My oldest grandson asked, "Grandpa, what is your religion?" Thinking deeply, deciding to be honest, I said, "My religion is love; which is what great religions teach -- love." Then he said, "So which one is your religion?". Out of my mouth (and heart) came, "All of them, if they are about love." I also wanted to say that the great sages are humbled by the encounter with the mystery, the truth of that which cannot be spoken, of that union with the spirit known directly, while indescribable. That was too much to say; it says nothing anyway!
Grandson wanted me to pick one religion, just like buying a car or computer. As if a religion is a consumer item. But, it is not my way. For thirty years, I studied, digested, and internalized many religions; finding all leading to the same place inside myself. That is my particular spiritual non-religious perspective on religion.
Spirituality is very inner, very personal -- but as we share our spiritual lives we build common languages with terms, texts, rituals, and symbols which become religions. Religions naturally happen everywhere; they are spiritual support groups. Religion is totally useful, totally important. We especially need it for the great events of life: birth, puberty, marriage, and death.
Problems begin when different religions each make claim to the exclusive franchise on truth and true worship. Then there is exclusion; and, suddenly a religion turns from love to judgement. Suddenly, it's either "us" or "them". Suddenly, there is reason to judge and fight. The love, compassion, and understanding at the root of the spiritual founder's encounter with the divine is forgotten.
The seeds of great religions are the personal, yet cosmic-devine, insights of great souls such Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tze, or Mohamed. These insights are life changing. Someone asks, "Master, what did you learn? How did you become like this?" Teachings are passed by words and deeds which are recorded in many ways. A body of religious dogma forms to carry the teachings, but also corrupts the spirit of the teachings by freezing them.
Then, we become inauthentic by wanting to "look good" in the sight of others. Within a group of believers with a common language, there arises an inner experience created by the spell of the language. That freezes perspectives at a certain historical time and culture -- new historical changes in values and conditions are disallowed. Thus, we lose the "spirit of the law". The "letter" or "letters" of the law become more important than love.
Again, the basic spiritual truth is love -- loving our friends, children, neighbors, co-workers and more. Christ, Buddha, Lao Tze, and Mohamed are among the spiritual geniuses who knew the truth of love. Religion takes these fundamental human relationships to promote love in the wider community or society. This is how such teachings get embodied in a wider society.
When religion fails at love, it is worse than no religion at all. We have a form of "good" gang warfare in place that kills for reasons of love, and falls victim to the whims of madman and power grabbers. In each case, the "evil" ones are the others outside of our religion: the pagans, the heathens, the infidels, and skeptics. What did someone once say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions?"
Monday, February 23, 2026
Just a Portuguese farm boy from Los Angeles
I was born in the Azores Islands—a colony of Portugal 800 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. Some people claim the Azores are the peaks of the lost continent of Atlantis.
My father left the Azores for America before my mother and me. He got a job milking dairy cows in Southern California. When I was 2, he sent for us. Our first American home was a dairy farm in Los Angeles County, once known as "Dairy Valley," now the city of Cerritos. A huge shopping mall squats where our dairy farm was. All the open fields are solid tracts of houses, and a local community college.
Still, I remember the magic of the open fields, the smell of the cows and barns, the muddy roads in the winter, the smell of alfalfa ripening in the summer. Even more, I remember feeling connected to the universe, as I stared up at the planets and stars in the clear dark night sky. In this realm there seemed to be no problems. Until I went to school.
All my life I've felt like a minority within a minority. I grew up in a mixed community of Portuguese, Mexicans, and Dutch. The Portuguese were the fewest. First grade stunned me: my first encounter with English-speaking kids. The first word I learned in English was "stupid." They didn't understand why I didn't understand them. Eventually I learned English, and became a translator for my parents and the world around them.
When I was eight, my parents considered moving back to the Azores. I thought: Why should "I"—this particular self—be in America rather than the Azores? Why was I born "there" rather than "here"? Thus began my philosophical quest. That I would even think of asking such a question made me different from the other children. I tried to like baseball and football, but my appetite for reality became more intense, and refused to go away.
When I was much older, I realized that my parents had never really left the Azores. They talked about life on the Islands all the time—the physical beauty, the deep sense of community. Part of that community had rebuilt itself in Southern California. Those who were here kept sending for those back there. Yet they remained alienated from mainstream American culture.
