Gateway To Nature Quotes

Science has carried us to the gateway to the universe. And yet our conception of our surroundings remains the disproportionate view of the still-small child. We are spiritually and culturally paralyzed, unable to face the vastness, to embrace our lack of centrality and find our actual place in the fabric of nature. We batter this planet as if we had someplace else to go. That we even do science is a hopeful glimmer of mental health. However, it's not enough merely to accept these insights intellectually while we cling to a spiritual ideology that is not only rootless in nature but also, in many ways, contemptuous of what is natural.

Science has carried us to the gateway to the universe. And yet our conception of our surroundings remains the disproportionate view of the still-small child. We are spiritually and culturally paralyzed, unable to face the vastness, to embrace our lack of centrality and find out actual place in the fabric of nature.

Perhaps meditation is simply anything we do with our full attention, full awareness, full heart. Anywhere we find truth, or love. Something we do, not to be the fastest, or the best, or to win a prize, or to make a lot of money, but simply because we love it. Whatever it may be.

For many people, the love or the loss of an animal often becomes a gateway into a deeper spiritual journey. The most pragmatic of men will begin to question the fundamental nature of being when he is visited by an apparition of his deceased cat or dog companion.

The old religion is what gets the crops up and keeps your cock hard and makes sure that nobody builds a bloody great motorway through an area of outstanding natural beauty. The Gateway stands, and the hill stands, and the place stands. It’s well, well over two thousand years old. You don’t go mucking about with anything that powerful.

From the outset my main concern was with the shape and the self-contained nature of discrete things, the curve of banisters on a staircase, the molding of a stone arch over a gateway, the tangled precision of the blades in a tussock of dried grass.

I'm loving Gateway to the Seer Realm Look Again to See Beyond the Natural

Don’t be one way, Wishing for another, Only to arrive at the new way, Wishing for the first.

Wilderness is our only hope. The one place we can always come back to.

Walking. Rhythmic walking. When I’m backpacking I’m backpacking. There is nothing else. No phone to answer, no email to check, no bills to pay, no errands to run. Nothing but backpacking.

Beauty is indeed a choice. Day by day, moment by moment, we choose love or hate, life or death, light or darkness. The seeds for both are contained within all things, both living and nonliving. It all depends on what we focus on. We create our own world. Focus on beauty and beauty you find. Focus on darkness and darkness will prevail. Beauty guides through the heart. Darkness through the mind.

I know of no better way to live my life than from the perspective of that old man. The ninety-year-old me. Because I always know what he would say. And it’s never, “I should have worked more, saved more, bought a nicer car, a bigger house, been more responsible.

Whether we are considering a toothache, a tumor, a relational bind, a technical problem, crime, or the economy, most individuals and most social systems, irrespective of their culture, gender, or ethnic background, will “naturally” choose or revert to chronic conditions of bearable pain rather than face the temporarily more intense anguish of acute conditions that are the gateway to becoming free.

If we slowed our lives down enough to allow for naps, wouldn’t we all have more enjoyable days, more productive days? Why do our work ethics tells us to work more? Work harder? Work longer? Anything less than eight hours—unacceptable. Towards the end of our workday, how productive are we, really? Are we actually working at that point, or just staring at a computer screen, staring at the clock? Passing the time?

It’s all too easy to assume that the darkness in this world lies outside of ourselves. That others are to blame. Yet only when we learn to see the darkness inside of ourselves, can we hope to develop compassion for the darkness in others. For even the darkest of places contain the seed of light.

The very word philosophy terrifies many women. In Quintessence I strive to exorcise this patriarchally embedded fear that undermines our intelligence and passion. We were all philosophers when we were five years old. Re-Calling our connections with nature at that age, many women can Re-member our sense of wonder and our urgent need to know. We were always asking “Why?” This state of mind can be called Wonderlust—meaning a strong and unconquerable longing for Elemental adventure and knowledge. What happened to our Wonderlust? Our visions, dreams, and far-out questions have been stunted by phallocratic society and its institutions. When we come into contact with our own deep and passionate intellectuality, we become intolerably threatening to the patriarchy. This is why there is an overwhelming taboo against women becoming philosophers, that is, seekers of wisdom on our own terms/turf. Philosophy—of our own kind, for our own kind—is a source of wholeness and power that rightfully belongs to women. Breaking the patriarchal taboo against it—against us—we break out of the state of deception. Moreover, we open gateway after gateway into our own Other-world, our Homeland. From this perspective we can See, Name, and Act to end the atrocities perpetrated against ourSelves and all the Biophilic beings.

A stable wormhole is therefore a balancing act, and the key is to maintain the right mixture of positive and negative energy. You need lots of positive energy to naturally create the gateway between universes, as with a black hole. But you also need to create negative matter or energy artificially to keep the gateway open and prevent a collapse.

Golfing is a gateway drug to duck farming. Just being out in nature is addicting.

Wilderness. My problems are over the moment I step out onto the trail, pack loaded, schedule free.

I know that the best adventures are often off-trail, and blissful solitude will be guaranteed.

We are so fascinated by the complexity and beauty of the various forms in nature, that we have been led away from the formless dimension of Consciousness that lies at our very center. When you look at a person, you see many differences in their unique form, and often we compare, contrast, and judge one another because of the forms that we inhabit. But if you look beyond the various qualities and characteristics of form, and look another person in the eyes, you see a Being, and it is this Being that lies beneath the surface of form that connects us all. That is why the eyes are often referred to as the gateway to the soul, because they allow us to see and feel the presence of another Being, and realize our oneness.

