http://www.sevenwords.org Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:04:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en About five to six million years ago, the succession of species that gave rise to us separated from the succession that led to the apes. As Robert Greene, author of "The 48 Laws of Power," noted, "We want to believe we're descended from angels when we're descended from primates." From ... http://www.sevenwords.org/modern-man/ Earth is a hostile place. Life is a high-risk and ultimately fatal activity. Those of us who ask for peace and justice ask for something no other life-form enjoys. Every form of life struggles to survive and reproduce from one day to the next. Every meal represents life for one ... http://www.sevenwords.org/the-struggle/ Our universe began with a violent Big Bang 13.75 billion years ago. Since then, violence has continued uninterrupted. Our planet, formed 4.56 billion years ago, is warmed by the nuclear explosions of hydrogen and helium gases that comprise our sun.  Everyday all life forms struggle, often violently, to survive and ... http://www.sevenwords.org/beginnings/               We are challenged to graduate from our genetically inherited and very problematical short-term survival instincts and related thinking that permeate everything we do (politics, religion, business, social interaction). We are challenged to move beyond antiquated and divisive religious thought and to find our transcendence in this world, not in ... http://www.sevenwords.org/challenged/ 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/