Archive for December 2010
Welcome to our WordPress Blog on the Truths of Terasem Podcasts. They’re available for listening on iTunes at:
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/truths-terasem-podcast-2010/id383099543, or Index/Download Directly From CyBeRev at:
http://www.cyberev.org/rss/podcasts/podcast.xml
Podcast No. 21 on The Truths of Terasem – Posted on iTunes 12/20/2010
(Text used to record podcast)
TITLE: Truths of Terasem – The How of Terasem
SUB TITLE: Longest Range, Most Concise, Visions of Terasem
SUMMARY: In Terasem’s six Connections per day, we find short bursts of words that may seem enigmatically abstract, but which are congruent with longer affirmations in the Truths and even more broadly with the Truths as a whole.
(Fred) Hi, we’re Fred & Linda Chamberlain, with podcast No. 21 on the Truths of Terasem.
(Linda) This is the next-to-the-last podcast for the year, isn’t it. The overall numbers of words seem a lot less than in earlier podcasts, too.
(Fred) Sure, but that only gives an opportunity to look more deeply into them. By comparison with next week’s podcast, the Truths for today are actually pretty wordy, but it’s all relative! As the Summary published on iTunes audio states, these are, “Short bursts of words that may seem enigmatically abstract, but which are congruent with longer affirmations in the Truths and even more broadly with the Truths as a whole.”!
(Linda) The lead-in Truth for this group reads, “6.9 Awareness of the Breath of the Multiverse in You, via yoga, connects Terasem to the Multiverse.” What do you make of that? Since it’s the preface to all of the underlying Truths for today, there should be some pretty profound depth to it, right?
(Fred) True! Let’s look at it closely, and see what one might not only be thinking, but visualizing, as these words pass through one’s mind!
The first nine words are, “Awareness of the Breath of the Multiverse in You,” and in the simplest terms this means that if you concentrate as you breathe in and out, you are aware of the sensations in your nose, throat and lungs, but then when you visualize the underlying meanings, the playing field expands considerably. How might we interpret the four words, “Breath of the Multiverse,” for example? And, how might we connect this with the five words that enclose them, “Awareness of the” and “in You”?
The word Multiverse is interpreted by Wikipedia as, “the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.[1] The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes.” The Wikipedia entry is lengthy, and many other hits on Google exist, pointing to current studies on dark matter and particularly to “dark flow” as important, but in the Terasem Connections and in other parts of the Truths the terms Multiverse and Universe are used somewhat interchangeably, so for this discussion here let’s think of “Universe” as being sufficiently useful.
(Linda) “Breath of the Multiverse” then can thus be thought of as “Breath of the gases of the Universe going in and out of our lungs” but, what actually is going in and out of our lungs? Mostly oxygen and nitrogen, right? And, How much of these are in the universe as a whole?
(Fred) If we ignore hydrogen and helium, the main constituents of stars but only trace amounts of which exist in the Earth’s atmosphere, oxygen is in the number one position, about three times as much of that as of nitrogen in the universe. Neon, a rare gas, is plentiful in the Universe but in the Earth’s atmosphere it’s only one sixty five thousandth by volume, so not much of it gets into any one of your breaths.
So, in each breath, we’re taking in and exhaling predominantly the most plentiful gasses in the Universe, by proportion of what’s available in the Earth’s atmosphere. And, the rest of the words in the Truth are, “via yoga, connects Terasem to the Multiverse.” Now, it’s easier. All of the Terasem Connections are centered around Yoga exercises following the methods of Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., a physician in Tucson, AZ who has extensively studies ways of applying Yoga deep breathing and postures for medical benefits and mental relaxation. What does it mean when we say, “connects Terasem to the Multiverse”? It means that as you do this and these words run through your mind, you as part of Terasem are consciously exchanging real world matter with the rest of the Universe, perhaps in more than one parallel domain, and your awareness gives you a sense of the universal interconnectedness that we see evolving in its embryonic stages of mind to mind through the Internet toward a future state in which we are so in touch with each other, moment to moment, that all of us who are part of Terasem are like one huge family gathering, endlessly growing into what we will become, like an infinite field of flowers that will never wither or fade.
(Linda) I get a very good feeling about that. It’s a voluntary state of interconnectedness, of course, so only those who want to, need do it, but at the same time it builds on a harmonious sense of community that seems to be at the heart of most religious gatherings, and is perhaps why Terasem is so focused on describing itself as a “transreligion”. Without recourse to mysticism, and without retreating into cold, hard, rationalism, it preserves the sense of belief in a future where no one need give up continuity of life except by free choice, no one is isolated or alone except by choosing to be so, and the harmony of life with unrestricted opportunity to be creative is likely to appeal to most of those who dreamed of that but never found it reasonable to hope that it was more than a dream.
(Fred) Right! Now, the first element of this expansion is, “6.9.1 Be ready to feel the why of Terasem as well as to cognitively understand it.” It has four subsections, “Infinite life, Infinite breath, Endless diversity, and All unity and joy”. The key to this is in the “Why” of Terasem, the entire fifth precept of the Truths of Terasem with ten Expansions and sixty underlying Elements. As a way of interpreting this Truth, which is focused on (1) life, (2) breath, (3) diversity, (4) unity and (5) joy, I’ll try to condense all of the fifth precept into one, long sentence:
The “Why” of Terasem is that Terasem exists to connect the Multiverse by quests for diversity, unity and joyful immortality, utilizing transfinite capacities of knowledge, power, and goodness to purify away remnants of evolutionary natural selection necessary to our existence, retaining the best of emergent consciousness to ensure that Terasem and the individuals who comprise it enjoy an endless future, since the principle of extropy leads nowhere else, not forgetting that the vision of this sprang from an epiphany on a beach where the concurrence of a space shuttle launch and the trek of a procreative turtle led to the generation of the Truths of Terasem themselves, predicting that the Alam al-mithral of an emergent substrate-free community via cyberconsciousness would be the seed from which would spring a non-hierarchical collective consciousness, the only barrier to which might be a lack of faith that such an outcome was not just a pragmatic possibility, but an inevitable eventuality.
OK, I apologize for that one, long sentence, but if you were to go all the way through the entire fifth precept, you’d find that this is a balanced but sketchy way of capsulizing it, in addition to which I’ve added some material you won’t find anywhere in the Truths of Terasem, about a space shuttle launch and a giant sea turtle, that one of the Founders of Terasem publically discussed in a Teleplace conference and would gladly confirm, I’m sure, if you could get her aside for a moment, and again, I apologize for this second, unforgivably long sentence.
