TED, NDE, Open Heart & Mind and Our Fundamental Unity

One characteristic of this blog is that it is a work in progress to refine and expound a universal worldview that can take any belief system, convictions, problem or it's huge promise - any information, and help us see the relevance, meaning and significance of any information, expressed in simple ideas, and wield it as the power to transform our world.  To transform our world into a more just and sustainable global home.

My belief system and your belief system or principles and convictions is the perspective that you and I  believe can transform our world but our diverse society, in order for it to strongly progress needs to be more aware of the fundamental unity that we all have.  This fundamental unity can be made more strong and apparent when we define it in a "universal" language that avoids bias and prejudice arising from our perceptions that other belief systems and cultures are different and are invading or converting our own belief system.  Our own perspective has wisdom and truth when it can take any other perspective and see its translation into our own, realizing our fundamental unity.

If you and I want to truly see this universal worldview, what our true freedom shows is that we can open our hearts and minds to any ideas that we perceive to be different or contradictory to our own set of principles and see how it translates into our own and realize that we do all have a universal worldview. The only difference is we express it in our diverse cultures and language.  When we open our hearts and minds to care and understand, the hope and promise is we will see this universal worldview.

The essence of the belief system that I have grown into and the NDE which I would call the"anomaly" of all belief systems (belief systems being only based on "faith") and non-theist convictions (the anomaly of scientific evidence of higher dimensions) has so far shown me our fundamental unity.

This what I call "universal perspective" has given me consistencies and meaning to any TED talk, news or any information that I have encountered so far.

This is the basis of my intuition that we can transform our world, if we all keep an open mind to understand and an open heart to care, and translate all these into concrete actions.

Here are some of the links to TED conversations that shows in one way or another our fundamental unity.

What do you think about NDE's (near death experiences)? Is it a phenomenon that can possibly help transform our world?

What IF... we share our top 5 desires we hope to accomplish on earth... A TED BUCKET LIST... ideas and angels unite here...

What have you learnt from watching TEDTalks?

Will we wait for other people to be converted to our beliefs or convictions before we can transform our world?

Energize Our Routines and Transform Our World

To energize our routines, we ignite our hearts and minds!

There are many ways to do it or in special cases, it simply happens to us.  What many great people suggest are these:  We clear our mind of our current concerns and worries, we go to a secluded location (a quiet room or place) or see a very comforting sight (looking at our sleeping loved ones, the ocean, the meadows, the marvels of science and our universe,  etc.) then we summon, recall or feel empowered, or as a believer ask God's tremendous enlightenment of the true essence of our existence, our deep humanism, our drive to right the wrong around us;

Or read the autobiographies of great people or their TED talks and get inspired; and for some people from the daily mundane or sometimes tragic events of our lives to rise above it and feel empowered and inspired to embark on a mission; or watch an inspiring show or movie; and many other ways we can think of ...

In the same breath, we look at the problems around us and around the world and allow ourselves to be ignited by our aspirations and our ideals that will enable us to focus and contribute our current capabilities or further improve our abilities.  We contribute our pursuits to the lives of others and to our world which fulfill its true meaning in selfless service and impeccable humanism.

It's a total transforming paradigm. All our little worries and concerns can vanish and we can see the more important matters in life.  We will see our families and the world around us in a new perspective that can literally transform ourselves, our family, our community, and our global home that is now desperately crying for help.

The only limit to our great potential is the limiting belief we have of ourselves or the limiting opinion of others that we may be unknowingly consenting to.  In certain situations, we may need also to escape from the trap of our righteous minds living in the comfort our own groups that may have been blinding us from the truth of our mutual interests.  If our own righteous words or identity is causing bias and impairing our cooperation, then we may need to take a universal identity and a new language for our mutual interests.

There is a great dynamism in our true inner worth and capabilities, our struggles, our failures and our successes and the achievement of our greatest potential that makes our lives a great adventure.  This great adventure of life gives us the opportunity to carve our names and our deeds as a true and lasting legacy to our world and to our children!

Transforming our Nations

I sincerely admire and appreciate the care and concern that many citizens are devoting to their nation.  I wish there is an easy solution for bringing justice and peace to our countries but with my current understanding let me contribute some ideas.  The constitution is supposed to be the fundamental law of the land and thus is the basis for running the government.   Unfortunately, some citizens don't agree or are ambivalent to the constitution and are sometimes contributing more problems.  Maybe it's possible to set aside the differences and concentrate on common interests like the need of all people to live in freedom, justice and peace.  I believe a civil dialog could result in arriving at more common ideas that can strengthen national resolve. 

