Review of the Analects of Confucius

The Analects of Confucius is a collection of the teachings of Confucius, the Chinese philosopher and great thinker who lived 551 BC - 479 BC.
Presented as a series of discourses and dialogues that Confucius had with his disciples, The Analects of Confucius was written by his disciples several years after he died. The Analects consists of 20 Books (Chapters) and is essentially a rulebook of life. While reading this rulebook, it reminded me of Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility.
Just as it is in the case of Franklin's virtues, some of the rules in Confucius' rulebook are no longer relevant today, but I also appreciated reading The Analects of Confucius the same way that I appreciated reading The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin because some gems of wisdom are scattered throughout both texts.
Below are some of the things which stood out for me. Though I was not always comfortable with the language, I am very mindful of when The Analects of Confucius was written. I am sure that your list would be different.

1. Confucius said, "Those who are born with the possession of knowledge are the highest class of men. Those who learn, and so readily get possession of knowledge, are the next. Those who are dull and stupid, and yet compass the learning, are another class next to these. As to those who are dull and stupid and yet do not learn; they are the lowest of the people."
2. The philosopher Tsang said, "I daily examine myself on three points: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher."
3. The philosopher Yu said, "When agreements are made according to what is right, what is spoken can be made good. When respect is shown according to what is proper, one keeps far from shame and disgrace. When the parties upon whom a man leans are proper persons to be intimate with, he can make them his guides and masters."
4. "To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage."
5. The Master said, "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. Have no friends not equal to yourself. When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them."
6. Tsze-chang asked what were the characteristics of the good man. The Master said, "He does not tread in the footsteps of others, but moreover, he does not enter the chamber of the sage."
7. The Master said, "When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is there to be anxious about, what is there to fear?"
8. The Master said, "Do not be desirous to have things done quickly; do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished."

The Analects of Confucius is easy to read because it's not very long. Click here to download an online version of the book. I am sure after reading it you will find your own gems of wisdom. So what did I get from reading The Analects of Confucius? Act with courage and integrity, be thorough, chart your own path and learn continuously, are a few of the gems I identified.

His Philosophies and Strategies

During his day Lee Iacocca was considered one of the most masterful business leaders of all time, known for his blunt, but straight talk. When exploring what made this man, one could only say that adversity had built the character needed to accomplish all he did. Do you have the qualities that Lee Iacocca used to turn around Chrysler Motor Company?
If not, that does not mean you cannot study this great man and his methods to take control of your company, your future or your destiny. I recommend that you study the philosophies and strategies of Lee Iacocca and I would like to recommend two books, two books that I myself have in my own personal business library:
"Iacocca - an autobiography" by Lee Iacocca with William Novak - 1984
"Talking Straight" by Lee Iacocca with Sonny Kleinfield - 1988.
The first book describes Lee Iacocca's early beginnings and what shaped his personality, it takes you through his tenure at Ford Motor Company and into his position at Chrysler. It talks about how he sold the "bail out" and how he built his team, the K-Car solution. He talks about auto safety, competing with the Japanese, Labor Costs and Unions and what this great nation needs to become even greater.
The second book "Talking Straight" was written four years later and it is a continuation of his comments on America, the stock market, trade deficits, a nation in debt, raising kids in America and how what we do now will shape the world we live in - in the 21st Century.
He talks about family values, hard work ethic, national unity, strength of character and where we are doing well and where we need to concentrate. He discusses where American Business needs to focus, where it is falling down. He talks about several industries and even family farmers. He states that we need to make "Made in America" mean something once again. In many regards Lee Iacocca is correct, I hope you will listen to his words and think on it.
In the meanwhile if you are interested in the Auto Maker Industry, I would like to suggest another book to you, about how factories operate in the US and elsewhere and how to make them more efficient and profitable:
"Reinventing the Factory - Productivity Breakthroughs in Manufacturing Today" by Roy L. Harmon and Leroy D. Peterson - Arthur Anderson Consulting - 1990.
This book has chapters such as: Management Perspectives and Profits, plant wide plans, Assembly process, machining process, material storage, one-touch change overs, and paperless factories. The book also touches on important considerations in productivity and how to create plants, sub-plants and manufacturing clusters, with vendors, spin-offs and in-house systems. Finally, the book explains the methods and strategies needed in designing the Factories of the Future.

