The Illusions of Maya

The illusions of Maya, which are demarcated from truth and falsehood, play on perceptions of reality. Interestingly, "Maya" is also the name of a 3D modeling software used to create renderings, or illusions, of reality. Illusions are neither distinctly true nor false; they challenge our senses and distort our perception, making what we see appear real. However, they also serve to awaken us, expanding our perception to a greater reality. This helps us discern what is truly real and what isn't. Remember, the mirage doesn't trick the viewer.

In Hindu philosophy, the term "illusion" has various interpretations. Many monist philosophies clearly differentiate between illusion, truth, and falsehood. For instance, in Advaita philosophy, an illusion is something that is neither entirely true nor entirely false. While in general discourse, an illusion might be seen as false, Hindu philosophy draws a distinction between Maya (illusion) and falsehood.

Definition:

il·lu·sion (iˈlo͞oZHən/noun): 1. A thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses.

A World of Make-believe: The Art of Masquerade and Putting on Shows by Britney Spears

"In that moment of make-believe the singer seems finally happy, liberated by her ability to become someone else. Even Britney recognizes this about herself. She describes [a song] she wrote last summer, "about artistic expression and the masquerade of people acting and putting on shows," she says. "Through that, you create your own world. The song talks about how other people are coming into this girl's world, but she didn't invite them in. so she's saying, "Why are you here, if I didn't invite you?" 

- Britney Spears in Rolling Stone, December 2008 before the release of Circus

A Saint and a Sinner

Saint or a Sinner or Saint and a Sinner? If Jesus was a Saint and Judas was a Sinner - though misunderstood by men they both do the Lord's work.

What Man understood for Evil God Intended for Good

19But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. - Genesis 50:19-20 (NIV)

Discernment of Spirits - God versus Man's intention

16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ,^b the Son of the living God.”

17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.18And I tell you that you are Peter,^c and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades^d will not overcome it.^e 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be^f bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be^g loosed in heaven.” 20Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

Jesus Predicts His Death

21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

23Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” - Matthew 16:16-23 (NIV)

Read more about the Origins of Modern Christianity...

Till The World Ends

Optimism is the message of the video. Even when the world inside you seems like it's ending - keep dancing. Eventually a better day will come.

"I choose to be a happy person. I choose not to be a negative person. It's all about perception. How you choose to view things." - Britney Spears

Enemy Among Us

Enemy Among Us by Paper Route
There's an enemy among us. He stole as best he could. Our hearts like an enemy should.

• Enemy Among Us by Paper Route

More Paper Route music on iLike

The World of Dreams

What we are to our inward vision, and what man appears to be sub specie aeternitatis (from the perspective of the eternal), can only be expressed by way of myth. Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science. Science works with concepts of averages which are far too general to do justice to the subjective variety of an individual life.
- Carl Jung From Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Britney Spears collaborates with Takashi Murakami for POP Magazine

Britney Spears collaborates with Takashi Murakami and channels her inner manga for Britain's POP Magazine. Murakami also worked on the cover art for Kanye West's Graduation.

The comic-book-inspired shoot was directed by legendary artist Takashi Murakami, and Brit was pretty pleased with his work.

Read more: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b196811_britney_spears_goes_bridalmdashwith.html#ixzz0xeIcFzv1

 Britney Spears goes anime in Break the Ice from 2008's Blackout directed by Robert Hales.

Is It All in My Head?

"With diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, what you believe about your illness influences how sick you become."

"Anybody who has a chronic illness has alterations in biological and psychological mechanisms," says James F. Jones, M.D., a chronic fatigue expert with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "You really can't separate the brain and the body, because psychology is biology—everything that takes place in the brain is chemical or electrical. You can't have the one without the other."

