No one can choose better feeling thoughts for
you. Your feelings are the program that guide you. Your response-ability
is your ability to STOP! Choose another train of thoughts, words and
actions.
Your point of power is Now. You are in touch, fusion with the Now with each breath you take.
The "con" in confusion are thoughts of con-tradiction. There is, in actuality, no contradiction, just experience.
Once the experience begins to feed upon you, it is your choice to change the experience by a daily regimen, Your Practice
Daily Exercise - suggestions - see details and links below
1. The Practice outlined by Desmond Green
2. Earth Grounding - connecting your feet, body directly with the Earth
3. Breathing: Deeply, Consciously, Appreciatingly
4. Envisioning - Being, doing what feels good to you. (Preparation for Re-Creation) -
Thoughts of the future or past tend to insight feelings of dis-content. The power is in the Now - One Breath.
Reverence for Life starts with Your Life!
Removing "old" programs that act like viruses can seem to be quite challenging. A dedicated "Practice" combined with the physical act of Conscious Deep Breathing can accomplish what years of therapy can "try" to achieve.
Your feelings tell you the results you will be getting from your train of thoughts.
Some of the deepest, most prevalent "programs" exist around money.
Accusational theology and psychology are what we are looking to remove from our experience (individually and collectively). Blame, shame, guilt are the symptoms and characteristics of this program. It exhibits itself in our perspectives of ourselves, families, others (including government, corporations, institutions, ideas, etc.). Blaming will eventually lead to healing.
You choose how quickly.
Life Affirmation, Reverence for Life (Albert Schweitzer) is the new program.
It is being installed with each breath you take, with or without, your conscious participation.
Shallow, asphyxiated, breathing created a world of human disharmony. For Experience, and seeing the details. There is a huge purpose that we have been going through. It has been a blessing. It is all Good.
Daily Regimen Adapt to You!!!!
Breath Consciously, Deeply, Appreciatingly: all day, as often as possible
The Practice: Read, adapt principles to your day - 8 principles adapted to your daily experiences
Background: Desmond Green's Videos The Power of Words Breathing Your Mood Tracking
Earth Grounding: 20 minutes per day with bare feet or body on Earth
Background: Grounded Video telling of man's 13 month experience
Our Star Power - my inspiration from Law of One about connecting with Earth energy, chakras, etc.
Solar Appreciation: feeling connection to sun, soak up energy/love, spend time in sunlight - as much as possible
Track Your Thoughts by being aware of Your Feelings: ongoing/continuous, to best of ability
Background: Things You Must Do Every Day - Abraham (Jerry & Ester Hicks) have many videos and books that are great.
Dedicate as much time as you can to those things that bring you joy
- loved ones, time in nature, inspiring pursuits
- creating your vision, following your passion, experiencing bliss
- working for the life and world of your dreams
Concluding Thoughts
You cannot expect evidence for some future event or creation, now. The creation will show up in its own time.
Physical creation with the "old program" has had limitations and constraints. These programs are coming to an end.
Investing your time, energy, thoughts and feelings into someone else's game will result in dis-harmony.
Bhagavad Gita 3:35: And do thy duty, even if it be humble, rather than another´s,
even if it be great. To die in one´s duty is life: to live in another´s is
death. The only true purpose is to: "work for the world".
You are being guided, supported and loved beyond what you can comprehend with the old programs. They are being replaced. You can Trust the Process.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Re-Visiting Experiential University
Oct. 23, 2013
My morning started with a number of messages, from a variety of disparate sources.
1. Sarah started the morning with a song for Shiloh on Youtube - "Green is the colour" by Pink Floyd
2. I turned to a passage in Matthew Fox's book "WHEE! We, We All the Way Home: a guide to the new sensual spirituality" -
What dangers should we expect to encounter along our spiritual way either from our inner selves or from our culture with its dragonesque institutions? All to often, books on meditation and spirituality have come to signify pacification rather than education because they see humility as merely a private, psychological struggle. In fact, humility has profound social consequences and is often best learned battling in streets or institutions rather than in our imaginations.
3. Shiloh's book "My Mama Earth" sitting on the coffee table.
4. The first snow of winter, and Shiloh's first snowfall. Possibly the largest snow flakes I have seen in my life.
5. "Sacred Planet" video with Robert Redford as narrator.