Amazing Holy Grail Discovery

In a profound and provocative work of scholarly detection, best-selling UK author Philip Gardiner shakes the foundations of modern belief by at last revealing the true origins of The Holy Grail, Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone. Shrouded in mystery, these highly enigmatic symbols have long been revered and The Serpent Grail proves, without doubt, that all three are inextricably linked, originating from the same ancient source.
For many of us, these three mysterious objects derive from Arthurian legend, or the curious work of the medieval alchemists, but this book reveals that they date back from a much earlier period - from the dawn of human history itself.
Basing his findings on a wealth of detailed research and his own unique marketing and propaganda based background, Gardiner's own quest has been something of an adventure and his book presents plausible and fascinating new evidence about the foundations of religious belief and how over the centuries information has been deliberately and systematically distorted.
In an argument with enormous implications, Gardiner identifies key facts which link all three symbols to the same ancient cult - a cult which believed that the mythical serpent was, a 'beneficent life force' and its physical counterpart, the snake, an irreverent provider of the 'elixir of life'. In The Serpent Grail Gardiner proves that modern science and ancient wisdom can and have come together to finally prove that snake venom and blood was used thousands of years ago as the Elixir of Life and was brought together in the arcane "mixing bowl" which became known as the Holy Grail.
The Serpent Grail is a gripping read, a work based on a lifetime of research that provides the indisputable fact that, The Holy Grail, Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone are one and the same, in that they are all metaphors for spiritual enlightenment. This book takes the reader on a fascinating exploration of ancient myth, archaeology, etymology, religion, science, and much, much more.
The Serpent Grail is published by Watkins on 15th September 2005, Hardback priced UK £16.99 ISBN 1 84293 129 6
Release: Worldwide (inc Australia and New Zealand) except USA which is February 2006.
Philip and Gary are currently in discussion with Atlantic TV regarding their television documentary for Discovery America.

The Serpent Grail by Philip Gardiner With Gary Osborn: 'THE TRUTH BEHIND IT ALL' - An extraordinary account of the quest for the truth behind The Holy Grail, Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone; Astonishing new findings that lead us right back to the very origins of civilization and the roots of our modern belief systems; Ground breaking proof that The Holy Grail, Elixir of Life and Philosopher's Stone are one and the same; Radical demystification of the stories and mythology that have mesmerized entire generations; Conclusive identification of a link between modern religious beliefs and 'Serpent Cults' of the ancient world; Author to do world unique Tours through  taking people on the journey to the Grail and anybody also wishing to book the author for talks, lectures etc should

