Gaia Community: Cain's Blog

Hello My Name Is...

http://Cain.gaia.com — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:35:18 GMT

One of my oldest friends recently reminded about the reactions people have to my name... Cain... Using a sprial dynamics vMeme model here are some of the reactions I usually get:

Red: Cool!!! way to stick it to the man!!!

Blue: <Horrified> How could anyone ever name you Cain!?!?

Orange: Um... does that help you be more successful?

Green: Well... that is YOUR truth...

Yellow/Turquoise: <Acceptance> / How does it serve the greater good?

I guess it was still on my mind this morning when I went to meditate, because I had something like this come up:

Cain doesen't let you hide from the scorn/derision some people like to display... Since that is one of the things try to avoid the most, it becomes your job to OWN it fully and see that opinions cannot really "damage" you. It says more about where the person is "at" developmentally than anything, BUT it is not an invitation to feel superior... you are the lowest of the low, as well as the highest of the high, there is no room for pride. You are given a great gift in being able to see a glimpse of someone's "altitude" just by their reaction to your name, so how will you use that knowledge to help them suffer less?

Tags: cain, spiral dynamics, psychology, identity, meme, vmeme

My Pandora Stations,,,

http://Cain.gaia.com — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:31:32 GMT

Tags: Pandora, Radio, Ambient, Beck Massive Attack, The Church

Electro House Uprising DJ Set!!!

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 06:15:39 GMT

I submitted this set of electro house for plurlife radio (www.plurlife.com)

http://www.xstreamist.com/members/4763/audio.php

electrosmallbu2

Tags: dj, electro, house, cain, salt lake city, radio

In Financial Food Chains, Little Guys Can’t Win

http://Cain.gaia.com — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:59:07 GMT

Link:

In Financial Food Chains, Little Guys Can’t Win

Very good Article in the New York Times by Ben Stein

Tags: Financial crysis, ben stein, new york times

1st Presidential Debate 2008

http://Cain.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 07:15:43 GMT

Well, I was reading a bunch of post debate articles and blogs and thinking about the "financial crisis" today...

In that vein there's areally good NYT article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/business/28melt.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Looks like AIG "couldn't fail" because It would have taken Goldman Sachs with it... It raises the question, was Henry Paulson playing favorites? It's Ok for Lehman Brothers go down, but not his "Alma Matter"? And is seems to me there were much better ways of salvaging AIG, Its acknowledged in the article the majority of its Insurance business was sound, the meltdown happened in a Small sub-unit in London... Did we REALLY have to spend $85 billion? I don't think so... It could easily have been carved up and the "performing assets" sold off... But that would'nt have helped Goldman Sachs... who helped engineer the London Unit derivatives... Hmmm....

Also I was looking to stir up a little "conversation" on a Republican blog by asking why It's OK to bail out the financial markets eg socializing them... But If we try to fix health-care by possibly socializing some aspects of it (check out http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11380) , most Republicans act as if that is EVIIILLL incarnate.

Anyway I never found a good forum to post my question in, but google did turn this up as the #8 site for the search "Republican blog" ...

http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/

I don't know about you but it gives me the "heebie jeebies" I think more of the "undecided" swing voters should "swing" by the site... I think it may "swing their vote" away from any "republican"... maybe not, but I would hope so.

Tags: debate, 2008, republican, democrat, obama, mccain, financial crisis, presidential debate, aig, henry paulson

My comment for the Political Season

http://Cain.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 06:09:56 GMT

I'll leave the writing to someone more eloquent then myself:

A LETTER TO AMERICA: YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS
http://thematrixforeal.blogspot.com/

Tags: politics, 2008, president, AMERICA, obama, mccain, palin, biden

The problems with Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret"

http://Cain.gaia.com — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:47:01 GMT

A discussion between
Ken Wilber and Julian Walker
Full audio at Integral Naked
Exploring “The Secret.” Part 1. The Tricky Business of Creating Your Own Reality.
• As with any “you create your own reality” schema, The Secret fails what can be called “the Auschwitz test.” According to The Secret, everyone who was murdered at Auschwitz—or Rwanda, or Darfur—created that reality for themselves, and therefore they are to blame for their fate. For obvious reasons, this position is an unconscionable as it is untenable.