I watched television for hours, wanting to be like the English-speaking people on the screen. Why couldn't my family be like them? I loved newscasts from New York City. In my high school public-speaking classes, my ideal was to deliver a speech like a New York City newscaster. Just like many American farm boys, I wanted to go to the big city. But I was already in the middle of a big city—Los Angeles. I just didn't realize it yet.
My father left the Azores for America before my mother and me. He got a job milking dairy cows in Southern California. When I was 2, he sent for us. Our first American home was a dairy farm in Los Angeles County, once known as "Dairy Valley," now the city of Cerritos. A huge shopping mall squats where our dairy farm was. All the open fields are solid tracts of houses, and a local community college.
Still, I remember the magic of the open fields, the smell of the cows and barns, the muddy roads in the winter, the smell of alfalfa ripening in the summer. Even more, I remember feeling connected to the universe, as I stared up at the planets and stars in the clear dark night sky. In this realm there seemed to be no problems. Until I went to school.
All my life I've felt like a minority within a minority. I grew up in a mixed community of Portuguese, Mexicans, and Dutch. The Portuguese were the fewest. First grade stunned me: my first encounter with English-speaking kids. The first word I learned in English was "stupid." They didn't understand why I didn't understand them. Eventually I learned English, and became a translator for my parents and the world around them.
When I was eight, my parents considered moving back to the Azores. I thought: Why should "I"—this particular self—be in America rather than the Azores? Why was I born "there" rather than "here"? Thus began my philosophical quest. That I would even think of asking such a question made me different from the other children. I tried to like baseball and football, but my appetite for reality became more intense, and refused to go away.
When I was much older, I realized that my parents had never really left the Azores. They talked about life on the Islands all the time—the physical beauty, the deep sense of community. Part of that community had rebuilt itself in Southern California. Those who were here kept sending for those back there. Yet they remained alienated from mainstream American culture.
I watched television for hours, wanting to be like the English-speaking people on the screen. Why couldn't my family be like them? I loved newscasts from New York City. In my high school public-speaking classes, my ideal was to deliver a speech like a New York City newscaster. Just like many American farm boys, I wanted to go to the big city. But I was already in the middle of a big city—Los Angeles. I just didn't realize it yet.
Monday, January 26, 2026
Lines of Conciousness
I fear my biggest regret upon dying will be that I underestimated myself.
That I somehow didn't realize I was my own Enlightenment.
That I was searching for me and missed me because I am me.
It's like this quiet knowing I can't explain.
I feel like even uttering it...And it's gone, or I've somehow made it less real with my human language.
Than it was; but ultimately I know it doesn't matter what I do. Not that I'm powerless, the opposite.
It is YOU! Infinitely shining energy, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? SEE YOURSELF!
Fear and anxiety are often wanting to be invited in for tea.
Come to the party, I say.
We have a chat with myself.
I talk to these faux feelings, we have a conversation.
I always make it through somehow because I remember what I had forgotten:
Do what makes you feel good and live in the heart.
The mind won't leave you when you wish to play with the tool that's as big as you make it.
As humans, we are energy manipulators.
We have the ability to channel emotions and thoughts in a remarkably beautiful or horrible way.
How do you treat ants? They annoy you; we kill them. Do you believe in a bigger God than you? What size? What capacity of intellect and compassion?
I try but cannot fathom.
You must constantly forgive yourself and accept.
You walk the earth, you feel love in your heart and you smile; a young mother with a child catches it and you see it spread--both lives, saved!
And you remember how much it hurt to find out YOU have a choice.
Little YOU has much more power than you who thought you were you ever imagined...
Be sure you are not suffering over your suffering.
Remember the SHIFT:
Have you made your suffering too comfortable? Is the deep jolt of shift, of happiness, worse than the deep pang of regret?
That I somehow didn't realize I was my own Enlightenment.
That I was searching for me and missed me because I am me.
It's like this quiet knowing I can't explain.
I feel like even uttering it...And it's gone, or I've somehow made it less real with my human language.
Than it was; but ultimately I know it doesn't matter what I do. Not that I'm powerless, the opposite.
It is YOU! Infinitely shining energy, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? SEE YOURSELF!
Fear and anxiety are often wanting to be invited in for tea.
Come to the party, I say.
We have a chat with myself.
I talk to these faux feelings, we have a conversation.
