Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

The first and principle thing in the inner life is to establish a relationship with God, making God the object with which we relate ourselves, such as the Creator, Sustainer, Forgiver, Judge, Friend, Father, Mother, and Beloved. In every relationship we must place God before us, and become conscious of that relationship so that it will no more remain an imagination. ...

The work of the inner life is to make God a reality, so that He is no more an imagination; that this relationship that man has with God may seem more real than any other relationship in the world; and when this happens, then all relationships, however near and dear, become less binding. But at the same time, a person does not thus become cold; he becomes more loving. It is the godless man who is cold, impressed by the selfishness and lovelessness of the world, because he partakes of those conditions in which he lives. But the one who is in love with God, the one who has established his relationship with God, his love becomes living. ...

To him all things appeal, everything unfolds itself, and it is beauty to his eyes, because God is all-pervading, in all names and all forms; therefore his Beloved is never absent. How happy therefore is the one whose Beloved is never absent, because the whole tragedy of life is the absence of the beloved; and to one whose Beloved is always there, when he has closed his eyes the Beloved is within, and when he has opened his eyes the Beloved is without. His every sense perceives the Beloved; his eyes see Him, his ears hear His voice. When a person arrives at this realization he, so to speak, lives in the presence of God; then to him the different forms and beliefs, faiths and communities do not count. To him God is all-in-all; to him God is everywhere. If he goes to the Christian church, or to the synagogue, to the Buddhist temple, to the Hindu shrine, or to the mosque of the Muslim, there is God. In the wilderness, in the forest, in the crowd, everywhere he sees God.

Welcome to the PRONOIA NEWS NETWORK. Here's the news.

* The world has become dramatically more peaceful since 1992. The
number of wars, coup d'etats, and acts of genocide has declined by 40
percent. Weapons sales between countries have dropped 33 percent
during the same time, and the number of refugees has diminished by 45
percent.

The cause of these shocking developments, according to the Human
Security Report, which did the study, is the unprecedented upsurge of
international activism, spearheaded by the United Nations.

* The violent crime rate has decreased 50 percent since 1993. Crime is
now at its lowest level since it was first officially tracked.

* The average human life expectancy is 30 years more than it was a
century ago, and is still climbing. Many scientists believe there is no
absolute limit to the human life span.

* Levels of literacy and education and political freedom and wealth are
steadily growing all over the world.

* Death rates from cancer are declining.

* Child abduction by strangers has dropped precipitously.

* In 60 years, there hasn't been a lower birth rate among teenage girls
than there is now.

* The world's largest freshwater system, the Great Lakes, is dramatically
purifying itself of the pollutants that human beings dumped into it.

* If forced to decide between having a bigger penis and living in a world
where there was no war, 90 percent of all men would pick universal
peace.

* The number of America's black elected officials has sextupled since
1970.

* Rising rates of intermarriage are helping to dissipate ethnic and religious
strife worldwide.

* The rivers and bays of New York City are reborn, having been cleansed
of raw sewage and industrial pollution in recent years.

* You have at least a million relatives as close as tenth cousin, and no one
on Earth is any farther removed than your 50th cousin.

* The world's largest private bank, Citigroup, has agreed to stop financing
projects that damage sensitive ecosystems.

* The giant timber company, Congolaise Industrielle des Bois, voluntarily
agreed to stop cutting down trees in a virgin rain forest in the Congo.

* The miracle of your breathing transpires about 10 million times a year,
even though you never have to think about it.

* Every second the sun generously transforms four million tons of itself
into energy and bestows it on us free of charge.

* Diamonds rain from the sky on Uranus and Neptune.

* With every dawn, when first light penetrates the sea, many seahorse
colonies perform a dance to the sun.

* The World Health Organization reports that over 100 million acts of
sexual intercourse, involving more than 200 million partners, take place
on the earth every 24 hours.

* Most HMO executives now believe prayer and meditation can expedite
the healing process.

* Vast supplies of frozen natural gas lie beneath the oceans, harboring
more potential energy than all the world's oil reserves, and could be
mined with the right technology.

* Each of the 50 trillion cells in your body can be considered a sentient
being in its own right, and they all act together as a community,
performing an ongoing act of prodigious collaboration.

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees?


Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious 'colony
collapse' of bees

By Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross

The Independent - UK | Published: 15 April 2007

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece



It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some
scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive
food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.

They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile
phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more
bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt
disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some
bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then
spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.

The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees'
navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding
their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now
evidence to back this up.

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly
disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers, like so
many apian Mary Celestes. The vanished bees are never found, but thought to
die singly far from home. The parasites, wildlife and other bees that
normally raid the honey and pollen left behind when a colony dies, refuse to
go anywhere near the abandoned hives.

The alarm was first sounded last autumn, but has now hit half of all
American states. The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its
commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast.

CCD has since spread to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and
Greece. And last week John Chapple, one of London's biggest bee-keepers,
announced that 23 of his 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

Other apiarists have recorded losses in Scotland, Wales and north-west
England, but the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
insisted: "There is absolutely no evidence of CCD in the UK."