6. Vision for Wellness from Intenders of the Highest Good
I mistakenly searched for Sacred Earth and found this link "Sacred Earth is part of a revolutionary new Wellness Experience"
My morning started with a number of messages, from a variety of disparate sources.
1. Sarah started the morning with a song for Shiloh on Youtube - "Green is the colour" by Pink Floyd
2. I turned to a passage in Matthew Fox's book "WHEE! We, We All the Way Home: a guide to the new sensual spirituality" -
What dangers should we expect to encounter along our spiritual way either from our inner selves or from our culture with its dragonesque institutions? All to often, books on meditation and spirituality have come to signify pacification rather than education because they see humility as merely a private, psychological struggle. In fact, humility has profound social consequences and is often best learned battling in streets or institutions rather than in our imaginations.
3. Shiloh's book "My Mama Earth" sitting on the coffee table.
4. The first snow of winter, and Shiloh's first snowfall. Possibly the largest snow flakes I have seen in my life.
5. "Sacred Planet" video with Robert Redford as narrator.
6. Vision for Wellness from Intenders of the Highest Good
I mistakenly searched for Sacred Earth and found this link "Sacred Earth is part of a revolutionary new Wellness Experience"
A Vision for Wellness
We see a world where wellness is the watchword of the day; where
humanity has realized, oh-so-clearly, that we are wise to hold a vision
of ourselves and others in the highest light - happy, healthy, vibrant,
joyous, creative, and living our calling to the fullest.
We see a world where supporting sickness in others, having a vested interest in illnesses of any kind, naming, creating, advertising, and reinforcing diseases, being sympathetic instead of empathetic, being dependent on big pharmaceutical companies who have profit as their first priority, believing things are contagious, experimenting with vaccines, and so forth have gone by the wayside because we have begun to use light, to bring Spirit/Source into the picture, and to use positive envisioning and love to heal one another.
Can you imagine a world like this? It is a world where we are all living in peak health because that is all we are putting our attention on.
We see a world where supporting sickness in others, having a vested interest in illnesses of any kind, naming, creating, advertising, and reinforcing diseases, being sympathetic instead of empathetic, being dependent on big pharmaceutical companies who have profit as their first priority, believing things are contagious, experimenting with vaccines, and so forth have gone by the wayside because we have begun to use light, to bring Spirit/Source into the picture, and to use positive envisioning and love to heal one another.
Can you imagine a world like this? It is a world where we are all living in peak health because that is all we are putting our attention on.
7. Sarah was invited by Wendy to help organize weekly events at the Quad City Food Hub.
Being Guided by my Spirit Animals (type up from Animal Spirit Guides book)
Elephant
Peregrine Falcon
Beaver - blog about experience with my brother Mark when I returned from Iowa after being in South America for 4 years.
Earth Experience School
Return to prior blogs/essays written about "Experiential University" and connection to the original vision for the Land-grant University system that was signed into law by Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War.
New school based on "Reverence for Life" - as expressed by Albert Schweitzer in "Philosophy of Civilization", published 1960
Reverence for Life = The Golden Way (changed to Golden Rule) "The Voice by the Moody Blues" - "won't you take me back to school, I need to learn the Golden Rule, just one more time"
The "1st R" (previously the "4th R" - implementing The Practice in our educational systems, included in the free book "The Global Citizenship Passport", by Desmond D. Green.
Facebook posts - 10/23/2013
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Sergio Nino
-Henry David Thoreau
-Henry David Thoreau
It's
what is looking at what you see that matters. IT is what you are
looking for and without it nothing could be seen, experienced or felt. - My response
My posts - In
order for the world to truly become One we need to stay approachable
even when we achieve "success". True success is based on our
response-ability. God never left us, even though we have been playing
the game of separation. Source is in every thing and every where - even,
and especially, all of US {Universal Sweetness}.
People, do you see what has happened to our
knowing about what we are saying with our words? "Insecurity",
"Insurance" "figure out" - hyphenate the words in-security, in-surance.
"Credit = debt.
To find these things "out-side" will never happen. You must find these things inside!!!! It is with you, NOW. Secure you are in Your Breath which is assured, always. Learn the power of your words. Connect with your Self. Watch this 2 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQpAyBnJfU
Get your skill-set, for free in The Practice at www.reverenceforlifeuniversity.com
To find these things "out-side" will never happen. You must find these things inside!!!! It is with you, NOW. Secure you are in Your Breath which is assured, always. Learn the power of your words. Connect with your Self. Watch this 2 minute video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zQpAyBnJfU
Get your skill-set, for free in The Practice at www.reverenceforlifeuniversity.com
The Earth Experience University
Has a mission to make quality, practical, common sense knowledge to individuals who are not really interested in going to a college or university for betwen 2 - 12 years only to discover that they can be learning in the process of living there lives. Pursuing a "degree", which is a piece of paper, ending in a long-term educational "debt" is not in the best interest of the individual or our society.
