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June 30, 2006

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

On Thursday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued one of the most important decisions of our generation, one that vindicates the American constitutional design and, in particular, the judicial check on executive wartime authority.

In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Court held that:

Congress did not take away the Court's authority to rule on the military commissions' validity, and... that President Bush did not have authority to set up the tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and found the commissions illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention.

In addition, the Court concluded that the commissions were not authorized when Congress enacted the post-9/1l resolution authorizing a response to the terrorist attacks, and were not authorized by last year's Detainee Treatment Act....

The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government's power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan "for the duration of active hostilities" to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, "in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction" (emphasis added).

Neal Katyal, lead counsel for Mr Hamdan, spoke about the decision this afternoon. His concluding remarks capture the essence and importance of this decision. Professor Katyal said:

One final note.... And that just has to do with... the lesson of the decision more generally.... I had hoped that when we won that the administration would just take a deep breath and think to themselves, 'well this is actually something great about America.'

Presidents make mistakes.... I don't think that this is a rebuke to the Bush administration per se, I think the Founders anticipated that presidents are going to push their power. But, what's great about America, it seems to me, is that we have a court system... that checks the President and allows this guy -- a fourth-grade educated Yemini accused of conspiring with one of the worst individuals on the planet, Osama bin Laden -- ... sue the... world's highest, most powerful official, the President of the United States, and says 'you're doing something illegal to me, you're violating your own basic laws.'

What other nation on earth allows people to do that? It's a great thing about America. We should be celebrating it, I think, and I think the administration should celebrate it as well because it says that we're different. And, if we're going to win the war on terror, we are going to win it through our soft power, we're going to win it through saying to the world that we actually have a better model than you because in your countries you settle these things through force and fiat, and here we settle them through law, we settle them through law.

Posted by Dave Sidhu at 07:02 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

June 29, 2006

Patience, please!

Update: Comments are restored for now. We are focusing in speeding up the delay. Thanks.

We know about the problems in the comment section. Patience please.
We got hacked earlier this week which led to some problems. And, our admin guys are trying to figure out with Movable Type folks how to speed up the comments. We will probably have to upgrade servers this weekend. We are not consciously blocking any comments.
Not to turn people away, but maybe its a good time to take a walk and get some fresh air. :)
Dont worry, we will be back in full force soon!

Posted by Mallika Chopra at 11:05 AM | Comments (22)

40 BILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Warren Buffet just gave 40 billion dollars in cash and equity to the Bill Gates Foundation. He initially had planned on leaving the money with his wife to distribute but she unexpectedly passed away before him. He has begun the process of giving the money to Bill Gates to manage, who has very quickly become the world’s most admired individual in terms of donating to charity and ensuring the causes he donates to uses the money appropriately.

This is fantastic news, and hopefully will encourage more super wealthy people to give more of their assets away to charity rather than passing it along to their future generations.

I personally don’t have enough money to donate to charities. But what I am trying to do is leverage my business activities to generate money for charity. The idea I had today was that my company should budget into each golf tournament we run a fixed amount to be donated to a charity. Basically, instead of asking for say, $1million for sponsorship for an event, we could ask for $1.1 million. The extra $100,000 would go to a charity of the sponsor’s choosing. I personally think this is a good business decision as I feel it would actually be easier for me to sell the $1.1 million if the client knows a portion of their sponsorship investment goes to charity…. Not to mention how awesome it would be if I could organize a six-figure donation to charity. That’s 100 times more than I can personally afford to donate! Then of course there are many other ways to increase that amount at the tournament – donations from spectators and corporate VIPs, betting games on the golf course, birdie prizes for charity.

The tough part is in the logistics of carrying these out and in choosing a legitimate charity, as there have been some recent scandals lately here in Singapore and this part of the world. (Should a CEO of a charity be entitled to multi-million dollar bonuses if he successfully managed to raise huge amounts of money??? I think so but a lot of people were upset by the thought a fraction of their donation went to his new car.) Anyways wish me luck as I hope I can implement this into my company’s events in the immediate future.

Anyways, back to the topic – kudos Warren Buffet and I hope your grandchildren and their children are proud of your attempt to change humanity rather than feel like you squandered away the family fortune.

- Bharat

Posted by Bharat Chopra at 04:07 AM | Comments (103)

June 28, 2006

Peace One Day?