Complimentary Notes To The Philosopher

May be we are getting nearer to the end that we are in observance of the confluence of many things that we customarily are used to think and believe never to come too close to each other or never to cross each other's path till eternity. Then philosophy was a pure mental exercise psychology likewise, but limited to human behavior and where it comes from and what brought it about. The time has come now that where we can see and observe every human behavior or almost all human behavior with a corresponding physical and chemical activity within the brain physiology and other parts of our human body. How long ago was that we thought we could relate and map human behavior to a chemical and physiological brain make up and activity? Nonetheless, however hard knowing the knower is, we are making big leaps in shortening the gap between what was simply a metaphysical exercise and what was a quantifiable and qualify able material objective reality. As to who went right and who went wrong though very much dependent on who one asks the question , to an independent and objective observer it comes along clearly that both gave a lot of ground and they sure will give more till they have exhausted all of their individual standing. Will that be? Or will that not be?
However long the time and distance, it seems every bit what we have learned and are learning about us and ever thing else to date suggests that what has begun from a singularity of a sort to terminate in a singularity of a sort. Not ruling out the singularity of time space and matter as suggested by the Big bang theory, but adding to it a singularity of form and essence. As we (the universe and what is in it and it) are creations of information that preceded us we might simply end up being information that outlasts us. After all what we seem to gather is information that made us, that is governing our very essence and that is leading us in to our end and begging. So information we seek, information we gather and information we pass and I invite you to stay on as I embark on the journey of gathering synthesizing and disseminating information about all and us in particular once again and more.
As we are constructs of information we in turn gather, compile, multiplex and decompile to fit our needs and be compatible with the dynamic and ever evolving environment we often find ourselves in. In as much as what comes in to us by way of information affects our inner mechanics and chemistry it seems rather obvious that what we give out as pieces of information will have a similar effect on the receiving end to whom the information is of need to accomplish a task or fit a circumstance. Fitting a circumstance in a life's time entails finding life in a time segment, in a condition and place and the information compatible to make the right decisions and actions to enhance and sustain it. As every life form gathers information it as well learns and inherits from its predecessors who are endowed with knowledge by inheritance, experience and learning. Experience seems to teach that we curriculurize and compartmentalize information delivery and receipt in synthesis with our physiological stage of development that those who are old enough and knowledgeable are of importance in the determination and arrangement of information to be dissipated till such time deemed unnecessary by reach of a physiological developmental stage and meeting the corresponding intellectual and psychological prerequisites. As we are physical constructs of information and our physical body is nourished and sculpted by the constant feed of information we receive and our physical construction as well reverse feeds our information processing and output quality and efficiency. These and many more points which I would be getting in to are made clear to me from the initial chapter of the book.
My conclusions and insights as well may not concur 100% with that of the Author's that is because it is not my intent to summarize nor criticize, but take the outline and jot some the few thoughts that came to mind as I read it. As the amount of information we are able to access increased exponentially, it has become a common worry that we are becoming somewhat disconnected from our immediate social and physical environment and more of individuals than social beings and the author as well elaborates on that very eloquently.
It is though a couple of slanted angle views that struck my vision and carried my thoughts that I wanted to share here. One of them being the relationship between depth and width of vision as governed by the law of optics; that is the narrowing of the field of vision often is a precondition to magnification or magnification of a small item or being without exception narrows or eliminates peripheral vision and if not totally eliminated it is often lost as a background noise without due consideration. Such is the capability and purpose of our modern day gadgets and instruments from the television to the computer, from the internet to the telephone to make as reach and touch what was otherwise impossible. As our reach from all over the county to all over the state, nation and the Glob of like minded people becomes an instantaneity, are we breaking down to getting ever more divergent to our individual beats or are we getting convergent and getting to a common Global beat and rhythm? These increase in distance and scope of our reach has in fact made us people of specialties where generalities could not carry one across any river and our interdependence by that much stronger and important if we are to cross oceans and continents to accomplish a task and fulfill our needs. Social intelligence as such is the awareness and acknowledgment of a fundamental truth that no individual is an island in itself or her/himself. That from the minutest of beings and non beings in our Universe are endowed with an important task for us to be and do when and if it falls within the grand universal scheme and could only harm has when it is out of synch with this grand scheme, and in its struggle to find its rightful place if we happen to be the grand obstacle that it had to overcome. It is only recently that we are coming to the understanding of such an integrated interdependent Globe and Universe and we still have a long ways to traverse to come to a complete understanding of an integrated grand universal and global reality.