(Linda) All very true, but I think an important part of the message is to not just conceptualize it, but to really feel the “Why” of Terasem in your heart. The next Element is, 6.9.2 “Relax during Serenity Period each day, and Transcendental Meditation each Sabbath,” and it’s got a four part set of subsections I’ll read as one sentence, “I am a wave, an endless wave, on an ocean, of energy.” Try to do that one in short sentences, will you, to avoid getting whacked on the back of your neck?
(Fred) All right. Here goes! Pretty clearly, most of this is about placing one’s mind into a relaxed state, daily and weekly. If you don’t stop to smell the roses, mentally, you lose long range focus. We visualize ourselves as energy waves in harmony with each other, rolling endlessly into the future. Waves of energy represent information superimposed on energy. In the same way, the shapes and interconnections of our neurons are information, superimposed on biological substrates. It is essentially the same thing. Are those short sentences better?
(Linda) Sure, but don’t overdo it!
(Fred) OK, we’ll push on! In 6.9.3 we find, “Exchanging breath-energy with the universe allows us to feel the immortal fabric of the Multiverse.” I think your remark above applies. You said, “Hey, this is simple, it’s about infinite life, breath, diversity, unity and joy, and all they’re saying is don’t just ‘think’ about these things, feel them!” But, I went ahead with the long thing anyway, because of all the way it tied into the “Why” of Terasem. So here, if we reflect that the air’s nitrogen and oxygen are predominately a very big part of the Universe and we ‘feel’ ourselves breathing in and out in a highly conscious way, that’s the important thing. Right?
(Linda) You’ve got it, ‘Clyde’! But you’re not finished with 6.9.3 yet, so I’ll finish it for you. The two subsections are, “The cosmos is in me; I am in the cosmos”. They’re a suggested alternative mantra for meditation in one of the six daily Terasem Connections.
(Fred) True. 6.9.4 is the same way. Martine Rothblatt quotes 6.9.4 in one of her Connection Videos, in her comments on how one might wish to do it. The words are, “Allowing only breath and no thoughts removes the daily obstacles that obscure the purpose of Terasem.” To me, this is saying that we have to push aside the daily mental clutter, so long range visions stay in focus better, and that’s greatly aided by the ten minute ‘mental silence’ portions of the Connections’ yoga.
(Linda) Makes sense to me, and we’re moving along better with shorter sentences. I’m not going to let you forget that. The underlying words in this one are simply three more alternative meditation mantras, and they’re “My aura is radiant, My aura is so pure; My mind is still, Like a reflecting pond; and, I am the breath, The breath breathes me.” The words in the Connection videos aren’t exactly the same as these, but there’s no doubt that this is what they are. Just to clarify, here’s how they’re used. In the last pair, for example, you’d slowly say “I am the breath” four times during a slow inhale, and then “The breath breathes me” four times on the exhale. These aren’t deep thoughts, in fact their very purpose is to help the mind remain in as quiet a state as possible. The mantras in Buddhism, for example, are often just meaningless sounds, not actual words at all.
(Fred) Yes – that’s how it works. 6.9.5 says, “Train yourself to stretch in ways that vitalize the unique energy patterns that are the Qi of I,” and the underlying words are, “Come along… Transcend… Come to Terasem.” In this one, the tones and vibrations in facial muscles and the throat stimulate endocrine glands in the upper forebrain, isn’t that right?
(Linda) True. Dharma Singh Khalsa’s book, “Meditation as Medicine”, which we’ve discussed before, is very clear on that. This is not just a call to attempt to draw others to Terasem, although from a surface viewpoint it could be taken that way. It’s actually part of the unique yoga practice that Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa, working with Martine Rothblatt, developed for the Terasem Connections. This chant was adapted from ancient Indian practice, using English words that create the right kinds of vibrations.
(Fred) We’re at the last Element of the day, 6.9.6, which tells us, “Happy Yoga is for all vitological life, biological as well as cybernetic, for breathing is emulatable.” And the words are, “I bow before My highest self. All consciousness Is one.” The “I bow before my highest self” is a translation from an ancient Hindu group of words that do the endocrine stimulating thing, aren’t they? I seem to remember that this one is related to “Ong – Namo… Guru Dev – Namo…” Does that sound right?
(Linda) That’s how I remember it. And “All consciousness is one,” may have a translation from the Indian, also, but I don’t recall that one as clearly. It has a profound meaning, though, in the sense that only if two people are “conscious” of each other, meaning deeply aware, are they “in touch”, and here, reciprocity of consciousness is essential. It only takes one small step from that to envision a day when as Terasem evolves this interconnectivity will expand to signify a mutual awareness of each of us for the other. With our biological substrates, as we are now, this is difficult to conceive, much less visualize, but we do expect to transcend those limitations shortly after we emerge into states of cyberconsciousness, true?
(Fred) That’s the way I picture it. Now, let’s preview next week’s podcast by reading the Truths in their entirety. They’re extremely short, and they flow as if a short group of affirmations, but we’ll have a great deal to say about them. Next week, the last podcast of the year, may carry more weight as to the individual survival of you listeners than you can imagine, at this point!
(Linda) I’ll read them. They begin with 6.10 and what follows goes all the way through to 6.10.6. “Life is so queer, with its twists and turns, as all of us eventually learns. Lots can go wrong, and you’ll be hard hit, so learn to rest, but don’t ever quit. Each win is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt. Adapt to your task, though walls seems high. Remember success needs you to try. No hit is too hard to give up the fight. See victory is ours and we need your might.”
(Fred) I love that little sequence of words, and what we’ll say about them next week will set the stage for the New Year, 2011. That will be the first full year of the podcasts, on the Truths of Terasem, since we just began them last summer, halfway through.
(Linda) Don’t forget – there’s still time to “Join Terasem” before the end of the year, at terasemfaith.net. to be right at the heart of this, and now, there’s a video to help you learn the pledge, if that’s holding you back. It’s at vimeo.com/17084888. I’ll repeat that. Vimeo.com/17084888.
(Fred) Why would you want to “join” Terasem? There’s a personal aspect to this we’ve mentioned before. Terasem is set on helping people “make the jump” to Cyberspace via its CyBeRev and LifeNaut programs, but when that point is reached, priorities are set to do this in a progressive way, with emergence of those who have been part of Terasem the longest, so doing this in 2010 puts you just that much closer to being at the “head of the pack”.
(Linda) You and I used to drive down to San Francisco each year for the weekend just before Memorial Day, to run Bay to Breakers, and we’d try to be in the parking garage by 7 a.m., not just to get a good parking place, but to be closer to the starting line. There were always at least a couple of thousand people there by 7:30, even though the race didn’t start until 9 a.m., and by the time the starting gun went off, there were always about 50,000 people in the street, stretching back at least a half mile or so! We were almost always at the “head of the pack”, each year.