With the abduction of Gilad Shalit, a 19 year old Israeli solder, it seems that a series of events, like a stack of dominoes toppling down, may throw the Middle East into all out war. Meanwhile, a number of us from Sundays Virtual Panel have been in engaged in a dialogue online about peace. I ask

in the context of what we see happening on the planet today -- war, disease, poverty, environmental catastrophes, social malaise, etc. -- what does peace actually mean? What does it mean to individuals? What does it mean to society?

Peace One Day is championing September 21 as a global day of peace and unity. Jeremy Gilley, the visionary behind Peace One Day is a passionate speaker, and I look forward to bringing his message here soon, as well.

But I wanted to open up the discussion here as well.

How do we make peace cool? Is that even a necessary goal?
How do we brand peace as something we all strive for in our life?
What does peace mean in the context of the turmoil and violence that kill and hurt people every day?
Must we find personal peace to find peace on a social level?
Do such conversations even make a difference or is it just a coping mechanism? A way to feel like we care? What conversations need to take place?
What are the action steps to take such conversations to the next level?

Mallika

Posted by Mallika Chopra at 08:41 PM | Comments (74)

June 27, 2006

Open Thread

Pls. note the Open Thread category is now set up on the right side. Also, we got hacked yesterday and are still trying to get things in order. It seems some comments were lost and the filters are being readjusted. Thanks for your patience.

Posted by Intent at 09:48 PM | Comments (203)

YUCK!

Today has been one of those days that by its end, I am definitely going to need a shower to clean up. Agents, producers, directors, actresses - all with different (strong) POVS. Different cooks in one kitchen with me being the head chef - or, more apt, the maitre d' juggling everyone's interest.

Truthfully, the last thing I wanted when I started this business was to make my life an endless series of meetings and conversations with Hollywood agents and producers. Getting yelled at by producers who make big budget movies for a living is just so....meaningless. It's not what I signed up for and yet that's what I find myself overwhelmed by.

This is my problem because I am sensing that perhaps I have set up a mouse-trap that is destined to trap me. All I want to do now is run away to India and work with my artists and let Hollywood continue with its self-obsession.

Posted by Gotham Chopra at 01:33 PM | Comments (32)

June 26, 2006

Why Is Cruel and Unusual Getting Crueler?

I celebrated inwardly when it was revealed that a single hold-out juror prevented the so-called twentieth hijacker from 9/11, Zacarias Moussaoui , from receiving the death penalty. This juror gave no reason, but I hope it was conscience pure and simple.

The U.S. has isolated itself among First World countries by allowing the death penalty--123 countries have abolished it completely, or in practice never use it, a few permitting it under extreme circumstances. Of the 50 countries that newly abolished the death penalty since 1985, only 4 have reinstated it. Why aren't more people chilled by the fact that in 2004, 97% of executions took place in China, Iran, Viet Nam, and the U.S.?

Execution amounts to cruel and unusual punishment by the world's prevailing standards. A current case before the Supreme Court is testing that proposition here. Yet somehow the American public feels undisturbed by this issue. Few if any politicians dare to run on the wrong side. In this case "wrong" means humane and rational. Why do we kill criminals? The right wing surely can't hide behind morality, unless they want to warp Jesus into an eye-for-an-eye advocate.

No, the death penalty is almost entirely irrational. It has little if any deterrent effect. Tragic mistakes have been made in its application. The very fact that inmates must wait on death row for years, even decades, is cruel enough. How many times do they die in their own minds before the actual event?

The landscape of cruelty in America has become more and more disturbing recently. Guantanamo is a global disgrace, yet one hears feeble outcries over it here, especially in Congress. Abu Ghraib has led to minimal repercussions, and rumors of CIA torture centers in Eastern Europe sound all too plausible. The fact that the tide of cruelty has crept up gradually is no excuse.

Having escaped death, Moussaoui now faces doing time in a "super max" prison in Florence, Colorado, where Terry Nichols (co-conspirator with Timothy McVeigh) and Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber) already endure conditions that frequently induce psychosis. A super max prison is an antiseptic hell where inmates sit in isolation for 23 hours a day, being allowed out of their cells for only an hour's exercise. They have no human contact, no television, no library except for a collection of law books (access to legal information is mandated by the courts). In some of these facilities, which have grown extremely popular in recent decades, the cells are lit up 24 hours a day under surveillance cameras.