We come from the Earth. We return to the Earth. It happens over and over and over. You might say, we are the Earth. We’ve only to step away from our world of plastic and concrete to understand.

What if there were a secret back-door portal to enlightenment? A shortcut, so to speak. I believe that the answer lies here, in wilderness. The shortcut is the long walk. However, you must go it alone. Once you get past the jitteriness of day one, the cravings of day two, and the loneliness of day three, meditation comes easily and naturally. Months of tension can be released in just a few days.

There are many gateways. And we may need to master all of them in order to gain full access to who we truly are. Yet, there is a special one, which can allow progress to be easier. This is not truly a gateway, it is a natural opening, which is why it can be easily disregarded. It was there at all times, it has not been built, it is devoid of any decoration or signpost. This natural opening is ACCEPTANCE.

We will discover the language of dreams is the way in which God reveals His intimate secrets to us. If we do not diligently seek God to understand the meaning of the dream, He seals the dream’s instruction so we cannot benefit from the revelation it holds for our future.

When the Word of the Lord is limited or rare, people go into exile and bondage because of their lack of true spiritual knowledge. Honorable men who have an ability to lead are lacking from the populace. People begin to throw off restraints and they reject the ways of God.

Sant Mat (the path and teachings as taught and practiced by saints) delineates the path of union of soul with the Divine. The teachings of the saints explain the re-uniting as follows: The individual soul has descended from the higher worlds [the Realm of the Divine] to this city of illusion, bodily existence. It has descended from the Soundless state to the essence of Sound, from that Sound to Light, and finally from the realm of Light to the realm of Darkness. The qualities (dharmas, natural tendencies) of the sense organs draw us downward and away from our true nature. The nature of the soul (atman) draws us upwards and inwards and establishes us in our own true nature. Returning to our origins involves turning inward: withdrawal of consciousness from the senses and the sense objects in order to go upward from the darkness to the realms of Light and Sound. [We experience this phenomenon of withdrawal as we pass from waking consciousness to deep sleep.] Another way to express this is to go inward from the external sense organs to the depth of the inner self. (Both of these expressions are the metaphors that signify the same movement). The natural tendencies of the soul (atman) are to move from outward to inward. The current of consciousness which is dispersed in the nine gates of the body and the senses, must be collected at the tenth gate. The tenth gate is the gathering point of consciousness. Therein lies the path for our return. The tenth gate is also known as the sixth chakra, the third eye, bindu, the center located between the two eyebrows. This is the gateway through which we leave the gates of the sense organs and enter in the divine realms and finally become established in the soul. We travel back from the Realm of Darkness to the Realm of Light, from the Light to the Divine Sound, and from the Realm of Sound to the Soundless State. This is called turning back to the Source. This is what dharma or religion really intends to teach us. This is the essence of dharma.

No matter how bad your life can ever get, how low you can feel, how much society lets you down, you can always come back here. You can always go home. You can lose everything, but no one can take away your Wilderness. She’s always here. Waiting. Ready to welcome you back with open arms. Ready to welcome you home.

Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping western world.

In our cities of concrete and steel, we’ve removed ourselves from these cycles. We’ve forgotten the circle of life and the interconnectedness of all things. A shift in consciousness is all that is required. Life is abundant, with plenty to go around, until things fall out of balance. We will either evolve, or we will die.

Virgin nature is the art of God, and sacred art springs from the same divine Source; solitude is the gateway to inwardness, and spiritual company represents a collective solitude and an interiorization through mutual influence. This proves that spiritual attitudes are never really privative limitations or prejudices; they are always realized on the plane of what seems to be their opposite, which means that every village and town is normally the extension of a sanctuary and should remain such and that every human collectivity is normally a spiritual association and should therefore realize “collective solitude” by being the vehicle of an interiorizing tendency.

During sleep, God can become very intimate with us. During sleep our souls do not slumber, but they actively search the spirit realm for the revelations of God. Our spirits are not influenced or restricted by the limitations of the physical body while we are asleep. In the dreams of the night, we are able to see ourselves as God sees us in the past, present, and future.

Entering by a wide gateway, but without gates, into an inner court, surrounded on all sides by great marble pillars supporting galleries above, I saw a large fountain of porphyry in the middle, throwing up a lofty column of water, which fell, with a noise as of the fusion of all sweet sounds, into a basin beneath; overflowing which, it ran into a single channel towards the interior of the building. Although the moon was by this time so low in the west, that not a ray of her light fell into the court, over the height of the surrounding buildings; yet was the court lighted by a second reflex from the sun of other lands. For the top of the column of water, just as it spread to fall, caught the moonbeams, and like a great pale lamp, hung high in the night air, threw a dim memory of light (as it were) over the court below.

We were created by God’s eternal spoken word, and His word is quick, sharp, and powerful. His word is able to renew us in the spirit of our minds so that we begin to see clearly, think higher thoughts, and walk in higher ways. Kingdom purpose is activated by faith. Our faith gives permission for an unseen destiny (that which we already are) to come forth out of the invisible spiritual realm and manifest in its fullness.

National Park. This I must keep reminding myself. Our parks serve a great purpose, not just for preservation, but also as a funnel. The Designated Route. Mobs of tourists, RVs, buses, and family station wagons out on summer vacation need a place to go. Our national parks serve this purpose, complete with entrance fees, advance reservation campgrounds, snack bars, game rooms, bowling alleys, roped-off viewpoints, paved trails, lodges, and reserved backcountry campsites. Permit required. For a fee.