(Fred) Right. The emigration into cyberspace may still be a decade or two off, but you need to have that much time to build your mindfiles anyway, to wake up with the closest “personality fit” to how you are now, with a sense that all of you memories are not just ‘there’, but clearer and more detailed than anything you can hope to manage right now with a purely biological brain. So, joining Terasem in some ways is like getting a ticket out of one of those “take a number” machines, but on the other hand, it does require a bit of getting to know what Terasem is all about, in addition to memorizing the pledge.
(Linda) We have to not take this too lightly. The underlying principles of Terasem concerning Geoethical Nanotechnology are extremely important to Terasem’s mission, and the goal is to find people who understand why failure to approach the Singularity with these fully developed would be very risky. Still, anyone who’s listening to these podcasts on a regular basis probably is aware enough of that so we shouldn’t have to say anything about it, except to get this invitation to join back on a more serious note.
(Fred) Right! So, while you’re waiting to figure out whether you want to actually ‘join’ Terasem, you can still be building your mindfiles at CyBeRev.org or LifeNaut.com, no fees to participate.
(Linda) True! And mindclones.blogspot.com tells you all about mindfiles. Next week, we’ll see how having a “keep on going no matter what” mindset is vital to your long term survival.
(Fred) Join us, and our quest for an endless future…
(Linda) Come with us – into Tomorrow!
Welcome to our WordPress Blog on the Truths of Terasem Podcasts. They’re available for listening on iTunes at:
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/truths-terasem-podcast-2010/id383099543, or Index/Download Directly From CyBeRev at:
http://www.cyberev.org/rss/podcasts/podcast.xml
Podcast No. 20 on The Truths of Terasem – Posted on iTunes 12/13/2010
(Text used to record podcast)
TITLE: Truths of Terasem – The How of Terasem
SUB TITLE: Closing Affirmations for Terasem Connections
SUMMARY: Terasem Connections are short breaks at four hour intervals used by those orienting their lives around Terasem’s goals. These connections are used to relax, to remind themselves of their purposes, to enjoy yoga for improved health, and to engage in setting their minds in a state that will best aid them in accomplishing what they want to do in beginning the day, upon returning to work after a Connection, settling down for the evening, and so forth. The affirmations in this set of the Truths of Terasem are particularly important because they represent this final setting of the mindset, before resuming other activities.
(Fred) Hi, we’re Fred & Linda Chamberlain, with podcast no. 20 on the Truths of Terasem.
(Linda) Awwww, we’ll go into the affirmations used to close all six of the daily Terasem Connections today!
(Fred) That’s right! Today we’re going to focus on that, but we’ll put our primary emphasis on the ones that done most frequently. For example, Earthfire is usually done at 10 a.m. in the morning, but in some ways it’s the most important, since for those who don’t do connections as regularly as others, they might only encounter this one at the monthly Gatherings, but there, it’s almost always “Earthfire”, because the Gatherings happen at 10 a.m. on the 10th of each month.
(Linda) What about Ambrosia? The ideal schedule puts it at 6 a.m., the first of the day! It’s true that you and I do it a little later, but it’s a pretty fundamental one for us.
(Fred) That’s true, but I’d like to put it third on the list. The reason is that for some people, particularly those that do their connections for Gatherings at 10 p.m. monthly, which could be in Second Life, for example, Crownaura would be the one. All of us get started on this at different levels, and then work our way up, but for folks we might be running into at 10 p.m on the tenths of the month, let’s do EarthFire first, CrownAura second, and then Ambrosia. The rest, we might as well take in order. Aqua Lung is at 2 p.m. in the afternoon, you know the one where we’re supposed to run jump in the ocean afterwards and have a great swim, if we’ve got an ocean handy, then StarMind at 6 p.m. for when you get home from work, and finally Alum al-Mithral for anyone who’s still up at 2 a.m. Sound OK?
(Linda) Right! Let’s get into it!
(Fred) Just one thing more, first. Terasem represents that it has the breadth of vision to unite all types of faiths, and it honors diversity, so these affirmations reflect the long term vision of Terasem. Those who are blending their adoption of the Terasem Way with a faith where they have ongoing prayer practices, Buddhist meditation recitals, or humanist affirmations, etc., should feel free to substitute these others, if they find them more inspiring.
(Linda) I couldn’t agree more. One of the things that gave me the most comfort when we were first reading the Truths of Terasem, and it comes almost at the very beginning, is 1.1.2 “Collectivity means unity of diversity not mandatory homogeneity.” The Founders of Terasem, even before we met them, were very strong on that point in email discussions, and then when we finally did meet them we found they lived by that principle.
(Fred) So, with that taken care of, let’s have a look at Earthfire, usually done at 10 a.m.. I’ll read the affirmations first, and then discuss them. Here they are, from 6.8.2, which is titled, “Herald Earthfire with Earth is Our Mother”. The affirmations are: “The Earth is Our Mother, we must take care of her.” (Then we repeat it.) “The Earth is Our Mother, we must take care of her.” And the rest of the affirmations are, “Unite, my people, be as one.” (Again, we repeat.) “Unite, my people, be as one.” The rest of it is, “Now her sacred ground we walk upon, with every step we take. Unite, my people, be as one. Unite, my people, we are one.”
There may be affirmations in other faiths that are highly congruent with this, and if so, they might stir the same thoughts, but let me say what goes through my mind when I look at those words, and then when I say them. I think the message is both powerful and important. This 10 a.m. connection comes at a point in the day, if we manage to work it in at that time, when we are surrounded by others who will be arguing about the environment, taking sides on various issues, and so forth. How do we remove ourselves from this chaotic babble and still not appear to be withdrawn? Others may take the message here differently, but to me, the bottom line is that I want to self-program to stand my ground on points I think are important, to encourage others who might be on the same wavelength, and yet not engage in attacking others who are mainly concerned with profit at the expense of the environment.
(Linda) To me, the starting words set the context. We arose from the earth, and we are still absolutely dependent on it to continue to live. It truly is our Mother, and there are many who would destroy it in wasteful extravagance with no thought of long term consequences. The “We must take care of her!” sets the tone for what follows.
(Fred) The repeated phrase, “Unite, my people, be as one!” is an invocation to join with others who feel the same way and turn away from those who do not share in valuing the earth as we do. You can call that class discrimination if you wish, but selective withdrawal from those who advocate environmental destruction, failure to reinforce them even to the point of giving them an opportunity to be listened to and imagine that they have convinced us of anything at all, is the most we can do without engaging them aggressively. The affirmation is to “unite” with those who agree on protecting the earth, supporting them in their convictions that this is right, and peacefully working to spread that meme.