I always make it through somehow because I remember what I had forgotten:
Do what makes you feel good and live in the heart.
The mind won't leave you when you wish to play with the tool that's as big as you make it.
As humans, we are energy manipulators.
We have the ability to channel emotions and thoughts in a remarkably beautiful or horrible way.
How do you treat ants? They annoy you; we kill them. Do you believe in a bigger God than you? What size? What capacity of intellect and compassion?
I try but cannot fathom.
You must constantly forgive yourself and accept.
You walk the earth, you feel love in your heart and you smile; a young mother with a child catches it and you see it spread--both lives, saved!
And you remember how much it hurt to find out YOU have a choice.
Little YOU has much more power than you who thought you were you ever imagined...
Be sure you are not suffering over your suffering.
Remember the SHIFT:
Have you made your suffering too comfortable? Is the deep jolt of shift, of happiness, worse than the deep pang of regret?
Computers Don't Teach -- People Teach
I wrote this paper in 1998. The internet was exploding. Many schools, including mine, where throwing themselves into online education. It was a time of revolution. But, at the same time I saw a dark side and a great opportunity. Today, looking at it again - it still rings true. -Americ
Computers Don't Teach -- People Teach:
The Socrates Online MethodBy Americ Azevedo
The Socrates Online MethodBy Americ Azevedo
MOST DISTANCE EDUCATION IS TRAINING, NOT EDUCATION
When movies first came into existence, producers created motion pictures that duplicated the look of live theater. They failed to see the possibilities inherent in the new medium of film. Likewise, faced with the revolutionary possibilities of online education, many educators still think in terms of converting their lectures into static web pages and relegating their own teaching rule to grading online quizzes and taking online attendance.
Meanwhile students are eager to embrace online education. Not having to commute and having a flexible schedule are such powerful motivators that investors like Michael Milken are crawling over themselves to corner an online education market which promises to be extremely lucrative. Financially stressed administrators, businessmen/educators, and excited investors are lured by the prospects. Online education has been hyped as a way of reaching a worldwide pool of students, paying fewer teachers, having relatively lower overhead, and tapping into the concept of "cradle-to-grave" learning.
The financial and marketing advantages are obvious. Unfortunately the spirit of online education has often been reduced to page after page of linked web materials that the instructor has put together - constituting about the most boring "slide show" you can possibly imagine. Some of these online lecture sites have as many as 40 pages of content. Perhaps that's impressive to people who aren't taking the course. But imagine a student sitting in front of the monitor reading all that. Since reading from a monitor is harder on the eyes than reading from a printed page students often print these pages out to read them . As one of my students told me, "I used up a lot of ink jet cartridges printing out those so-called lectures!"
This canned type of approach is often used to represent what online learning is all about, but I think it has nothing to do with a true teaching experience. Interactive textbooks on the web are valuable, but they have distinct limitations. For instance, there are no human beings on the other end to interact with, no one to explain a difficult concept or engage a student's interest and creativity. Let's remember that without interaction institutions that take up the banner of online education are really only championing a poor variety of correspondence course. A March 1998 article in the New York Times chastised the University of Phoenix for the "drive-thru" flavor of its online curriculum. The concept of online education is here to stay, but in order to sustain its momentum we need to examine the quality interaction between a student, a teacher , and course material - not just technological innovation.
There are some very expensive distance education systems out there that run on pure technological power -- teachers hardly have to check in on their classes. Quizzes are graded and stored automatically. Students respond with less attention because they are getting no attention from living teachers or from each other. Many of these quick-fix systems seem to provide conferences and chat features as an after thought. The primary focus being on creating large amounts of text materials to simulate a lecture. Even when translated into beautiful multimedia web pages, you can't disguise the fact that something is missing. In fact, the more multimedia bells and whistles that are added, the further the shift away from teacher interaction.
The rules in cyberspace are the same as real life. Its easy to fall asleep when you are being lectured at. No one pays much attention. However, when a teacher and other students can engage you online, or in person, there is a creative tension that makes you think and grow intellectually.
REAL EDUCATION IS POSSIBLE - SOMETIMES BETTER - ON THE WEB
Education means, "to draw out." Socrates, in his great dialogues, worked with the idea of drawing out the knowledge that people had within them. Computers don't necessarily do this. A talented teacher, coaching and guiding a student, is the essence of real education.
