Love

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

  • The Christian religion describes love as this:

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things; believes all things; hopes all things; endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13) and “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 31, Lev.19:18)

  • The Islamic religion describes love as this:

"No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. " (Sunnah)

"Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." (Islam. Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13)

Mohammed is said to have said:

"Seek for mankind that of which you are desirous for yourself, that you may be a believer; treat well as a neighbor the one who lives near you, that you may be a Muslim [one who submits to God]." and "That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind."

  • The Buddhist religion(s) describe love as this:


    Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on the burden of a suffering world. The strongest motivation one has in order to take the path of the Bodhisattva is the idea of salvation within unselfish, altruistic love for all sentient beings.

These are just a few of the many religions around the work, but I think it is safe to say that the ideal of most religions is the propagation of love—to show compassion and tender care towards others. Even Humanisms “Manifesto” states:

Humanism…affirms…the greater good of humanity…(is) inspired by compassion…values in human welfare…(is) committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity…(is) concerned for the well being of all.

Simply reading these passages my stir ones heart to feel love and compassion towards others. Those ideas resonate with something inside our hearts and minds that is real—we just know that it is, and that it is a good and wonderful thing…and that it is something we want to do, to act upon, to reach out to touch the hearts and minds of our fellow human beings…for about 5 minutes a week—and that’s if we go to church every week! The rest of us think that way about 5 minutes a MONTH, if that! The rest of the time we go around killing each other, figuratively or literally.

Why is that!? Perhaps it’s not our true nature to love people that way? Perhaps our nature is mostly selfish? Perhaps that’s what we really are in essence? Does that give us an excuse, then, for not acting in a loving way towards other people? In fact, it DOES!

It does, but is that ok? Of course not! As Hal David wrote in a famous Burt Bacharach song, “

“What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love.
It’s the only thing
That there’s just too little of.
What the world needs now
Is love, sweet love-
No, not just for some
But for everyone…”

And so how do we DO that? How do we love our neighbours? Indeed. What is needed is a fundamental transformation from deep within our psyche. How do we achieve that? We cannot in a million years achieve it. Effort is futile. It can only be seen, realized, comprehended. We already have it! It’s already there. How do we see it? In some sense, that is a gift. I think the key is simply to be open to receiving it—by opening our hearts and minds to the possibility. Do that, and it will come. This is something like Buddhist “Enlightenment”, Christian “Christ Consciousness” or New Age “Cosmic Consciousness”. Once achieved (although it cannot be “achieved”) a profound, selfless love for others ensues.

The statement creates questions, raises objections, demands clarity. Let’s address those my friend. Join me.

T.

Another, another day…

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

Like the other night…the day might be over, but I’m still up.

Yesterdays theme about Synchronicity is still with me. I had two people, totally unrelated, tell me today that THEIR New Years resolution is to keep a “Dream-Journal”…documenting their dreams for this year.

Again, another amazing coincidence.

From my studies about Synchronicity…I learned that at certain important times of our lives, when the Universe, or God, or what-have-you, is trying to get our attention…that a number of coincidental events will increase…just like Bananas come in bunches…the same with Synchronous events. And, they come for a purpose…with a message, that if we are lucky enough, we will understand.

As I said yesterday…discovering the meaning of coincidental events is the challenge. However, from what I have gleaned in my studies, with the coincidental events comes the meaning attached. Being “Open” is the key….open to receiving whatever from Life, from the Universe.

The secret is, very simply, to be OPEN to receiving the guidance that the Universe gives to us, in abundance, each and every day.

Join me in this exploration!

Cheers.

T.

Synchronicity

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I watched a movie tonight, at home on the TV, continuing to enjoy the balance of my birth-day. As the movie began, a woman was recording a birthday video greeting to her husband. A few minutes later, the date showed up. It was today, January the 7th.  Then with the movie still going, a few minutes later as I remarked to my partner the strange coincidence of that happening I and the actor in the movie said at precisely the same time, “January the Seventh”. Now THAT is what I call an amazing coincidence!

There is another word, not so commonly known that embraces and tries to explain the meaning of coincidence; Synchronicity. That word was coined by the great Swiss psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung. Put simply, Jung described Synchronicity as a meaningful coincidence of events that have no apparent cause. My experience tonight with the movie fits cleanly into that description.