A thing is not real only if it is real in its consequences, but if and only if a common reference is established by all of us or most of us and com to a common understanding of what it is and establish an agreement to that effect otherwise both the imagined and the real one has biological consequences, the real one to all while the imaginary to the only one who imagined it. Luck of a common reference would render the imaginations and ideas remain realities of the individual minds (imaginations) until such time they are seen from a common established common reference vantage which is often the very essence and intent of a universal being. When two items or individuals are asynchronous one of them or both seems more than likely out of sync with this grand universal essence and being that often leads to sickness or death.
Our inner self and outer self and anything else's constantly and permanently browses its environment not only to synchronize itself with every other of our and its kind, but also establishes a common reference for affinity and common understanding. Why are particular sound wave lengths with particular pitch and amplitude, tones and overtones appealing to all of humanity and other are not? Is it may be we are all attuned to a common inner and outer audible and non rhythm's tones and overtones? If so what could be its fundamental tones wavelength, amplitude and pitch that is being amplified when we are attuned to music that is at the root of our pleasure and displeasure? We know in our efforts to synchronize and amplify we move with the beat of the drum, tone of the piano wind instrument or string what of our inner parts dance do our instruments of music follow? It seems we create music in by a dance and vibration of some delicate parts of our inner mind only to reinforce and amplify that common inner vibration where ever it occurs and whatever it is.
It is elaborated clearly and at length how we humans are capable of emotional mapping of each other's state of mind and there is no wonder what we humans and everything else have an exact copy of our parts( not organs or body parts, but elements that constitute us) independently of time, space and condition. As our biological and physiological similarities increase so does what constitutes us. That who are in them are as well in us as clones or mirror images in a sort of a worm whole without the effect of time and space , what happens to them then becomes what happens to us in the degree of the cloned entities in us and them. These are rather the source of our empathy and sympathy with others and them with us. It is worth it here to mention why the effects of modern communication machines like telephones ,televisions the internet and the rest of them all are deemed isolating despite the fact that they have, can and will takes us to greater distances and greater number of people in lesser time may be it is because that they don't have emotions that we can map in to our brains for the mere fact that the amount of what is in them and us in common pales in comparison to what we have in live people and others near us. In many words and a single sentence distance and time have direct bearing on the amount of common entities inherited and acquired that exist amongst people and other living and none living things having a direct effect on the degree of each other's emotional mapping.
As it turns out that brain imaging reveals when several people are questioned "how are you doing?" activated the same parts of the brain as when asked "How is she feeling?" I wondered if that would activate the same region of the brain if "she" is exchanged for "it" not it have no emotion, but due to the common in "You" and "it". While "You and "She" are basically constructs of the similar or near the same information, give and take acquirements along the path being, the information that "You and "It" are constructed on in comparison diverge more. " One can safely conclude that the emergence and persistence of cooperative behavior are not at all unlikely, provided the participants meet repeatedly, recognize one another and remember the outcomes of the past encounters." "Throughout the evolutionary history of life, cooperation among smaller units led to the emergence of more complex structures, as for example the emergence of multicultural creatures from single celled organisms. In this case, cooperation became as essential as competition. Spatial structures act to protect diversity. They allow cooperators and defectors to exist side by side. In different, but related context, similar spatial patterns allow populations of hosts and parasites or prey and predators, to survive together despite the inherent instability of their interaction. Such cooperative strategies may have been crucial for pre-biotic evolution, which many researchers believe may have taken place on surfaces rather than in well-stirred solutions. Catalyzing the replication of a molecule constitutes a form of mutual help; hence, a chain of catalysts, with each link feeding back on itself, would be the earliest instant of mutual aid." The Mysteries of Mathematics from the Archives of Scientific American. June 1995. By Martin A. Nowak, Robert M. May and Kari Sigmund. The above quotation is rather not made in the exact context the authors of the article might have intended to explain game theory, yet I find it telling of the mutual help and assistance that existed and exist in the fundamentals of our makeup that calls for a mapping of each other's emotional state for survival and trivial now and in the after now.
As it is apparent that there is a continuous infighting for position, possession, love and ultimately for offspring often when a confrontation becomes eminent with another of similar or different entity, the infighting becomes a matter of secondary importance and instantaneous communication takes a front raw and emotional mapping becomes a vital medium. These are the rules of life and being from primordial beginning to the present, inner peace and intra-peace, infighting and intra-fighting in the March forward and dynamic progress with time always as a valued commodity. " Our abilities, to speak, love, hate, and perceive the world around us, as well as our memories, our dreams, even our species history, emerge from the combination of a multitude of tiny electrical signals that spread across our brains just like a thunderstorm sweeps a summer sky." Seeking the neural code By Miguel A.L Nicolelis and Sindarta Ribeiro, Scientific American magazine Decmber2006. Information reduced to tiny electrical signals are rather readable and understandable by each and any part of our brain thus establishing a common reference for all information that we collect through any of our senses often to be complimented by any other to establish a common reference as I stated some time earlier in this writing and lending some additional credence to emotional mapping of people and may be other animates as well, for tiny electrical signals remain the same before they are compiled in to bites and bites of information.