The Internet and Web have created new environments for talented teachers to thrive. Dialogue, research results, information, and resources are vast. Once I believed that I wanted to rid myself of the books. A paperless classroom, so to speak. I just wanted to post content on the web and link to online resources. But, I've experienced a turnaround. Books are great, few classes should be without them. Books give the class depth, and a common footing. In addition to a class book the addition of Internet resources make for a very rich and accessible environment. Other instructors have told me that web-savvy students in their classes have contributed a great deal to their fellow students. Those students that can immediately find leads to deeper sources are quick to share their tips. The web encourages them and they eagerly communicate that enthusiasm. That is using the medium for what it really is.
I've developed a method that I call the Socrates Online Method to help harness student enthusiasm in a virtual classroom. My technique is not software dependent like many other distance learning systems. Rather, the heart of the teaching method is an ancient, time-honored, and deceptively simple technique: dialogue. Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, recognized dialogue as the best way to maximize the learning process.
One-on-one communication between student and teacher is emphasized in this method. Socrates Online is NOT a means of quickly throwing up web pages and canned materials onto the Internet. The shortsightedness of the "convert all your text materials into web pages" approach misses the whole dynamism of online learning, it fails to see this exciting medium as something completely new. Students who simply read lectures and assignments from a screen are not actively and personally engaged by their teachers. Students in this stultified environment will quickly tire of reading dated materials from a computer terminal and long for the social interplay of a traditional classroom.
This method fosters a rich exchange between student and teacher, between student and student, and between the online class and the vast resources of the Internet which are immediately on hand.
Asynchronous dialogue allows students and their teachers to manage their own learning times. Students who previously could not take classes due to busy career and family schedules are now freed to enrich themselves and their careers. And, unlike traditional classrooms, where students may be hesitant to participate or are hampered by one or two outspoken students online conferencing allows all students to provide input.
Another advantage to online communication is that it allows all students equal time to express themselves. No one interrupts another; postings in this dialogue format can be simultaneous. Responses and questions can be written thoughtfully, since the student is able to take his or her time. Since online conversations are, at present, text-based this medium increases the development of writing skills.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The World Wide Web can be a medium for conversational teaching software that benefits both students and teachers. Teaching dialogues can also occur asynchronously around the world and around the clock since people do not have to be on at the same time zone or on the same schedule. The skills and education necessary to succeed come within the reach of busy working adults and parents. And with the second-by-second advances in job-critical technologies, learning to stay competitive will be an ongoing process for an ever-growing group of people.
In online learning sessions, which are structured around dialogue, the computers don't eliminate teachers. Talented teachers are needed more than before. For example, with classes in Tax Law at Golden Gate University, we found that online students with a good teacher actually performed better than their counterparts in traditional classes.
Attractive, easy to read and navigate web pages are extremely important entryways into the virtual classroom, but once you are in the class, the web-based conferencing is the heart of the online classroom. Good online teaching means person to person interaction. Just like real life. Human attention is the currency of quality.
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
A Sunday Morning Meditation-Poem
The perfection in this world
is not to be
mistaken
for
the protection
of
the Soul
which is
never-in-danger
Ever Present
Ever Perfect.
That which we see
is determined by
our mind-fed
eyes—
Why not switch our vision
to the Soul-fed
Mind
and thereby see
the Perfection
that is
this world.
Diane(July 2012)
Paradox of possessions
Money, time, and love are the three legs of true wealth’s stool. What is money? It is a symbol for value, it is information; it is abstract. Humans are driven by symbols to go to war and fight for abstract causes. Money, being utterly abstract, is often valued more for itself than for what it actually buys—it is the ultimate “field of dreams.” Individuals and societies measure self worth by financial net worth, but this devalues the deeper qualities of awareness and soul that are the true source of all value.
It’s been said, "He who dies with the most toys, wins!" This is both true and not true. Some say, “Money does not matter,” but quietly and privately we fear poverty. Fear of homelessness, hunger, and a drop in social status drives many to an insane focus on money—at any cost. If you are poor with a positive state of mind, you may still suffer a sense of emotional degradation just from the social stigma of poverty. Such fears are well-founded in societies that fail to attain true wealth, since the members of those societies know they can and do fall into poverty. A world based on fear cannot be wealthy in any real sense.