But tonight’s experience of Synchronicity did not end with the movie. Because of what happened tonight with the movie I decided to write tonight’s journal/blog entry about the concept of Synchronicity. So, I sat down at my computer—but of course had to check my email first! I was happy to see an email from a dear friend who was replying to my email wherein I described the reasons behind my New Years Blog resolution regarding my drinking habits. I thought it nicely coincidental that Peter had sent me the email today because it is my birthday and he said a lot of very nice things about me. I don’t think he knew that today was my birthday, but his email certainly came in the form of what I consider to be a most wonderful and coincidental gift.

In the email, Peter also asked me if I have I ever considered going to “AA”, Alcoholics Anonymous… Well, after starting to write tonight’s entry, I knew that Carl Jung had created the description of it Synchronicity, so decided to research more of his description of it online. I found several sites describing it and of Jung online and was astonished to discover that Carl Jung, who lived in Switzerland, had indirectly but strongly influenced (through one of his former patients) the eventual creation of…you guessed it…Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States some years later!

Now, I dare you, my dear readers. Were the events that happened to me tonight not strangely coincidental? The challenge of Synchronicity is discovering the meaning of such events, but that will be the topic of another journal entry. I have been studying the concept of Synchronicity for a number of years and will eventually bring what I have learned about it to here. It’s really quite fascinating. Stay tuned!

Another Day…

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Here I am, pompously trying to impress everyone with “Day 6” of my 365 day New Years resolution to post a blog/journal entry. I really would like to have something interesting, profound even, to say that might have some sort of positive impact on your life. That is what I most truly want, to be able to write something here that might impact or affect your life in some way, however small, that gives you something. Something that might inspire you, something that might give you hope for the rest of today and for tomorrow…hope from a day today that might have left you with little or nothing else.

Indeed this is why I am here. I believe that my words, however seemingly trite or insignificant, or however unprofitable…that this “One Man” might write something here of value to you or the rest of the world.

Indeed, if my words here on this website give even one person in this whole wide world something that inspires, or motivates, or entertains, or lightens their heart, mind and spirit…then my purpose for doing all of this will be fulfilled. And that is all that I dream of doing here, my friends, plain and simple.

You take care…my thoughts, my entire purpose in life, are with YOU.

T.

The Root of Terrorism

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Christmas days attempted bombing of the Delta Airlines flight brought the beast of terrorism and terrorist activity back into the international spotlight, spreading fear and pandemonium around the world. I doubt that anyone has been comfortable flying since.

I think that the root cause of terrorism is Belief. Terrorists believe in their philosophy or ideology so strongly that they will do almost anything to carry it out, to see the objective of their beliefs fulfilled.

My essay, “On Belief” describes this further. I invite you to read it.

T.

Secrets to Good Health and a Long Life

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Use it or lose it   — Supply and Demand —  Reason for Being

Yup, that’s the secret to being healthy, in my opinion. Aside from the obvious, like muscles getting weak from lack of exercise, what I mean here is that the body instinctively responds to the use—to the demand we give it and supplies us with health. Exercise especially stimulates the Life force within us, getting the message accross to our brain that the body needs to stay around a little while longer. It takes years and years for the body to deteriorate and eventually die. Many adults exercise very little or not at all and eventually lose the ability to do simple things, like walking. We mistake that as part of the natural aging process, but it’s not and a lot of recent research has proven that. There is even a lot of new research showing how well exercise beneficially influences the actual physical conditon of our brains, which in turn affects our mental and emotional attitudes of course.

I was having a problem with my knee a couple years ago and went to see a Kinesiologist. One of the things he had me do is start practicing squats, first with both legs together, then one leg at a time, and then one leg at a time while standing on a Bosu! I’ll never forget what he said to me one day when I was complaining about doing them, “Tim, you’re doing this now so that when you’re EIGHTY-THREE you won’t need to have a big guy like me help you to get up and down on the toilet! I stopped my complaining.

But aside from exercise—and not everyone is able to exercise of course—I also observed that people with a strong reason for being also seem to live more healthy and longer lives. We’ve all heard the stories about people who retire from their jobs and then drop dead a week later. Or of the old man or woman whose spouse dies, and they die shortly thereafter. In these cases, I think that it’s because their reason for being was suddenly gone, and the lack of demand (the will or interest to continue living) caused the body to fail to supply.

Have you ever noticed how many famous people, including actors, artists, musicians, scientists, politicians, or any one else in a position of great importance, often live well into their 80’s and 90’s and continue to lead healthy productive lives right up to the day that they die? They keep going because they have to keep going and they to want to keep going. Their reason for being, for continuing to live because they are famous or important becomes the demand that stimulates the Life force to supply.