Under what possible moral scheme can a civilized country consider this anything but barbaric? Our prisons are called penitentiaries (from the root word 'penance') because over two hundred years ago it was felt that an enlightened society must move beyond Old Testament revenge for wrong-doing. Now we have slipped back across that moral boundary, and the saddest thing, in this boom time for building more prisons, locking away more non-violent criminals, and handing down maximum sentences, is that we have learned to condone cruelty almost as if it didn't exist. As if it was a good thing.

Love,
Deepak

Posted by Deepak Chopra at 09:57 AM | Comments (113)

DC'S LOVE BIZARRE

Straight up: collaborating with your dad on the KAMA SUTRA is awkwrad. I mean it just is cuz, ya'know that "How do you know that?" question keeps coming up. Which leads to, "Wait, did you...?" "Have you...?" "With mom...?"

You get the picture. Actually strike that from the record. You get the point. Nah that doesn't work either - I could do this all day!

Here's the deal: Deepak Chopra's Kama Sutra is out and all the original artwork was completed by our studio team in India under the Virgin Comics banner. Satish - our artist who led the charge on this - doesn't even speak English. Meaning another kid read the book aloud and Satish painted - that right there is a great "making of video." I also helped edit the book and I have to say - sans the awkwardness - I am very proud of it. Not only is it our first real product out of the new company, but I think it's a classic. Not another staid delivery of the classic text -- this is fresh and progressive and cool.

I am not above solicitation - go out and buy it please! :) High sales figures will make me look good!

Enjoy

gc

Posted by Gotham Chopra at 09:20 AM | Comments (42)

June 25, 2006

Reincarnation, soul connections, astrology, intuition, past live regressions, reiki

Is it all mumbo jumbo?

I had my first encounter with reincarnation when I was 11. My dad was sent for a 2 month military course, along with several other officers from different parts of the country. The course coincided with our summer vacation; the place where it was held was very scenic, so while the dads were away training, the moms and kids, all of similar age groups bonded.

One day I over heard my friend Amrita(name changed) fighting with her younger brother Anuj(name changed) and she said at the end-“ Go back to your fruit selling, you fruit seller’s son..go push your cart and say-3 tomatoes for a buck.” Anuj went crying to his mom. He was about 6 then. The next time Amrita teased her brother, many other kids ganged up on him, along with her until Amrita’s mother overheard the commotion and called all of us to her house along with our moms. She said that after her son was born, he remembered his past life as a fruit seller’s son and that he had died young after being bitten by a snake. Every one indulged him thinking it to be the creative imagination of a young child, until he started insisting he wanted to see his parents and tell them he was okay, and gave the address. When finally they gave in and went to the address, they did find the fruit seller, and the story of his death was accurate. Many years later when I reconnected with my friend in college, I was told as Anuj grew older his past life memory became hazy and he forgot everything.

My closest friend’s brother died 11 years ago in an accident days before he graduated from medical school-his mother crazed with grief was told by her best friend that her son appeared to them in a dream and said-tell mom to stop crying, I’m coming back . He was very attached to this lady’s daughter-in law, and they thought she was going to have a baby..unknown a few days later, my friend ,his sister found her self pregnant with her third child. When her son was born, he looked and still looks a spitting image of her brother-and has similar habits. I saw her getting emotional one day because he had certain traits that were just so much her brother’s. The boy is almost 11 , has never mentioned anything about any past lives, but perhaps there is an underlying comfort for his grandmother who still isn’t over her grief that may be, just maybe her son did come back.

Many times when new born babies cry or smile , many grandmothers say..oh he /she is seeing flashes from their past life.

I come from a family of doctors, scientists and military men, and logic reigns supreme there-while no one believes in astrology, my mom and all her siblings have highly developed intuitive ability. In my case, I have had dreams that have come true: as a teenager I would pretend to read people’s palms. My predictions would come true-what no one knew was that I didn’t know how to read palms. I would blurt out specific things to people and they would happen. When I was about 18, mom’s long time friend said her brother in law, a banker was this great astrologer-people came from all over the country to get their charts done. So would she like to get their family’s charts done? My folks politely told her they don’t believe in astrology or “horrorscopes” as they called them-but just to have fun we furnished the details. He predicted a few things about me, one of my brothers and an aunt-everything he predicted came true. He said I had been given divya drishti-the divine sight and must study astrology. It all seemed mumbo jumbo, but since I was always curious and open to trying out anything, I went to him.