Many of the “richest” people in the world are always “hungry.” Much shopping is for useless trinkets to replace the lack of meaning and love in life. Many a parent, for example, who has no time for talking with their children, will just buy toys. Most people identify with the stuff that they own as an extension of their personal ego.
Our possessions can own us. Attach ourselves to our possessions and we immediately lose our sense of true wealth. The very desire for not-yet-owned possessions breeds greed and lust. We suffer endless rounds of grasping for the goods that will make us “happy and full.” We get “more” but immediately need to get “more” again. There is no end in sight.
Walking by a beautiful garden filled with iris flowers, someone might think, “I don’t own it, how unfortunate!” So they miss the simple of joy of the experience. You don’t need to own things in order to enjoy them. To really “have” something we must be present to it. Taking time to appreciate the existence of an object, a friend, or a place is really having that object before us.
(This text taken from an article of mine titled "Realizing True Wealth" that first appeared in Verna Allee & Dinesh Chandra (Eds.) What is True Wealth & How Do We Create it? Indigo Press, A Division of Print and Media Associates, New Delhi, India, 2004.)
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
Realizing Silence
Begin with the thought of “silence”.
Hold that thought in mind for a while;
perhaps repeating the word “silence"
or a holding a picture of silence.
Allow mind to drop into actual silence -
not the symbol but the living reality of silence:
the silent mind.
Hold that thought in mind for a while;
perhaps repeating the word “silence"
or a holding a picture of silence.
Allow mind to drop into actual silence -
not the symbol but the living reality of silence:
the silent mind.
Move around with silent mind.
Come back to it (silent mind),
again and again as the day flows on.
Come back to it (silent mind),
again and again as the day flows on.
A day lived in silence is a good day.
A day of peace and love.
A day of peace and love.
our pulsating earth
It is like the ebb and flow of life,
the waxing and waning of the moon,
the waves atop the ocean deep:
Not only is it like the world of mind that we've created,
the logical growth of moving, shifting, mirroring ourselves,
but our world, our earth,
magnificently pulsating, always under heavy gravity,
mostly ocean, emotion,
breathing just like us.
And that is why the masters always tell us to breathe,
to begin with the breath, to just breathe, in and out, in, out,
because it is painful, we see that it painful, it hurts when we breathe in, we hold it,
we hold it, it is so tight, we hold it, we are suffocating, it hurts, but
finally, finally, release, sweet release and we breathe out, we let the breath out,
and so we see this is it, this is how life is, we suffer, we suffer, we grow,
we are in pain because we are ever in forming, shaping, the man the statue, the man the chisler,
suffering.
It is life. We are golden children, the greater the struggle the greater the outcome,
you should feel blessed, you are the chosen one so see the light and get through that darkness my friend. So easily all seems lost, when really you have just forgotten your power. The rays are there,
it may sound hard to believe but some part of you is choosing not to see them, and it is not your fault.
The fact is that only you can change it. We lie, we lie, we deny, we create the illusion of love, when really, we don't even know what love is. We lie, worse than faking it to making it, we say that the world is love, all is love, everyone is just love, we want it to be true so badly, but it's not true. If we are all connected and we are all love, then some part of the human race, some part of us, we are like one body on this earth, billions and billions of us; if one part of that body and destroy itself, if men are to murder children, to rake them down.
the waxing and waning of the moon,
the waves atop the ocean deep:
Not only is it like the world of mind that we've created,
the logical growth of moving, shifting, mirroring ourselves,
but our world, our earth,
magnificently pulsating, always under heavy gravity,
mostly ocean, emotion,
breathing just like us.
And that is why the masters always tell us to breathe,
to begin with the breath, to just breathe, in and out, in, out,
because it is painful, we see that it painful, it hurts when we breathe in, we hold it,
we hold it, it is so tight, we hold it, we are suffocating, it hurts, but
finally, finally, release, sweet release and we breathe out, we let the breath out,
and so we see this is it, this is how life is, we suffer, we suffer, we grow,
we are in pain because we are ever in forming, shaping, the man the statue, the man the chisler,
suffering.
It is life. We are golden children, the greater the struggle the greater the outcome,
you should feel blessed, you are the chosen one so see the light and get through that darkness my friend. So easily all seems lost, when really you have just forgotten your power. The rays are there,
it may sound hard to believe but some part of you is choosing not to see them, and it is not your fault.