We start with the basic needs and rights - food, shelter, education, work and security.  What are other common interests and rules?  Obviously nobody wants war and violence.  Can all people agree to not use violence?  Can people agree on common national or spiritual identities,  agree to have a civil discussion and work on common and basic interests?,  Agree that force will only be used to protect the people from violence and from people's weaknesses?

Can people agree on the concept of a government as the central structure and voice of all nationals whose only function is to guarantee the basic needs and rights.  Can people agree to encourage each other to participate in electing leaders and make sure they implement the mandates and are held to account on their responsibilities.  Agree that the businesses that are empowered and regulated will take care all citizens?

In doing all these, we exercise our two basic faculties - our minds and our hearts.  There is no question about the role of our faith as long as we continue to let it empower us to strive for our common needs and rights.  What I believe though as the fundamental resource of our empowerment is our hearts.  We let our faiths and convictions empower it and 'energize' it - make our hearts a very caring and loving heart.  Our loving hearts will in turn help inspire our minds to work for our common needs.  We care and love our family the same way we care and love our national family.

Most people today I believe can see the fundamental role of our hearts and minds in our lives.  There seems to be a fundamental rule on how our hearts , our love and our happiness are essentially connected.  I believe that our heart is meant to love and our love is meant to bring happiness to one another.  It's a cycle of love going around and hearts being loved and happy, and minds inspired - hoping and trusting.  Minds that are innovating, reinventing and working for our common needs.  We look at our world today, any nation, any family and we can see that the problems that we have today is the fundamental result of our heart and our love, our happiness and our minds being misused in ways that it's not meant to be used.  The true essence of our faiths and convictions will tell us this.

The emerging nations might ask, will this nation will look like the other nations with many social ills because the system has some similarities?  Not when the fundamental reasons are understood.  We study and learn how other nations fail and avoid the pitfalls.  The nation may seem like it's just starting to stand on its own today but I believe it is necessary for it to go through our debates and cooperation, our sacrifices, before things can get better.  I believe there can be an inherent harmony between a peaceful earthly life and the essence of our faiths or convictions.

Can we transform our world based solely on our common interests?

"Our righteous minds were designed to unite us into teams, divide us against other teams and blind us to the truth ... we need to step out of the moral matrix and cultivate moral humility.. we are passionately involved to improve our world but we are also passionately committed to the truth ... and use our passionate commitment to the truth and turn it into a better future for us all."

 - Jonathan Haidt - Author "Happiness Hypothesis" (TED talk on moral roots of liberals and conservatives) 

Do our debates about God's existence or non-existence really important?  Our convictions are important to us (believers or non-believers) but can we work together based on our common interests?

From a theistic perspective,  we believe that God is immaterial, a spirit and that God had endowed each human being a distinct spirit.  Our faith teaches us and also our hearts and minds tell us about our personal and social duties to love one another.   Our life can be happy or sad, we can help or oppress other people.  When someone gains power and commits injustice or atrocities to other people and somehow escape judgment  in this world, we realize that injustices and crimes should not have happened  because we should have been fervent in our social duties, we should have setup systems or are now helping setup systems that prevent injustice and crime from happening.  We also believe even if a person escapes earthly judgment, this person will not escape God's judgment and the spirit that survives (the intellect and will) will be punished accordingly.  Individually, after doing our best to live justly within the sphere of our influence,  we die and we return back to God in peace.

From an atheistic perspective, we don't care if God exists,  God is immaterial, not important.  We know however that in our hearts and minds, we have a personal and social duties to love one another.  Our life can be happy or sad, we can help or oppress other people.  When someone gains power and commits injustice or atrocities to other people and somehow escape judgment in this world, we realize that injustices and crimes should not have happened because we should have been fervent in our social duties, we should have setup systems or are now helping setup systems that prevent injustice and crime from happening.  When an unjust person dies, the only thing that matters is that we prevent injustices to happen in the future.  Individually, after doing our best to live justly within the sphere of our influence,  we die in peace.

