"I of my own knowledge…"

Live the knowledge

It’s one thing to know a thing abstractly, or theoretically. It’s another thing to know it emotionally as well. And it is yet a third thing, the vital thing, to actually live what you know. As the guys said, a while ago:

[Monday, January 16, 2006]

It is more than a matter of writing a book, or of writing many books. More important by far is the need to live the knowledge. To some extent one serves as a model to others in anything one does, and that serving as a model can occur – must occur – in every aspect of life. If various aspects contradict each other, each aspect – and the contradictions among aspects – serves a different model. This is not to say that one is primarily a model for others. Is one’s life primarily lived for the sake of one arm, or one ear? Yet the arm and the ear are as integral as any other past of the whole

So – this is a time to be transformed. Clever phrasing, eh? It may be and should be read two ways. The times are to be transformed; you are to be transformed in these times.

It is more than a matter of writing books. But you always knew that.

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My brother alerted me to this story from The New York Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/asia/21japan.html?_r=1&emc=eta1] that to my mind shows the continuing impact of Western ways upon the rest of the world — not always to the non-Western world’s advantage. The old tradition seems pretty much gone, in Japan. Is that a bad thing? Good thing? Somewhat both? Neither? Your call. But one thing I know: We can and often do contact those on the other side. Some do it easier than others do, but if anyone at all can do it, then clearly it is a human ability. 

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In going through old journals, working on another book of conversations with people on the other side, I came across this with author Upton Sinclair that may be of interest.

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