The fact is that only you can change it. We lie, we lie, we deny, we create the illusion of love, when really, we don't even know what love is. We lie, worse than faking it to making it, we say that the world is love, all is love, everyone is just love, we want it to be true so badly, but it's not true. If we are all connected and we are all love, then some part of the human race, some part of us, we are like one body on this earth, billions and billions of us; if one part of that body and destroy itself, if men are to murder children, to rake them down.
Sweet Somethings
We whispered
sweet somethings
in each others'
ears,
For the “nothing”
of love
is all that lasts
through the years.
And even love
that is "lost"
has more “something”,
than a fortune
handed down
through generations
of the citizens
“of substance”.
Though unlike
the parable
of the camel
and the needle,
I know there are
many of those
“fortunate”,
who would toss
all their jewels
away just to hear,
love’s
“sweet nothings’ ”
warm breath
on their ear.
For Love
is always
God,
no matter
whose heart
has sent it.
And Love
is always
the heart’s
inhabitant,
no matter how life
has bent it.
Diane Shavelson (October 2012)
Diane Shavelson (October 2012)
Tuesday, November 04, 2025
From the Summer of Love to Woodstock
My second year of college ended, while "the Summer of Love" in San Francisco in 1967 exploded on the streets and in the media. Images of young "flower children" walking with colorful clothes, long hair, smoking dope, dropping acid, and making peace signs. Youth grasped, for a moment, that the world was overly focused on things, technology, power, domination, consumerism -- at the expense of being human and loving. And, something had to be done about it.
The older generation viewed young people as merely engaging in "sex, drugs, rock'n'roll". This was not true. Youth were recovering the love and aliveness unseen in parents and the people around them. A generation looked back and saw the clichés of love, but not love itself. A time of radical rediscovery of love's luster, innocence and "becoming as children again".
Dehumanizing technology power manifested in the images and reality of the Vietnam War. Helicopters, napalm bombs, and chemicals destroying jungles. Machines and gadgets against people. Vietnam made no sense, yet took 50,000 American lives. "We", the good guys, where killing people, animals, and plants in a foreign land. In quiet ways, we did it here -- at home. Human instinct, culture and technology were out of harmony. The Summer of Love was a true healthy human response to insanity.
Abbie Hoffman, put it thus: The lesson of the 60's is that peoplewho cared enough to do right could change history. We didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you could send half-a-million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided. The big battles that we won cannot be reversed. We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death. And we were right. (http://www.summeroflove.org/main.html)
A longing for return to the Garden of Eden got expressed in the "back to the land" and ecology-recycling movements. Many went to "live on the land" in communes. Others formed cooperative houses and communes in all major cities. Most of these social experiments faded away. But, many remnants remain. It's significant that the Summer of Love was in San Francisco on the streets near the corner of Haight and Ashbury; while, two years later, the Woodstock music festival happens on a farm in the East Coast.
The Summer of Love opened a path leading to the cultural and technical integration of Woodstock. An event greater than a music concert. University of California at Berkeley, Professor Hubert Dreyfus writes:
Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and other rock groups became for many the articulators of a new understanding of what really mattered. This new understanding almost coalesced into a cultural paradigm in the Woodstock music festival of 1969, where people actually lived for a few days in an understanding of being in which mainline contemporary concerns with order, sobriety, willful activity, and flexible, efficient control were made marginal and subservient to certain pagan practices, such as enjoyment of nature, dancing, and Dionysian ecstasy, along with neglected Christian concerns with peace, tolerance, and nonexclusive love of one's neighbor. Technology was not smashed or denigrated; rather, all the power of electronic communications was put at the service of the music, which focused the above concerns. (from Dr. Dreyfus's paper titled "Heidegger on the connection between nihilism, art, technology, and politics".)
A vision that harmonizes instinct, culture and technology was articulated and practiced. Can we find a way back to it in the middle of ordinary 21st century life? 300 years from today, another young generation shall either bless or curse us for our response to this question.
The older generation viewed young people as merely engaging in "sex, drugs, rock'n'roll". This was not true. Youth were recovering the love and aliveness unseen in parents and the people around them. A generation looked back and saw the clichés of love, but not love itself. A time of radical rediscovery of love's luster, innocence and "becoming as children again".