From the point of view of genes in any male body, the body itself is a sinking prison ship. Death comes to all bodies sooner or later. Even if a male devoted all of his energy to surviving, by storing up huge fat reserves and hiding in an armored underground compound, statistics guarantee that an accident would sooner or later kill him. This paranoid survivalist strategy is no way to spread one's genes through a population. The only deliverance for a male's genes is through an escape tube into a female body carrying a fertile egg. Genes can survive in the long term only by jumping ship into offspring. In species that reproduce sexually, the only way to make offspring is to merge one's genes with another individual's. And the only way to do that, for males, is to attract a female of the species through courtship. This is why males of most species evolve to act as if copulation is the whole point of life. For male genes, copulation is the gateway to immortality. This is why males risk their lives for copulation opportunities.

Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our power are opinion (υποληψις), movement towards a thing (ορμη), desire, aversion (εκκλισις, turning from a thing); and in a word, whatever are our own acts: not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices (magisterial power), and in a word, whatever are not our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint nor hindrance: but the things not in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, in the power of others.

Hypnosis is a fascinating subject, and more common than we realize. How does it work? Essentially, when we relax our inner powers of discrimination, associated with our personal wills, and passively allow ideas and input into our subconscious mind, we are open to suggestions, which over time can be directed in specific ways that we call conditioning. The discriminating part of the mind is sometimes called the Gateway to the Unconscious. This gateway opens naturally and is most apparent, and useful, in the way children can quickly learn and adapt to their surroundings. This is an automatic occurrence and part of the learning process. This dynamic of “taking in” our surroundings is natural. It is fast and fluid and probably vital for the survival of our species to “learn” things rapidly. Our cultures, languages and civilizations are, to a great extent, passed on this way. Children are like sponges, we are told. We are delighted by this open and vital acceptance and curiosity of the world displayed by children. Interestingly enough, adults who maintain this open sense of wonder are labeled naive and gullible. I take delight in children, and encourage my clients to nurture their inner children.

They say that wisdom comes with age. So who could be wiser than the sky, with its eternal sunsets, thunderstorms, stars, galaxies? Who could be wiser than the rocks, these monoliths of stone, witness to all, over the eons of time? There’s an all-knowingness out here. It lies within all this silence and stillness. A wisdom so profound that it transcends words. An understanding so pure it cannot be explained, cannot be taught, nor grasped by the human mind. Only felt. Experienced firsthand. When I tap into this wisdom, a switch is flipped, a reversal happens. My mind, always up front, driving and controlling everything, takes a back seat. And my soul, hiding quietly in the back seat, jumps up to take shotgun.

In our five thousand years of civilization, our history has often been the handmaid of geography. We lie exactly midway between the North Pole and the Equator. We are the gateway between the Fertile Crescent and Europe, between landlocked Central Asia and the Mediterranean world and beyond that, the Atlantic. Peoples and empires have ebbed and flowed across this land. Even today sixty per cent of Europe’s gas supply either passes down the Bosphorus or runs under our very feet through pipelines. We have always been the navel of the world. Yet our favoured location by its very nature surrounded us with historical enemies; to the north, Russia to the south, the Arabs; to the east, Persia and to the west, the Red Apple itself, Europe.’ The Red Apple, the myth of Ottoman imperialism. When Mehmet the Conqueror looked out from the parapets of his fortress of Europe at Constantinople, the Red Apple had been the golden globe in the open palm of Justinian’s statue in the Hippodrome, the symbol of Roman power and ambition. Mehmet rode through the crumbling Hippodrome, the decaying streets of dying Byzantium and the Red Apple became Rome itself. The truth of the Red Apple was that it would always be unattainable, for it was the westering spirit, the globe of the setting sun itself. ‘Now we find ourselves caught between Arab oil, Russian gas and Iranian radiation and we found that the only way we could take the Red Apple was by joining it.’ This is poor stuff, Georgios thinks. You would not insult undergraduates’ intelligence with this.

Paradox is any self-contradictory proposition that, when investigated, may prove to be well-founded or true. Once understood, it opens the gateway to higher wisdom. But how can contradictory principles both be true? As the Buddhist Riddle of Five Truths puts it: “It is right. It is wrong. It is both right and wrong. It is neither right nor wrong. All exist simultaneously.” Charles Dickens expressed the paradox of his era, equally true today, when he wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,” going on to describe that time as one of belief and incredulity, light and darkness, hope and despair. Two opposing statements can each be true depending on the observer: it’s true that spiders are merciless killers from the viewpoint of tiny insects caught in their webs—but for most humans, nearly all spiders are harmless creatures. A story of the Sufi sage Mullah Nasruddin expresses the nature of paradox when he’s asked to arbitrate between two men with opposing views. Hearing the first man, he remarks, “You’re right.” When he hears the second man, he also says, “You’re right.” When a bystander points out, “They can’t both be right,” the mullah scratches his head and says, “You’re right.” Let’s go deeper and consider four central sets of paradoxical truths: * Time is real. It moves from past to present to future. * There is no time, no past, no future—only the eternal present. * You possess free will and can thus take responsibility for your choices. * Free will is an illusion—your choices are influenced, even predetermined, by all that preceded them. * You are, or possess, a separate inner self existing within a body. * No separation exists—you are a part of the same Consciousness shining through billions of eyes. * Death is an inevitable reality you’ll meet at the end of life. * The death of the inner self is an illusion. Life is eternal. Must you choose one assertion and reject the other? Or is there a way to meaningfully resolve and even reconcile such apparent contradictions?