Philosophy Audio Book Review

Would you like to really get a handle on the subject of philosophy? I mean really get to know the subject, the famous names, and the root of their thoughts? If so, let me recommend an excellent audio series to you, one that is so good, you'll want to keep it on your bookshelf when you complete your listening to it:
"The Great Ideas of Philosophy (Second Edition)" of the Great Courses 0f Philosophy and Intellectual History by Professor Daniel N. Robinson Ph.D. Oxford; The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Audio Series; Chantilly, VA; 2004. ISBN: 1-56585-981-2.
This is a five part series, and it is 60 lessons The lectures are roughly 30 hours of lectures and it comes on thirty CD ROMS. It is extremely comprehensive and moves very fast, and it must be listened to in complete silence, with full attention and probably best listened to in the dark. If not, if any distraction you will not be able to follow along. This series is one of the best I've found from the Teaching Company.
Robinson does a superb job on this; he is also the author or editor of some 40 books. You will be blown away by this course. I would also submit to you that since he moves very quickly, you will get an excellent over view of the subject of philosophy and the history or philosophy, along with all the famous names.
If you are a pre-college student, I'd suggest that you buy this series and listen to it twice or three times prior to taking your philosophy classes. I'd also recommend it to anyone who wants to brush up on the subject moving from a community college into a 4-year college if you are going to study philosophy. If you are retired and just wish to exercise your mind, yes, well this will definitely do that for you as well

Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live by

After being convinced that Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) had something to say that was important to a person looking unlock secrets of mankind and health. I bought three of his books and was rewarded with another body of knowledge to help me be my own doctor. After spending a lifetime researching and writing Campbell left a phenomenal legacy. I found a soul mate through his words and his keynote phrase "Follow your bliss" convinced me to Follow My Bliss".
I began following Campbell after watching him along with Bill Moyers on The Power of Myth series on television in 1990. His knowledge concerning mythological, religious, and psychological archetypes struck a strong chord in my psyche. My picks:
o The Power of Myth (1991)
o Hero's Journey (1990)
o Myths to Live By (1993)
Campbell wrote and collaborated on more than 30 books, 4 interview books, 16 audio tapes and 7 video/DVDs
Campbell reflected on the writings of Carl Jung (as do I) a belief we share is that spirituality is a search for the same basic unknown force from where everything comes from and returns to. This force cannot be expressed in words therefore is expressed through the use of "metaphors" that mask the deepest expression of the spirit.
Campbell's goals included demonstrating that underneath the metaphor a common spiritual truth threads run through all of mankind and all religion. Campbell's thinking followed:
o James Frazer (The Golden Bough)
o Adolph Bastian & Otto Rank (The Myth of the Birth of the Hero)
o Lee Fresenius (Cultural history)
o Oswald Spengler (The Decline of the West)
o Carl Jung's works
o Heinrich Zimmer (The Bardo Thodol)
o James Joyce
o Thomas Mann
o Pablo Picasso
o Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche
Earlier in 1924 Campbell met Jiddu Krishnamurti who influenced his interest in Hindu and Indian thought. His study of cultures from around the world helped inform Americans on how to act in various countries teaching courses at the US state department Foreign Service Institute. He spent the rest of his life writing, speaking on the world of myth and religion. He was a credit to America and I appreciate his wisdom.

• My biggest FEAR in life is becoming dependent. • The idea of depending on my boss, a medical doctor, expensive insurance or the government for my health care does not feel right. Are there Solutions? The answer is YES