"Doctors suspect that by continuing to focus on an elusive biological cause, they could be missing out on the other half of the picture—and the chance to find a solution. They have begun to re-examine the role of severe stress, depression and even personality traits in initiating and fostering disease." - Is It All in My Head? by Melissa Schorr, published on May 01, 2005 - last reviewed on July 20, 2009, Psychology Today

Ouranos the Greek God of Heaven

Ouranos οὐρανός (Greek) often translated as Air or Heaven in the New Testament (Were religious concepts and ideas borrowed from Greek mythology. If so, how original is modern religion)?

Word Origin and History
Uranus - first planet discovered that was not known in ancient times, named for the god of Heaven, husband of Gaia, the Earth, from L. Uranus , from Gk. Ouranos  lit. "heaven," in Gk. cosmology, the god who personifies the heavens, father of the titans. Cf. Urania , name of the Muse of astronomy, from Gk. Ourania , fem. of ouranios , lit. "heavenly."
Source: Answers.com

The Interaction between Genes and the Environment

Nature and Nurture or Genes and the Environment
Neuroscientists at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory found that a previously unsuspected set of genes links nature and nurture during a crucial period of brain development.

["Disorders"] thought to be tied to brain changes that occur when the developing brain is very susceptible to inputs from the outside world. Nature--in the form of genes--and nurture--in the form of environmental influences--are fundamentally intertwined during this period.

"Our work points to how a disorder can be genetic and yet be dependent on the environment," said co-author Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute and chair of MIT's brain and cognitive sciences department. "Many genes require activity to be expressed and make their assigned proteins. They alter their expression when activity is altered.
Source: Science Daily

Days of Future Past

Prediction and the Functions of a Theory

Predicting events that will occur in the future and explaining events that have occurred in the past are, except for difference in temporal perspective, essentially the same activity as long as scientific statements are abstract. (Reynolds, 1971, p.5)

The Digital Code of DNA

Genes are Digital Information
"Two features of DNA structure account for much of its remarkable impact on science: its digital nature and its complementarity, whereby one strand of the helix binds perfectly with its partner. DNA has two types of digital information — the genes that encode proteins, which are the molecular machines of life, and the gene regulatory networks that specify the behavior of the genes."

"Any living cell carries with it the experiences of a billion years of experimentation by its ancestors." Max Delbruck, 1949.
(Read More) about the Digital Code of DNA from Nature 421, 444-448 (23 January 2003)

Also check out my Stream of Consciousness titled Man as Machine

Two Spirits: The Gift of Masculine and Feminine?

Two Spirits [tells the story of] Fred Martinez, a nádleehí—someone who possesses a balance of masculine and feminine traits—a special gift according to his traditional Navajo culture. But his determination to express his truest identity tragically cost him his life. At age sixteen, he was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was murdered in Cortez, Colorado.

Remote Call Forwarding Is Essential When You're On The Go

One of the most stressful things about running a small business is the feeling that you've always got to be waiting in the office for phone calls. What if you step out and an important call comes through? An "out of the office" message could be just the thing that makes a potential customer or client pass your business up and try another. Remote call forwarding is a simple and inexpensive service that takes care of this for you. It sends the calls straight to you no matter where you are so that you can take care of business.

How Remote Call Forwarding Works

There are all kinds of remote call forwarding services with more features than anyone knows what to do with. But they all work in basically the same way. When a call comes through and there's nobody in the office to pick it up, the call gets redirected somewhere else. You can decide where this call gets directed - either to another line within the office, to your cell phone or home phone, or even to a mobile internet device. Then, wherever you are, you can take the call.

Remote Call Forwarding Options For Your Business

As mentioned earlier, each remote call forwarding company offers tons of options - much more than you probably need. But the good thing about this is that you can fully customize your office phone system to meet your needs. First, sit down and decide which services are most important to you. For example, you probably need a few basics like call forwarding, call waiting and voice mail options.

Another feature you might consider is automated blocking. You can use this to keep those annoying sales calls from coming to your cell phone. You can also choose caller ID and other features that help you screen calls. One of these is called "call whisper"; this allows the system to tell you directly who is calling.

You can also shop around on a call forwarding company's website to get some ideas. But don't get carried away; think about the features that are most important to you and let this guide your decision in choosing a plan.