It may be helpful, in attempting to understand the basic nature of the new caste system, to think of the criminal justice system--the entire collection of institutions and practices that comprise it--not as an independent system but rather as a gateway into a much larger system of racial stigmatization and permanent marginalization. This larger system, referred to here as mass incarceration, is a system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls--walls that are invisible to the naked eye but function nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did at locking people of color into a permanent second-class citizenship. The terms mass incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice system but also to the larger web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison. Once released, former prisoners enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion. They are members of America's new undercaste.

OTHER RELAXATION TECHNIQUES There are many other stress management techniques that can help you to “bring yourself down” quickly when you are highly stressed. You can use them before a situation where anticipation raises tensions that do not automatically subside after a few minutes. You also can use them during an interaction or when a surprise threatens to escalate your stress out of control. Or use them after an encounter has raised your stress level, if it is not subsiding naturally. Mental Imagery You experimented with mental imagery in the previous chapter on goal-setting. The use of mental imagery also can be an effective tool for anxiety control. Think of it as a new application of skills you already have: memory and imagination. When I asked you earlier to recall how many windows there are in your bedroom, you used imagery to retrieve the information. Mentally, you went into the room, looked from wall to wall, and counted. That process is mental imagery. From a relaxation perspective, your nervous system cannot distinguish between reality and imagery. Material passed from the body to the senses, whether real or imagined, is processed the same way. Therefore, imagery can play an important role in inducing internal self-regulation and relaxation. If there is a particular image—such as the warm, sandy beach of the previous exercise, a cool forest clearing covered with a blanket of pine needles, or even a clear blue sky—that represents relaxation to you, it would be valuable for you to be able to tune in to it whenever stress threatens to interfere with your life. Be sure to conjure up the reactions of all five senses: Imagine the look, sound, smell, taste, and feel of your surroundings. Mental gateways are a valuable part of the relaxation exercise we just went through. And it is important to be aware that your nervous system—which is what overreacts in a stressful situation—cannot distinguish between reality and imagination. Here’s how to use mental imagery to create a mental getaway: (a) Choose a favorite place, a pleasant, relaxing setting that you have enjoyed in the past or one you would enjoy visiting in the future. (b) Close your eyes and think about the scene. Use your senses of hearing, smell, sight, taste, and touch to develop the scene. Put yourself there. If your mind wanders a bit, that’s okay. You’ll drift back to the scene after a short while.

Sumerian culture -- the society based on me -- was another manifestation of the metavirus. Except that in this case, it was in a linguistic form rather than DNA." "Excuse me," Mr. Lee says. "You are saying that civilization started out as an infection?" "Civilization in its primitive form, yes. Each me was a sort of virus, kicked out by the metavirus principle. Take the example of the bread-baking me. Once that me got into society, it was a self-sustaining piece of information. It's a simple question of natural selection: people who know how to bake bread will live better and be more apt to reproduce than people who don't know how. Naturally, they will spread the me, acting as hosts for this self-replicating piece of information. That makes it a virus. Sumerian culture -- with its temples full of me -- was just a collection of successful viruses that had accumulated over the millennia. It was a franchise operation, except it had ziggurats instead of golden arches, and clay tablets instead of three-ring binders. "The Sumerian word for 'mind,' or 'wisdom,' is identical to the word for 'ear.' That's all those people were: ears with bodies attached. Passive receivers of information. But Enki was different. Enki was an en who just happened to be especially good at his job. He had the unusual ability to write new me -- he was a hacker. He was, actually, the first modern man, a fully conscious human being, just like us. "At some point, Enki realized that Sumer was stuck in a rut. People were carrying out the same old me all the time, not coming up with new ones, not thinking for themselves. I suspect that he was lonely, being one of the few -- perhaps the only -- conscious human being in the world. He realized that in order for the human race to advance, they had to be delivered from the grip of this viral civilization. "So he created the nam-shub of Enki, a countervirus that spread along the same routes as the me and the metavirus. It went into the deep structures of the brain and reprogrammed them. Henceforth, no one could understand the Sumerian language, or any other deep structure-based language. Cut off from our common deep structures, we began to develop new languages that had nothing in common with each other. The me no longer worked and it was not possible to write new me. Further transmission of the metavirus was blocked." "Why didn't everyone starve from lack of bread, having lost the bread-making me?" Uncle Enzo says. "Some probably did. Everyone else had to use their higher brains and figure it out. So you might say that the nam-shub of Enki was the beginnings of human consciousness -- when we first had to think for ourselves. It was the beginning of rational religion, too, the first time that people began to think about abstract issues like God and Good and Evil. That's where the name Babel comes from. Literally it means 'Gate of God.' It was the gate that allowed God to reach the human race. Babel is a gateway in our minds, a gateway that was opened by the nam-shub of Enki that broke us free from the metavirus and gave us the ability to think -- moved us from a materialistic world to a dualistic world -- a binary world -- with both a physical and a spiritual component.