• By teaching that the world quite literally revolves around you, The Secret encourages and entrenches narcissism. In developmental psychology, narcissism doesn’t mean an unhealthy obsession with thinking only about yourself, it means you can’t think about yourself. The capacity for self-reflexive awareness just isn’t there. The entire world and everyone in it is simply an extension of your-self, and you are literally unable to take the perspective of another human being. This is not mystical union; this is pre-rational fusion, and without the ability to take the perspectives of other sentient beings, the entire foundation for ethics evaporates.

• Actually, you are creating the universe moment-to-moment, but it’s not the “you” that you think. According to the great contemplative traditions, every person has at least two “selves”: the finite, temporal, egoic self-sense, and the infinite, transcendental, unqualifiable Self, or I-AMness. Your Self, your I-AMness, is indeed giving rise to the entire radiant Kosmos in this and every moment, but The Secret teaches that your separate self has the power to personally manifest a new car, win the lottery, or cure cancer… and this simply isn’t how things work.

• “The Law of Attraction” is true—as far as it goes. The problem is that The Secret takes this one relatively small piece of the puzzle and makes it the entire puzzle. A positive outlook will change your life and your intentions will co-create your reality, but so will brain chemistry, interior level of development, family relationships, natural disasters, cultural trends, language structure, environmental toxins, and, basically, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

• Developmentally, if one uses a scale ranging from archaic to magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral to super-integral, The Secret teaches the magical thought structures that were humanity’s leading edge several hundred thousand years ago. As Ken explains, The Secret encourages childlike “primary process thinking,” which can be in the form of “the law of attraction” (e.g., if one black thing is bad, then all black things are bad) and “the law of contagion” (e.g., if this particular man was powerful, then a lock of his hair must be powerful too).

• The importance of understanding how unconscious psychological shadow elements color and affect one’s experience, and how The Secret can agitate, alienate, repress, or—perhaps even more worrisome—act on these disowned elements of consciousness.

• The genesis of the pre/trans or pre/post fallacy, and how The Secret is a perfect example of elevating pre-rational childish impulses to trans-rational spiritual glory. Simply because both categories of experience are non-rational, they can easily be confused, and often are.

Tags: Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, Ken Wilber, Julian Walker, Integral, Law of Attraction, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Larry King

Integral Christianity

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:35:03 GMT

While I personally stepped away from Christianity many years ago, One of my freinds was asking about an Integral approach to Christianity. I came up with this site as a good resource for an Integral Christianity:

http://www.spiritual-self.com/index.html

Tags: integral philosophy, ken wilber, christianity, spiritual

Your Only Wealth

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:11:54 GMT

Your Only Wealth

Remember, only that which you can take with you when you leave the body is important. That means, except meditation, nothing is important. Except awareness, nothing is important, because only awareness cannot be taken away by death. Everything else will be snatched away, because everything else comes from without.

Only awareness wells up within. That cannot be taken away. And the shadows of awareness - compassion, love - they cannot be taken away. They are intrinsic parts of awareness. You will be taking with you only whatsoever awareness you have attained. That is your only real wealth.

-Osho

Tags: meditation, awareness, osho, wealth, life, death

The Great Way

http://Cain.gaia.com — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 17:47:55 GMT

The Great Way

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinion for or against.
The struggle between what one likes
and what one dislikes
is the disease of the mind.

Sosan

Tags: the great way, sosan, zen

www.MasteringThePowerOfNow.com

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:18:38 GMT

My Favorite exerpt, so far, from Bill Harris's www.MasteringThePowerOfNow.com (free) online Course:

Bill Harris: Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Yes.
Genpo Roshi: I heard her back in the 70s speak and I loved
hearing her and she said something that was so helpful
to me. I was still very young at that time. She said, and
she had been at Auschwitz and she had witnessed this,
she said, “Unless we can recognize and own the fact that
within every one of us there is one who is capable, has
the potential, doesn’t manifest it, but has the potential,
given certain situations, given a certain circumstance,
has the potential to take food out of a starving babies
mouth.” She said, “I witnessed that from good people,
decent people, loving people. They got so desperate
and they were in such dire straits that they did that.”
And she said, “We will never be enlightened unless we
realize and own what our capacity, the whole range of
our capacity is, from the best of the best to the worst of
the worst because then we have more empathy, more
compassion, more sympathy for others who do things
that are hurtful and harmful and we see, given certain
situations, I’m capable of that myself. So, I’m less
judgmental.”