Do You Have a Streak of Foolishness in You

Tirukkural, a classic in Tamil, one of the six oldest living languages of the world has 133 cantos. Canto number 84 with 10 couplets explains what he calls folly.
The first diagnosis of folly is that the fool will not be able to assess the true value of men and material. May be he is attracted to extraneous and uncertain aspects and let himself to be relieved of gainful possessions in exchange to things devoid of much substance. I know someone who built a villa type house and did a good job of it. The house was neither far nor near the madly crowded town. All of a sudden he disposed it off and bought an apartment in the town. He reasoned out that with the surplus money resulting out of the deal he would buy a plot. And with the appreciation of the land cost going unabated he would make good sum in the shortest span of time which he would reinvest in a villa again. Everything happened as fondly hoped by him up to buying the flat and occupying it; nothing beyond, because the 'surplus' was not sufficient enough to buy the plot! After some time the surplus money disappeared whose cause is always a mystery for him! The best of American economic brains conceived the idea of sub prime lending to individuals with no credibility to kick start the economy. Our Indian friend aping a variation of the American model sold a prime property and ended up with a sub prime property! The following Kural makes the point.
What is folly? Charging ruin And discharging gain.
My wife banishes foolishness at home! She requests for the service of an electrician, a plumber or some other skilled person depending upon what needs to be fixed at home. I will know it only when the person arrives. This is the strategy she uses to effectively keep me away from trying my unskilled hand in fixing things! Read the second Kural below:
The greatest of all idiocies is finding delight, In doing things that is not part of one's skill set.
A refined person exhibits three qualities: a sense of restrain, a sense of enquiry and a sense of not coveting. All these are absent with a fool. The verse is as follows.
Restraint, query, no mad covet a fool doesn't practice these, But manages to carry out his 'feats' at ease!
One hall mark of scholarship is attaining a sublime reflectivity. Fools are incapable of this maturity. The sophistication is portrayed by Tiruvalluvar as follows.
Professing what is well read he does but achieving sublime, He doesn't, Can there be a better fool which he isn't?
Committing a series of mistakes in an effort to undo the effect of the first one most of us either have carried out or heard of. For example, the salvos fired by defense lawyers in the courts are framed in such a way that the unsuspecting HR personnel add few more mistakes through their depositions before the juries other than what they have already committed in the official files of the employees. It appears many of us have a tendency to file up mistakes in one generation enough to bring suffering for seven generations. Read the Kural below:
In one generation a fool can commit mistakes, Seven generations that follow will have enough stakes!
Gaining mastery involves building it through one's nerves. Vygotsky a Russian learning theorist says cognitive development results from a process where the learner learns something from another person through practical experience and internalizing it. Thereafter the learning becomes his providing the fountain head for new innovations from him. If the initial drill under the guidance of a learned person is absent normally the learning never gets internalized. Such non internalized learning if practiced leads to dangerous situations. My God! Such a person too earns the title 'Fool' from Tiruvalluvar. Read the verse concerned.
Left alone he would fail, he would also be in chains, When uninstalled learning takes over the reins.
Inability to prioritize is a symptom of folly. If a fool gets a fortune the merry go surrounding him will enjoy his bounties while his kith and kin will continue to be devoid of what they are legitimately entitled to! In our State we had a time when lottery was in vogue. One person won a fortune. He gathered his friends and spent the money in every possible avenue. After thirty days he was back in his home to continue his hand to mouth existence! Read the Kural.
Outsiders get lavish fills, kith and kin languish in hunger, Fool's new fortune is the harbinger.
If a person who is not in his sense consumes alcohol he will be a first grade nuisance, so also a fool who gets new wealth. Read the Kural.
A Fool and a fortune haul, Matches a mad man cheering alcohol.
If we have a fool for a friend we have no worry. You know why? We have no regrets when we part company with him! Enjoy the sarcasm of Tiruvalluvar in the following verse. Friendship with fools has a good aspect for it's keeping! Since separation doesn't yield weeping!
Entering bedroom without washing legs is prohibited in India. Individually, wherever people have the luxury of enough water meeting the standards set by UN Indians make it a point to maintain personal cleanliness. But when it comes to public places it is horrible. Probably condition must have been the same during Tiruvalluvar time also. He says a fool entering a chamber where great men are in session is like a person entering a bedroom without washing his feet. Both of them will contaminate the place! The Kural is here:
A fool intruding a session of great men, Equals one going to bed with feet uncleaned.

I am Dr.Venkatachalam rangaswamy former professor of psychology from Bharathiar University, Coimbaore, Tamil Nadu, India. You are welcome to consult me.

Book Review of Limitless Living

From the moment I first leafed through Limitless Living, I knew that it would be thought-provoking and enlightening. This is a book about "encounters with the Mystery;" a travelogue through spiritual mysticism and the many ways in which humans can experience the sacred and the divine. The author, Reverend Prentice Kinser III, writes from the heart. He fills this book with stories, mostly from his own life, recording instances in which he has felt the presence of God, received "unconventional guidance," and glimpsed past lives.
Limitless Living is a beginner's guide to knowing oneself as a spiritual being having a human experience. Kinser, an Episcopalian Priest, hypnotherapist and pastoral counselor, provides exercises in which readers can identify their own encounters with "intuitive knowing" and trust that this guidance is not just wishful thinking. The author teaches strategies for accessing spiritual guidance and communication. He gives methods to "test the spirits" so that readers can determine whether the communication and revelations they receive are "of God" and true.
Kinser suggests several practices for finding one's own spiritual pathway: journaling, meditation, prayer, and Tai-Chi. He tells us that these methods can lead us to Love and Light, to an expanded knowledge of the true self, to an experience of God, and to a deepening and reaffirming of our life purpose and direction. He speaks of guardian angels and departed souls, mantras, chakras, mindfulness, mind-body healing, energy cleansing and near-death experiences. He tells of conversations with ascended masters and of past life recall. With respect to Native American traditions of shamanism, he relates his own vision quest, and the discovery of his power animal.
Kinser teaches from his own explorations as well as his extensive readings and studies in various spiritual disciplines. He impresses me as a sincere and learned individual. While he speaks of his own devotion to the teachings of Christ, he tells his readers that the material in the book is for people of all faiths, and even for seekers and skeptics. Each person can use the material in his or her own way.
I've read numerous books on channeling, psychic phenomena, past life regression, and angel communication. Sometimes these books have left me with the impression that such gifts belong only to the chosen few, or that these methods are a haphazard assemblage of self-help tools, with no core component, no relation to spirituality. It's refreshing to read a book that gets it right, and Limitless Living does. This is one of the few books that approach non-worldly subjects from a mainstream, Christian perspective blended with intellectual curiosity. This is one that a) offers readers simple tools to "test" the safety of efficacy of such experiences and b) cautions readers to approach such activities with spiritual shielding, and if one has a foundation of religious understanding, from that standpoint.
On a personal note, the beautifully-written book has helped me to validate a few unusual experiences in my own life-what I believe were spiritual events and encounters. I also feel encouraged to resume the journaling that I discarded many years ago. This book directs attention to the holy dimensions of events we often dismiss as mere coincidence, hallucination, or fluke. Limitless Living reminds us that there are many pathways to knowing the essence of life, the soul, and the infinite.

