http://www.sevenwords.org Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:04:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In summary, we must understand that these three foundational relationships are sacred. They must be honored. To do so is not easy. In the economy and culture in which we live, great attention and diligence are required to remain healthy, be kind, and not harm our environment. There are many ... http://www.sevenwords.org/opportunity-responsibility/ In a word, our relationship with our environment is about respect. We live on a planet soaring through space. We call this spacecraft Earth. It is a spacecraft (Earth) within a spacecraft (solar system) within a spacecraft (Milky Way galaxy), as I noted earlier. We are a product of this tiny ... http://www.sevenwords.org/relationship-with-environment/ In a word, our relationship with others is about kindness. Too often, we act only in our perceived self-interest. We feel that if we do not look out for ourselves, who will? In an interrelated world, we are obliged also to look beyond ourselves. In the Talmud, Rabbi Hillel wrote, ... http://www.sevenwords.org/relationships-with-others/ In a word, our relationship with ourselves is about health in all its mental, physical, and emotional dimensions. The health and well-being of each of us as individuals and collectively as organizations determines the vitality of our civilization and of our planet. We are each a cell of the body ... http://www.sevenwords.org/relationship-with-self-2/ THE LAW OF ONE Many of us are ready for a belief system that actually promotes harmony. It is apparent that we live in a world where we are destructive to ourselves, each other, and the ecological systems that enable us to exist. The belief system I describe emerges from the ... http://www.sevenwords.org/law-of-one/ Be healthy. Be kind. Respect the environment. Sounds simple enough, so why don't we do it? We don't do it because we have competing sets of survival instincts. These account for opposing worldviews and the epic struggle that goes on daily for the evolution and survival of humanity. Curiously, both these ... http://www.sevenwords.org/competing-survival-instincts/ Many of us are familiar with the Ten Commandments that appear in Exodus, the second book of the Bible, written some thirty-three hundred years ago. What do these commandments say? The first four have to do with a god and the Sabbath. The remaining six are about behavior. We are ... http://www.sevenwords.org/three-simple-rules/ In his book, Religions of the World, Houston Smith writes of the two issues on which most religions agree. They all advise adherence to some version of the Golden Rule and avoidance of self-centeredness. Generally, we do neither one. Self-centered and shameless, we too often do to others and our ... http://www.sevenwords.org/critical-mind-shift/ Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer observed that all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. Such a truth has emerged in our lifetime. It informs us that we exist as a tiny fragment of an immensely larger interlocking whole ... http://www.sevenwords.org/sacrednesstoday/ Many of us say we do not like organized religion but that we are "spiritual." There is something about the word that feels right to us. But what does spiritual really mean? Our world has taken enormous liberties with this word. Religious groups engage in "holy wars" (now there's a ... http://www.sevenwords.org/spiritual/