Religion and Mysticism

I am in fullest agreement with what [your friend] has to say. I am a bit notorious for my statement, oft repeated, that "religion is the worst idea in the history of the world, but spirituality is the best." Your friend sadly, but understandably, misuses the word "mysticism," as a counterpoint to "reality." But Reality is precisely the very subject around which pure mysticism ennucleates! (Older writers called "reality" simply "truth.") [Your friend] is a man of refreshing passion. But when it comes to mysticism-- a subject that I have carefully studied for well over thirty years, and about which I have written more than twenty books-- he is a little confused. For true "mysticism" is, more often than not, the nemesis of religion-- especially in its orthodox forms. There is a galaxy of difference, as you know, between spirituality and
religion. And mysticism is squarely and consistently on the side of spirituality, even when it (as it often does) must speak against divisive religions.
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Love Ministries Support

Thank you for staying "spot on" with the uld, and especially for your awareness of the needs of Love Ministries. We do want our friends to be alerted to our real needs in this materialistic world; but we must make absolutely certain that we do not become materialistic (greedy or money-hungry) during this task. We have seen this tragedy occur to several ministries, and "ministers" or "spiritual teachers." It is so very common, in fact, that the Ministry which does not devolve into a money-grubbing, endless request for funds is the shining exception! So, we almost never mention money; everyone knows that publishing is very expensive, don't they? (If they are relatively educated, they should!:) Postage is also a major expense.

The Ministries radically consume time, which is given freely. I do not believe that a true servant of the people should be "paid" for spiritual work; let her/him earn money from other sources. We are highly distressed by the tendency for ministries and ministers to try to turn spiritual education into a mere "market commodity," like potatoes or beans. For pure spirituality should ideally be a gift, heart-to-heart, not one of the "things bought at the market today."

So, we refuse to follow others in endlessly, repeatedly "begging" for donations. To keep you informed, we do publish, in the uld, regular reports for the Love Ministries Federation, and, of course, you can always donate through this. But a ministry should exist to teach and to share; if it starts to exist only to gather funds, it is already corrupted with greed, which our Eastern sisters and brothers identify as a "gateway to hell.":)

Other teachers sometimes complain bitterly because we have always done all our spiritual work for Love-donations alone; we do not ever charge fees. We have no record that Jesus or the Buddha ever set up a toll-booth.:)

So, let's always work to stay as far from that as life will permit us!

Thanks for your continuing interest in, and support of, Love Ministries as we strive to teach the Message of Love.
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Virus Alert!

Thanks to Cheri Slaughter.

Please pass on to everyone in your address book.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/obamaspeech.asp


This email came from a source at the Secret Service, so please be aware of any mails with the subject line below.

THERE IS AN EMAIL WITH SUBJECT LINE OBAMA ACCEPTANCE SPEECH FLOATING AROUND WITH A TROJAN HORSE ATTACHMENT. DO NOT OPEN FOR ANY REASON. DELETE IMMEDIATELY. THE TROJAN STEALS ALL PASSWORDS AND USER IDS. SPREAD THE WORD.

Do not open "Obama Acceptance Speech"!

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The Bailouts Are Doomed - All of Them

Thanks to Barbara Baty.

The Bailouts Are Doomed - All of Them
by Alan Geik

A confession: I am fascinated by scams and frauds. Give me a National Geographic TV segment with Interpol following an art forger across Europe and I am a captive, even through the commercial breaks.

I anticipate years of television shows exploring the still smoldering Mortgage Meltdown. Indictments, law suits, and exposes of the criminality embedded in this travesty will intrigue me with the same frisson as do WWII spy documentaries or reenactments of The Brink's Job.

I have written here before about the two simultaneous bailouts engineered by bank lobbyists in the 1980s. The first bailout scam came "out of the blue" in 1982 when Mexico defaulted on its multi-billion dollar loans, some of the dozens made by New York banks to corrupt Third World governments in the 1970s.

The US Congress needed a public relations hook to vote against any regulation of those loans to military juntas. The lobbyists were happy to give it to them: the loans would "improve the standard of living of the developing countries." How could anyone want to stop that? Not a dime ever served that purpose of course.

After Mexico, then Brazil, Argentina and other countries defaulted. The money centers turned their pockets inside out and said "we never expected governments to default and so we never kept sufficient reserves." Then came the familiar "if Congress doesn't bail us out, the banking system will crash."