A More Professional Image

One extra that you'll find these services offering is that they can help you improve your business's image. People love small companies because they're small and friendly, but a little image boosting makes you look more professional. For example, many of these services offer personal toll free numbers. They also let you choose a local virtual phone number if you're out of the immediate area. When customers call the local number, they're re-routed to your office. These are little things that go a long way in making your company look more professional.

The main advantage of remote call forwarding is that it gets the calls you need to you, no matter where you are. That means you don't have to hire staff just to answer phones, and also that you can take those coffee breaks or walks around the block without worrying about missing calls!

Gender row athlete: What is intersexuality?

The case of South African athlete Caster Semenya has sparked worldwide interest following reports that she will be tested by sporting officials to determine whether she is male or female. ...the IAAF are testing to see whether Semenya has a rare genetic disorder that means she has female genitalia but male chromosomes.
Check out Intersexuality and How Sex is Determined for the genetic explanation of XY females.

The default of all human beings is female
"If you are insensitive to androgens, you will grow up looking like a girl because the default of all human beings is female. However if the body, when it's developing, is not guided into turning into a male, then it will always be female."

Caster Semenya: Intersection of Intersexuality and Eunuchs
For more than half a century it was common for doctors to carry out reversal operations, either through castration [known as castrated Eunuchs, check out Eunuchs of the Sun (Jesus on Homosexuality and the Third Gender and Eunuchs, Hijras, the Third Gender and the Bible] or constructing a new vagina, on babies whose genitals were seen as either too big or too small.

The Nobodies

Beware of the Nobodies, the wanderers and the lost souls. The beings without hearts searching for somewhere to belong.

Organization XIII (XIII機関, Jūsan Kikan^?) is a fictional group of characters featured in Square Enix and Disney Interactive Studios' Kingdom Hearts video game series. Kingdom Hearts is a crossover of various Disney settings based in a universe made specifically for the series. The group is comprised of thirteen Nobodies, or beings without hearts.
Source: Wikipedia

Eunuchs of the Sun (Ancient Homosexuality and the "Third Gender")

Jesus on Eunuchs of the Sun (Homosexuality and the "Third Gender")
"12For some are eunuchs because they were born that way [EUNUCH OF THE SUN]; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage[c]because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
Source: Matthew 19:12

Two Types of Eunuchs
"The two types of eunuchs undoubtedly represent a standard categorization. According to the rabbis there were two sorts of eunuchs, those of human device and those of nature's making (cf. m. Zab. 2.1; m. Yeb. 8.4; b. Yeb. 75a, 79b). The first type was spoken of as being seris adam, literally 'eunuch of man.' The second type was spoken of as being seris hamma, literally 'eunuch of the sun', that is, from the first seeing of the sun, a eunuch by birth (b. Yeb. 79b, 80a; cf. Eusebius, H.E. 7.32).

"The 'eunuch of the sun' was one who had been born with defective male organs or one who had otherwise been rendered impotent by circumstances of his birth."
Source: Matthew 19-28 by Davies, Dale C. Allison

Intersexuality and How Sex is Determined

"If the Y [Male] chromosome is present in the embryo's cells, a gene within the short arm of the chromosome called SRY [SRY stands for sex-determining region of the Y chromosome] will turn on, initiating a chemical chain reaction that will turn on other genes and stimulate the production of male hormones[Testosterone]. If the X [Female] chromosome is present, or if the SRY [Sex determining region of the Male or Y chromosome] gene is missing from the Y [Male] chromosome, the embryo will develop into a female [Because the Sex Determing Region of the Male Chromosome is missing, a 'XY genetic male' - will develop into a 'XY biological female'] via mechanisms that are not fully understood."
(Read More) at PBS 'How is Sex determined?'