The Earth Experience University is based on learning through experience, not through just some academic pursuit - not to suggest that our courses, curriculums, and studies will not be base on rigorous thinking processes. Our aim will be to teach foundational concepts first, like who and what we are, and then to provide information that will satisfy the dreams and aspirations of each individual to fulfill their dreams.
Our university has extensive background documentation based on Dr. Skadberg's experience working and studying in several institutions of higher education. Then, when he realized, after receiving his PhD that he had really only learned as he had the opportunity to apply his knowledge.
This type of learning falls under the umbrella, in academic circles as, "Experiential Learning" but is also espoused by 4-H as "Learning by doing". 4-H is a program developed out of the Extension Service of the Land-grant University System.
The original "Reverence for Life University" proposal was written in 2008 for the Global Breath Consciousness Institute in Jamaica.
These original writings have been supplemented by many additional essays and real world based concepts in the book "Vision - We ARE Re-Creating the World: a Resource Manual "tool-box" for Revitalization and Empowerment Through Grass-roots Strategies and Environmental Awareness". (links to chapters outlining vision in Pdf documents).
The chapter "Education, Environment, Economics: E-cubed" (links to Pdf document)
Since the writing of the "Vision" book, the following resources and Websites have been created to further realize and manifest this new way to "Revitalize and Empower" communities and people.
Reverence for Life University - Provides the foundational "The Practice" written by Desmond D. Green as the manual to acquire the "skill-set" for individual transformation. Additional links
Rural Innovation Institute - has gathered together a plethora of information about topics related to wholistic and common-sense based solutions.
Vision Excelerator - is an "incubator" for businesses, ideas and organizations based on my life experiences since 1981 starting, and/or creating new businesses and projects.
Eye Am Sharing - instead of social networking, it is time for "collaborative networking". This Web site is a beginning to creating the networking tool for people to join a community to share their stories and services in a cooperative and creative way.
Experience Co-Evolution Group - provides expert information and services to reach out to communities and peoples who are interested in sustainable and diversified development. A primary aim is around tourism, but with a focus also on diversification, creativity and entrepreneurship.
Various Projects are being developed, or have been envisioned in writing
Regional Tourism Project - (detailed "case study" in Pdf)
SMART Bus (Sharp Minds Are Reading Thoroughly) - to be presented
Our India Connections - Newday Wellness :: AIWA Academy :: Wellness Tourism IMark Global :: IMARK Tech
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Spending Your Breath
People,
people, people - money, taxes, govemnt, politicians. When did we get so
sidetracked to spend so much energy on so much nonsense. It hasn't been
working for a long time. It's not gonna magically start to. The One
thing that is working, doing it all, is what supports you. Simplify your
life. Take just one breath. Ahhh. Now, take another. Ok, good. Just try
to do that, again, as often as you can
remember. Your Breath is like an infinite wave carrying you along
through your life, forever. You can't remove one breath, you cannot stop
your breaths. God is forcing you to realize that Love is supporting
you. It happens through your breath, and then you get to have the
amazing, multi-dimensional sense experience of creating Your Life. It is
Yours, and it is Your Infinite Endowment. What are you gonna Spend that
on? . . . . It's OK, God loves you! And Your appreciation of Your
Breath, and spending it wisely is your best way to return your love to
God.
Master Your Connection
It is an ironic thing, but to blame or judge
people for truly believing what they believe is the utmost of hypocrisy,
no matter how much ignorance or selfishness they are exhibiting.
Depending on a human system built from a gargantuan amount
of dishonesty, untruths and self serving motivations is fruitless.
Trying to understand insanity will make one insane. "You cannot solve
the problems with the thinking you used while they were created." Albert
Einstein -
Our thinking, based on the illusion of separation and duality has innumerable viruses, like in your computer. You cannot remove a virus with the program affected by the virus. The solution is knowing there is only One thing here. And that your only true power point, to tap into the Infinite Intelligence is the now moment. All effective teachings in meditation will connect one with the breath at some point in the process of what is being taught. This is because our breath connects us spiritually and physically with the Source of the Infinite Intelligence that is creating, supporting and orchestrating this elaborate show of light/love.