Judith E. Pearson, Ph.D. is a lpsychotherapist, counselor and life coach with a private practice, Motivational Strategies, Inc., in Springfield, Virginia. She specializes in solution-oriented therapies, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Hypnotherapy. She is the executive director of the National Board for Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists (http://www.natboard.com). She recently published The Weight, Hypnotherapy, and You Weight Reduction Program: An NLP and Hypnotherapy Practitioner's Manual released by Crown House Ltd of Wales.

Philosophical Pragmatism

The distinguishing scheme of philosophical pragmatism is that effectiveness in practical application by some means offers a criterion for the resolve of truth in the case of declarations, correctness in the case of actions, and worth in the case of assessments. Nonetheless, it is the first of these perspectives, the matter for meaning and truth that has traditionally been the most major.
Pragmatism as a philosophical principle goes back to the Academic Sceptics in classical ancient times. Refuting the likelihood of attaining genuine knowledge (episteme) concerning the real truth, they educated that we must manage with credible information (to pithanon) sufficient to the requirements of practice. Kant's specification 'contingent belief, which yet forms the ground for the effective employment of means to certain actions, I entitle pragmatic belief' (Critique of Pure Reason, A 824/B 852) was also significant for the progress of the principle. Another determining stride was Schopenhauer's perseverance that the intellect is unanimously secondary to the will, a line of contemplation that was detailed by more than a few German neo-Kantian thinkers. Moral utilitarianism, with its examination of the appropriateness of styles of action in terms of their ability to offer the greatest good of the maximum number was yet another stride in the progress of pragmatic contemplation. For it too evokes much the same utility-maximization model, and there is a profound structural parallel between the argument that an accomplishment is right if its results rebound to 'the greatest good of the greatest number', and the thesis-orientated account of a pragmatic theory of truth-claiming that an experimental claim is right if its reception is maximally beneficial.
Nonetheless, pragmatism as a determinate philosophical principle comes down from the work of Charles Sanders Pierce. For him, pragmatism was chiefly a theory of meaning, with the connotation of any idea that has function in the real world inherent in the relationships that connect experiential circumstances of application with visible results. But by the 'practical consequences' of the recognition of an thought or a debate, Pierce meant the results for experimental practice - 'experimental effects' or 'observational results' - so that for him the import of a proposition is decided by the fundamentally positivist standard of its experiential results in severely observational terms. And going a step further, Peirce also educated that pragmatic effectiveness comprises a quality control check of human cognition - though here again the practice matter is that of scientific praxis and the criterion of efficacy centering on the matter of particularly predictive success. Peirce built-up his pragmatism in contrast to idealism, observing that the examination of applicative success can direct simple theorizing to stump its toe on the hard rock of truth. But his descendants moderated the principle, until with present-day 'pragmatists' the effectiveness of ideas comprises in their simple acceptance by the community rather than in the accomplishment that the community may (or may not!) meet as it sets those views into practice.
Charles Pierce writes:
"Not only may generals be real, but they may also be physically efficient, not in every metaphysical sense, but in the common-sense acception in which human purposes are physically efficient. Aside from metaphysical nonsense, no sane man doubts that if I feel the air in my study to be stuffy, that thought may cause the window to be opened. My thought, be it granted, was an individual event. But what determined it to take the particular determination it did, was in part the general fact that stuffy air is unwholesome, and in part other Forms, concerning which Dr. Carus has caused so many men to reflect to advantage-or rather, by which, and the general truth concerning which Dr. Carus's mind was determined to the forcible enunciation of so much truth. For truths, on the average, have a greater tendency to get believed than falsities have. Were it otherwise, considering that there are myriads of false hypotheses to account for any given phenomenon, against one sole true one (or if you will have it so, against every true one), the first step toward genuine knowledge must have been next door to a miracle. So, then, when my window was opened, because of the truth that stuffy air is malsain, a physical effort was brought into existence by the efficiency of a general and non-existent truth. This has a droll sound because it is unfamiliar; but exact analysis is with it and not against it; and it has besides, the immense advantage of not blinding us to great facts-such as that the ideas "justice" and "truth" are, notwithstanding the iniquity of the world, the mightiest of the forces that move it. Generality is, indeed, an indispensable ingredient of reality; for mere individual existence or actuality without any regularity whatever is a nullity. Chaos is pure nothing." [WHAT PRAGMATISM IS by Charles Sanders Peirce The Monist, 15:2 (April 1905), pp. 161-181]
Although Pierce developed pragmatism into a significant philosophical theory, it was William James who gave it place on the intellectual map in his extremely powerful Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (New York, 1907). Nonetheless, James changed, and in Peirce's opinion ruined, Peircean pragmatism. For while Peirce observed in pragmatism a path to remote and objective standards, James gave it a personalized and subjective turn. With James, it was the individual (and probably distinctive) thought of effectiveness and achievement held by specific people that offered the pragmatic heart, and not a vague community of ideally rational influences. For him, pragmatic effectiveness and applicative accomplishment did not transmit to an impersonalized community of scientists but to an expanded plurality of flesh-and-blood individuals. Reality for James is consequently what reality pushes and forces human individuals to suppose; it is a substance of 'what pays by way of belief' in the route of human activity within the circumambient surroundings and its attainment is an creation rather than a exposure. With James, the tangibility of a hypothesis is resolute in terms of its experiential results in a far more vast than simply observational term- a logic that accepts the sentimental sector too.
James's first book, the colossal Principles of Psychology (1890), recognized him as one of the most powerful thinkers of his era. The work progressed the belief of functionalism in psychology, thus taking away psychology from its conventional position as a subdivision of philosophy and founding it among the laboratory sciences supported on experimental process.
In the next decade James implemented his empirical techniques of investigation to philosophical and religious matters. He discovered the queries of the being of God, the eternity of the soul, free will, and ethical values by directing to human, religious and moral experience as a direct basis. His outlook on these themes were offered in the lectures and essays published in such books as The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897), Human Immortality (1898), and The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). The last is a compassionate psychological explanation of religious and mystical occurrences.
Later lectures published as Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking (1907) finalized James's innovative offerings to the theory called pragmatism. James universalized the pragmatic method, mounting it from an analysis of the logical foundation of the sciences into a foundation for the assessment of all knowledge. He argued that the meaning of ideas is established only in relation to their probable results. If results are short, ideas are worthless. James argued that this is the technique used by scientists to describe their stipulations and to check their hypotheses, which, if significant, involve forecasts. The hypotheses can be regarded correct if the forecasted events occur. Conversely, most metaphysical theories are hollow, because they involve no testable predictions. Significant theories, James disputed, are tools for handling troubles that come up in knowledge.
According to James's pragmatism, truth is that which works. One decides what works by examining proposals in experience. By this method, one discovers that some propositions become correct.
Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Instrumental Truth" William James (From A Pluralistic Universe, New York, 1909, pp. 321-4 and Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking [1907], New York, l909, pp. 52-61)
What at bottom is meant by calling the universe many or by calling it one?