Dehumanizing technology power manifested in the images and reality of the Vietnam War. Helicopters, napalm bombs, and chemicals destroying jungles. Machines and gadgets against people. Vietnam made no sense, yet took 50,000 American lives. "We", the good guys, where killing people, animals, and plants in a foreign land. In quiet ways, we did it here -- at home. Human instinct, culture and technology were out of harmony. The Summer of Love was a true healthy human response to insanity.
Abbie Hoffman, put it thus: The lesson of the 60's is that peoplewho cared enough to do right could change history. We didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation. We ended the idea that you could send half-a-million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people do not support. We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens. We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided. The big battles that we won cannot be reversed. We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death. And we were right. (http://www.summeroflove.org/main.html)
A longing for return to the Garden of Eden got expressed in the "back to the land" and ecology-recycling movements. Many went to "live on the land" in communes. Others formed cooperative houses and communes in all major cities. Most of these social experiments faded away. But, many remnants remain. It's significant that the Summer of Love was in San Francisco on the streets near the corner of Haight and Ashbury; while, two years later, the Woodstock music festival happens on a farm in the East Coast.
The Summer of Love opened a path leading to the cultural and technical integration of Woodstock. An event greater than a music concert. University of California at Berkeley, Professor Hubert Dreyfus writes:
Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and other rock groups became for many the articulators of a new understanding of what really mattered. This new understanding almost coalesced into a cultural paradigm in the Woodstock music festival of 1969, where people actually lived for a few days in an understanding of being in which mainline contemporary concerns with order, sobriety, willful activity, and flexible, efficient control were made marginal and subservient to certain pagan practices, such as enjoyment of nature, dancing, and Dionysian ecstasy, along with neglected Christian concerns with peace, tolerance, and nonexclusive love of one's neighbor. Technology was not smashed or denigrated; rather, all the power of electronic communications was put at the service of the music, which focused the above concerns. (from Dr. Dreyfus's paper titled "Heidegger on the connection between nihilism, art, technology, and politics".)
A vision that harmonizes instinct, culture and technology was articulated and practiced. Can we find a way back to it in the middle of ordinary 21st century life? 300 years from today, another young generation shall either bless or curse us for our response to this question.
Politics, Leaders, and Followers
Politics is larger than life. Our
relationships to leaders are reduced to those of children looking upon
a distant parent. We tend to demonize or sanctify them! Reality is
distorted. If you are a leader you sign up for being “the reason”
why things appear to be working or failing. Leaders cannot be leaders
without followers. Look to the quality of followers to understand the quality and power of the leaders. (+)
Money Has No Intelligence But Money
There's the idea that money is rational. Get the most for the least money. Buy high, sell low. Get the best paying job. Or, get the most pay for the work you like. But, if you look at the way we play money these days, money is uncoupled from meaning, love, and all that is divine in human life. Why? Because we have learned, as a culture, to put money first and all else below that. This is a prescription for corruption. National politics now suffers from the fact that "money has no intelligence but money" - basically, money wants to make more money. You invest in a candidate that will help you get more money. It does not matter who. It's the money that counts. This is stupid; and, now we have stupid politics. One man at early morning coffee table said, "We got better presidents when they were selected behind closed doors at political conventions - men such as FDR, Eisenhower and Kennedy." Now, winning means getting the most money behind you, and running ads to hypnotize the voters into the "best candidate that money can buy".
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Former President Barack Obama honors Sen. John McCain
Originally posted by Americ on 9/8/2016
We are in unprecedented times. We look at a world on the brink of chaos. It is crucial to vote by Nov. 3rd. Make your voice heard. Bring light to the darkness.
The power is yours.
Moment of Creation
Sit quietly in a chair. Imagine the Big Bang at the moment of our universe's creation, based on current cosmological understanding. You are sitting, now, in the space-time continuum. What could that be? Never mind. Our theories continue to change as we learn more. It's a poetic journey into true reality. Right now, you are taping into a fragment of the total energy of creation. Every time you develop a new idea, such as writing a poem, or planning activities for today; you are creating. Remember who we really are!
Psychological shortfalls stop us from seeing deep enough to feel the glory and power of Being. Individual ego must die, but the real Self (Atman) is eternal, never born. How do I know this? By a lifetime of exploring the inner self and following intuition; it began when I was young and in grade school. The suffering of my first school years: not knowing English, kids making fun at me, the emotional distress and uncertainty of immigrant parents - all factors forcing me inward to protect my sanity. Somewhere deep within I saw the Truth of Life. I held my space and place firmly and softly: without violence. Later in life, while reading about Gandhi it became clear that "truth force" (satyagraha) is a power seeking to to actualize. Afterwards, I learned to actualize one dream after another.