You are the Master of Your connection to Source via your conscious, free-will choice to connect to your personal, power point. This is the best way to show your Love for Your God as it will allow you to become the best that you can be. It is simple, always accessible and sweet. Gain the skill-sets that will help you achieve your personal freedoms, that no one can impede at www.reverenceforlifeuniversity.com
Interestingly, as I was typing this message, Desmond Green called me with another acronym wrapping up the whole enchilada
"BUS - Breathing Universal Sweetness".
Those that know me, know that I have had buses in my experiences for most of my life, even though I have often tried to quit. I started driving school bus in 1979 and continued to drive charter bus on the side, even when I was teaching at Texas A&M Univ. Even after I let my CDL go in 2012 I was called up to drive the longest trip I had ever driven, 2 months, about 13,000 miles, 20 states and 40+ cities. Here is the poem I wrote while on that trip, traveling with a beautiful group of young musicians called The Glassmen. http://13lightmessages.blogspot.com/2012/08/crystalline-reflections.html
Now I am driving a thing called the SMART (Sharp Minds Are Reading Throroughly) Bus. A little book-mobile that kids get to take a book home, for FREE! Today we received a gaylord (4x4x4 ft box) of books. 3000 of them. Getting ready to take the program to the next level. Reminding myself of grown up in Ames with the Bookmobile, Project Eco and the Park & Recreation bus that came with sports equipment to neighborhoods in summer.
Our thinking, based on the illusion of separation and duality has innumerable viruses, like in your computer. You cannot remove a virus with the program affected by the virus. The solution is knowing there is only One thing here. And that your only true power point, to tap into the Infinite Intelligence is the now moment. All effective teachings in meditation will connect one with the breath at some point in the process of what is being taught. This is because our breath connects us spiritually and physically with the Source of the Infinite Intelligence that is creating, supporting and orchestrating this elaborate show of light/love.
You are the Master of Your connection to Source via your conscious, free-will choice to connect to your personal, power point. This is the best way to show your Love for Your God as it will allow you to become the best that you can be. It is simple, always accessible and sweet. Gain the skill-sets that will help you achieve your personal freedoms, that no one can impede at www.reverenceforlifeuniversity.com
Interestingly, as I was typing this message, Desmond Green called me with another acronym wrapping up the whole enchilada
"BUS - Breathing Universal Sweetness".
Those that know me, know that I have had buses in my experiences for most of my life, even though I have often tried to quit. I started driving school bus in 1979 and continued to drive charter bus on the side, even when I was teaching at Texas A&M Univ. Even after I let my CDL go in 2012 I was called up to drive the longest trip I had ever driven, 2 months, about 13,000 miles, 20 states and 40+ cities. Here is the poem I wrote while on that trip, traveling with a beautiful group of young musicians called The Glassmen. http://13lightmessages.blogspot.com/2012/08/crystalline-reflections.html
Now I am driving a thing called the SMART (Sharp Minds Are Reading Throroughly) Bus. A little book-mobile that kids get to take a book home, for FREE! Today we received a gaylord (4x4x4 ft box) of books. 3000 of them. Getting ready to take the program to the next level. Reminding myself of grown up in Ames with the Bookmobile, Project Eco and the Park & Recreation bus that came with sports equipment to neighborhoods in summer.
Monday, September 23, 2013
So Simple
Waking
up and becoming aware is each person's response-ability. All arguments
cease without the breath to carry them. This IS the ultimate test of all
thought or image-based discussions/arguments. Without Your breath, you
cannot think or talk, or anything. So many discussions about possible
solutions to the, apparent, infinitude of problems. There are no
problems that the Breath will not address, because
it is what is supporting them. To remove support from those things you
don't want, stop thinking and talking about them. How do you stop
thinking and talking about these things? - study and apply "The
Practice" and be conscious of Your Breath as often as you can remember.
Speak only of those things that you want to experience. The Breath (God,
or any label you give it) is taking us to our Destination and IT knows
all that is going on. En-joy, Appreciate and Trust Your Breath because
it is what is supplying all that you are experiencing and it is becoming
conscious of itself, through you. www.reverenceforlifeuniversity
This was posted on Facebook after watching the movie I Am.