ROUND UP A lot more can be said, but finally, this is your last lesson in this epic 30 -day quest to become a successful conversationalist. For the past 29 days, you’ve been tutored about different techniques to make things happen, and today you’ll kick start a conversation with more confidence and organization, because you are now a professional in the communication world. There are takeaways that you should not forget as you go forth as a small talk professional. You have learnt and practiced many truths about the nature and composition of small talk, but there are certain ones that should be placed next to your heart: Small talk may be seen as a waste of time, but it is actually time well spent; take note of this important point, people might want to convince and confuse you. Small talk with personal meaning orientation will scratch business shop talk off any time. Small talk should now be seen as an effective tool that is available right next to you and can be a gateway to success. You still have the chance to go back to the previous chapters you struggled with, this way, you’ll review and assimilate the important points, no one is an island of knowledge, and so I don’t expect you to have everything registered in your brain already, constant practices will bring out the best in you. Identifying your weakness is just as important as acknowledging your strength. I want to assure you that you’ll definitely excel since you’ve been able to lay hands on this book, and this how you can help others who are still in the position that you were when you started in day one. You’ve been instructed about many secrets of success, as well as the things to exploit and avoid. It’s up to you to make this permanent, and this can only be achieved if you keep following these instructions. You have to make the decision now; whether you would make use of this manual or not, but I would advise that you want it again and again as this is the only way to dedicate your spirit, soul and body to constant improvement. You definitely would have noticed some changes in you, you’re not the same person any more. One important thing is that you shouldn’t give up; try to redouble your efforts and realize that you know everything you’re supposed to know. This shouldn’t end here, endeavour to spread the word to make sure that you impact at least three people per day, this means that you would have impacted about 90 people at the end of the next 30 days and close to about 120 people in just two months. Now, you see how you can make the world a better place? It’s up to you to decide what you want and how you want it to be. Don’t waste this golden opportunity of becoming a professional in communication, you’ll go a long way and definitely be surprised at the rate at which you’ve gone in such a small time. Take time to attend to things that need attention, don’t be too hard on yourself, and don’t go too soft on yourself, you’re one vessel that can’t be manipulated, so you have to be careful and sure about your status on communication skills. On the final note, I would like to congratulate you for reading this to the end, you’ve taken this course because you believe in the powers of small talks, so this shouldn’t be the last time I’m hearing from you. I would look forward to seeing your questions about any confusing aspect in the future. Till then, remain the professional that you are!

April 6 The Collision of God and Sin Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree. 1 Peter 2:24 The Cross of Jesus is the revelation of God’s judgement on sin. Never tolerate the idea of martyrdom about the Cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross was a superb triumph in which the foundations of hell were shaken. There is nothing more certain in Time or Eternity than what Jesus Christ did on the Cross: He switched the whole of the human race back into a right relationship with God. He made Redemption the basis of human life, that is, He made a way for every son of man to get into communion with God. The Cross did not happen to Jesus: He came on purpose for it. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The whole meaning of the Incarnation is the Cross. Beware of separating God manifest in the flesh from the Son becoming sin. The Incarnation was for the purpose of Redemption. God became incarnate for the purpose of putting away sin; not for the purpose of Self-realisation. The Cross is the centre of Time and of Eternity, the answer to the enigmas of both. The Cross is not the cross of a man but the Cross of God, and the Cross of God can never be realised in human experience. The Cross is the exhibition of the nature of God, the gateway whereby any individual of the human race can enter into union with God. When we get to the Cross, we do not go through it; we abide in the life to which the Cross is the gateway. The centre of salvation is the Cross of Jesus, and the reason it is so easy to obtain salvation is because it cost God so much. The Cross is the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened—but the crash is on the heart of God.

April 8 His Resurrection Destiny Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? Luke 24:26 Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life: His Resurrection means that He has power now to convey His life to me. When I am born again from above (rv mg), I receive from the risen Lord His very life. Our Lord’s Resurrection destiny is to bring “many sons unto glory.” The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We are never in the relationship to God that the Son of God is in; but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When Our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life, to a life He did not live before He was incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before; and His resurrection means for us that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we shall have a body like unto His glorious body, but we can know now the efficacy of His resurrection and walk in newness of life. I would know Him in “the power of His resurrection.” “As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.” “Holy Spirit” is the experimental name for Eternal Life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the Deity in proceeding power Who applies the Atonement to our experience. Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Ghost can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey Him.

Society invented terms like success and failure to judge whether a person is worthy enough to be a part of society. It's a gateway pass to an elite club filled with snobs and hypocrites, who have no idea of life, reason and progress. They are but a bunch of leeches who feed on other people's achievements while mocking the achievements that are in the making. These leeches applaud achievements and scoff at the endeavors that make those achievements possible. Pay no heed to the sneering of these leeches, just continue with your work. It's your work that makes you who you are, not the mockery or the applause.

So much that it seems consistent only for porosity37—seen as a kind of productive fragility that overcomes rigid dualisms—to be the key concept by which the nature of the city is revealed and interpreted in all its profundity. Porosity is the principle of the true life of Naples: At the base of the cliff itself, where it touches the shore, caves have been hewn. As in the paintings of hermits from the Trecento, a door appears here and there in the cliffs. If it is open, one looks into large cellars that are at once sleeping places and storerooms. Steps also lead to the sea, to fishermen’s taverns that have been installed in natural grottoes. Faint light and thin music rise up from there in the evening. As porous as those stones is the architecture. Buildings and action merge in courtyards, arcades, and staircases. The space is preserved to act as a stage for new and unforeseen configurations. What is avoided is the definitive, the fully formed. No situation appears as it is, intended forever, no form asserts its “thus and not otherwise.” . . . Because nothing is finished and concluded. Porosity results not only from the indolence of the southern craftsman but above all from the passion for improvisation. For that space and opportunity must be preserved at all costs. Buildings are used as a popular stage. They are divided into innumerable theaters, animated simultaneously. All share innumerable stages, brought to life simultaneously. Balcony, forecourt, window, gateway, staircase, roof are at once stage and theater box. Even the most miserable wretch is sovereign in his dim, twofold awareness of contributing, however deprived he may be, to one of the images of the Neapolitan street that will never return and, in his poverty, the leisure of enjoying the grand panorama. What is played out on the stairs is the highest school in theatrical direction. The stairs, never entirely revealed, but closed off in the dull northern house-