“Now we walk upon her sacred ground, with every step we take!” is a reminder that every act, however small, is a contribution either to honoring and protecting the earth or trashing her, and that we are on the side of honoring and protecting her. The final phrases close the group of these affirmations by reminding us to hold tight to others who see things as we do, for in this spirit, we are deeply akin to one another. We are “one”!
(Linda) Wow, I like that! I’ve been a nut about recycling for a long time because we can’t know how long it will be before nanotech will be developed to the point of cleaning up our waste products for us, but I’ve also sensed that you weren’t that energetic about it. Have you changed your mind in some way?
(Fred) In a way, I have, Linda. I’d even go so far as to say that before I began to draft this podcast, I’d never looked as carefully at these words as I did in trying to see how they might be best explained. Now that I’ve done that, to my own satisfaction, it’s profoundly shifted my way of feeling and thinking about these issues. Now, if I run into someone who doesn’t take the issue with environmental protection seriously, I’ll treat them far more the way I’ve advocated, in interpreting these affirmations, and, every time from now on that we say these things, they’ll penetrate still more deeply. It’s an important step forward for me, and I hope that others listening to this podcast will feel the same way.
(Linda) Me too! Now, we move on to CrownAura, with 6.8.5, which introduces that group with “Keynote CrownAura with Terasem Destiny”. It looks simple, but as with other Truths of Terasem, I’ll bet there are underlying ways of looking at these affirmations that will expand both our perceptions of them.
(Fred) It would be surprising if that weren’t the way it worked out. Here are the affirmations, which can be combined into just one, long sentence. They are: “I’ll always remember, each night and every day, Joyful Immortality is my ultimate destiny, Joyful Immortality is our ultimate destiny, Joyful Immortality is the ultimate destiny, Joyful Immortality is for me, we, qi & ti.” I’m going to lapse into one of those old “Navy” stories to make the most sense of those affirmations, will that be OK?
(Linda) Oh no! It’s not going to be one of those bomb disposal stories, is it, or about when the killer whales suddenly appeared during one of those dives you made in Canada on a minesweeper joint exercise, is it?
(Fred) No! It’s a much shorter story than any of those, and it ties into this affirmation package directly.
It was on a summer training cruise to Europe on the U.S.S. Wisconsin, one of those old, huge battleships with sixteen inch guns and crew of at least three thousand. Standing watch on the bridge, they put me on the helm and it was my job for that brief time, probably not more than a half hour or so, to “steer the ship”, to make sure it stayed as close to being “on course” as possible.
If it wandered a little to starboard, that’s “to the right”, I knew I had to set the wheel to counteract that, so it would swing back to the left to get back on course, but after ten or fifteen seconds of applying a little left rudder, I knew that this huge mass of steel must already be swinging back to port (that’s left), even though the compass needle showed nothing at all, so I’d put the rudder back to the straight ahead position, and soon, sure enough, it would begin to swing left. You had to watch the thing like a hawk, and never take your eyes off it, never stop thinking about it. And then, finally, someone else would come along and relieve you, and you could unwind a little.
That’s what the first part of the affirmation says to me, each time I say it, the phrase, “I’ll always remember, each night and every day”. It doesn’t say, “remind yourself now and then”, it says, “Don’t ever take your eyes off the compass! Don’t ever forget the big picture. Keep things moving in the precise direction you know they should be going.” The rest of the affirmation is about where we’re headed, and believe it or not, the battleship example fits in there, too!
(Linda) Really? We’re not through with the battleship, yet?
(Fred) No! Let’s look at the rest of it. The words that follow are: “Joyful Immortality is my ultimate destiny, Joyful Immortality is our ultimate destiny, Joyful Immortality is the ultimate destiny, Joyful Immortality is for me, we, qi & ti.” Since we know that Joyful Immortality is in every one of them, let’s see what we have when we take it out. Then, the affirmation is about “my ultimate destiny, our ultimate destiny, the ultimate destiny, and it’s for me, we, qi, & ti”. So, now we can look at how they relate to each other.
Where Joyful Immortality is concerned, it’s not just about me, or my destiny. This is where, sadly, many people cut off their concerns about the bigger picture of how they may relate to others. It’s not just about a small group’s future either, not just about our destiny, not just about a “we” of some kind. Once we get to talking about the ultimate destiny, about it being for qi and ti, we’re into some pretty global thoughts.
The ultimate destiny sounds like it could encompass the entire universe, even to the point of concern about the long term fate of the Cosmos, so at that level Joyful Immortality is being applied to a very large “playing field.” It’s about the progression of extropy to a stage where what Terasem may become, perhaps merging with others of its own kind, is addressing the roles of control of cosmic physics, and even before that, with avoiding catastrophes in passing safely through the Singularity.
Truths 1.8.3. and 1.8.4 tell us, “The ‘Ti of I’ is he time-cone of a being’s existence” and “The ‘Qi of I’ is the unique pattern of a being’s energy flows.” Joyful Immortality “being for qi and ti” could imply that the way we manage the time and energy flows of our lives must be oriented in the right direction in some specific way. In any case, it’s a very global and inclusive way of thinking about Joyful Immortality.
(Linda) You didn’t say anything about the battleship!
(Fred) You caught me! Or maybe not! It’s an extension of how we feel when we’re driving a car; that we feel a responsibility not only for our own lives, and those of our passengers, but for others on the road, with whom we might collide. It broadens our viewpoint to take in others, in some cases many others. No doubt, pilots in cockpits of passenger planes feel this, to an even higher extent. There could be hundreds of lives at stake.
Now, with the battleship, it was unlikely to develop that anything I might have done could have endangered the lives of others on that ship, or on another ship, but one never knows what might happen. What if suddenly a cruiser with a crew of 1500 to 2000 persons had emerged from the fog and cut across our bow. Clearly, the Officer of the Deck would have been screaming commands about how the ship should be maneuvered, to try to avoid collision, and there would have been orders to change the engines, perhaps reversing propellers, but it could be that I would have been actually turning the wheel to carry out those orders, in effect with many lives in my hands. Thousands of lives could have been at stake. The U.S.S. Wisconsin represented many thousands of tons of steel hurtling through the water, with sixteen inches of armor plate. It was just one of those experiences you don’t forget. That’s how it ties in.
(Linda) Now, we get to my favorite, Ambrosia. It starts out with 6.8.1 “Top off Ambrosia with Longer Sun,” and the affirmations are, “Long Time May the Sun Shine Upon Us, Only Love Surround Us, Now may the pure light within us, Guide Our Way On, Energize Our Way on, Realize Our Way on.”