I was in Havana in 1985 at Fidel Castro's Third World Debt Repudiation Conference. Both Castro, and his unlikely literary ally in this matter, the National Review, correctly predicted massive government bailouts for the third world debt bubble as well as for the even bigger money center bank created scam, The S&L fraud. I wrote about this last year as Paulson and his banking buddies were readying the still-fast-asleep Congress into signing off on this current mother of all bailouts.

Incidentally, the hook for Congress to keep their hands off of the 1980s' S&L fraud was "banks are loaning to small businesses all over the nation without all of those cumbersome regulations." That too sounded great, didn't it?

The current bailout scam began with the same lobbyists slapping congressional hands away from predatory loan regulation, while crafting the new theme; "these loans are to help minority and working class families buy houses and live the American Dream." Simple, easy to understand, and of course, self serving. They were ably assisted by the Bushes, a family that has loved every unfettered giveaway they could get their hands around. (Two of the Bush boys were responsible for $1.5 billion in government payouts to their friends and associates in the S&L fraud.)

In 2006, some (myself included) wrote about the massive fraud expected from the bailouts to come. I imagined that, during a decade without any oversight, some mortgage "packagers" must have slid the same sure-to-default mortgage into as many packages as they could. Who would ever know if the same mortgage was in an Oslo fireman's pension fund and in a boutique Tokyo bank's portfolio?

Whatever regulators were still around had been lulled to sleep with visions of $1 million a year private sector jobs (SEC attorneys cost a little more). While this particular scam has not yet been uncovered, dozens of similar ones are already percolating to the surface.

This is why the bailouts will do little except to enrich those who can get their fingerprints on the funds. Simply put; who is going to provide oversight?
Three Quotes That Tell Us the Bailouts Are Doomed

1. "The air was sucked out of the room." (Senator Christopher Dodd)

On an evening in September, members of Congress came out of a meeting with Bernanke and Paulson, during which they were given "grim news" about the state of the economy. Paulson, despite his supposed ideological opposition to government intervention, had unfurled a $700 billion bailout bomb. Contemptuous of his hapless prey he even insisted that Congress deal themselves out of oversight of the funds.

Sen. Chris Dodd, who gets my vote for congress' biggest dolt, offered the tired cliche; "when we heard about the actual state of the economy the air was sucked out of the room." Really? Where was this Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee for the past 8 years?

Why should he be "shocked?" Why should the air have been "sucked out of the room;" a room filled with so many participants in the previous two bailouts!

My quick count of a US Congressional seniority roster indicates that 38 current members of the Senate had signed off on one or both of the 1980s bailouts, and the several fundings of the Resolution Trust Corporation that, when its doors finally closed in 1995, had left billions unaccounted for.

Were any of these senators, or the 163 (!!!) members of the House of Representatives (out of 435),who were there for those role calls, not aware that another bailout was being cued up by the same lobbyists using "the banking system will crash if we don't....." sound bites? Or did they really believe up until that Grim Meeting that the economy was "fundamentally sound" as Bush and McCain kept repeating, right up until the huge bailout request was made?

Didn't the retreaded sound bite from the 80s; "a bailout now will cost less than it will cost later without a bailout" sound familiar to any of them? Will they be "disappointed" and "angry" this time around when the initial bailout estimates once again prove to be vastly understated and the funds once again untraceable.

2. "We need to get this bailout approved by Monday morning before the Asian markets open." Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson

In this one simple sentence Paulson expressed his low esteem for the Congresspeople sitting across the table from him. Similar perhaps to an auto salesman telling a customer that his manager will get a monthly bonus with just one more closing and so they will give him/her a "special deal" if a sale is made immediately. The Asian markets? Who cares about the Asian markets? So what if the Shanghai stock market went down for the day, or week? Yet this preoccupation was repeated several times by the legislators as a consideration in their hasty deliberations.

Paulson, and all of the CEOs appearing before congress, understand that government bureaucrats are no match for corporate accountants, lawyers, and lobbyists who have spent years sidestepping regulations, evading taxes and when challenged, mounting overwhelming defenses to whatever agency manifests a bit of curiosity.

