Critical Thought

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
— Buddha

 

I like to think of myself as being pretty open to most ideas. Oh, I can and will cheerfully discuss almost any topic and come at it from one point of view or another, tho I know that often truth lies somewhere in the middle of any given issue especially when it comes to concepts of history, politics, philosophy or spirituality.
There are occasions tho when I read or hear something that someone has wrote or said and it sets my hair on edge.
A friend of mine had brought up the subject of the Middle East, specifically Palestine and Israel on his page and people were discussing it back and forth. Since it is a subject I have researched quite a bit, I brought up a point or two. Someone who disagreed with me first asked me to cite some sources and when I did and suggested a few other topics to research, he replied “You’re contradicting what I’ve been taught in school, you shouldn’t expect me to dig around to support *your* claims.” I was surprised. I was expecting him to examine other points of views yes, but I had no interest in him supporting any claims I was making.When someone disagrees with me, I love to be given a chance to examine where they are coming from. Some of my greater leaps of understanding have come from being willing to look at and grock (understand) another point of view. Isn’t that what critical thinking is all about?
Blessings, G

 

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Mood PieceMood Piece by G A Rosenberg

 

The Beating of WingsThe Beating of Wings by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – August 1 2012

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. ”
–Buddha

 

What does a healthy society / world look like? We look around and most of us agree that this world is hurting. People seem to be doing some pretty nasty things to each other and themselves. Many of us can point to the symptoms and many can see causes. Here comes the tricky question. How can we achieve health and what does it look like? Can we even describe a vision of it that does not include a negation of the sickness? How do we reach a world that is healthy for all? What is the vision?

Blessings, G

 

About the picture (s): I was playing around with pictures of jellyfish and she called me. She wanted to swim and dance among them. She felt it could be done and so she drew me to her and I drew her (or composited her perhaps) The seas changed but there she was. Now she has a life that could easily continue beyond the frame of the picture. I can imagine the life and she whispers parts of it to me. Strange the relationship we have with our creations.

 

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Imaginary Swimmer by G A Rosenberg

Imaginary Swimmer with a Colourcast by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – January 1 2012

“If you take history on this planet at starting at midnight…then it is now 8 o’clock in the morning, and it’s time for us to wake up, because we’ve been operating on auto-pilot up until now.
And there are signs of planetary awakening. Domesticated primate psychology [humanity] is pretty much the same as it was in the paleolithic. But one sees increasing evidence of mutations.
There was only one Buddha 2500 years ago, now you meet 5-10 buddhas at every city you go to.
Knowledge wherever it’s discovered is traveling over the whole world faster and faster.”
–Robert Anton Wilson

And here we are:

2012

is upon us. May this year be one filled with blessings, joy, fun and enchantment for all. May growth happen according to the highest intent of each’s spirit. May love find us all from within and without assuming that there is a difference between the two. Namaste G

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Travelling in Dreams by G A Rosenberg

Worlds Within Worlds by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 26 2011

 ‎”Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.”
–Buddha

Thinking about language and how some words have become so charged that people when hearing them will react to the words used rather than what is being said. Some words seem to break communication stopping intelligent discourse dead in its tracks just by uttering them. These words (or terms or images (see Hitler or the Swastika) over time seem to have had their meaning so charged both positively and negatively that once you say them, you take on the charge and depending on how the person hearing them wishes to magnetize or polarize themselves, they will react. Examples of these words: socialism, communism, democracy, new world order, religion, Hitler, nazi. I go back and forth whether to add the words love and spiritual to this list. I know that there are many others that can be added. In my more paranoid (or lucid depending on  whom you talk to) moments I wonder at the social engineering that have resulted in these words being unable to be heard.
By demonizing communism during the cold war and then making sure that anyone who warned against it was seen as extreme or crazy (the term McCarthyism becoming synonymous with witch hunts) and miscarriages of justice, the nwo suckers make it very easy to discredit people like Charlotte Iserbyt

Another method to manipulate people with language:

A) Demonize a word (whether or not the word defines something evil or not is irrelevant at this point)
i.e. Communism in the 50’s. Was the Soviet form of social collectivism masquerading as Communism a bad thing undoubtedly as it becomes a very easy tool for manipulating / exploiting the masses

B) Once the word is demonized, have someone , in a position of power like Senator McCarthy et al take it to insane degrees (seeing communists everywhere accessing everyone on the smallest amount of evidence of being communist. and then persecuting them (i.e. the blacklisting in Hollywood

C) at this point at a fairly slow rate, you can bring in whatever you have been demonizing, calling it by other names (social justice, oneness, democracy in action (anyone who points out that this is actually socialist collectivism or what passed for Communism / Socialism will be seen as insane, People will not react in a logical thoughtful way to what they have to say, they will react to the use of the word branding the person using it in all kinds of unpleasant ways missing the point of anything they have to say

Sound familiar?
Blessings,
GAR

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Fire Mountains Under Storm Skies by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – November 9 2011

“Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.”
–Buddha

 

Choices
Despise the compromise
yet despair the unyielding

Never so clear
so I follow my instinct
not what may be right ultimately
but right ‘right now’
i stay the path
as the decisions become harder
what good would be gaining my soul
yet losing my life
what’s the good in keeping my life intact
at the cost of my soul..

Funny thing about compromises, they tend to be inherently unstable. Pressures both within and without, knowing we don’t follow the highest standards for our spirit, our diet or our growth will eventually spur us on either to compromise more, perhaps make us insensate to our own inner wisdom, or compromise less, ever moving towards healthier diets and lifestyles even if it means sacrificing lives we have chosen.
People, such as the two of you tend to echo our own inner voices hastening the decision points.. Many can’t stand to listen.
Me, I tend to be appreciative so thanks.. Wow, a bit of a long-winded one here.
— G A Rosenberg

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Ancient Cave by G A Rosenberg