(Fred) I always enjoy that one too. It greets the Sun in the early morning, pouring its energy into us, and tells us to pour it forth again in the form of appreciation and gratitude, an outbound “wall” of love no hatred can work its way through. It tells us to filter it within ourselves into a light so pure that like a laser, it helps us navigate our lives, empowers our lives, and helps us make a reality of our dreams. At least, that’s how these words speak to me.
Moving on, not repeating EarthFire of course, 6.8.3, tells us “AquaLung culminates with the Water Song” and the words are, “Water, earth mother’s womb, water, our own life’s blood, now water, washing over us, water, may we flow as one, water, may we flow as one. We are one.”
Each person may interpret this a little differently. In my mind, I see our biological bodies as nothing less than contained oceans of salt water in which our 50 to 100 trillion living cells “float”. From our surroundings we take water, and we return it to this outer environment, lacking which we would quickly perish, in the same way that we would perish even more rapidly if placed into an air-free (or rather oxygen free) environment. Life emerged from Mother Earth, and now we are part of it. Our blood, mostly water, constitutes our internal rivers and lakes, recycled from its ocean, our heart, with rapidity that makes the natural environment’s recycling of water by rainfall seems almost tortoise-like in its slowness. We are one with our own water and more generally, with all exterior water. Our internal flows of water mimic, at a tiny scale and with astronomical rapidity, external flows of water, but the idea “may we flow as one” is perfectly valid.
(Linda) StarMind starts at 6.8.4 “Namaste Starmind with Lovely Lady”. “Namaste” is a Hindu salutation which expresses respect and the hope for all good things that day. So, Namaste Starmind means to approach this Connection with that kind of mindset. The affirmations are: “Hey, Lovely Lady, I see you sitting alone, Hey, Wondrous Lady, stars are singing your song, Now, Magic Lady, lift up and rise from your home, Joy Can Be Found, Without Limit Or Bound, Just Tune Your Soul to its Sound.” Is the “Lovely Lady” the Earth, but if so, how can she “Leave Home”?
(Fred) This is the “Earthseed” theme. Just as the biosphere arose from the lifeless geosphere that was the pre-life earth, so now the cybersphere is rising from the biosphere, with one huge difference. The biosphere has, at best, put out a few fingers, meaning earth-orbit missions and a few trips to the moon, but the cybersphere? Lunar Surveyor spacecraft preceded the Apollo landings, and robot explorers have landed on Mars a number of times, as well as Venus and numerous points within the Solar system.
The Cybersphere entered the age of interstellar travel when the Voyager Spacecraft achieved escape velocity in their 1979 flybys of Jupiter. Despite later encounters with Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, at no time did they fail to possess heliocentric escape velocity. Voyager 1 was fully free of the Solar System after its Saturn encounter on the 25th of August, 1981 and Voyager 2 was strictly outbound after Neptune encounter on August 25th 1989. At Neptune, Solar System (heliocentric) escape velocity is about 5 kilometers per second, and after encounter Voyage 2 was traveling four times that, or in the neighborhood of 20 km/s.
In terms of intelligent communication, of course, it started earlier. As so dramatically portrayed in Carl Sagan’s film “Contact”, TV transmissions by the Third Reich Nazi regime prior to World War II conceivably could have been intercepted by extraterrestrials. But all of this is just the first sputterings of what seems likely to come soon.
As the Singularity passes, the cybersphere seems destined to explode outward in both physical and electromagnetic forms. A large part of the highest evolved life forms at that time may go outward as part of that. One might ask, what about the biosphere? What about humans who want to remain biological? Won’t all of this still be there, and the answer is “yes”, but just as life came out of the sea and has proliferated on land, it is time for sentient life to go into cyberspace and proliferate there, expanding outward in a limitless way. That, I think, is what the “Lovely Lady” is all about. It’s the earth, all right, but evolving and expanding in all directions to the stars.
(Linda) Now, skipping over CrownAura, which we covered earlier, we come to “6.8.6 Sleep on Alum al-Mithral with 16 bright stars to inspire our time and place.” It’s pretty short, isn’t it?
(Fred) That’s right. This is truly a “sweet dreams” cluster, and for most who might be starting with Terasem, it might seem farfetched to call them “affirmations”. Yet, for those who know these stars well, and the reasons why they might be near-term destinations as Terasem expands beyond the Solar System, they carry positive and heart-warming connotations.
Here are the names of the stars: Sol, Sirius (8.6), Altair (17), Vega (25), Capella (42), Rigel (4.4), Procyon (11), Betelgeuse (640), Altair (17), Antares (600), Aldebaran, Spica (260), Pollux (34), Fomalhaut (25), Deneb (1550), Regulus (77). They’re basically in the order of magnitude or brightness, and only four are more than one hundred light years away. It seems likely they’re easy to locate by constellation, helpful, if one wants to close the Connection with extended star contemplation.
(Linda) It may be some time before Alum al-Mithral is part of our daily routine, since it comes at 2 a.m., but I notice you put the distance in light years into our notes, just in case we need to beat it out of the Solar System in a hurry. Next week, we’re going to plunge into some fascinating and abstract concepts that involve visualizations that evoke feelings congruent with some of the ideas in the Truths of Terasem.
(Fred) Right, Linda. These are very short, and are part of what are said in the Connections. We’ll relate them to other parts of the Truths, where it appears they help integrate those ideas into the connections in a meditative way. We’ll be close to the end of the Truths of Terasem for the year, and there will be time to examine tie-ins of all kinds.
(Linda) Great! And don’t forget that you can “Join Terasem” at terasemfaith.net and be right at the heart of this. And remember: First in, first out. “Waking up in cyberspace” can be pursued by the programs available at either CyBeRev.org or LifeNaut.com, no fees to participate.
(Fred) Right! I want to comment for a moment about this “First in, First out” thing we keep mentioning. In the google-search locatable Minutes of the Terasem Quadrennial Convocation, February 29th – March 4th, 2008, it says, “Pursuant to paragraph 2.3.6.3.2 of the Truths of Terasem, the Organizer of the Convocation confirmed that Terasem is using its budget to fund cryonicization and cyberconsciousness efforts in chronological order of the subjects becoming Terasem members. And on a large “priorities” plaque at Terasem Headquarters, that aspect of Terasem operations is in the number one position.
(Linda) That’s true. Glad you mentioned it. As we usually remind you each week, go to mindclones.blogspot.com for an ever expanding discussion about mindfiles. Next week, we’ll explore how some of the very brief words used in the Connections link to deeper concepts of the Truths of Terasem.
(Fred) Join us, and our quest for an endless future…
(Linda) Come with us – into Tomorrow!