Even a more benign view of the relationship between congress and bankers would have to take into account that the RTC (which is now being seen as a model for bailout oversight) had in 1991 over 8,000 employees. Many of them were drawn from the FDIC. They were from the beginning overwhelmed by their own inability to evaluate existing deals and often couldn't determine which branch of the RTC had authority to manage a specific "resolution."

Into what monstrous size and shape will this New Age RTC have to morph in order to administer bailouts of $$ trillions, instead of $$ billions?

Management of current bailout funds will have even more difficult challenges; instead of selling off just S&L assets, this new bureaucracy will have to unravel thousands of deals between investment banks,central banks, mortgage bankers, and also contracts of the auto manufacturers with their legions of vendors, and of course any other industries whose lobbyists can extract funds this year.

Who will judge the appropriateness of a now all-but-bankrupt bank's short position in the gold futures market, for instance? Or the purchase of a foreign auto plant by one of our home grown Big Three dead whales? Barney Frank? He sadly waddles after the Treasury, trying to extract "oversight" provisions after he signs off on deals.

3. "We wanted to change some of the credit card regulations but the credit card industry strongly objected." Senator Christopher Dodd

Yes, Senator Dolt, a truth you must bravely confront is that the "credit card industry," i.e. their lobbyists, are supposed to object strongly to proposals that will negatively affect their clients' business models. That, Senator, is exactly what they are paid to do.

You however are paid to withstand their objections and to proceed with legislation that protects the public. Even you lifers in congress, who have been wined and dined by every lobbyist in Washington, should consider at some point attempting to rise to the occasion.

Every attempt to manage the bailout funds will be fought by recipients emboldened by the simple fact that the money is already in their pockets. Congress and their appointed watchdogs will be shown, once again, to be as hapless and as outflanked as ever. Sad, isn't it?

It is clear that corporate America has learned how to improve the bailout scam with each successful application far better than befuddled Congress has ever learned how to prevent it.

Priority is Everything

It does sound as if the "material" world is rushing upon you, and perhaps cornering you, from all sides. God does indeed give us infinite time, endless, but not on earth. So, we are constantly being challenge to prioritize. If we do this successfully, spirituality will be Number One, at the top of the list.:)
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Project K and Support of Ministries

We are prepping this morning [Sunday, January 4] for a Pneumarium-gathering, which we have every two weeks on Sunday. (Usually between five and twenty-some friends show up.:)

Re your note: The final medical appointment, so far, for the donkey [body] is this Tuesday, the sixth. At least, that is the last medical appointment scheduled at present. Sometime after that, we should be able to set the date for the transplant. Our dear friend Sandi, the donor, has also finished with all her tests.

Barring yet another obstacle or detour, we should be ready to set a date pretty soon.:) But life wisely teaches us to live as free of expectations as possible, so,time will tell, and we shall see.:)

Re your other question: We have several books "waiting in the wings" right now, which we cannot afford to publish. There is a four-volume set: One is an intro to the Way of Love, emphasizing its intercultural history; one is about Judaism (largely Kabbalah); one is about Christianity (early history and gnosticism); and one is about Sufism (the poetic tradition within Muslim culture). Another book still waiting is Love and the Cosmos: Seven Thousand Spiritual Verses. This is a collection of selections from the "Universal Love Digest" since its founding, many years ago. And the last "waiting book-to-be" is A Happier Person: How to Become One, a simple and small book which explains many of the practical principles of deeper spirituality, emphasizing "agapology" (the psychology of Love).

Thank you so much for your continued interest in the practical survival of our Love Ministries. We receive donations from practically no one, although there is a very kind Irish family who helps, and another anonymous donor who likes, because she is so beautiful, to remain anonymous. Other than these two or three, no one else has donated to our Ministries regularly enough to be reliable. We have been able to
publish so far because of a real-estate sale made a few years ago, but
now, that fund has been entirely used up. Still, the resources of the cosmos are endless and bottomless, and Love will accomplish Her will, in one way or another-- on that, you can rely!:):)
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A Loud, Collective Angry Howl

Thanks to Barbara Baty.


New York Times Article
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The article is 100% correct and, sickeningly, doesn't ever cover all of the stupid mistakes of this arrogant swaggering punk. I hope [that george bush's] remaining life is one of misery. I hope the so-easily duped public who voted for this fool have learned something from it and never again vote for a dolt like Bush or believe the massive unfounded campaign of lies from the likes of a Bush/Cheney team.-- Steve

GOODBYE TO BUSH 43
A loud, collective angry howl

Top 10 Hubble Space Telescope Photos

Thanks to Cheri Slaughter.