Also Check Out
Eunuchs, Hijras the Third Gender and the Bible

Eunuchs, Hijras, the Third Gender and the Bible

Jesus on Marriage, Divorce and Eunuchs (Matthew 19:3-12)

 ³Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"
 ⁴"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'^{[a] 5}and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'^[b]? ⁶So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
 ⁷"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
 ⁸Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
 ¹⁰The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
 ¹¹Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹²For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage^[c]because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
- Source: Matthew Chapter 19

Eunuchs in India

In India, nearly half a million people live as eunuchs (or Hijras), not man or woman, but considered an entirely separate gender.

Egyptian Third Gender

Inscribed pottery shards discovered near ancient Thebes (now Luxor, Egypt), and dating from the Middle Kingdom (2000-1800 BCE), contain a listing of three genders of humanity: males, eunuchs, and females, in that order. (See Sethe, Kurt, "Die Aechtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefäßscherben des mittleren Reiches," in: Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1926, p. 61.)

In the Egyptian story of the creation of the archetypal beings (gods), the first being is male and female, and its name is Atum. Through asexual reproduction, Atum divides and creates two other beings, Shu and Tefnut. These two in turn produce another pair, Geb and Nut. Finally, Geb and Nut, the earth and the sky, combine and produce the two pairs of Isis and Osiris, and Seth and Nephthys. Isis exemplifies the reproductive female, Osiris the reproductive male, Seth the nonreproductive eunuch, and Nephthys the unmarried virgin.
Source: Egyptian Third Gender

Born Eunuchs: Homosexual Identity in the Ancient World
Thesis with works cited, annotations and listed citations of Eunuchs in secular and Christian literature.

Also Check Out
A Lifestyle Distinct: The Muxe of Mexico
Two Spirits

The Age of Aquarius

In astrology, the Age of Aquarius is one of the twelve astrological ages. According to astrologers, it is either the next age to come, or else it is the current age. Each astrological age is approximately 2,150 years long.
Source: Wikipedia

The following is great commentary by Jungian author Edward Edinger regarding Carl Jung's philosophy on the impact of the Aquarian Age.

Carl G. Jung and Aion, Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self

If my reading of the symbolism of [Jung's] Aion is correct, the aeon of Aquarius will generate individual water carriers. This will mean that the psyche will no longer be carried by religious communities but instead it will be carried by conscious individuals.
This is the idea Jung puts forward in his notion of a continuing incarnation, the idea that individuals are to become the incarnating vessels of the Holy Spirit on an ongoing basis."
- taken from the Commentary of Aion Lectures written by Jungian author Edward Edinger

General views
According to Albert Amao, Ph.D.
Amao states that the transition period between any two ages is based on two degrees' leeway at the point of intersection of two adjoining zodiacal constellations.^[12] Based on this transitional structure, Amao has the Age of Aquarius commencing in 1948 with the transitional period from the Pisces age to Aquarian age covering the period 1876 to 2020.

Key characteristics of the Aquarian age according to Amao
Science; disbelief in God; knowledge and reason; freedom and equality, equality of the sexes and of religion; space exploration, supremacy of the USA over the former Pisces supremacy of Europe; and finally revelation of the Mystery.^[14]

Mayan Long Count calendar
Amao also states that the Mayan Long Count calendar, that has an end-date of December 21, 2012, is associated with precession of the equinoxes and therefore can provide an important demarcation for the Age of Aquarius. Amao is fully convinced that we lie at the threshold of the Aquarian age.^[15]

The Dark Side (Orwellian Nightmare)

How do we know if the Age of Aquarius will be 'a utopia or an Orwellian nightmare?'
- Ray Grasse

Neil Spencer also questions the New Age utopian view of the Age of Aquarius with the modern astrological perspective that each sign is different but equal. Possible negative examples of Aquarius include dumbed-down media and consumerism and rapacious international corporations. Finally, Spencer states that nuclear power must be a manifestation of the Aquarian Age and comments on the parallel between the 25,000 years it takes for uranium to decay with the 26,000 cycle of the astrological ages.^[16]
Source: Wikipedia

Also Check Out
Precession of the equinoxes
Young Americans Losing their Religion by ABC News