News of the Day: Spiritual movies (video)

Seven, Pat Macpherson, Irma Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly, News of the Day, Nov. 2012

Calming prints on the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand's second city (WeGoTwo/flickr.com)

• Obama drops in on Cambodian dictator Hun Sen after visit with Burma's rulers
• 10,000 Days of Hun Sen: “I not only weaken the opposition, I’m going to make them dead...and if anyone is strong enough to try to hold a demonstration, I will beat all those dogs and put them in a cage.” 
• WalMart and others kill Bangladeshi workers

Happiness
Happiness in Teen Years linked to Higher Income later

Happy Samurai Girl (imdb.com)

(HuffPo) Gloomy teens, take heed -- your more happy-go-lucky classmates will likely earn more than you, according to new research. Researchers followed more than 10,000 U.S. adolescents over a decade and found that happiness during the teen years and young adulthood was linked with income at age 29.

Life Lessons I Learned from my Baby
Declines in Quality of Life of all EU states, alarming

Declines of over 20% in levels of optimism and happiness are reported in some countries across the EU and over a third of people indicate a... 

Happiness first for youths

The top motivating factors for Malaysians aged 18-35 are happiness, success, family, and ambition -- according to the latest Generation-Asia...

Led Zeppelin movie released: "Celebration Day"

Jimi Hendrix NEW album: "People, Hell, and Angels"

WATCH: Soundgarden plays live concert

Hundreds attend happiness panel

(Yale Daily News) Hundreds of students flooded into LC 101 last night to hear a panel of professors discuss happiness. The talk, hosted by Vita Bella ["Good Life"]... 

Study: Happiness in workplace is key to employee productivity

To complement this study, The Wall Street Journal examined the role that happiness has in workplace productivity, and how both employees... 

Workers now happiest they have been in ages, finds study

(Herald Sun, Nov. 25, 2012) Workers now happiest they have been in ages, finds study... Happiness among their workers also is up by 40 per cent as they too enjoy better... 

"Female PORN STARS are happier"

(MSN NZ News, Nov. 26, 2012) A study claiming porn actresses are happier in their sexuality and self-image than other women has been discredited by an Australian expert.

  
"Travelers and Magicians"

In Bhutan, the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, dreaming of coming to Buddhist America

  
A Bhutanese fable [available for DVD rental] about lives in transition will be shown Monday at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford. "Travelers and Magicians" tells the story about Dondup, who wants to leave Bhutan for America, and a monk who tries to talk him out of it. To do this, the monk tells the story of another man restless and dissatisfied, whose story does not end well. It is the first movie shot entirely in Bhutan, and is in the Bhutanese language, Dzonghka, with subtitles. More

Bollywood's Sherlyn Chopra to star in Kama Sutra in 3D
Kashmir: Canada and India's new relationship
LA Yoga: Ayurveda and Health (Magazine)

Kindle eBook: India Was One

iJAN helps FREE Palestine: The WorldSocial Forum Free Palestine (WSF FP) is approaching. More than 10,000 Palestinian and solidarity activists from 36 countries will converge on Porto Alegre to learn from each other and together organize to build a strong movement to confront Israel and Zionism and the broader injustices they represent and support. The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and activists in the US, Canada, and around the world are building a joint struggleframework to the WSF FP.  More

Filling US prisons with "modern slaves" for profit
The North America Bigfoot Search (Paulides)
UFO sightings warm up on Australia's Gold Coast
Research in Open and Distance Learning  (Journal)
China dissident Ai Weiwei basks in his relative liberty
PHOTO GALLERY: Buddhist beauty in China (wow)
PHOTOS: TraceLUX's trip to Tibet
Bhutan gives cold shoulder to Nepal
Rooftop news: The Himalayan Times 
English eBooks (Tusita Hermitage)

"Life of Pi"

(LINK) Director Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") recruits an actual trained Bengal tiger to create a groundbreaking movie about a young man who survives a tragic disaster at sea. He is hurtled on an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While marooned on a lifeboat, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with the ship's only other survivor, the tiger. WARNING: Many viewers say the movie tries to inspire wonder and awe and a belief in GOD.

 

"Cloud Atlas"

 (LINK) The most "Buddhist" movie of the year?