Now, it doesn’t mean we act on it. It doesn’t mean that
we go out there and take food out of a starving baby’s
mouth or we’re a rapist or a killer. It means that we
recognize that every aspect is within me and so if I can
not find a certain voice, it doesn’t mean it is not there,
it means it is disowned or it has gone into the shadows
and I’ll give you an example of some universally
disowned voices that we all basically disown, like one
is the narcissist. We all disown that voice. I’m not
narcissistic and on the immature level, I am totally
narcissistic. On the most immature and unhealthy
level, it is all about me. You know? It’s I love myself and
I don’t love you. I’m not concerned with you. I’m not
interested in you. It is all about me. You had enough
time talking here. I want to talk. I want to be the main
focus. It is all about me, but as we move into that voice
and we own that voice and we say, “Alright. I am the
narcissist.” Okay, what about as a mature narcissist.
Alright, I’m the mature narcissist and all of a sudden
what comes up is I not only love myself, but I love all
beings. I love all people. I love all animals. I love all
creations. I love this great Earth. I love this universe.
I love everyone and it’s because I can love myself. So
all of a sudden we find out that the narcissist holds the
key to spiritual or evolutionary growth, consciousness,
because first we have to love ourself before we can love
others.

Tags: Bill Harris, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, Genpo Roshi, Eckhart Tolle, Power of Now

Philosophers to explore...

http://Cain.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:17:51 GMT

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Tags: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Philosophers, Ken Wilber

The Nietzsche Family Circus

http://Cain.gaia.com — Mon, 28 May 2007 03:57:00 GMT

http://www.losanjealous.com/nfc/

Tags: Nietzsche, Family Circus

Steps to Your Highest Goal

http://Cain.gaia.com — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:13:32 GMT

Full Article with Michael Ray Here: http://www.whatsyourmotto.com/Articles/michaelray.aspx

Tags: Your Highest Goal, Michael Ray

I am that I am

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 06:36:02 GMT

Anyone wanna hire a meditation teacher / Spiritual Counselor?

How 'bout an dance music producer /DJ?

Really those are the only things I have any intrest in...

My marketing /Sales Lines of development really are not well enough developed for me to "break out" on my own...

And really I have NO intrest in devloping them...

I am that I am...

Tags:

'The Ultimate Experiment'-Ken Wilber's intro

http://Cain.gaia.com — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 05:06:48 GMT

Ken sets the stage for ISC 2 by framing the focus of the weekend as an exploration of what it means to honor both Absolute Spirit and your own unique expression of divinity. And then, as Ken states, comes the hard part, taking this authentic honoring out into a world that doesn’t take it seriously.

Ken as usual illuminates several spiritual "issues"... HIGHLY, Recommended...

CLICK HERE for VIDEO

Tags: Ken Wilber, integral spirituality, divinity, authenticity, the relation of the Absolute to the Relative, the Ultimate Experiment, the unique self, the ego, the role of religion in todayâ€™s world, contemplative/transrational/authentic spirituality, exoteric/mythic-literal/fundamentalist religion

"Spiritual" BS...

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 19:09:11 GMT

My Friend Arhata sent this to me yesterday: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with his hair fashionably combed and shaved perfectly, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready. As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window. "I love it," he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy. "Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait." "That doesn' t have anything to do with it," he replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged ... it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. "It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away. Just for this time in my life. Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in. So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in t he bank account of memories! Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank. I am still depositing." Remember the five simple rules to be happy: 1. Free your heart from hatred. 2. Free your mind from worries. 3. Live simply. 4. Give more. 5. Expect less. Pass this message to 7 people except me. You will receive a miracle tomorrow. Now, STOP! Did you hear what I just said. You WILL receive a miracle tomorrow. So send it right now! Have a nice day, unless you already have other plans. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And now My commentary: La,La,La... this is sooooooooo nice and I appreciate it, on several levels, but mainly because it make me want to PUKE! What?! you may say what "problem" could I possibly have with this... I'll tell you... Platitudes like this are nice... but REALLY you're going to read this... get a nice "warm and fuzzy"... fall asleep tonight... and forget all about it by the time you're alarm goes off in the morning... What's wrong with that!? you may ask... Nothing per say is wrong with this story.... it's true as far as it goes.... BUT most people (including YOU) think if they sympathize with enough sweet stories that they are making some sort of spiritual progress... In case you don't know YOU AREN'T... In ALL my experience people are only ready to begin to THINK about changing their lives, because something BAD has happened to them, some injustice, relationship break-up, death, some sort of suffering that they need to overcome... Then, and only then, are people "ripe" to maybe... MAYBE... make some changes inside themselves that may someday lead them to appoaching living their lives like this... But... No one is going to follow these five steps with any sort of consistency. I 100% guarantee it... It's like going on a diet.. you may do it for some short period, but what really needs to happen is you need to change your ENTIRE LIFE... Pain and anger is needed to drive 99.999999% of people to find a "better way to live"... Then, they may be ready to start on the very long and very hard path of transformation, and personal growth... And of course most people will fall off "the path".... but to approach anything like what is outlined above... It's going to be a lot of blood, sweat, and tears... NOT 5 easy steps outlined in a sweet little story....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Tags: spirituality, bs, levels, lines, development, platitudes, spiritual practice