Welcome to our WordPress Blog on the Truths of Terasem Podcasts. They’re available for listening on iTunes at:
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/truths-terasem-podcast-2010/id383099543, or Index/Download Directly From CyBeRev at:
http://www.cyberev.org/rss/podcasts/podcast.xml
Podcast No. 19 on The Truths of Terasem – Posted on iTunes 12/6/2010
(Text used to record podcast)
TITLE: Truths of Terasem – The How of Terasem, Expansions 6.6 and 6.7
SUB TITLE: Cybercommunity Procreation and Setting the Stage for It.
SUMMARY: In a positively evolving cybercivilization, endless augmentation of existing individuals leads to divergence by way of self-reproduction to permit the pursuit of mindware alternatives as well as technological platform alternatives ranging from such simple variations as fundamental operating systems to variations in processing hardware and alternate substrates for hardware. We may already experience the sense of diversity to come by loving diversity as we find it in each other, as we build c-cubes and chosen families in a climate of shared principles that have, at their root, the honoring of individual consciousness.
(Fred) Hi, we’re Fred & Linda Chamberlain, with podcast no. 19 on the Truths of Terasem.
(Linda) This is the one where we see family structure emerging in so many different dimensions that we find individual minds branching into an unlimited number of varieties and substrates, and yet sharing a common, fundamental, heritage to agreed principles, isn’t it? And, don’t we find that we can do things right away to make it so real that we feel confident in that kind of future?
(Fred) That’s right ! Today we’re talking about Expansions 6.6 and 6.7 of the Truths of Terasem, where we envision a boundless diversity of individuals in a cybercivilization, bonded by an ethical system so well evolved that it unites us the way DNA unites all biological organisms on Earth, at the same time that DNA permits such fantastic diversity that it was the basis for both Sequoia Trees and Tyrannosaurus Rex!
(Linda) Oh no! Not a future where we have cyberbeings like a T-Rex! Is that a real example of the kind of beings we might really encounter?
(Fred) Perhaps that example is only something to wake up anyone who’s on the point of falling asleep, but we’re not talking about cyberbeings who eat each other, only about ones that are so different they span the range of those who want to take on physical forms that can do science in close proximity to suns and even consider modifying them into more efficient energy production systems, to those who want to take up a silent and invisible presence within emerging civilizations that are pre-singularity, and help guide them toward a higher chance of surviving the development of replicator nanotech, after which they join our wider cybercivilization.
Perhaps the thing I find most fascinating about this is that as we find more and more people with the widest visions of what may be possible, who also have a sense of the importance of evolving Geoethical Nanotechnology into what it must become in order to see us safely through the Singularity, we are building at the most basic level the “chosen families” of biological humans who will later share the most far reaching adventures to come. To put it more simply, we are building friendships we expect to last “forever”.
(Linda) Sounds good! Let’s get into the Expansions for the day. The first one starts with just two words, in 6.6, “Honour consciousness.” What level of or quality of consciousness are we talking about, here?
(Fred) It’s a “Terasem” level of consciousness, and we have to briefly visit a few other Truths to get a sense of that. In Expansion 1.6 we find, “Consciousness is the maturing ability to reasonably choose right from wrong, and to empathize with others.” Within the Elements of that Expansion are the following: “1.6.4 Empathy is a necessary and sufficient basis for sentience, but only a key ingredient for consciousness,” 1.6.5 “Reason is a necessary and sufficient basis for ethics, but only a key ingredient for consciousness,” and 1.6.6 “Synergism of empathy and reason yields consciousness.”
Clearly, we are talking something more here than a medical definition of consciousness, where you are alert, aware of your surroundings, know your name and can say what day of the week it is. Terasem’s invocation to “Honour Consciousness” is based on expectations that we will find and/or be able to develop in ourselves and others a high state of both empathy and ethics, regard these as being very valuable, and respect and defend those who embody them. There are further qualifications, as we go into the underlying Elements of this Expansion.
6.6.1 tells us, “Hozh’q, the conscious mind’s vision of a beautiful life, entails goodness, order, vitality, happiness and harmony.” This is a far less detailed description of Hozh’q than we developed in an earlier podcast, but perhaps that is just as well. These are all highly positive qualities in any vision, and implies that a mind capable of feeling empathy and understanding logical ethics will likely see beyond just those values to goodness, order, vitality, happiness and harmony.
Now we move into deeper water. 6.6.2 says, “Open your mind to consciousness immortality via substrate migration and consciousness divisibility into offspring consciousnesses.”
(Linda) Deeper, I guess! It makes my brain hurt a little bit! This is a big enough subject that we could become lost in it. Can you give us a simplified example before you get into any detailed discussion, just to help ease our way into this concept?
(Fred) Sure. Let’s suppose, as a matter of conjecture, that Leonardo da Vinci had been placed in a state of perfect biological suspended animation before his death on May 2, 1519 and was reanimated 550 years later, on May 2, 2069, rejuvenated and in perfect biological health, in a post-Singularity world.
Fascinated with the world into which he awakened, suppose he said, “I’m obsessed with both technology and art, and want to engage in both of them, full time, endlessly. Can you make that possible for me?” The answer we might be able to give him would be “Yes, if you migrate substrate and engage in consciousness divisibility!” When he asks, “How would that work?” we would explain:
(1) Substrate migration means getting out of that biological body as quickly as possible. Aging is “cured” but that won’t help if a tree falls on you, or you’re devoured by a large predator.
(2) More to the point, if you want to do two things full time there must be two of you, and while it’s theoretically possible that we might be able to make a perfect biological copy of you, the idea of that is now more of a joke than a practical matter of interest.
(3) To begin with, move your consciousness to an alternate substrate and the choices there are (a) nanobot brain emulation, meaning artificial neurons vs. biological ones, or (b) “derived mindfile cyberconsciousness”, meaning that from your brain’s responses all meaningful paths of association are exported into digital data and then “mindware resurrected” to a cybernetic emulation which is just as self-conscious as option (a).
(4) Finally, if you wish, you may do both of them, or either one and a hybrid of the other, or any other configuration you might invent, as many of them as you might like, which based on your history of creativity might be a considerable number.
To summarize, substrate migration means getting into a more easily duplicated, non-biological state, reducing risks of inadvertent obliteration due to accident and setting the stage for moving on to even more attractive substrates as they are developed. “Consciousness divisibility into offspring consciousnesses,” means making copies of yourself to specialize in different directions, on the same or different substrates.
(Linda) Wait. Wait. I’ve been listening carefully to all of this, and one thing still seems confusing. That’s the idea of “consciousness immortality”! How does that fit in?