 

This Wachowski film features handsome Halle Berry and America's very own sweetheart Tom Hanks with Buddhist themes reminiscent of "Looper." Except this is without a time-travel conceit to make the karmic connection perfectly clear. "Cloud Atlas" is an exploration of how the actions (karma) of individual lives impact one another. This happens in the past, present, and future. One living being, in the course of becoming, is shaped from a killer into a hero. And a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.
  
Not since Hanks nearly ruined "Cast Away" have we been so torn between wanting to watch a film for thematic reasons and being kept away by its male lead. In that epic adventure, Hanks' character is adrift on a raft ("Life of Pi"-style) with no one to talk to but a soccer ball. He draws eyes on it, places a wig atop it, and constantly whines: "Wilson, will I ever get home? Wilson, does my wife still love me? Wilson, what are we going to do?!!" Later in a hallucination, the ball answers him: "My name is Voit, dumb@ss!" Wait, that pay-off only came much later in a "Family Guy" cutaway:

"Cloud Atlas" might be bearable with the help of co-stars Susan Sarandon, Zhou Xun, Hugo Weaving, Doona Rae, Jim Sturgess, James D'Arcy, Hugh Grant, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent, Keith David, David Mitchell, David Gyasi... because if the worst thing one has to say about a prospective film is that Tom Hanks is in it, that is probably one great film.

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Bible: "Aliens" in Sodom and Gomorrah

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS); biblical research by HilaryBilaryBop

   

M'Romney (Moroni) goes Open Cond*m Style

Ever wonder what they were doing in the wicked Dead Sea twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah before the space ships attacked?
  
These biblical sites -- where we get the English words sodomy and gonorrhea -- were not so much "Anything Goes" gay towns like our Hollywood and New York.
  
We explore the idea that one of the worst crimes in these depraved metropolises was the widespread abuse of "aliens." But they were up to other things, too: using pharmaceuticals (poisons),  a practice misleadingly translated as "sorcery" by Bible scholars and more.

  

To hear the God(s) of the Christian Bible tell it -- rather than the conservatives and Republicans -- the real problem was the mistreatment of aliens.

 

Did either the Middle Eastern bodhisattva (Jesus/Issa), his God father, or the Bible favor poverty? Of course not. The Vatican and panhandling Protestant ministers may want Christians to think so. But the example the West's most famous prophet gave was to eat and live like birds (Matt 13:1-23), who live abundantly and do not worry (Matt 6:24-34; Luke 12:24-27), instead taking necessities and life as they come.

Ancient aliens?

What are they up do down there?

The Book of Deuteronomy lists categories of people who are needy in Christian/Jewish terms: aliens, orphans, and widows. Ancient law in Israel (not the make believe place claimed by violent invaders who use ancient texts to rationalize their misappropriation in the name of their tribal God) dictates that Israelites assist women whose husbands had died since such loss generally resulted in impoverishment.

Obama was a Muslim (myfellowamerican.tv)

But what about the reference to “aliens” (NRSV translation)? The original Hebrew refers to foreigners or “strangers” (KJV). An ancient alien Israel was a non-Israelite living (“sojourning”) in Israel -- or anyone living in among another tribe). Such foreigners would have been dependent on land owning natives for wages/sustenance. Only Israelites could inherit land, which could not be bought or sold.

"He's not a Muslim; he's a Globalist." - Alex Jones (InfoWars.com)

Is there nothing I won't do or say to win?

What would racist Sheriff Arpaio or Gov. Romney do about immigrants in Arizona? If Romney says Pres. Obama is a Muslim, is he suggesting he himself is a true "Israelite" (according to biblical definition, not modern residency)? What does the Bible demand be done for the sake of foreign “aliens”? Just as it was illegal to oppress orphans and widows, it was illegal to mistreat foreigners (Exodus 22:21-22). There should be no distinction between the alien and the native (Numbers 15:14-16). Aliens get God’s blessings like native Israelites (Ezekiel 47:21-23). They share in the covenant with the tribal Jewish God as well (Deuteronomy 29:10-12).

Racist Arpaio has proof birth cert is fake

The most compelling thing about the world's aliens, all of whom are illegal, is that European immigrants didn't bother to ask or check with North America’s native population. Like modern Zionists, they just invaded, occupied, committed genocide, then settled the territory anew. So we might exhibit more compassion (or consider reparations). The Bible agrees with an empathic approach:

“You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).
“You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9).
“You shall also love the alien for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19).