(expectation being a type of natural mental suggestion). In

I’ve lived a life beyond any expectation I ever had as a child. But perhaps this is because I never had any expectations. Except to have fun. Fun is awesome, and my biggest motivator. Whenever I have a decision to make, I base my choice on what would yield the most fun. Because he who has the most fun wins. Why should we ever stop having fun? I plan to have fun until it’s no longer possible. Then I’ll surely be ready to move on, recycle this old body back to the Earth. See what’s next. How can it not be great? Perhaps even greater than this life. Until then I plan to have as much fun as humanly possible. See ya on down the trail…

It may be helpful, in attempting to understand the basic nature of the new caste system, to think of the criminal justice system—the entire collection of institutions and practices that comprise it—not as an independent system but rather as a gateway into a much larger system of racial stigmatization and permanent marginalization. This larger system, referred to here as mass incarceration, is a system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls—walls that are invisible to the naked eye but function nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did at locking people of color into a permanent second-class citizenship. The term mass incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice system but also to the web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and outside of prison. Once released, former prisoners enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion. They are members of America’s new undercaste. (Emphasis in original.)

It may be helpful, in attempting to understand the basic nature of the new caste system, to think of the criminal justice system—the entire collection of institutions and practices that comprise it—not as an independent system but rather as a gateway into a much larger system of racial stigmatization and permanent marginalization.

The real world is outside. Away from our man-made cells of concrete and steel. It’s out there. Don’t be fooled. You always have a choice. Remain part of the machine or walk away, out into the great mystery of life. Go now. Find your treasure.

Birth is experiential. You have to experience it to fully know it. An exercise such as Bellydance for birth embraced during pregnancy can act as a purposeful tool to help a woman before she steps in through the gateway of birth. One of the key elements of the birth dance is that it can help bridge the gap between the primal brain (which knows how to give birth) and the modern woman (who may need to be reminded of her instinctual capacity), assisting her to claim back her most basic and inherent right as the Deliverer of Life.

In nature, ecosystems consist of fauna and flora, climatic characteristics, soil conditions, geologic features, and a host of other interacting influences. Similarly, the precision medicine ecosystem is made of many interacting components, including patients, clinicians, researchers, laboratory services, CDS software, genomic databases, smartphones, servers, claims data, mobile apps, biobanks to store clinical specimens, and EHRs. EHRs need to serve as gateways to this ecosystem. And for the EHR to become an effective conduit, it needs a way to organize these diverse sources in a way that lets clinicians and patients make more effective diagnostic and treatment decisions.

Meditation + Mental Strength An emotion is our evolved biology predicting the future impact of a current event. In modern settings, it’s usually exaggerated or wrong. Why is meditation so powerful? Your breath is one of the few places where your autonomic nervous system meets your voluntary nervous system. It’s involuntary, but you can also control it. I think a lot of meditation practices put an emphasis on the breath because it is a gateway into your autonomic nervous system. There are many, many cases in the medical and spiritual literature of people controlling their bodies at levels that should be autonomous. Your mind is such a powerful thing. What’s so unusual about your forebrain sending signals to your hindbrain and your hindbrain routing resources to your entire body? You can do it just by breathing. Relaxed breathing tells your body you’re safe. Then, your forebrain doesn’t need as many resources as it normally does. Now, the extra energy can be sent to your hindbrain, and it can reroute those resources to the rest of your body. I’m not saying you can beat whatever illness you have just because you activated your hindbrain. But you’re devoting most of the energy normally required to care about the external environment to the immune system. I highly recommend listening to the Tim Ferriss’s podcast with Wim Hof. He is a walking miracle. Wim’s nickname is the Ice Man. He holds the world record for the longest time spent in an ice bath and swimming in freezing cold water. I was very inspired by him, not only because he’s capable of super-human physical feats, but because he does it while being incredibly kind and happy—which is not easy to accomplish. He advocates cold exposure, because he believes people are too separate from their natural environment. We’re constantly clothed, fed, and warm. Our bodies have lost touch with the cold. The cold is important because it can activate the immune system. So, he advocates taking long ice baths. Being from the Indian subcontinent, I’m strongly against the idea of ice baths. But Wim inspired me to give cold showers a try. And I did so by using the Wim Hof breathing method. It involves hyperventilating to get more oxygen into your blood, which raises your core temperature. Then, you can go into the shower. The first few cold showers were hilarious because I’d slowly ease myself in, wincing the entire way. I started about four or five months ago. Now, I turn the shower on full-blast, and then I walk right in. I don’t give myself any time to hesitate. As soon as I hear the voice in my head telling me how cold it’s going to be, I know I have to walk in. I learned a very important lesson from this: most of our suffering comes from avoidance. Most of the suffering from a cold shower is the tip-toeing your way in. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s not suffering. It’s just cold. Your body saying it’s cold is different than your mind saying it’s cold. Acknowledge your body saying it’s cold. Look at it. Deal with it. Accept it, but don’t mentally suffer over it. Taking a cold shower for two minutes isn’t going to kill you. Having a cold shower helps you re-learn that lesson every morning. Now hot showers are just one less thing I need out of life. [2] Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind. Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind. Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit.

drift back to camp, tiptoeing through manicured gardens of rosy pink, crimson, lavender. Flowers mastering the art of being flowers.

Purple rain sways like curtains in the distance. I’ve transcended! Completely alone, yet held tightly in the arms of Wilderness. Mother Nature herself. God.