This was posted on Facebook after watching the movie I Am.
Friday, September 20, 2013
You, Containing the Multi-verse
"We
are taught by the great actions that the universe is the property of
every individual in it. Every rational creature has all nature for his
dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He many divest himself of it,
he may creep into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do,
but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to
the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world unto himself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson ~ Nature
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Essays from Albert Schweitzer
Here are several quotes from Albert Schweitzer, one of the greatest thinkers of our times. These selections were included in my first digital book "I Am Sharing: Thoughts, Experiences and Learning About Love and Service"
Skepticism
The city of truth cannot be built on the swampy ground of skepticism. Our spiritual life is rotten throughout because it is permeated through and through with skepticism, and we live in consequence in a world which in every respect is full of falsehood. We are not far from shipwreck on the rock of wanting to have even truth organized.
Truth taken over by skepticism which has become believing has not the spiritual qualities of that which originated in thinking. It has been externalized and rendered torpid. It does obtain influence over a man, but it is not capable of uniting itself with him to the very marrow of his being. Living truth is that alone which has its origin in thinking.
Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit and yet fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought. But our age is bent on trying to make the barren tree of skepticism fruitful by tying fruits of truth on its branches.
(Life, p. 259) from Albert Schweitzer and Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Loss of Self Confidence
The circumstances of the age do their best to deliver us up to the spirit of the age. The seed of skepticism has germinated. In fact, the modern man has no longer any spiritual self-confidence at all. Behind a self-confident exterior he conceals a great inward lack of confidence. In spite of his great capacity in material matters he is an altogether stunted being, because he makes no use of his capacity for thinking. It will ever remain incomprehensible that our generation, which has shown itself so great by its achievements in discovery and invention, could fall so low spiritually as to give up thinking.
(Life, p. 257) from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Man of Today
The man of today is exposed to influences which are bent on robbing him of all confidence in his own thinking. The spirit of spiritual dependence to which he is called on to surrender is in everything that he hears, or reads; it is in the people whom he meets every day; it is in the parties and associations which have claimed him as their own; it pervades all the circumstances of his life.
From every side and in the most varied ways it is dinned into him that the truths and convictions which he needs for life must be taken by him from the associations which have rights over him. The spirit of the age never lets him come to himself. Over and over again convictions are forced upon him in the same way as, by means of the electric advertisements which flare in the streets of every large town any company which has sufficient capital to get itself securely established, exercises pressure on him at every step he takes to induce him to buy their boot polish or their soup tablets.
By the spirit of the age, then, the man of today is forced into skepticism about his own thinking, in order to make him receptive to truth which comes to him from authority. To all this constant influence he cannot make the resistance that is desirable because he is an overworked and distracted being without power to concentrate. Moreover, the manifold material trammels which are his lot work upon his mentality in such a way that he comes at last to believe himself unqualified to make any claim to thoughts of his own.
(Life, pp. 255 f.) from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Modern Thought has No Goal
With the spirit of the age I am in complete disagreement, because it is filled with disdain for thinking. That such is its attitude is to some extent explicable by the fact that thought has never yet reached the goal which it must set before itself. Time after time it was convinced that it had clearly established a world-view which was in accordance with knowledge and ethically satisfactory. But time after time the truth came out that it had not succeeded. Doubts, therefore, could well arise as to whether thinking would ever be capable of answering
current questions about the world and or relation to it in such a way that we could give a meaning and a content to our lives.
[Life, p. 254] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Thinking Drops the Tiller
In modern thinking the same thing happens as in religion. Thinking drops the tiller from its hand in the middle of the storm. It renounces the idea of giving human beings ideals by the help of which they can get on with reality. It leaves them to themselves, and that in a most terrible moment. For the present moment is terrible. Man has won power over the forces of nature and by that has become superman - and at the same time most miserable man! For this power over the forces of nature is not being used beneficially, but destructively. [Religion, p. 1520] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Modern Thinking Unequal to its Task
The spirit of the age rejoices, instead of lamenting, that thinking seems to be unequal to its task, and gives it no credit for what, in spite of imperfections, it has already accomplished. It refuses to admit, what is nevertheless the fact, that all spiritual progress up to today has come about through the achievements of thought, or to reflect that thinking may still be able in the future to accomplish what it has not succeeded in accomplishing as yet.