Space gods (like YHWH) claim the land, and who are humans to argue with superior firepower as taught to them by their gods and idols and governments? We are at best tenants, at worst interlopers:

“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine [God]; with me [God] you are but aliens and tenants” (Leviticus 25:23).
“For we are aliens and transients before you [God], as were all our ancestors [from space]; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope” (1 Chronicles 29:15).
“Hear my prayer, O Lords [plural], and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, alike all my forebears” (Psalm 39:12).

God's own army, an arm of the MIC

This is how one culture dealt with the serious issue of aliens in our midst, ancient immigration. At the root of the immigration issue in modern America is poverty. So long as the CIA and more clandestine agencies continue to destabilize sovereign countries, it will continue to be an issue. As the world financial situation worsens (by design), we can only expect it to worsen until we are all at each other's necks.

People who oppose gay marriage and homosexuality “on religious grounds” often appeal to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah in support of their beliefs. The truth is the space Gods of the Bible destroyed these towns because they practiced “sorcery” (dispensing pharmaceuticals), bad karma (actions), and sexual acts the space geneticists found “abominable.”

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was because they did not show hospitality to space aliens -- the "angels" (messengers) of God sent to determine whether or not there were 10 righteous individuals in the city on whose behalf God could spare the cities in accordance with an agreement the gods made with Abraham. Angels who appeared as strange humans were met with hospitality by only one man. God's lesson was not anti-gay; it was anti-inhospitality to aliens.

Prior to the destruction, Abraham bargains with God(s) not to destroy the cities, even though neither he nor his people live in them (except a nephew) . Abraham stands up for their cause with very little self-interest because of the possibility that there are good, decent people living there.

If the money devoted to building security walls ("fences") -- manning check points, bulldozing homes, misappropriating ancient lands and homesteads, stealing water, patrolling, imprisoning, torturing, disappearing, starving, writing anti-immigrant laws, and violating the civil rights of Palestinians and aliens in America, many of who in both cases are indigenous peoples, were instead spent on helping aliens, not only would everyone's lives be improved, our charity would have the added benefit of fixing the immigration problem.

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Spirituality and Music: Matisyahu, "One Day."

I happened upon the music of Matisyahu by chance when he first hit the scene and immediately fell in love with his style. It's fresh, original, hip and very catchy. His style is an exceptional hybrid of reggae, rap, beat-box, hip-hop and rock. There is something there to his music, however, besides amazing talent and a unique sound, which I quickly figured out--He has a deep passion for the music, which stems in large part from a deep well of spiritual energy.

Matis is a Hasidic Jew who mixes positive, uplifting messages about Jewish and other spirituality into his songs. The spiritual messages he infuses into his music are very universal so that despite not being Jewish or even monotheistic I really connect with it on a profound level. One such song is from Matisyahu's new album, "Light" and it's titled, "One Day." Anyway, below the video box I've typed out some of the lyrics that I like most from this song about peace, love and non-violence. If the video is disabled click here for the link to the video:

sometimes in my tears I drown
but I never let it get me down
so when negativity surrounds
I know some day it'll all turn around
because
all my live I've been waiting for
I've been praying for
for the people to say
that we don't wanna fight no more
they'll be no more wars and our children will play
one day

it's not about
win or lose
because we all lose when they feed on the souls of the innocent blood drenched pavement
keep on moving though the waters stay raging
in this maze you can lose your way (your way)
it might drive you crazy but dont let it faze you no way (no way)

one day this all will change
treat people the same
stop with the violence
down with the hate
one day we'll all be free
and proud to be under the same sun
singing songs of freedom

James: Music can provide inspiration to see the world, the day or one's life in an entirely different way. Sounds are some of the most effective ways of conveying spirituality because they touch a place deep within our essence that isn't always accessible by words alone. A lot of times too the essence of words can be lost in translation from one language to another but the sounds themselves cross all boundaries, barriers and cultures. It can inspire us toward great heights of being, doing and seeing.

In addition, music is a great way to relax and prepare for meditation but it is also a very good meditation by itself. I have sat down to listen to music with an angry or depressed mood only to have it lifted and calmed through meditating on the beautiful sounds of a song. So don't forget to use music to help you explore your states of mind and consciousness. It's important to take time in our busy lives to stop, listen and enjoy some good music to help us release less helpful energy and replace it with a rejuvenating feeling.

~Peace to all beings~

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