Amazing and wonderful
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Astronomers Select Top Ten Most Amazing Pictures Taken by Hubble Space Telescope in Last 16 Years

After correcting an initial problem with the lens, when the Hubble Space Telescope was first launched in 1990, the floating astro-observatory began to relay back to Earth, incredible snapshots of the 'final frontier' it was perusing.


Recently, astronauts voted on the top 10 photographs taken by Hubble in its 16-year journey so far. Remarking in the article from the Daily Mail, reporter Michael Hanlon says the photos 'illustrate that our universe is not only deeply strange, but
also almost impossibly beautiful.'

Enjoy!
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Hubble Telescope's top ten greatest space photographs. Awesome!!!

The Sombrero Galaxy - 28 million light years from Earth - Was voted the best picture takenby the Hubble telescope. The dimensions of the galaxy, officially called M104, are as spectacular as its appearance it has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.

The Ant Nebula, a cloud of dust and gas whose technical name is Mz3, resembles an ant when observed using ground-based telescopes... The nebula lies within our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth.

In third place is Nebula NGC 2392, called 'Eskimo' because it looks like a face surrounded by a furry hood. The hood is, in fact, a ring of comet-shaped objects flying away from a dying star. Eskimo is 5,000 light years from Earth.

At four is the Cat's Eye Nebula.

The Hourglass Nebula, 8,000 light years away, has a 'pinched-in-the-middle' look because the winds that shape it are weaker at the center.

In sixth place is the Cone Nebula. The part pictured here is 2.5 light years in length (the equivalent of 23 million return trips to the Moon).

The Perfect Storm, a small region in the Swan Nebula, 5,500 light years away, described as 'a bubbly ocean of hydrogen and small amounts of oxygen, sulphur and other elements'.

Starry Night, so named because it reminded astronomers of the Van Gogh painting. It is a halo of light around a star in the Milky Way.

The glowering eyes from 114 million light years away are the swirling cores of two merging galaxies called NGC 2207 and IC 2163 in the distant Canis Major constellation. (Imagine the collision of two galaxies! Makes me feel insignificant. SPW)

The Trifid Nebula. A 'stellar nursery', 9,000 light years from here, it is where new stars are being born.
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The Abyss

Movie Review: "The Abyss(1989)

This startling and beautiful movie is like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." It is a deeply spiritual and hyperaquarian vision of humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial life. It is an extremely positive account, interwoven with a Love-story. It is deeply stirring and uplifting, and triggers some rather awesome tears despite the fact that this film is rather old. The aliens are portrayed in beautiful colors and semi-angelic contexts combined with the traditional and archetypal
"grays." In the end, in a hypnotic and mesmerizing climax, they save both themselves and humanity from a terribly destructive nuclear event. This is one of those rare films that can, without reservation, be given an unqualified seal of approval. It stirs both memories and Soul.
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War and the Israelis

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.


War and the Israelis

http://whatreallyhappened.com/

Israel is about to send ground troops and tanks into Gaza. The American Corporate media are so pro-Israel that it just astounds me. The Kasam rockets never seem to hit populated areas. Why would the Palestinians risk such blowback from the far superior Western-backed and -financed killing machine, with "U.S". all over their rockets, missiles, and bombs?

4 Israeli's have died; 427 Palestinians, including many infants, children, and elderly. They have nothing but suicide bombs and cheap mortars. It is their land. Get out, and give it back! I just heard the nephew of Bibi Netanyhu (who is the chief murderer of the Likud Party). His nephew is a pacifist, peacemaker, who is a Colonel in the 1st rate IDF/Air Force. He is a pilot. He said, and I quote:

"The American Media is a joke; they have caved into the Israeli Lobby, with it's massive sums of $$.--AIPAC, and so forth. At least, in Israel, there is a fair [and] open discussion of the right wing hard line offensives".

He continued: " American's, Jews, Christians, doesn't matter, you should not accept all of Israel's policies...they are not always honorable. We Jews criticize our own Government, constantly. I will say [it] again: What is amazing, as in [the] U.S. is that the majority of the citizens want all this killing to stop, but the hard liners-- and my uncle is one of the leaders of this-- ignore this."

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