(Fred) You probably thought I was going to sweep that one under the rug, didn’t you? It just got left for last, and that’s because it has to do with the definition of the word “immortality” itself. The word is used in so many different ways that we have to clarify it, here. There are even variations in how it should be interpreted, within the Truths of Terasem. Here, it’s coupled with the word consciousness. Let’s see what we might mean by “consciousness immortality”, here.
To begin with, we’re talking about the consciousness of a particular individual, and it’s an individual who meets the Terasem definition of consciousness, meaning one that possesses both empathy and ethics in a compatible and consistent way. We’re also assuming a definitive life history that establishes unique individuality, in addition to a strong mix of strengths and values that anyone would want. That life history will embody attachments to many other individuals within a unique network, a social “fingerprint” for that individual. And, there will be a specific genome and a family tree from which that genome sprang.
(Linda) Why do I feel as if I’m getting more lost rather than less lost?
(Fred) Hang in there. It’s all come together. The individual’s personality, as we understand it, resides within his or her brain’s structure, genome modulated and evolving over time with experience, age and health, but in other ways stable, a core of identity most people are sufficiently aware of to perceive its reality; most refer to it as a soul. Specific memories also are stored within the neural net of the brain’s structure. Can enough of all this be exported by use of a system like CyBeRev into a mindfile that mindware can use to create not just the external perception of a self-conscious being, but an inner experience of that as well?
For the purpose of this discussion, we’ll assume that this is achievable and those who choose it regain consciousness as if they had undergone surgery with total anesthesia. They awaken with memories intact and recognize those around them, experiencing awareness so much like that of biological consciousness that it is difficult to believe they are different in any respect. But they will have so profoundly transcended the limits of biological consciousness and have attained so much more in the way of preserving their identities that it will be hard not to refer to them as “immortal”.
(Linda) I get it. In other words, “Immortality” can be taken to mean “indestructibility”.
(Fred) Exactly. Mindfiles can not only be backed up virtually continuously, but replication as two or more independent entities with divergent life histories assures that at least insofar as one’s identity prior to replication and divergence, so long as any survive, at least the identity of the pre-replication individual is not lost. And think about this: you never forget anything. How much do you remember about being a six year old child, for example? Not much, I’d bet. But a cyberperson will always remember that sixth year of cyberconsciousness as if it were “yesterday”, forever! And, there are other interpretations.
“Immortality” can be taken to mean living a very, very long time. If over the next hundred years, cyberpersons experience subjective time as passing more quickly, due to increased speed of thought and action, they may live an extremely long time while humans who remain in a biological state experience the passage of time far more slowly. A mere thousandfold acceleration of thought and action would mean that one year as we experience it now would be perceived by a cyberperson as a thousand years.
In a curious kind of way, cyberpersons might perceive biological persons as being “virtually immortal”, even if aging were not cured, or lifespans significantly extended.
(Linda) I’m not sure I visualize how that would work.
(Fred) The young cyberperson who had a thousandfold faster experience of subjective time could validly say, “My parents remained biological and did not choose to transcend substrate, but in an odd way now, I can never lose them, unless they die by accident or sudden illness. Each ten years, as measured by my subjective time, I go back and visit them briefly. For them, it seems as if only a few days have passed. It seems to them that I visit for only five minutes or so, and then leave, but actually for me the visit lasts five thousand minutes, a period of about three and a half days as I experience it. I have the feeling they’ll never grow old. Maybe one of these days they’ll choose to transcend, and then we’ll see each other more often than once every ten years, as I experience it.
(Linda) Okay. I think I get the picture. What’s next?
(Fred) OK, Linda, let’s speed it up, but not by a thousand times, maybe just a hundred fold. The next one is 6.6.3’ “Neurocomputation leads to consciousness as validly as does biological evolution, so marital union may transcend substrate.” To me, this means that we’ll have just as much fun, probably much more, in cyberspace than here, but we both better do it at the same time. Let’s don’t get to where one of us waits a month to visit the other, and then it only lasts eight hours. Even marital couples in jail get better visitation than that!
In 6.6.4 the message is: “Ondinnonk, the Iroquois teaching about an entity’s benevolence orientation, is also how to be conscious.” There are many online references to “Ondinnonk”, but this is the only use of it in the Truths of Terasem. One particularly nice discussion is quoted as follows:
“Meanwhile among the Native American Iroquois people, the term ondinnonk denotes the soul’s innermost benevolent desires, the angelic part of our nature that gives us the sudden, unconscious desire to do a good deed.”
(http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~jmatthew/articles/vocadvan.html)
This Truth reminds us that 1.6.6 in defining consciousness, tell us that “Synergism of empathy and reason yields consciousness.”
(Linda) Right! And, of course, benevolence cannot really exist unless we empathize with those who may be the recipients of the consequences of our actions.
(Fred) True. 6.6.5 says, “Universal immortalism, in diversity, unity and joy, is the ultimate honour to consciousness.” My perception is that this Truth is saying that any empathetic and benevolent consciousness will wish the gift of immortality, universally, for all other kind sentient beings. This in turn honors consciousness for its highest of standards.
(Linda) Vegetarianism is one moral implication of this set of Truths, since consciousness within the Truths of Terasem is defined as being the maturing ability to reasonably choose right from wrong, and to empathize with other beings. All kind conscious beings will seek ways of providing for their own nutritional needs without taking the lives of other beings that can experience pain, and thereby forcing them currently to experience pain and suffering, and eventually, as Terasem becomes the collective consciousness we envision, robbing other beings of their participation in universal immortality. This high standard definitely honors consciousness.
(Fred) Right, Linda, and in 6.6.6, the concluding Element of this Expansion, we find “Recognize that conscious life consists of all vitology, biological as well as cybernetic.” To me, this means that as we transcend biology and move on into cyberspace, we honor our foundations of origin as biological life and protect it, where it meets the Terasem criteria for consciousness, just as diligently as we protect cyberconsciousness. Emergent personalities in cyberspace will at first exclusively be the cyberchildren of bioparents, and should respect this family relationship for what it means, that without the parents, the children would not exist. This debt of gratitude is endless as well as inescapable, and is demanded by both empathy and ethics, which we will continue to emphasize are necessary for consciousness as it is defined by Terasem.
(Linda) Now, what comes next is easier. We’re going to review a few ideas about how we might relate more closely to each other and support each other in these early days of building Terasem.
