Matt had a wonderful post on Laughter as Spiritual Practice - yesterday my friend Steve pointed out that the Sufis are very big on that too.  I just discovered that a fa vourite quote  is actually from a larger piece by the sufi poet Hafiz.  Enjoy :)

The quote:

What is this precious love and laughter
Budding in our hearts?
It is the glorious sound
Of a soul waking up!

The poem, found here:

~ Ramana Maharshi

By almost all definitions, I am an environmentalist. I am vegan, I recycle, I don't drive, I rarely fly, I won't reproduce, I take my own dishes for take out - you know the story. Yet there is one thing I have noticed that I don't share with many other environmentalists - a fairly strict definition between what is natural and what is not, and then a bias in favour of things deemed "natural". For example, some environmentalists (and animal rights activists) are aghast at the prospects of "vat-grown meat" as being unnatural and 'against' 'nature'. But it's coming, perhaps in the the next decade. In fact, there is an interesting group working hard to develop this right now:

 New Harvest is a nonprofit research organization working to develop new meat substitutes, including cultured meat — meat produced in vitro, in a cell culture, rather than from an animal.

 Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less polluting, and more humane than conventional meat.

For the reasons stated in that last sentence, I've always supported the concept of this not so science-fictiony-anymore-idea. There might be some GMO concerns, but for me the risks will likely be handled and ultimately pale in comparison to the potential relief of suffering to non-human animals. Vat Grown meat is quite honestly the greatest hope for animal rights activists over the next 20 years! If it becomes affordable, better for the environment and just as healthy and tasty, the average consumer might be disgusted at first but like so many things will come to see as the norm in a matter of a decade or less. As real meat consumption goes down, so will the need to defend this part or our society, of our ego. In it's place will come more empathy and compassion, for all animals.

Is it unnatural? Yes and no and neither. Yes, in the traditional sense of natural being of non-human origin or non-technological (something like that) - but who cares? How is that morally relavent? It's something to be considered, of course, but it's no trump against anything. This is about compassion.  And no it's not unnatural , because everything is 'natural' depending on your point of view. Is talking natural? Is wearing clothes? Drinking milk? Making music? Using an Ipod? Where do you draw the line? That leads to the next - it's neither. The natural/unnatural distinction is another duality that has no essence in itself but we mistake as something with inherant meaning, become identified with, and thus need to defend (both the distinction itself and the the 'good' half of that ...).


Incidently, there was a discussion/debate I participated in on this some months back in a vegan forum where common concerns are raised against vat grown meat.  Check it out if you are interested.

Ryan

Last night we released a new feature on Zaadz - the beginnings of our Subscriptions & Feeds tools, for monitoring new content on Zaadz. This is accessable under the Home tab of your home page, to the right of the "Profile" link.

With Subscriptions, you can set up your account to have notification of new comments on your blog, photos and goals emailed to you as they happen or daily.    You can do the same for blogs, photos and goals  that you have commented on previously.   You can also subscribe to an RSS feed, and see view all these comments together on one page. 

This is just the beginning, of course! We'll add subscriptions and feeds for virtually all our content, not just comments.  Want to be notified of all new blog posts tagged 'integral'?  It will happen! What to be notified all new users who include the matrix as a favourite movie and are vegan?  It will happen!  Want to be notified of all things related to yoga in your city?  It will happen! 

Speaking of tags, keep watch of Aaron's blog for his Tagging Madness project!

If anyone has any thoughts or requests on this, let me know! I am here to serve!

Namaste!
Ryan

Via RobotWisdon (thanks Jerome for that reference) I found my way to  Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music.  If you are at all curious, it's worth the click - and the listen. 

I recently came came across a super-secret early version of the Matrix script!  Here is  a bit from scene 45 an 46

Neo: In this version, Neo is a  newly awakened  Zaadzster

Neo : Zaadz?
Tank: If the war was over tomorrow, Zaadz is where the party would be.
Neo: It's a seed?
Tank: The last human hope. The only place we have left.
Neo: Where is it?
Tank: Deep undernerth, near the spirit's core where it's still warm. Live long enough you might even realize it. God-damn, I...I got to tell you, I'm fairly excited to see what you're capable of, if Brian is right and all...I'm not supposed to talk about this, but if you are...a very exciting time. We got a lot to do. We got to get to it.... Now, we're supposed to start with these operation programs first, that's a major boring shit. Let's do something more fun. How about integral training.
Neo: Arete? I'm going to learn Arete?... Holy shit.

INT.  Neo is plugged  in...

Tank: Hey Mikey, I think he likes it. How about some more?
Neo: Hell yes. Hell yeah.

Wow.  Now it all makes sense!  Except I don't think they did the Architect justice...