Looking from our world history and our debates, I believe these perspectives can agree on many things (among others):

1.  We are free and we can choose to love and be happy and help other people to be loved and be happy as well; and because we can be weak and abuse our freedom, we also empower a government system to prevent or deal with our weaknesses.

2.  We want to know and live by the truth and let justice prevail.  We want to be responsible and hold others to account and make sure our systems is just, equitable and earth-sustainable.

3.  Failing to live to the good ideals of God or failing to be responsible in our personal and social duties will oppress or kill other people.

4.  Using the idea of God or the idea that there is no God to empower people to oppress or kill other people is a bad idea.

5.  Using our identities as God's people, or using our imperfect personal integrity as a moral authority in dealing with other people instead of the power of our common ideas does not seem to work in our cooperations.

Maybe we need a new word for God because whatever is our belief and conviction, we are essentially talking about the same idea.

Many people feel uncomfortable when others say that we abandon "God" because we don't realize that the transcendence of God also means our humanism - caring concern for our fellow humans. Many people are also worried that our belief in God will cause us to blindly follow God and oppress other people which is a contradiction, although sadly, it can happen in some places - but this situations are extremism, the trajectory that we should and can avoid in all kinds of beliefs and convictions. 

We can translate and contribute the power of our beliefs or non-beliefs and agree on our common interests that will help setup systems that prevent, at the most,  gross injustices and crimes from happening.  We can enable systems that resolve crises and transform our economy into a just, equitable and earth-sustainable global home.

The power of our convictions can strengthen our resolve to energize the hearts and minds of many people and achieve a critical number of caring and inspired people enough to transform our world.

Discussed in Ted Conversations: Unity of beliefs, Global Ethics, Semantics of Beliefs, Convert more people before we can transform our world?

A possible solution to poverty and world hunger. Venus Project. Global Redesign Initiative.

I like many of the ideas of Venus Project.  It helps to create a clear vision of our future that most people can picture and work on.  In the current state of the world today, I am also concerned on how we are going to resolve our crises and at the same time transform our world to an ideal world like the Venus Project envisions.  According to the Weforum.org, the efforts of the UN needs more speed and cooperation and we need to transform our WWII era institutions.  The forum had initiated a Global Redesign Initiative worked on by top leaders of business and government and they identified that one key driver of transformation is "Hope".  The Venus Project could bring more hope and more help from people. (thevenusproject.com, bit.ly/GRedesign)

I think what most people are realizing right now is to enhance the power of our hearts and minds to hope and work for solutions.  I believe that by energizing and directing the power of our hearts and minds, it can have a positive fundamental impact to our world today.  It will eliminate a lot of waste, improve our efficiencies and help transform our world. 

What  is the common idea that most people would understand could help transform our world?  It's the power of our hearts to love and be happy.  Think of the state of a heart that is in love.  When we are truly in love, we are highly inspired and motivated.  We can energize more people, we turn our hopes and trusts in delivering the right political mandates, join the reform movements and help influence our systems to transform in our economic choices (buying habits). 

     
How can we have a critical number of people with energized hearts that can transform our world?   Everyone have a heart and the way to energize our heart is to stimulate it with the force of love that will keep it loving and energized.  It is like the forces that keeps powering the particle and galactic systems.  We give the force.  We give our love.  But not just any kind of love.  We give our true love, our unconditional love.

True love is loving one another the way our heart is designed to love and make us happy.  When our heart is used other than to love another person (we love things, we hate), we have problems and we are not happy.  When our love is used other than to make other hearts happy (we love with conditions, we are buying our love, love is transactional - there is no real love), we have problems and we are not truly happy.  When our heart is unloved and unhappy, we have problems. (we don't want to be sad, we buy our happiness) .  When we stop loving altogether, we have big problems (we don't care, we are selfish).  When our heart and our love is misused, we are not happy and it brings out our weaknesses - we don't care, we can lie, we can steal and we can destroy.

We don't have to be sad, we don't have to be weak.  We have our love, we have our relationships, we have our family, relatives and friends.  Our global family needs help.  We can start giving our love, we can start energizing hearts, we can start inspiring minds.  We have the power to hope and trust.  We have the power to reinvent and innovate.  We have the power to transform our world.

http://bit.ly/ThePowerToTransform 

http://www.ted.com/conversations/3219/how_can_we_energize_the_hearts.html
http://www.ted.com/conversations/3331/a_possible_solution_to_povert.html