(Fred) That’s right, Linda. The expansion starts with “6.7 ‘I am you’ – ‘You am I’, or ‘We Are One,’ greet each other each day.” Note the ‘or’ and the commas. Either is sufficient, as a greeting. If we think about it, both of them simply symbolize connectedness between the other person and ourselves. “I am you” suggests that by my perception of and memory of you, I am part of a component of your identity that will never be lost, even if you were to suddenly vanish. Together, all of we who knew you will make sure that you are never forgotten, and at some point in time will reawaken and regain your part in our society. “You am I” is simply this same idea, but taken in the opposite direction and makes a perfect response to “I am you”. “We are One” is an even broader recognition that as a network, each of us is there for each other in an identity preservation teamwork way.
The first Element, 6.7.1, tells us to “Inch together, gaze each soul, touch foreheads and noses, inhale deeply and share Há, the life-breath.” One might think of this as a “headshake” instead of a “handshake”, augmented by full eye contact and sufficient contact by touching foreheads and noses to perform what looks to any Star Trek fans in our vicinity as a “Vulcan Mindmeld”. This symbolizes, to me, the anticipation of how closely our minds will be in contact with each other when we have acquired what we’ve described in previous podcasts as “operational telepathy” by way of technology. It’s not that far off.
In 6.7.2 we find, “Always help fellow Terasem, in economics and politics, before considering alternatives.” We’re on our way into cyberspace in a teamwork way, and once we’re there, we’ll be free of any limits of what we can accomplish. But, we have to get there, and giving priority to supporting our team mates is vital.
6.7.3 says, “Make your homes Terasem Gathering Places, and Terasem will safekeep them for you until you return.” If, as we build c-cubes and formalize our commitments as “chosen families” with those we find who are in harmony with us, we develop the feeling that we are a “family of families”, we will grow increasingly protective toward each other and each other’s homes as well.
(Linda) This sense of networked community may take time to develop, but as the Singularity grows closer and closer, we will need to hang tightly to each other to come though it in the best condition.
(Fred) In 6.7.4 the message is, “Yield to Terasem’s higher levels, for that progresses all more rapidly toward Yugenspace and Elysium Fields.” Terasem’s higher levels will be those building it most soundly and rapidly, and as we move into the open spaces they create, building strength there rather than engaging in arbitrarily diverse trail blazing, we are likely to achieve our goals more effectively and efficiently. This is not something to be done blindly, but carefully, remembering that each choice we make is one for which we are accountable. As in all things, levels and status must be earned to be respected. In the end, we must bear responsibility for our choices, so use discretion.
6.7.5 tells us, “Organize your life around the Way of Terasem, and you will attain higher levels of Terasem.” As described by the Founders of Terasem, it is a meritocracy, not an aristocracy or a bureaucracy, or any other kind of “good old boy” club. Part of the reason for structuring Terasem as a network of small groups is to provide maximum opportunity for diversity and innovation. At the same time, it is by the variations of cohesiveness and sense of purpose among groups that some will grow and create values or die for lack of energy and commitment. It is not inappropriate to think of Terasem as being like a tree. Twigs can spring from the trunk and become limbs with many leaves, or limbs can fail to grow and wither. This is how this Truth seems to make sense, to many of us.
6.7.6 is stated as follows: “Ummah a community of Way of Terasem faithful with commitment to diversity, unity and joyful immortality.” There are many usages of the term Ummah, but the bottom line for all of them seems to be that without unity, no great strength can be built. At the same time, taking the Truths of Terasem as an outline of the “Way of Terasem”, there are so many different dimensions and aspects to this that no danger of pressures for conformity seem to exist, other than for general agreement on principles as expressed in the Truths, and the most fundamental ones this particular Truth seems to be emphasizing are as stated: diversity, unity and joyful immortality, with commitment to each.
(Linda) I think this is the shortest “double” we’ve done yet, and next week we’re back to singles. They’re the affirmations with which the six Terasem Connections are closed. They have strong conceptual content, don’t they, Fred?
(Fred) They do, Linda. They are derived from a number of sources, but they are all in English, and, they’re the mindset launching pads that prepare us after each connection to return to a world that is largely unprepared for the next few decades, as cyberconsciousness makes its debut among people who will be pondering where to turn in sorting out what to make of lives that no longer can be steered into predicable pathways of careers that once served as the basis for what we used to refer to as productive, useful happy lives.
Even transhumanists can experience moments of despair, perhaps by way of seeing all too clearly what is coming, and having no constructive idea of what to do about it. Here is a recent posting by one of them. It is possible this posting was made to evoke thought and response, rather than to give an accurate picture of the mood of the person who posted it, but each of us must make our own estimate of that. Here are the words of the posting:
“… I am probably going to die, but if I am not going to die the alternative may be worse in terms of how much it will hurt… There will always be a million people better than anything I try to do my best at… I must never ever try and own human beings, subordinate them to my will, or hold them to contracts they do not want to obey… if I complain without offering immediate, compelling solutions that would work I will only bore myself and other people… change is made by the dissatisfied…”
Now, compare these words with those of the first set of affirmations from next week’s podcast, coming at the end of the Ambrosia connection, with which the day starts. See the contrast of mindset that is embedded in the mind voicing these thoughts and setting their sights on a future that is not one of despair:
“Long Time May the Sun Shine Upon Us; Only Love Surround Us; Now may the pure light within us guide Our Way On, Energize Our Way on, Realize Our Way on.”
Terasem casts aside despair, builds solutions, gives thanks for the good that already exists, and commits itself to expand on that endlessly, limitlessly, for the benefit of all sentient beings. We will delve far more deeply into thoughts like this next week.
(Linda) I can certainly see the contrast, and like you I’m not sure whether that posting was made to stimulate thought or express an actual feeling, but either way, it’s excellent counterpoint to what the Truths of Terasem pursue in the way of mindset. Are we going to have to digest more contrasts of that kind next week, Fred?
(Fred) No, Linda. Next week we’ll talk extensively about the need to build an impenetrable mental wall against meditating on hopelessness and disaster, on pain and futility, vs. moving out of our present quicksand bogs of biological dead-ended-ness into a future of cyber-open-endless-ness.
(Linda) Glad to hear that! And to those listening, don’t forget – if you want to leave your sense of “life-as-being-meaningless” at the door, join Terasem. It’s easy, at terasemfaith.net. Be right at the heart of this; start moving toward “waking up in cyberspace” via Terasem’s free programs at CyBeRev.org, and LifeNaut.com.
(Fred) Right! And, mindclones.blogspot.com continues to expand, with more and more perspectives about how mindfiles will build a new future for many of us, and can be started now. And remember: first in first out. So, start your mindfile today! Next week, we’ll look at the ways six Terasem Connections a day can leave us with a positive sense of life and a renewed conviction that it’s meaningful.
(Linda) Join us, and our quest for an endless future…
(Fred) Come with us – into Tomorrow
Truths of Terasem Podcasts 