreed to bring happiness if they are not grasped and possessed.


-Sutta Nipata

Blog: Pleasure and Joy

6. It is not a good idea to 'suppress' our feelings.

Research shows that people who are able to talk about their grief, anger or fear get rid of these negative feelings more quickly.

People who are not able to talk about these feelings are more likely to suffer ill health, mental or physical.

The 'good doctor' has the knack of being non-attached to grief, anger or fear when he enters the ward.

Some people get angry when there is a long queue at the airport.

Some people learn not to get angry.

They are not supressing their anger; they just don't feel anger.

We see ourselves as separate selves.

Our body feels the pleasures and pains of life.

Imagine switching out of the SELF mode into the NON-SELF mode.

In the NON-SELF mode there is no grasping of pain or pleasure.

But this is difficult for our minds to imagine, just as 'infinity' is difficult to imagine.

Some people write about the dangers of talking about the Oneness of everything.

"Holding to both the oneness and multiplicity of existence takes greater spiritual maturity...

"It requires being present with the moment with all it's paradox and radicalness.

"Experiencing both the bliss and sorrow of existence takes greater spiritual maturity...

"It requires us to be present to the entire situation of existence, our own and all others.

"In terms of our tradition, we describe this as the dance between emptiness and form and our path as the willingness to experience both and their mutuality.

"The main emphasis of our path is to show up wakefully to the play of emptiness and form..."

Not Duality is Not Non Duality | School of Yogic Buddhism

Smiling north korean kids
North Korean kids. By Benoit Cappronnier

Is life fair?

Why does one person apparently 'choose' to be 'good' and another person apparently 'choose' to be 'bad'?

According to some philosophers, our actions are either determined by matters such as heredity and environment, or they are a matter of chance.

How can we...
Brazil. By carf

It suits the top criminals to believe that their 'wicked' actions are purely the result of heredity, environment and chance.

But, we do know that when people believe in some kind of 'free will', they do tend to behave better.

Aghamackalinn National School, County Monaghan, Ireland (1932)
Ireland 1932. By pantufla

Some people have suggested that only one 'entity' has real free will.

And only that one 'entity' is good.

That one person is 'God'.

Or the Tao, or the Force, or the Holy Spirit, or the divine...

Paradoxically, it may be that if we give up our supposed 'free will', we can then follow the will of 'God' (or go with the flow, tune into the Tao, realise that we are part of 'God') and live happily ever after.

By Alexander Macfarlane

The Buddhists would say that our sense of being a separate 'self' is an illusion.

Blog: Pleasure and Joy

By maria dupovkina

This raises the question of why we are not all tuned into 'God' already.

One can speculate that if God is going to create 'a real world', then, as with a game of golf, there has to be an element of chance.


Of course, things may always have existed.

The Buddhists would argue that 'God' may not be the best term to use.

Some Buddhists are not keen on the idea of a creator God.

By © Jamie Mitchell

Some Taoists would argue that every 'thing' and every 'action' is a mixture of 'good' and 'evil'.

"Taoists believe that nature is a continual balance between yin and yang, and that any attempt to go toward one extreme or the other will be ineffective, self-defeating, and short-lived."

What Taoists Believe

Summer rain
By Valery Titievsky

The Mohist philosophers in China believed that the purpose of life was universal, impartial love.

Mohism promoted a philosophy of impartial caring - a person should care equally for all other individuals, regardless of their actual relationship to him or her.[48]

Is free will an illusion?

Ruben V Rial-Planas writes

"We can test the problem with my most perfect identical twin: myself!

"Trying to remember the most important decisions I took in my life, I ask myself what I would have done if I had had the possibility to relive again any of the decisive moments of my life - with the same imperfect knowledge and with the same external constraints I had.

"The results of analyzing my perfect twin’s behaviour are, in my opinion, absolutely clarifying: reliving my life would have rendered a life identical to the one I actually lived.

brother n sister
By rongpuk

"I can distinguish between two types of events as determinants of every minute fact that occurred in my life.

"Some were the result of conscious decisions, in many cases taken as the result of an evaluation of pros and cons (always with incomplete knowledge of the real situation).

"As it is impossible for me to take stupid decisions (the stupidity defined by myself), I was forced to decide in a determined way, searching the best results.

"In other cases my behaviour was the result of random and/or uncontrolled external factors. In the first case I would repeat my action; in the second, my response would be forced.

"However, if the external random factors would be the same, I also would repeat my action

KFC Hunger
By Mayank Austen Soofi

"So, the life of my identical twin entirely repeating my own life shows that I never had a true free will...

"My identical twin shows me the inescapability of Hume’s fork: My actions are either causally determined or random.

"In either case, I am not free."

By babasteve

Etienne Vermeersch writes (Is free will an illusion?):

"Ruben Rial Planas shows in his 'twin analysis' that he has made two types of decisions in his life: 

"Those which were conscious, determined decisions.

"And the others 'the result of random and/or uncontrolled external factors'.

"To my astonishment he concludes: 'In either case I am not free', although he just made a brilliant analysis of the really free decisions: the conscious determined ones."


  1. I am so pleased that you are bringing to people's attention the question of spirit. Thank you.
    Dr Richard Haynes

  2. This is what Jesus meant when he said If a man asks you to walk a mile, walk two. The idea is to take the resistance out of the situation. Gurdjieff used to make people dig holes for no apparent reason. So the seeker would have to go through all that mental torture ; that effing so and so what am I doing here this is bollocks the bloke is a fraud he's taking the piss out of me what a waste of effing time etc. Once he'd worked through all of that the seeker would literally dig his way through to a sense of his authentic self. Amazing, eh?

  3. Child-friendly as ever (and sad some misunderstand this).

    Guess many/most of us consider ourselves fixed in where we see-things and what-have-you ideas. And in this those looking for as wider space and room to include what they might be uncertain of and/or hope for. What would love look for? Inclusion, acceptance and room to move/be-moved towards – not pushed away? Beliefs by practitioners, speak though interactions and attitudes of expression and not exclusively in concepts proclaimed.

    Grace, mercy – from the revelation I live in – give me reasons towards openness. These kind of posts, not-so 'take in the info' more, catalyst to provoke connections. Adopting the tricky – for many – term GOD, and if, as Bible-one-claims we are in some way imaging this other-being, the idea we have genuine freedoms, seem altogether implied. And explicit in reading stories (said to be about God's dealings). Pounce on 'in and out/on or off' verses but there's more to be said and whole lots unsaid? Traditions viewed with reason in light of Bible with present help/unseen.

    Again, what does love say? Is this, in doubt the voice of… Love the intention to overcome and bring about a voluntary 'reconciliation of all things'. Hence the 'Good News'.

    The ish with losing; 'choices-real or not/do or not/or what…' – is if, actually happening and true, a considerable dynamic in not acquiescing to evil. Assume malevolent forces? One major tactic would be to pull off and have us believe otherwise?

    Topper post, like the challenges and considerations. To be read slowly. 'All tuned into'.

  4. Thank you aang

  5. Wish he had some students to come and do my garden ...

    The article brought to mind Dion Fortune, who chose her pen name from her family motto - Deo non fortuna (God not chance.

    It is a tenet of the Western Tradition that there is no such thing as luck.

    1. Dion Fortune (Violet Firth) my dearest friend.

  6. Sisters are you having spiritual mushrooms for lunch at the Convent?...I love when you talk about this subject. Thank You.

    1. Smoked salmon and a little Chateau Moulin de Launay Entre-Deux-Mers.

    2. Convent? Ever need a gardener please ask… in one for now, but God willing, come a day...

  7. 🐱😙💋💗❤💛💚💜💙