The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops
depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees
disappeared, "man would have only four years of life left".

No one knows why it is happening. Theories involving mites, pesticides,
global warming and GM crops have been proposed, but all have drawbacks.

German research has long shown that bees' behaviour changes near power
lines.

Now a limited study at Landau University has found that bees refuse to
return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby. Dr Jochen Kuhn,
who carried it out, said this could provide a "hint" to a possible cause.

Dr George Carlo, who headed a massive study by the US government and mobile
phone industry of hazards from mobiles in the Nineties, said: "I am
convinced the possibility is real."

The case against handsets

Evidence of dangers to people from mobile phones is increasing. But proof is
still lacking, largely because many of the biggest perils, such as cancer,
take decades to show up.

Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official
Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years
were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they
held the handset.

Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from
mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers
could go senile in the prime of their lives.

Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use
mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts. And, more prosaically,
doctors have identified the condition of "text thumb", a form of RSI from
constant texting.

Professor Sir William Stewart, who has headed two official inquiries, warned
that children under eight should not use mobiles and made a series of safety
recommendations, largely ignored by ministers.


PLEASE CONSIDER!

# posted by Christina Richa Devi : Thursday, April 19, 2007

Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet--
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.

Forgiveness is a stream of love which washes away all impurities wherever it flows. By keeping this spring of love, which is in the heart of man, running, man is able to forgive, however great the fault of his fellow man may seem. One who cannot forgive closes his heart. The sign of spirituality is that there is nothing you cannot forgive, there is no fault you cannot forget.
There is no greater magnetic power than love. Its magnetic power is very great. It changes a person's voice, his heart, his manner, his form, his movement, his activity, everything becomes changed. What a difference between water and rock; that smoothness and that liquid state of being, the rise and fall of the surface of the water compared with the rigidity of the rock! The great teachers of humanity become streams of love. It is the first sign of the sage or holy man that he himself becomes love. His voice, his feeling, his presence, everything makes one realize that there is something open in him which we do not find in everybody; this something is his deep love.

Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan -

As the light of the sun helps the plant to grow, so the divine Spirit helps the soul towards its perfection.

The Spirit of Guidance is a plant that grows and blossoms when it meets with response and care; and when it is watered by the rainfall of divine inspiration it blooms in the light of the divine sun. The Spirit of Guidance is the light of God, which may be likened to a lantern that the farmer carries when walking on the farm in the darkness of night. It is like a searchlight, which shows up any object upon which it is thrown; and so when the light of the Spirit of Guidance is thrown upon any aspect of life, man receives a keen insight into it. In the Spirit of Guidance one finds a living God active in the heart of every person.

All the references below concern Byron Katie's work:

VIDEOS
Click on one of the 5-minute snippets under "The Work in Action"
http://www.thework.com/

BOOKS
*Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life*
http://tinyurl.com/27ejy9

*A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are*
http://tinyurl.com/24bevm

*I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval,
and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead*
http://tinyurl.com/2d67ow

BLOG
http://www.byronkatie.com/
"An uncomfortable feeling is not an enemy. It's a gift that says, 'Get
honest; inquire.'"

INSTRUCTION
How to do The Work
http://tinyurl.com/2ya52x

Sympathy is the root of religion, and so long as the spirit of sympathy is living in your heart, you have the light of religion.

Commentary by Hazrat Inayat Khan:

Those great souls who have brought the message of God to humanity from time to time, like Buddha, Krishna, Jesus Christ, Moses, Abraham or Zarathushtra, were well known as most learned men. But whatever they learned, they learned from the love principle. What they knew was compassion, forgiveness, sympathy, tolerance, the attitude of appreciation, the opening of the heart to humanity.

Sympathy is something more than love and affection, for it is the knowledge of a certain suffering which moves the living heart to sympathy. That person is living whose heart is living, and that heart is living which has wakened to sympathy. The heart void of sympathy is worse than a rock ... The feeling of sympathy must be within, it need not manifest purely as sympathy but as an action to better the condition of the one with whom one has sympathy. There are many attributes found in the human heart which are called divine, but among them there is no greater and better attribute than sympathy, by which man shows in human form God manifested.

In a popular English song there is a beautiful line, which says, 'The light of a whole life dies when love is done.' That living thing in the heart is love. It may come forth as kindness, as friendship, as sympathy, as tolerance, as forgiveness, but in whatever form this living water rises from the heart, it proves the heart to be a divine spring. And when once this spring is open and is rising, then everything that a man does in action, in word, or in feeling is all religion; that man becomes truly religious.

A great poet has said in Hindi, 'Sympathy is the root of religion, and so long as the spirit of sympathy is living in your heart, it is illuminated with the light of religion'. This means that religion and morals can be summed up in one thing and that is sympathy, which in the words of Christ, as interpreted in the Bible, is charity. All beautiful qualities as tolerance, forgiveness, gentleness, consideration, reverence and the desire to serve -- all these come from sympathy. Another poet has said in Urdu that it was for sympathy that man was created, and the day when man discovers this special attribute in himself, he is shown his first lesson of how life should be lived.