I learnt the rudiments of astrology from him, and made charts in a haphazard way, while on the run with many journalistic assignments, making many mistakes in calculations-but eerily again my predictions would come true. Today I have realized that what was at play was not bookish knowledge but some sort of intuition that I really didn’t know much about. Now when I make predictions it is after a day of meditation over the chart and the person whose chart it is-I see things in red letters-why red letters-I haven’t the foggiest idea. And most of it is not bookish.

How often do we say to our dear friends/ loved ones-you must be one of my good karma, you must have been my sister/brother/mother/best friend in a previous life time;.and to those who aggravate us we say-I must owe him/her something from the past life. Is it our soul reminding us of some past connection?

My introduction to past life regressions, was through my physician who is also a dear friend. A few years ago she went through a divorce. Her second husband had friends who were going in for a past life group regression session with Dr Brian Weiss. The guy a skeptic was dragged along-strangely in the first session he went under hypnosis and no one else did-he saw his future wife, and a sari she was wearing-it had a peculiar design and color combination that remained etched in his memory. He met my friend a few months later, and she pulled out the same sari he described from her closet, when he mentioned it a few weeks later. She wore it the day they got married.

I have heard and read a lot about reiki, and whether it is auto suggestion or more, many people swear by its’ healing effects. I have had only one experience, and I remember being tired and overworked when some kind souls on the blog told me they were sending me reiki so I sleep well..and strangely I did and felt better-coincidence? I don’t know.

Another strange thing that happens in our family is that my grandmother appears in the dreams of her kids scattered in different cities at every significant family event- births, deaths, her own annual ceremony where she appears a couple of weeks before the date to remind her kids to make sure it is done on time. She was always the bossy one!

More than any of this, what continues to fascinate me is the subject of past life connections-good or bad. Even if we forget about everything else, and not give it the technical term of past life connections, why is it that when we meet people there are some we feel a deep, almost telepathic connection with, and they may be total strangers-and then there are family members who have lived with us forever and we feel nothing for them. I have always believed that nothing in life happens by accident. Every single person with whom I have had a connection, has been in my life to either teach me a lesson, show me the mirror, or be the positive, encouraging force that made me blossom. I think I have had more guardian angels in my life than I can count, who have smoothened the path, healed my spirit, or my hurts with a soothing balm of love and egged me on.

I have had vivid dreams that come true..I have a premonition something will happen and it does-I’ve been to places and felt I’ve been there before..

What is the scientific explanation for these things? I want very much to believe that we live many lives and that our loved ones wait for us for a reunion on the other side. For me the biggest shock of my life was the death of my maternal grandmother who was really my mother in more ways than one. She died relatively young .Many years have passed and I sense her presence in my life intuitively, but I always wished there was some ways we could communicate with our departed loved ones, and know they are in a good place so we could stop crying and hurting so badly.

A very famous singer who I interviewed, had lost his only son in a freak car accident. His wife and he were so devastated that she lost her voice, and he went into deep depression. They turned to mediums and his wife actually trained to become a psychic healer. He says communicating with his son whose voice he still hears after more than a decade since he died, has pulled them from the brink of self destruction.

In my personal experience whenever I have let my heart and my intuition guide me, I have always made the right decision. Whenever I have complicated my life by using my brain, I have messed up. But what is this part of me that works-heart, intuition, gut feel?

What about you? I’d love to hear personal stories of how you relate to all of the things I’ve mentioned above.
And if you don’t, why not? Why does it seem mumbo jumbo to you?

Posted by Kavita Chhibber at 02:17 PM | Comments (63)

June 24, 2006

Weekly Intent -- Aurora Carlson

Aurora Carlson's website is www.openone.net .
Hello friends, I’m grateful for this chance to share a fragment of my world with you. We have “Midsommar” here in Sweden this weekend, the main event of the year, a time when people of all ages gather to celebrate summer, to sing and dance around the maypole with flowers in their hair.

As you know, this is also the week when we celebrate a very exciting and intense year as guests of Intentblog and I want to thank everyone for making this amazing webspace what it is. I truly look forward to further connecting, learning and growing with all of you.

Deepak's first blog was about synchronicity, and that’s what brought Ayurveda into my life, through a synchronous event involving his books. Today I work with teaching and practicing different healing modalities of which Ayurveda is the central part.