That, in a nutshell is my theory of good health and longevity. Live long and prosper!

The Theory of Everything

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 The Size of the CERN Accelerator

In the past couple of months I have been following the latest developments at the “CERN” laboratories just outside Geneva, Switzerland, on the border between Switzerland and France. CERN has recently started up their most ambitious project to date, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is a 17 mile circumference particle accelerator. They are in search for “Bosons”, and especially for the infamous “Higgs Boson” which if discovered will move the science of Physics that much closer towards connecting various theories into one unified theory called a theory of everything!

Sounds pretty grand doesn’t it? Professor Peter W. Higgs, a particle physicist, who will be 81 years old in May, has devoted most of life towards the realization of his boson theory. The boson he hopes to see discovered is basically the “Glue of Life”….the thing that allows all matter in the Universe to have mass, to exist. By smashing particles together at enormously high speeds the CERN accelerator is going to be able to reproduce close to what supposedly happened at the beginning of our universe and time—during the “Big Bang”, and hopefully will produce the bosons that Professor Higgs has devoted his life towards discovering..

In 2000, CERN did in fact discover some evidence for the Higgs boson, but before they could confirm that the older accelerator was shut down to make room for the new and vastly most powerful Large Hadron Collider, which has taken almost 9 years to complete!

Well, just before Christmas, the LHC came online and successfully accelerated and collided particle beams to 1.4 TeV (teraelectronvolts) breaking all world records. On February the 14th, the accelerator will go back into action, being fired up in an attempt to increase that velocity to 7 TeV. Trillions of protons will race around the accelerator ring 11,245 times a second, which is 99.99% as fast as the speed of light! Collisions between the protons will occur at 14 TeV, creating some 600 million collisions every second!

The hope at CERN and in particular with Professor Higgs is that those collisions will produce and reveal the Higgs Boson, and if so, may very well give us a theory of everything, which is about as close as science can get towards discovering the philosophical meaning of life!

Given the nature of my website, perhaps now you can see why I might be a bit excited about all of this! There is a lot more than I have just described that I think is fascinating about CERN and the LHC experiment. There is even a bit of dooms-day speculation and mystery surrounding the potential outcome of it all—including the possibility of Black Holes being created that will suck in and destroy the earth! We will get into all of that here later!

T.

New Year’s Resolutions

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On January the 1st of each year many people make “New Year’s Resolutions”. This tradition dates back 4,000 years to the Babylonians! They made resolutions, or promises, to the gods to win favour. If the resolution was broken it was considered bad luck. More recently, back around 153 B.C. the Romans placed their mythical King “Janus” at the head of their calender, which thanks to Julius Caesar became our modern day calender, with January 1st being the first day of the year.

Janus was the earliest “Two-faced” individual! Well, they said that he had a face on the front of his head and another on the back of it, giving him the ability to see into the the future and into the past simultaneously. On December 31st, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new. They also believed that Janus could forgive transgressions (or wrong-doings), so at the beginning of the new calender year they would give gifts to each other and make promises to one another and to Janus with the belief that he would see this and then bless their life for the entire year. And that, in a nutshell, is how New Year’s Resolutions all began.

I’ve never been one to entertain this tradition. Well, I did as a kid, but gave it up as an adult when I realized that certainly I—and amost everybody else who make resolutions never achieve their goals. In fact recent research shows that only about 12% of the people who make resolutions actually do achieve them. Well, 12 people out of 100 is still 12 people, isn’t it!? So at least some do—and it is that little fact that is motivating me this year to break my decades old pessimistic tradition and go for it! But…I’m only making TWO.

My first resolution for 2010 is to write something in my jounal/blog here on my website EVERY DAY of the year. I recently saw the delightful movie, “Julie and Julia”. Julie made a new Julia Child recipe every day for a year AND blogged about it! A true story! So, if she can do that, I can at least write a little blog/journal entry every day here, right? I don’t even have to cook! So, why not!? Indeed. That’s my first resolution for the year.

My second resolution is a little more personal, and from what I understand quite a common one—that is most commonly broken! Since I was about 22 or 23 years of age I have had the almost nightly habit of having a drink or two… Beer has been my beverage of choice, “IPA” (India Pale Ale) my favourite. If not beer, then wine. Nothing else. I can’t stand hard-liquor. But, after almost 30 years my evening habit has started to sort-of catch up with me. That has led me to the point today of making the resolution that for the next year at least, and perhaps for the rest of my life, I want to drink alcohol ONLY on special occassions, like at party’s, fancy dinners out and that sort of thing, so perhaps only a few times a month at most, and that will be it.