Stylus DJ Mix Contest - Cain's Entry

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 20:16:43 GMT

Here's my entry for the Stylus DJ Mix Contest...
Grand Prize - Airfare to Miami Hotel & A DJ Slot at the Winter Music Conference
Click Below:

Tags: stylus dj mix contest, Winter Music Conference, house music, dance, deep dish, mike rules, danzel, sharam, vanessa mitchell, delerium, leigh nash

Next up - Integral Spirituality in 5 easy peices & a revision...

http://Cain.gaia.com — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 01:10:32 GMT

Of the Integral Buddhism Overview...
I'm working on my " Quick Overview" of Integral Spirituality, and a clearer overview of Integral Buddhism...
"Coming soon" to this blog near you... "Stay Tuned"

Tags: Integral Spirituality, ken wilber, cain macwitish

Treemo - Brent's Response... Thanks Brent...

http://Cain.gaia.com — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 20:25:33 GMT

Cain

Appreciate the candor and where you're coming from..

First off, I wasn't suggesting you sell your music, but that putting it in a 30 second format and as a ringtone would get your music out to more people. As an artist, I thought that that was the ultimate goal - to have more people enjoy your music.

We could get into a debate about expression vs pro social imagery, but we're just going to a more PG site. I'm not too upset about it as this will only enforce us as putting out pro social imagery and not sex based.

There is only one image that I think was questionable and everything else is seemed to be okay. Since you have been an early user and we appreciate you, we just wanted to give you the heads up.

Btw, you still in Seattle or down in California?

We should meet up at some point

Peace,

- Brent

Tags: Treemo, cain macwitish, censorship, art, music, *cain*, brent

Gaia Community: Cain's Blog

Hello My Name Is...

My Pandora Stations,,,

Electro House Uprising DJ Set!!!

I submitted this set of electro house for plurlife radio (www.plurlife.com)

http://www.xstreamist.com/members/4763/audio.php

In Financial Food Chains, Little Guys Can’t Win

Link:

In Financial Food Chains, Little Guys Can’t Win

Very good Article in the New York Times by Ben Stein

1st Presidential Debate 2008

My comment for the Political Season

I'll leave the writing to someone more eloquent then myself: A LETTER TO AMERICA: YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUShttp://thematrixforeal.blogspot.com/

The problems with Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret"

Integral Christianity

Your Only Wealth

Your Only Wealth

The Great Way

The Great Way

www.MasteringThePowerOfNow.com

Philosophers to explore...

The Nietzsche Family Circus

Steps to Your Highest Goal

I am that I am

'The Ultimate Experiment'-Ken Wilber's intro

"Spiritual" BS...

Stylus DJ Mix Contest - *Cain*'s Entry

Next up - Integral Spirituality in 5 easy peices & a revision...

Of the Integral Buddhism Overview... I'm working on my " Quick Overview" of Integral Spirituality, and a clearer overview of Integral Buddhism... "Coming soon" to this blog near you... "Stay Tuned"

Treemo - Brent's Response... Thanks Brent...

I'll leave the writing to someone more eloquent then myself:

A LETTER TO AMERICA: YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS
http://thematrixforeal.blogspot.com/

Stylus DJ Mix Contest - Cain's Entry

Of the Integral Buddhism Overview...
I'm working on my " Quick Overview" of Integral Spirituality, and a clearer overview of Integral Buddhism...
"Coming soon" to this blog near you... "Stay Tuned"