I thought I’d tell you about what happened yesterday, to give you a taste of my life right now. I got a phone call from a woman I’ll call Petra, who insisted that she needs counselling immediately. An hour later she collapsed in the armchair in front of me, a broken, hopeless woman. Her hair looked uncombed, her unattractive face was disfigured by an accident and her clothes told of poverty. She was here because she was desperate, she had had enough of her lousy life and she wanted me to save her.

She talked non stop, pouring out reasons for being miserable. Like an old tape played over and over again - the beatings, the humiliation, the bad luck, the missed chances, the allergies,
the inner organs ruined by hard kicks, the ungrateful people, her wasted life – they all fitted together in a devastating story of doom, so heartbreaking that she was now falling apart, sobbing and shaking.

I looked at her, and my heart melted in a big smile. As always, it was amazing to see how convincing our stories can be. There was a time when I was carried away by these stories and felt that I had to save the person in front of me. I used to join people in their desperate fight against the terrible reason for their suffering, believing it was “out there”…

But that was because, at that time, I still believed the stories of my own mind. I still believed in my many causes for suffering, I was still the victim of what I saw as irreversible situations, brought into my life by something outside of myself. My mind was thoroughly trained in delivering detailed, waterproof lists of reasons why I can’t be successful, happy or content and why the world in general is practically doomed :) I had intricate, subtle and to me invisible ways of despising, ridiculing or at best ignoring everything about myself, especially my deep wish to create a better world.

But even in the darkest corner of this universe, there is grace. My journey out of the prison of the conditioned mind started unexpectedly, through Ayurveda and Deepak’s book Perfect Health (thank you Deepak!). I studied and lived Ayurveda for many years, learning from everything that happened, from everyone I met. I later received the gift of guidance from Don Miguel Ruiz, a master from the Toltec tradition, through one of his apprentices, Don Allan Hardman.

It was Don Allan that gave me my secret, sacred Toltec mantra, the most powerful mantra I have ever encountered. It has transformed my life and now I feel that it is time for me to share this priceless Toltec tool with all of you… But please, treat it as the treasure it is, use it with a sense of sanctity. Repeat it out loud whenever your mind tells you how worthless, superior or unhappy you are, how hopeless and impossible a situation is or how much you hate, envy or pity someone. You might want to center yourself and prepare yourself to receive this gift. Are you ready?
Here it is:

Liar, liar, pants on fire!!!

Yes… it’s true… this mantra has changed my life. I hope it made you smile, but also pause and think for a moment. Are all those voices in your mind telling the truth? Are you aware of them and the way they control your emotions and actions? Are you capable of noticing your conditioned reflexes and to remain grounded in the deep love that you are, refusing to believe your mistaken perception?

My mantra has helped me tremendously in times of confusion, and so has regular Primordial Sound Meditation and self-inquiry. The deeper I get into any tradition of wisdom, the more they lead me to one and the same place – the Self.

And to return to what happened yesterday… I was sitting with Petra. I didn’t need to save her, because she had never been in any danger. It was all in her mind. Everything about her, the way she defined herself, the lack, the limitations, the suffering, were part of the exciting story of her awakening. I saw the smiling perfection of Spirit expressing itself through “Petra”, exactly the way she was. I saw the beauty of the place where she was right this moment, the way she still didn’t know she is the star of her own movie, I saw her soul’s longing and anticipation at the promise of a thrilling journey to freedom. I saw how time is just a convenient way to express this expansion. My hands started to glow with the bubbling joy of recognition. I asked Petra to lie down on the bench and placed my hands over her body. Peace and clarity enveloped us for a timeless moment. After a while, she got up, very surprised at having felt her inner organs move and heal. She walked out as a new person, with a beautiful, radiant face, sparkling eyes and a sense of self beyond the need for outer proof. I don’t know how long it will last, if she is like me, she will forget many, many times…

My intention for the next week? To stay awake, to look at terrorists, enemies, victims and all the irresponsible people of this world in the same way I looked at Petra. To find them in myself, and smile.

Love,
Aurora

Posted by Intent at 08:52 PM | Comments (113)

The Task at Hand; becoming a new humanity

A heart wave is surreptitiously, increasingly and tenaciously surging in the world, as we meet and relate, in glances, smiles, embraces, e-mails, chats and blogs, in spite of our cynicism, and the seeming chaos magnified by a shortsighted and hyperbolic media and our ever excitable minds.

It reverberates every time we come together, to share an inner vision. We feel it; we strengthen it by feeling it, in our silence as “…. a palpable felt sense that we are all going in the same direction. It’s often seen as a general, mega-movement for change”.