Live fully this present moment. That is living at 100%.
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Knowing water
On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite. It was the size of a basketball, weighed 183 pounds, and orbited the earth in 98 minutes. So began the "Space Age".
I was ten years old. When the United States entered the space age, so did I—by becoming a junior scientist. I could not go into space, but I could study the elements. I studied the chemistry of the water molecule—two hydrogen atoms bound to a common oxygen atom. At room temperature and normal air pressure, these two elements were gases. Eventually I ran a direct electrical current through an sulfuric acid solution, and collected hydrogen and oxygen at two electrodes inside separate test tubes. This was one of my life's greatest moments.
But did I really know water? The power of water was just an abstraction. The Pacific Ocean was only thirty minutes away, but I had never stepped into those vast waters. My mother was afraid of water—be it a rain storm or the ocean—and I was my mother's child.
Not until I was married did I learn to swim. The body is lighter than water, it will float if you don't struggle against it, becoming stiff and thrashing yourself down until you take in gulps of something quite alien to your lungs. Water is hard. Fall into a pool and water demonstrates its solidity. Water is seductive. As you swim, it takes on the feeling of a sensuous substance enfolding you within its body. Eventually, you feel free—like a fish or a soaring eagle. Moving and flowing in a pool is its own self-sustaining pleasure.
After some months in the pool, I braved the frontier: the roaring Pacific Ocean. I became a beach bum. Sun and surf, day after day. Throwing my body into the waves. Catching a wave of salt water that carried this finite human body to the soft sandy shores of Corona Del Mar not far from Newport Beach. I took in life from the vast water. I had discovered water as way of being, at an entirely other level from oxygen and hydrogen.
Meanwhile, more and more satellites orbited the earth. I knew that water was going to be important to people someday living on other planets. Would they make their own water from hydrogen and oxygen? Would they know water as a way of being? Would they even care?
I was ten years old. When the United States entered the space age, so did I—by becoming a junior scientist. I could not go into space, but I could study the elements. I studied the chemistry of the water molecule—two hydrogen atoms bound to a common oxygen atom. At room temperature and normal air pressure, these two elements were gases. Eventually I ran a direct electrical current through an sulfuric acid solution, and collected hydrogen and oxygen at two electrodes inside separate test tubes. This was one of my life's greatest moments.
But did I really know water? The power of water was just an abstraction. The Pacific Ocean was only thirty minutes away, but I had never stepped into those vast waters. My mother was afraid of water—be it a rain storm or the ocean—and I was my mother's child.
Not until I was married did I learn to swim. The body is lighter than water, it will float if you don't struggle against it, becoming stiff and thrashing yourself down until you take in gulps of something quite alien to your lungs. Water is hard. Fall into a pool and water demonstrates its solidity. Water is seductive. As you swim, it takes on the feeling of a sensuous substance enfolding you within its body. Eventually, you feel free—like a fish or a soaring eagle. Moving and flowing in a pool is its own self-sustaining pleasure.
After some months in the pool, I braved the frontier: the roaring Pacific Ocean. I became a beach bum. Sun and surf, day after day. Throwing my body into the waves. Catching a wave of salt water that carried this finite human body to the soft sandy shores of Corona Del Mar not far from Newport Beach. I took in life from the vast water. I had discovered water as way of being, at an entirely other level from oxygen and hydrogen.
Meanwhile, more and more satellites orbited the earth. I knew that water was going to be important to people someday living on other planets. Would they make their own water from hydrogen and oxygen? Would they know water as a way of being? Would they even care?
Making a Living is Not Living
There's profound confusion between money and life. I grew up with the expression "making a living" - which means making enough money to stay alive - as if money is life. True: money is not life. Life is life. Life is love. Love is working together. Life is freely given to us because we're embedded within the matrix of all life on earth. And, all life depends on sunlight. Yes, the sun is life too. Does the sun need money? Who/what needs money - only humans. Why? Because there's not enough love, trust and faith among us collectively to feed each other in our extreme interpersonal specialization within our civilizations. I hope we learn to rethink, re-feel the way we are in our world together. Our greatest need is not money, but the creation and re-creation of enlightened good societies on our precious earth.
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