We hear communities endlessly debating whether this is good or bad for their community, and the hard truth is that when you’re one of these towns, you don’t get to make that decision,” Rumore told us. “This change will happen whether they like it or not, so instead the conversation needs to be ‘How do you protect the things you hold dear?’ ” A big hurdle, Rumore admits, is that many of these desirable rural western communities are politically polarized: liberal enclaves in a sea of deep conservatism. The ideological split can make something as seemingly straightforward as a community meeting incredibly fraught. But residents of smaller gateway communities tend to share a love of place—its natural beauty, or its seclusion, or its history. When you frame discussions around what’s worth preserving, it can bring people together, even if they disagree on the way to actually go about protecting the places and spaces they love.

However, sleep paralysis can be a gateway to the astral realm when you know what to do.

The secret to life is now. In every living moment. Whatever that moment may look like. When I finally stop, look around, and see, Actually see for the first time, All the grace and beauty in this world, I realize something profound. The beauty has been here all along, Waiting for me to get out of my head, And into life. Patiently the world awaits. Waiting to celebrate our enlightenment. When we awake, the world wakes up with us, And the entire world is changed in an instant.

We come from the Earth. We return to the Earth. It happens over and over and over.

When we learn to seek light in the darkest of places, and brighten it with our own, only then can we hope to evolve.

Fasting is a struggle against nature and the removal of all that stimulates the palate, the inhibition of lust, the excision of evil thoughts, liberation from dreams, purity in prayer, the radiance of the soul, the defense of the mind, liberation from blindness, the gateway of remorse, humble sorrow, joyful remorse, a break from speaking, an agent for stillness, a watch for obedience, alleviation of sleep, health of body, a means to dispassion, a clearing of sins, a door to Paradise and its joy.

In October 2003 the United States government patented the rights to medical marijuana. After decades of propaganda trumpeting the war on drugs and claiming that marijuana was the “gateway drug,” the federal government applied for patent #6630507 Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants. Pressure started mounting due to the collective consciousness the internet provides. Public opinion began to change due to information regarding marijuana’s cancer curing properties and the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to keep the naturally growing plant illegal for purposes of continued profit.

The art of painting is one of the greatest of human inventions, a cultural instrument, a gateway to all other arts and branches of knowledge. When you have a collection of great paintings before your eyes, you can think of history, you can watch the pageant of the ages passing before your eyes. You can think of the poems and stories you have read, the legends, the traditions. You can think of religion, broaden your understanding of it, and learn that fundamentally all worship is one. You can travel in imagination and see the world without any of the discomforts and dangers of travel. You can enjoy the distilled essence of the beauties of nature. You can behold the works of man, “and manners, climates, councils, governments.” You can study architecture, costumes, interior decoration, and, above all peoples of all races and climes. You can study psychology in the faces of the proud monarch and the humble toilworn peasant; the great painter has read their secrets and told you more about them than they themselves knew.

Embrace the beauty of Ireland through nature's exquisite artistry. Discover the finest Irish flowers that bloom with grace, color, and enchantment. Let Best Irish Flowers be your gateway to a world where blossoms whisper stories of love, joy, and heartfelt sentiments. From vibrant gardens to delicate arrangements, immerse yourself in the essence of Ireland's floral treasures. Let the flowers speak, and let your heart be captivated by their timeless elegance.

I get visions of words, But it ain't nothing supernatural. It's just a natural expression, of divergently wired circuits neural. Much of my literary universe is born of intense transcendental states. Had I let it overwhelm my common sense, I'd've risen a supernatural figurehead. Instead, I looked for a tangible explanation, that flatters my curiosity, not ignorance. Thus, I stumbled upon the neurochemical roots, from which all normal and paranormal manifest. Mind is not a gateway to another realm, Mind is a wondrous universe on its own. The messages we think we get from the heavens, Are actually subconscious constructs of our own. Be conscious of consciousness, but more of your subconsciousness. Your eyes will open up to new vistas, with wider and more meaningful sapience.

There is a gateway in my mind, which opens from time to time and I'm poured with some magical words. Some call it a gift, I call it nature - Mind is the gateway to its own universe.

The lines blurred so easily here, an overlapping of realms as natural as the meeting of the ocean and the shore.

I get visions of words, But it ain't nothing supernatural. It's just a natural expression, of divergently wired circuits neural. Much of my literary universe is born of intense transcendental states. Had I let it overwhelm my common sense, I'd've risen a supernatural figurehead. Instead, I looked for a tangible explanation, that flatters my curiosity, not ignorance. Thus, I stumbled upon the neurochemical roots, from which all normal and paranormal manifest. Mind is not a gateway to another realm, Mind is a wondrous universe on its own. The messages we think we get from the heavens, Are actually subconscious constructs of our own.

Give me that one magically placed note, at the most precisely perfect moment in time, that is so fresh, so unexpected, that I’m awakened. Enlightened! If only for a moment. The flash of an instant.

World-Honored One, what is this gateway to the Dharma called? What does it mean? How does a bodhisattva practice it?” The Buddha replied: “Good sons, this unique gateway to the Dharma is called innumerable meanings. A bodhisattva who wants to practice and study the gateway to the Dharma of innumerable meanings should observe that all things were originally, will be, and are in themselves empty and tranquil in nature and character; not large or small, not subject to arising or extinction, not fixed or movable, and neither advancing nor retreating. Like empty space, they are non-dualistic. “All living beings, however, make delusory distinctions: weighing whether something is this or that; whether it is a gain or a loss. Bad thoughts come to them, producing a variety of evil actions. They transmigrate within the six states undergoing all kinds of suffering and harm, from which they cannot escape during innumerable billions of eons. Seeing this clearly, bodhisattva great ones cultivate sympathy and show great kindness and compassion in the desire to extricate others from suffering. What’s more, they penetrate deeply into all things. “In accord with the character of Dharma, all things emerge. In accord with the character of Dharma, all things live. In accord with the character of Dharma, all things change. In accord with the character of Dharma, all things perish. In accord with the character of Dharma, bad things emerge. In accord with the character of Dharma, good things emerge, live, change, and perish. Bodhisattvas, observing these four modes and being thoroughly familiar with them from one end to the other, should next observe clearly that none of these things continues to live even for a moment, but emerges and perishes every moment, each emerging, living, changing, and perishing in an instant.