[Life, p. 255] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Life Without Thought
No one who opens the sluices to let a flood of skepticism pour itself over the land must expect to be able to bring it back within its proper bounds. Of those who let themselves get too disheartened to try any longer to discover truth by their own thinking, only few find a substitute for it in truth taken from others. The mass of people remain skeptical. They lose all feeling for truth, and all sense of need for it as well, finding themselves quite comfortable in a life without thought, driven now here, now there, from one opinion to another
[Life, p. 258] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Religion of Our Age
If one reviews the development of religion since the middle of the nineteenth century, one understands the tragic fact that although really living religion is to be found among us, it is not the leaven that leavens the thinking of our age.
[Religion, p. 1484] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Lack of Reason in Our Time
The history of our time is characterized by lack of reason which has no parallel in the past. Future historians will one day analyze this history in detail, and test by means of it their learning and their freedom from prejudice. But for all future times there will be, as there is for today, only one explanation, viz., that we sought to live and to carry on with a civilization which had no ethical principle behind it.
[Decay, p. 61] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Clogged Spirit
A fundamental impulse to reflect about the universe stirs us during those years in which we begin to think independently. Later on we let it languish, even though feeling clearly that we thereby impoverish ourselves and become less capable of what is good. We are like springs of water which no longer run because they have not been watched and have gradually become choked with rubbish. more than any other age has our own neglected to watch the thousand springs of thought; hence the drought in which we are pining. But if we only go on to remove the rubbish which conceals the water, the sands will be irrigated again, and life will spring up where hitherto there has been only a desert.
[Decay, pp. 92 f.] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Divorce of Science and Reflection
Today thought gets no help from science, and the latter stands facing it independent and unconcerned. The newest scientific knowledge may be allied with an entirely un-reflecting view of the universe. It maintains that it is concerned only with the establishment of individual facts, since it is only by means of these that scientific knowledge can maintain its practical character; the coordination of the different branches of knowledge and the utilization of the results to form a theory of the universe are, it says, not its business. Once every man of science was also a thinker who counted for something in the general spiritual life of his generation. Our age has discovered how to divorce knowledge from thought, with the result that we have, indeed, a science which is free, but hardly any science left which reflects.
[Decay, p. 72] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Secondary Issues Prevail
Our philosophizing has become more and more involved in the discussion of secondary issues. It has lost touch with the elemental questions regarding life and the world which it is man's task to pose and to solve, and has found satisfaction more and more in discussing problems of a purely academic nature and in a mere virtuosity of philosophical technique. It has become increasingly absorbed in side issues. Instead of genuine classical music it has frequently produced only chamber music, often excellent in its way, but not the real thing. And so this philosophy, which was occupied only in elucidating itself, instead of struggling to achieve a
world-view grounded in thought and essential for life, has led us into a position where we are devoid of any world-view at all, as an inevitable consequence of this, of any real civilization.
[Ethics, p. viii] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Danger of Technical Language
Technical expressions are a danger for every system of philosophy, whether Indian or European. For they may become formulae which hinder the natural development of thought in the same way as ruts in a road hinder traffic. So to find out what are its real contents it is reasonable to test a system of thought by setting aside expressions which it has coined for its own use and compelling it to speak in ordinary comprehensible language.
[Indian, p. ix] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Tragedy of Western Thought
Western thought is not governed by mystical thought by the idea that the one thing needful is the spiritual union of man with infinite Being, and therefore (if it is obliged to renounce the hope of attaining to a knowledge of the universe that corresponds to ethical world- and life affirmation), it is in danger of saying it is satisfied not only with lowered ideals, but also with an inferior conception of world-view. That is the tragedy that is being enacted before our eyes.
[Indian, pp. 253 f.] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Spiritual Bankruptcy
Renunciation of thinking is a declaration of spiritual bankruptcy. Where there is no longer a conviction that man can get to know the truth by their own thinking, skepticism begins. Those who work to make our age skeptical in this way, do so in the expectation that, as a result of renouncing all hope of self-discovered truth, men will end by accepting as truth what is forced upon them with authority and by propaganda.
[Life, p. 258] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Ideals that We Need
Humanity has always needed ethical ideals to enable it to find the right path, that man may make the right use of the power he possesses. Today his power is increased a thousandfold. A thousandfold greater is now the need for man to possess ethical ideas to point the way. Yet at the very moment when this happens, thinking fails. In this period of deepest need thinking is not giving to humanity the ideals it needs so that it may not be overwhelmed. Is that our destiny? I hope not. I believe not. I think that in our age we are all carrying within us a new form of thought which will give us ethical ideals.
