I have just published 31 posts, constituting the whole text of my little book, The Way of Peace. Each post presents one chapter. They are so arranged that, in your inbox, the chapters appear in order from first to last, from top to bottom. The posts/chapters will appear in that order on my Home page also. Continue reading SPECIAL PROJECT — DON’T BE ALARMED.
Monthly Archives: May 2022
THE WAY OF PEACE
Contents
THE WAY OF PEACE
1. About this book
2. Meditation
3. Application
4. Serotonin and the individual
5. Serotonin and society
6. Sales pitch
7. Mooring oneself in What Is
— Life with OCD
— Life with DSPS
8. Heart and soul
9. Put in the clutch
10. Strategies
11. Tactics
12. An examination of the Sermon on the Mount
13. Two (or more) views of the Kingdom
14. Jesus is not coming soon — or ever
15. Jesus’ words about “the Kingdom”
16. Other Jesus sayings
17. About organized religion
18. As to reincarnation
19. Sacrifice
— Heaven and hell: Dr. George Ritchie’s near-death experience
— About Edgar Cayce
— Edgar Cayce’s dream
— About Edgar Cayce’s dream
Appendix
Alphabetical list of passage titles
Related blog posts
Glossary
1. About this book
THE WAY OF PEACE
| Home | 2. Meditation → |
Matthew 11:28-30: Jesus said,
Come to me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; …
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
All my life, I have been concerned for people who seemed to me to have a harder lot than they deserved — who were loaded down with heavy burdens.
In time, I came to see that I likewise carried needless heavy burdens.
Life is difficult enough even without them. Jesus speaks here of a way to live without them. Life’s inherent difficulties cannot be avoided. Needless difficulties can be avoided, and one’s life will be far more pleasant as a result. I humbly believe I have come to understand what Jesus meant, and that is what I seek to set forth here. Continue reading 1. About this book
2. Meditation
THE WAY OF PEACE
| ← 1. About this book | Home | 3. Application → |
Meditation is not the whole of the Way, any more than flour is the whole of cookies. If you want cookies, you must also have butter, sugar, and perhaps eggs, in addition to flour. Flour is essential, however. Likewise as to the Way, meditation is so essential, as to move me to say this: if you have any interest in learning the Way, and do not now have a discipline of meditation, you should start one now — right now — before even reading the rest of this book. Continue reading 2. Meditation
3. Application
THE WAY OF PEACE
| ← 2. Meditation | Home | 4. Serotonin and the individual → |
We are considering the human being as having, so to speak, three intimately interconnected “bodies:” (a) a material, physical body of flesh, that engages in behavior and acts on other material objects; (b) a body that thinks, is composed of and acts on ideas (ideation), which we may call the “mind;” and (c) a body of emotions, or feelings or “affects” (all the same thing), which we may call the “soul”.
Our thesis is that a single set of disciplines, involving all three “bodies,” can yield a state of being I have called “peace of mind,” which is tantamount to what Jesus called “the Kingdom;” and, in short, maximize one’s opportunities for tranquility and happiness in life. Continue reading 3. Application
4. Serotonin and the individual
THE WAY OF PEACE
| ← 3. Application | Home | 5. Serotonin and society→ |
Living as Jesus taught actually changes your physical body, in desirable ways.
I will focus just now on body chemistry, and specifically one chemical, serotonin. Dozens of chemicals are probably involved, and I don’t mean to exaggerate the importance of just one. However, it happens that, on the one hand, serotonin plays a major role in the challenges I have personally faced in my life; and on the other hand, it has profound ramifications for how well anyone does in life. Continue reading 4. Serotonin and the individual
5. Serotonin and society
THE WAY OF PEACE
| ← 4. Serotonin and the individual | Home | 6. Sales pitch → |
The serotonin levels of the members of a community profoundly affect the degree of harmony and prosperity (shalom) in that community. Continue reading 5. Serotonin and society
6. Sales pitch
THE WAY OF PEACE
| ← 5. Serotonin and society | Home | 7. Mooring oneself in What Is→ |
Friday, November 3, 2017
This message is principally addressed to me, myself. After a couple weeks of doing pretty well at The Way of Peace, I’ve come again to a juncture where I seem to have tired of being happy, and am inclined to let go of this Way and return to, frankly, the way most people live.
Related: Learning curve
I may need to reason with myself, to persuade myself that self-management (1) is really worth the effort and (2) deserves to be a “First Thing” — a concern to be given priority, and to be held more important than other concerns. Continue reading 6. Sales pitch
7. Mooring oneself in What Is
THE WAY OF PEACE
| ← 6. Sales pitch | Home | 8. Heart and soul → |
Hold to God’s unchanging hand.
When not at sea, a boat is normally tied, or moored, to a dock. The waves rise and fall, the winds blow this way and that, but the boat is stable and secured because it is moored.
The storms of life buffet us this way and that, and one can lose oneself in the chaos and confusion. Managing, coping, requires that one have some mooring somewhere. Some folk moor themselves in a concept, a dogma, such as Biblical inerrancy or the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. Others moor themselves in the dogmas of an ideology, such as Progressivism or identity politics; or a cause, such as environmentalism; or even a romance (a particularly bad choice). I propose instead mooring oneself merely in What Is.
Everything else is subject to change or question or dispute. There is no disputing What Is. And the underlying principles, the principles that underlie existence itself, never change. Continue reading 7. Mooring oneself in What Is
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