It my be helpful, in attempting to understand the basic nature of the new caste system, to think of the criminal justice system-the entire collection of institutions and practices that comprise it-not as an independent system but rather as a gateway into a much larger system of racial stigmatization and permanent marginalization. This larger system, referred to here as mass incarceration, is a system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls-walls that are invisible to the naked eye but function nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did at locking people of color int a permanent second-class citizenship. The term mass incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice system but also to the web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and outside of prison. Once released, former prisoners enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion. They are members of America's new undercaste.

We realize that the world is not against us, but here to support us, love us, and guide us along. We’ve

Every gene in every human body has passed through thousands of penises over thousands of generations of human evolution. Equally, every gene has passed down through thousands of eggs inside female ancestors who chose to copulate with particular males. In sexually reproducing species, copulation is the genetic gateway from one generation to the next, which is what makes it so important evolutionarily, physically, and psychologically.

Awe is the gateway drug to healing trauma through nature.

I find that when I open up and surrender to the present moment, accepting it for all its beauty and amazement, the universe guides me to all the right places. Decisions are just decisions. Either answer is correct. Just choose. The universe will take care of us, provided we are grateful, aware. It’s when we fight the present moment that the universe turns against us. Nothing goes our way. Every decision is wrong. We get caught up in our minds, our egos. “If only I had done this, or done that.” Life becomes a struggle.

I’m not here to tame or conquer, I’m here to connect. To find the gateway. I know it’s out here. If I’m not careful I could miss it.

Work? Stress? Bills? The past? What past? Everything is perfect now, And when is it ever not now?

I was born to walk the Earth, experience the amazing beauty of this planet, and witness the splendor and magic of all things—to be overwhelmed by a ray of sunlight, touched by an encounter with a frog, and mystified by the texture of a rock wall. I was born to splash through the creeks, sing through the canyons, laugh with the squirrels, just as I did as a small child in the woods behind our family’s home. I was born to be a kid, and not take life too seriously, or get sidetracked by a career, a project, or anything that ties me down to the life of bills, shiny new toys, status, and pavement.

The secret to life is now. In every living moment. Whatever that moment may look like.

How much better to simply let things be as they are, and witness life with a sense of humor? It is quite silly, after all.

At the first itch of loneliness we pick up the phone, log onto the internet, knock at the neighbor’s door, or start a project. What about boredom, depression, anger, sadness? We run. Constantly we’re running from our emotions. Our society is one of quick fixes. There’s a pill for depression, a gadget for boredom, social media for loneliness, the pub for sadness. We are afraid of being with our emotions. We are afraid of being with ourselves.

But if we take away our story, our past, what’s left? Searching for an answer, we pick up a spiritual book, surf the web, call up a friend. We run! What if we just stopped? Felt the breeze on our face, the sun on our back. Focused on the lighting, the shapes, the colors.

What is it about this place? What is it about this desert? I search for an answer but come up dry, like always. There is something here beyond words. Something unexplainable. A presence. Something living, breathing. Listening.

I offer my love back: to the Wilderness, the desert, the tinajas, the rocks, the sun, the moon and the stars, and to Mother Earth. After all we’ve taken, her love is still stronger than ever. Beyond all else we must remember who we are, where we come from, and where we will return. There comes a time when we must make our pilgrimage. Leave our houses, our cities of concrete and steel, and make our journey back to Wilderness

Obs were mediums and necromancers condemned by Torah, the Law of God. They were to be executed by the state for their spiritually heinous activity of consulting the dead and divining spirits. In Philistia, such activities were not outlawed as they were in Israel, but were rather encouraged. The Ob’s residence stood on the outskirts of the city near the foothills, because of the spiritual nature of mountains as cosmic connections between heaven and earth, and as gateways to Sheol.

Today, the questions that remain most controversial in language evolution are the following: Was there one crucial gateway to language through which only humans have passed? Is there anything in the way language is processed by the brain that is unique to language, rather than a more general form of cognition? At what points in the trajectory of language evolution has natural selection come into play? Can any elements of the language suite be clearly identified as spandrels?

is natural to fear, and therefore demonize, what we cannot understand;

Now, I am like them. For the peace and comfort of living beings I use various gateways to the Dharma To proclaim the Buddha way.   Through the power of wisdom, Knowing the nature and desires of living beings, I teach them the Dharma using skillful means, Bringing them great joy.

To hike quickly here would be like racing through an art gallery. -- Wilderness, The Gateway To The Soul, Scott Stillman

Plenticultural (Sonnet 1434) When I get mad, I revert to English, because English is my first language. When I feel romantic, I revert to Turkish, because Turkish is my love language. When I feel passionate, I revert to Spanish, because Spanish is my passion language. When I feel electric, I revert to Telugu, because Telugu is my power language. When nothing works, I revert to Korean, because Korean is my backup language. And you wonder why I never run empty, why the natural spring is ever abundant! Language is the gateway to culture, Culture is the gateway to life. I am no person who speaks many tongues, I am the proof of plenticultural life.