The blending of the head and heart is not easy. This is the collective challenge of our times, and the everlasting challenge of humanity. I believe that the critical clarifying question is: what is the translation into mind language of the heart impulse that is emerging? But I think it is not only a question of individual or collective brain limitations; it is a question of learning again how to express the language of the heart, through our limited mental language, however sophisticated.

Our heart, feels in its inner experiences the glow of love, it has glimpses of the unity of the spirit, and thus seeks expression through self-giving tendencies that unite us and make us selfless and generous. Our mind in its objective handling of the material world, is saturated with experiences of multiplicity and separateness, and therefore feeds the egocentric tendencies that divide us and makes us selfish and possessive. Therefore, there is a conflict between the inner voice of the heart based on intuition and the deliberations of the intellect, based upon the apparent and superficial aspects of life.

“Mind and heart must work together. Mind without heart is like a river bed without water — lifeless and dry. Heart without mind is like a river without banks — the water having nowhere to flow, becomes a swamp. Mind and heart working together is a beautifully flowing river, lovely to behold. “ -Adi K. Irani-

I believe the greatest challenge we have in our times; the greatest need is to achieve this balance. Then the wisdom civilization will dawn.

The basic obstacle for mind-heart integration is intellectual bigotry; the claim of possessing the monopoly of Truth, exclusive of others. For intellect, however keen and quick, is just one of the stepping stones to wisdom, inspiration, illumination, and knowledge, which are above it. For us to keep playing on the stepping stone, however polished and shining it may be, is like sitting tight over an idle heap of hoarded wealth.

The answer to the arrogance of intellect lies in the honesty of I don’t know. It lies in the awe. If we could be able for just one second to hold our minds still. To suspend our opinions, our declarations, whether they sound scientific, business-like, or spiritual, and bow down our heads in recognition of our ignorance, in appreciation of our consciousness, and in deep love to our brotherhood in this life experience, with all of its fragility, wonder and joy. Then we would connect, and our beautiful minds be enabled to orchestrate themselves with meaning and feeling, and we would allow ourselves to vision and labor towards a new reality, emerging from the harmony of our mind-hearts.

The question is: what is this formula that will make us humble, so that we collectively “see the light” in this hologram of Being? It is love. So simple, so pure, so unassuming, so shy, this deep sentiment of consciousness, now “branded” as a sophisticated business of glands and charity.

What is bringing us together in this yearning for a new culture, is the reverberation of Love’s call, the “knock from within”. For a moment we come together and rejoice. Then we wonder, how can we share this feeling? Scale it up? How can we base our policies, actions, our day to day lives on this feeling?

We ponder and think, and then we say our piece and our words become like our dogs and property, and we follow them, and we become attached, and after a while our theories become more important than the feeling of oneness that brought us together. And we live alternating the felt presence with our own self-definitions.

Our real task is therefore, to pierce our layers of self-imposed self-sufficiency and expose ourselves to the layer of vital awareness of the world around us, open ourselves to love, which would teach us so much if we can only allow it to.

I believe that we can collectively (as individually it has always been the case) tap into our hearts’ longing, and envision and take the transformational steps towards a desirable world. But to do this we will need some new thinking, rooted not in our intellectual self-sufficiency, but in our surrender to awe, in allowing the channeling of the immanent forces of life to come through, with their wisdom. Then ideas, business skills, ignorance, passion, poetry, science, spiritual practices, and daily common sense will come together, like a bouquet, and rearrange into a meaningful set of inspired actions, that will foster a social behavior and a cultural context rooted on an integral vision of life.

New trends in energy technology, and other developments, clearly demonstrate that it is not lack of practical ideas that is keeping the new humanity from coming forth now, it is our own ignorance, our selfishness, our addiction to this illusion of separateness that keeps us so.

So our challenge, in my view, is not to come up with grand designs, it is not to come up with new social architectures; nor the high-sounding repetition of profound truths that have been around humanity for a long time. Our real main challenge is: how to develop an attractive strategy, that brings together and keeps together cohesively, all of us who are yearning for a new way. We all get our cosmic e-mail, we all hear the “knocking from within”, now we need to recognize, and share this experience, and since it happens within a variety of cultural and personal contexts the descriptive language for it is necessarily diverse. Thus the second challenge is translation, the finding of a common language.