I accomplished my second resolution in September actually, going two weeks without my evening libations, but then was suddenly slammed by my Pulmonary Embolisms (see previous postings). The doctor’s said that my “libations” had nothing to do with my sudden illness…? Anyway, I was a bit worried about all of that for a bit, so delayed my resolve, my resolution till now.

Some who know me might say that I’m quite likely to achieve my first resolution, but un-likely to achieve the second. Well, I’m content to let the skeptical dog’s bark. I know who I am in my own heart. I know what I can or cannot do. Well, TODAY is soon to be over, and I’ve already accomplish BOTH of my New Year’s resolutions! Yes, of course it’s only day 1. But you know, I really believe that there comes a time in a persons life when we finally KNOW what we need to do, and with that “resolve” can come the strength to accomplish it, either single-handedly, or with help if need be. The only absolute prerequisite to the accomplishment of anything in life is first—the willingness to do it, and second—taking the first step. I’ve taken that first step today.

I wish you all a most wonderful New Year.
T.

So far, so good!

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

On this, Canada’s Thanksgiving day, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Today, Rashin and I went out for a RUN. Well, not exactly a run, but it was a quick walk with four 1-minute jogs in between. I felt great! Ok, a little light-headed afterwards, with a WEE-bit of pain in my chest, but otherwise it was fine. Even I am finding this a bit hard to believe that less than a month ago I was on deaths door-step from multiple clots (AKA Pulmonary Embolism’s) in my lungs.

Well, whatever happened today was good. We will celebrate tomorrow with our Thanksgiving dinner, with dear friends—including my longest and dearest “Friend of all-time”, Dan Fairweather. He attended his own families Thanksgiving dinner today, but was warned before it, that he should control himself and not, “Pig-out like last time”. I suggested that today he temper his pig-like tendencies and save them for tomorrow at my place. He seemed to like that idea. Very good.

In fact, all is “Very-good” today here at my home and with my life, with few exceptions. I am looking forward to welcoming Dan and the rest of our invites for the day tomorrow, celebrating this Thanksgiving. AND, there is one joining us tomorrow someone who we must all be especially thankful to be here, seeing yet another Thanksgiving dinners—our friend “Mitra” who has been battling cancer for the past few years, and thus far winning the war!

So, yes indeed I am very, very thankful this Thanksgiving…for my own health, for my friends health and prosperity and for the Universe blessing all of us with yet another Thanksgiving day to enjoy. I wish YOU, my dear readers, the very same.

Take care.
Tim

Pulmonary Embolism Shmembolism!

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I’m sorry, I haven’t had the energy to write lately. Guess I had a delayed reaction to my illness. Today’s news has added to that. I saw my Family doctor for a follow-up appointment. She has received all of the test results from the hospital. Turns out both of my lungs were completely covered with multiple clots, encompassing the entire surface of both. They have NO IDEA what caused this. Apparently it does happen to some people sort of spontaneously, like mine, without any explanation. The hospital specialists and my family GP are all scratching their heads. When I went into the hosptital, they thought I was a goner! 5 days later I walked out, feeling pretty good, all things considered. Everyone is amazed, including me!

The next step in cases like mine is to continue the search for the cause. Their first suspicion is CANCER. Oh great. In fact, the Ultrasound they did while I was in the hospital did reveal a growth of some sort on my liver…(not related to alcohol consumption) which they THINK is a cyst, which of course is harmless…IF that’s what it turns out to be. I have another Ultrasound scheduled, along with a CT scan, for the near future to take a closer look.

Other than that, each day I feel better and better. My lung capacity feels only slightly impaired. But I certainly can’t move very quickly or exert myself for more than 30 seconds without getting winded. For sure, assuming I don’t have cancer, my recovery will be fairly long-coming, but at least certain.

My birth grand-father (I’m adopted) died at 66 from Colon Cancer. He was first diagnosed at age 42. My birth-mother (his daughter) died at 66 from Pancreatic cancer. So the history is there. I just hope that that is not MY history to be as well!

Anyway, looking at things positively, this experience has certainly helped me to focus on what is important to me. I think my years and years of procrastination are finally over! My sense of urgency has multipied exponentially! So what’s next? First, to be declared cancer-free. I’m holding my breath for that one! Until then? Until then it’s just live each day to the fullest. I’ll do my best to document these travels here, for those of you who care.

Cheers for now.