[Religion, p. 1520] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Skepticism
The city of truth cannot be built on the swampy ground of skepticism. Our spiritual life is rotten throughout because it is permeated through and through with skepticism, and we live in consequence in a world which in every respect is full of falsehood. We are not far from shipwreck on the rock of wanting to have even truth organized.
Truth taken over by skepticism which has become believing has not the spiritual qualities of that which originated in thinking. It has been externalized and rendered torpid. It does obtain influence over a man, but it is not capable of uniting itself with him to the very marrow of his being. Living truth is that alone which has its origin in thinking.
Just as a tree bears year after year the same fruit and yet fruit which is each year new, so must all permanently valuable ideas be continually born again in thought. But our age is bent on trying to make the barren tree of skepticism fruitful by tying fruits of truth on its branches.
(Life, p. 259) from Albert Schweitzer and Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Loss of Self Confidence
The circumstances of the age do their best to deliver us up to the spirit of the age. The seed of skepticism has germinated. In fact, the modern man has no longer any spiritual self-confidence at all. Behind a self-confident exterior he conceals a great inward lack of confidence. In spite of his great capacity in material matters he is an altogether stunted being, because he makes no use of his capacity for thinking. It will ever remain incomprehensible that our generation, which has shown itself so great by its achievements in discovery and invention, could fall so low spiritually as to give up thinking.
(Life, p. 257) from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Man of Today
The man of today is exposed to influences which are bent on robbing him of all confidence in his own thinking. The spirit of spiritual dependence to which he is called on to surrender is in everything that he hears, or reads; it is in the people whom he meets every day; it is in the parties and associations which have claimed him as their own; it pervades all the circumstances of his life.
From every side and in the most varied ways it is dinned into him that the truths and convictions which he needs for life must be taken by him from the associations which have rights over him. The spirit of the age never lets him come to himself. Over and over again convictions are forced upon him in the same way as, by means of the electric advertisements which flare in the streets of every large town any company which has sufficient capital to get itself securely established, exercises pressure on him at every step he takes to induce him to buy their boot polish or their soup tablets.
By the spirit of the age, then, the man of today is forced into skepticism about his own thinking, in order to make him receptive to truth which comes to him from authority. To all this constant influence he cannot make the resistance that is desirable because he is an overworked and distracted being without power to concentrate. Moreover, the manifold material trammels which are his lot work upon his mentality in such a way that he comes at last to believe himself unqualified to make any claim to thoughts of his own.
(Life, pp. 255 f.) from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Modern Thought has No Goal
With the spirit of the age I am in complete disagreement, because it is filled with disdain for thinking. That such is its attitude is to some extent explicable by the fact that thought has never yet reached the goal which it must set before itself. Time after time it was convinced that it had clearly established a world-view which was in accordance with knowledge and ethically satisfactory. But time after time the truth came out that it had not succeeded. Doubts, therefore, could well arise as to whether thinking would ever be capable of answering
current questions about the world and or relation to it in such a way that we could give a meaning and a content to our lives.
[Life, p. 254] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Thinking Drops the Tiller
In modern thinking the same thing happens as in religion. Thinking drops the tiller from its hand in the middle of the storm. It renounces the idea of giving human beings ideals by the help of which they can get on with reality. It leaves them to themselves, and that in a most terrible moment. For the present moment is terrible. Man has won power over the forces of nature and by that has become superman - and at the same time most miserable man! For this power over the forces of nature is not being used beneficially, but destructively. [Religion, p. 1520] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Modern Thinking Unequal to its Task
The spirit of the age rejoices, instead of lamenting, that thinking seems to be unequal to its task, and gives it no credit for what, in spite of imperfections, it has already accomplished. It refuses to admit, what is nevertheless the fact, that all spiritual progress up to today has come about through the achievements of thought, or to reflect that thinking may still be able in the future to accomplish what it has not succeeded in accomplishing as yet.
[Life, p. 255] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Life Without Thought
No one who opens the sluices to let a flood of skepticism pour itself over the land must expect to be able to bring it back within its proper bounds. Of those who let themselves get too disheartened to try any longer to discover truth by their own thinking, only few find a substitute for it in truth taken from others. The mass of people remain skeptical. They lose all feeling for truth, and all sense of need for it as well, finding themselves quite comfortable in a life without thought, driven now here, now there, from one opinion to another
[Life, p. 258] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Religion of Our Age
If one reviews the development of religion since the middle of the nineteenth century, one understands the tragic fact that although really living religion is to be found among us, it is not the leaven that leavens the thinking of our age.