The third and most difficult challenge is how we overcome the temptation to believe that our personal interpretations, however lofty we think they can be, are it. The only antidote for this omnipresent human disease is to be humble in our awe for the magnificence of Being, and to help each other in being attentive to one another, reminding ourselves constantly that we all are really One.

Like Hafiz said: “How do I listen to others? As if everyone was my beloved Master speaking to me his cherished last words.”

Posted by Arsenio Rodriguez at 04:38 AM | Comments (208)

June 23, 2006

Live Virtual Youth Conference

We wanted to let you know about a Live Virtual Conference featuring Deepak Chopra and Dave Stewart at the World Peace Forum that will be taking place from Vancouver, this Sunday, June 23rd at 11am PST. Mallika Chopra will also be participating on a panel. The event will feature an online dialogue on the power of youth in making global peace. Following is the invitation and how you can register for free.

Heart in Action Enterprises is a co-organizer of a Live Multimedia Virtual Conference with the theme of “Power of Technology as Used by Youth to Make Changes in the Lives of Persons around the World.”

Heart In Action’s mission is to empower and inspire tomorrow's leaders and nurture solid leadership skills utilizing the most current communication and educational technology tools available. In doing so, this enables them to achieve their purpose and realize their goals as they work to bridge the "digital divide".

Heart In Action is dedicated to creating an avenue for university students and youth organizations not only in North America but globally to take part in our programs and make a difference in the lives of children and youth in the developing countries.

The "Digital Divide" is a major factor that prohibits families and youth in developing countries from enjoying the occupational and educational advantages of the internet. As the demand and dependency on information technology increases in our everyday lives, the greater this divide is felt.

Our goal is to create on going dialogues with youth and youth organizations on the Intent Blog and participate on future Live Virtual Conferences with us.

To bridge the gap, several organizations from various geographic regions have joined forces together and are hosting the Live Virtual Conference on June 25th, 2006 during the World Peace Forum – Youth Day

Out of town can watch the conference by registering on Sweet Mother
Find out more about the conference by clicking http://www.heartinaction.com

Your Invitation
where are you on June 25th, 2006!!!!!!!!!!!
be part of the virtual movement, be part of the critical mass
Join us via the internet or at UBC

The Power of Technology & Youth at The World Peace Forum Youth Day

Live Virtual Youth Conference – Making History, Shaping the Future!

Connecting youth worldwide via the Internet @ www.sweetmother.org on June 25th, 2006 11am to 2pm PST
To watch the conference from you computer register at www.sweetmother.org . Vancouver residence and youth can come to UBC Student Union Building
to watch the conference

Featuring special guest: Deepak Chopra – President of Alliance for a New Humanity, Renowned author of “Peace Is The Way”

Moderated by: Derrick N. Ashong – Renowned Public Speaker

Panelists include: Velcrow Ripper, Jeremy Gilley, Malika Chopra, Dave Stewart, Samantha Tan, Clement Apaak, Farah Williamson, Cecil Martin and others…

Register online @ www.sweetmother.org (FREE Registration for a limited time only!)

View the full evite here: http://sweetmother.org/files/wpf-evite-final.pdf

About the World Peace Forum 2006: Making history, citizens representing every region of the world are coming together to develop tools for change in the peace process. The World Peace Forum brings together international delegates, presenters and performers from 91 countries (and counting). To this end, the World Peace Forum program has been designed around three pillars: living peace, social justice and sustainability.
For Vancouver residence to watch the conference will be hosted at UBC - Student Union Building

Produced by: World Peace Forum Youth, Sweet Mother Tour (SMT), Heart In Action Enterprises, Midnet, Inc. and BeatBoard

Hosted by: Reel Youth, Scared Sacred, Aiding Youth for Life, Alliance for a New Humanity, Beat Board, Chat the Planet, CSFDarfur, Global Healing, Global Youth Action Network, IntentBlog, KanaTREK, Mind Your Mind, Mythic Imagination Institute, Peace is the Way Global Community, Peace One Day, Shai La Productions, Shelter WakaDogo, Vedic Academy of Science & Arts, www.wabotai.com, World Youth Peace Summit, Uganda Rising, Gex Film

For more information contact:
Ashie Hriji: ashie@heartinaction.com (604) 609-6188 or
Kelley Johnson: kelley@sweetmother.org (617) 492-3673

Posted by Intent at 11:47 PM | Comments (21)

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