Pragmatically interpreted, pluralism or the doctrine that it is many means only that the sundry parts of reality may be externally related. Everything you can think of, however vast or inclusive, has on the pluralistic view a genuinely "external" environment of some sort or amount. Things are "with" one another in many ways, but nothing includes everything, or dominates over everything. The word "and" trails along after every sentence. Something always escapes. "Ever not quite" has to be said of the best attempts made anywhere in the universe at attaining all-inclusiveness. The pluralistic world is thus more like a federal republic than like an empire or a kingdom. However much may be collected, however much may report itself as present at any effective centre of consciousness or action, something else is self-governed and absent and unreduced to unity.
Monism, on the other hand, insists that when you come down to reality as such, to the reality of realities, everything is present to everything else in one vast instantaneous co-implicated completeness -- nothing can in any sense, functional or substantial, be really absent from anything else, all things interpenetrate and telescope together in the great total conflux.
For pluralism, all that we are required to admit as the constitution of reality is what we ourselves find empirically realized in every minimum of finite life. Briefly it is this, that nothing real is absolutely simple, that every smallest bit of experience is a multum in parvo plurally related, that each relation is one aspect, character, or function, way of its being taken, or way of its taking something else; and that a bit of reality when actively engaged in one of these relations is not by that very fact engaged in all the other relations simultaneously. The relations are not all what the French call solidaires with one another. Without losing its identity a thing can either take up or drop another thing, like the log I spoke of, which by taking up new carriers and dropping old ones can travel anywhere with a light escort.
For monism, on the contrary, everything, whether we realize itor not, drags the whole universe along with itself and drops nothing. The log starts and arrives with all its carriers supporting it. If a thing were once disconnected, it could never be connected again, according to monism. The pragmatic difference between the two systems is thus a definite one. It is just thus, that if a is once out of sight of b or out of touch with it, or, more briefly, "out" of it at all, then, according to monism, it must always remain so, they can never get together; whereas pluralism admits that on another occasion they may work together, or in some way be connected again. Monism allows for no such things as "other occasions" in reality -- in real or absolute reality, that is.
Metaphysics has usually followed a very primitive kind of quest. You know how men have always hankered after unlawful magic, and you know what a great part in magic words have always played. If you have his name, or the formula of incantation that binds him, you can control the spirit, genie, afrite, or whatever the power may be. Solomon knew the names of all the spirits, and having their names, he held them subject to his will. So the universe has always appeared to the natural mind as a kind of enigma, of which the key must be sought in the shape of some illuminating or power-bringing word or name. That word names the universe's principle and to possess it is after a fashion to possess the universe itself. "God," "Matter," "Reason," "the Absolute," "Energy," are so many solving names. You can rest when you have them. You are at the end of your metaphysical quest. But if you follow the pragmatic method, you cannot look on any such word as closing your quest. You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work within the stream of your experience. It appears less as a solution, then, than as a program for more work, and more particularly as an indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed.
Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest. We don't lie back upon them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over again by their aid. Pragmatism unstiffens all our theories, limbers them up and sets each one at work. Being nothing essentially new, it harmonizes with many ancient philosophic tendencies. It agrees with nominalism for instance, in always appealing to particulars; with utilitarianism in emphasizing practical aspects; with positivism in its disdain for verbal solutions, useless questions and metaphysical abstractions.
All these, you see, are anti-intellectualist tendencies. Against rationalism as a pretension and a method pragmatism is fully armed and militant. But, at the outset, at least, it stands for no particular results. It has no dogmas, and no doctrines save its method . . . [But] the word pragmatism has come to be used in a still wider sense, as meaning also a certain theory of truth. . .
One of the most successfully cultivated branches of philosophy in our time is what is called inductive logic, the study of the conditions under which our sciences have evolved. Writers on this subject have begun to show a singular unanimity as to what the laws of nature and elements of fact mean, when formulated by mathematicians, physicists and chemists. When the first mathematical, logical, and natural uniformities, the first laws, were discovered, men were so carried away by the clearness, beauty and simplification that resulted, that they believed themselves to have deciphered authentically the eternal thoughts of the Almighty. His mind also thundered and reverberated in syllogisms. He also thought in conic sections, squares and roots and ratios, and geometrized like Euclid. He made Kepler's laws for the planets to follow; he made velocity increase proportionally to the time in falling bodies; he made the law of the sines for light to obey when refracted; he established the classes, orders, families and genera of plants and animals, and fixed the distances between them. He thought the archetypes of all things, and devised their variations; and when we rediscover any one of these his wondrous institutions, we seize his mind in its very literal intention.
[From A Pluralistic Universe, New York, 1909, pp. 321-4 and Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking [1907], New York, l909, pp. 52-61]
James was divergent to complete metaphysical systems and disputed against monism, a principle that preserves that reality is a combined, monolithic total. In Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912), he disputed for a pluralistic universe, refutingh that the world can be clarified in terms of an complete strength or system that decides the connections of things and events. He maintained that the connections, whether they provide to keep things jointly or apart, are just as genuine as the things themselves. His pragmatic philosophy was more built up by the American philosopher John Dewey and others.
Holmes himself is an instance of a man who began as an Emersonian Idealist and pursued the natural trajectory of this discipline into behaviorism. The midpoint on the voyage is the viewpoint of pragmatism, and Holmes was there at the formation. After the Civil War, he was an associate of the Metaphysical Club, which included both William James and Charles Peirce, the latter usually considered as the father of pragmatism. In spirit, pragmatism is just another type of idealism. A "problem," in the pragmatist scheme of things, is just the observation of some absurdity. If you arrange substances so that you no longer have this discernment, then the difficulty is solved. If the new understanding does not match to your system of logic, then there is something incorrect with your system. The nonstop effect of Peirce on Holmes has been much discussed, and some writers have almost certainly overstated it. Still, the philosophy of "The Common Law" is pragmatic in the severe logic. The common law is not a set body of policies and the syllogisms resulting from them, but an unrefined structure that has come up in reaction to "the felt necessities of the time." The method to assess a law is to gauge the extent of subjective fulfillment it gives the community. By the point of his essay "The Path of the Law," published in 1885, he had finished the development to a behaviorist theory of law. Whatsoever you may believe of Holmes's jurisprudence, "The Path of the Law" is an unmistakably great implement in legal philosophy; certainly it endures the test of time much more than "The Common Law."
Adam Begley writes:
Oliver Wendell Holmes was wounded three times during the Civil War; he witnessed some of the fiercest fighting. The battlefield narrative is alternately thrilling and grim, and leads convincingly to philosophical concerns: "The lesson Holmes took home from the war can be put in a sentence. It is that certitude leads to violence." Of course, that sentence requires elaboration. Holmes lived for 70 years after the war; in his brilliant career as a jurist, he proved himself a subtle and rigorous thinker (he was also Olympian in his detachment, and wonderfully pleased with himself). He would not have called himself a pragmatist, but his legal reasoning chimed perfectly with pragmatism; his judicial opinions, which, as Mr. Menand shows, did a great deal to guarantee the Constitutional protection of free speech, are a splendid example of pragmatism in action.

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