[Religion, p. 1484] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Lack of Reason in Our Time
The history of our time is characterized by lack of reason which has no parallel in the past. Future historians will one day analyze this history in detail, and test by means of it their learning and their freedom from prejudice. But for all future times there will be, as there is for today, only one explanation, viz., that we sought to live and to carry on with a civilization which had no ethical principle behind it.
[Decay, p. 61] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Clogged Spirit
A fundamental impulse to reflect about the universe stirs us during those years in which we begin to think independently. Later on we let it languish, even though feeling clearly that we thereby impoverish ourselves and become less capable of what is good. We are like springs of water which no longer run because they have not been watched and have gradually become choked with rubbish. more than any other age has our own neglected to watch the thousand springs of thought; hence the drought in which we are pining. But if we only go on to remove the rubbish which conceals the water, the sands will be irrigated again, and life will spring up where hitherto there has been only a desert.
[Decay, pp. 92 f.] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Divorce of Science and Reflection
Today thought gets no help from science, and the latter stands facing it independent and unconcerned. The newest scientific knowledge may be allied with an entirely un-reflecting view of the universe. It maintains that it is concerned only with the establishment of individual facts, since it is only by means of these that scientific knowledge can maintain its practical character; the coordination of the different branches of knowledge and the utilization of the results to form a theory of the universe are, it says, not its business. Once every man of science was also a thinker who counted for something in the general spiritual life of his generation. Our age has discovered how to divorce knowledge from thought, with the result that we have, indeed, a science which is free, but hardly any science left which reflects.
[Decay, p. 72] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Secondary Issues Prevail
Our philosophizing has become more and more involved in the discussion of secondary issues. It has lost touch with the elemental questions regarding life and the world which it is man's task to pose and to solve, and has found satisfaction more and more in discussing problems of a purely academic nature and in a mere virtuosity of philosophical technique. It has become increasingly absorbed in side issues. Instead of genuine classical music it has frequently produced only chamber music, often excellent in its way, but not the real thing. And so this philosophy, which was occupied only in elucidating itself, instead of struggling to achieve a
world-view grounded in thought and essential for life, has led us into a position where we are devoid of any world-view at all, as an inevitable consequence of this, of any real civilization.
[Ethics, p. viii] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Danger of Technical Language
Technical expressions are a danger for every system of philosophy, whether Indian or European. For they may become formulae which hinder the natural development of thought in the same way as ruts in a road hinder traffic. So to find out what are its real contents it is reasonable to test a system of thought by setting aside expressions which it has coined for its own use and compelling it to speak in ordinary comprehensible language.
[Indian, p. ix] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Tragedy of Western Thought
Western thought is not governed by mystical thought by the idea that the one thing needful is the spiritual union of man with infinite Being, and therefore (if it is obliged to renounce the hope of attaining to a knowledge of the universe that corresponds to ethical world- and life affirmation), it is in danger of saying it is satisfied not only with lowered ideals, but also with an inferior conception of world-view. That is the tragedy that is being enacted before our eyes.
[Indian, pp. 253 f.] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
Spiritual Bankruptcy
Renunciation of thinking is a declaration of spiritual bankruptcy. Where there is no longer a conviction that man can get to know the truth by their own thinking, skepticism begins. Those who work to make our age skeptical in this way, do so in the expectation that, as a result of renouncing all hope of self-discovered truth, men will end by accepting as truth what is forced upon them with authority and by propaganda.
[Life, p. 258] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
The Ideals that We Need
Humanity has always needed ethical ideals to enable it to find the right path, that man may make the right use of the power he possesses. Today his power is increased a thousandfold. A thousandfold greater is now the need for man to possess ethical ideas to point the way. Yet at the very moment when this happens, thinking fails. In this period of deepest need thinking is not giving to humanity the ideals it needs so that it may not be overwhelmed. Is that our destiny? I hope not. I believe not. I think that in our age we are all carrying within us a new form of thought which will give us ethical ideals.
[Religion, p. 1520] from Albert Schweitzer an Anthology. The Beacon Press. 1947.
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