Cosmic Citizenship

April 21 Update

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

I’m returning here after another hiatus but if you have been following me on Facebook and Twitter you can see what we’ve been up to: fighting to end poverty, racism, and war, while promoting the advancement of sexual freedom, a state of being someday where each person is autonomous and mutually respected, having shed our backwards, primitive attitudes.

The book is finally ready for e-book publishing this summer. Long ago, Dan Massey and I uncovered the cosmic connection to love energy, something we have researched and benefited from ever since. This energy is so closely quartered within individuals that they often have trouble understanding its source and how to yield it creatively. This world-changing power has been and always will be at hand but it has been almost entirely masked by religious hierarchies and cults and the fundamentalists who fear it.

by Alice Popkorn Flickr/creative commons

by Alice Popkorn
Flickr/creative commons

The goal of the journey of discovery we embarked on became explaining this immense human power, this love energy, in a more accessible way by demonstrating scientifically the mechanics of how we are connected to the vast array cosmic technologies, personalities, and administrators; what that knowledge means to change ourselves and our world; and, why it has so much to do with human love, affection, sexuality, and gender.

Love energy is something so large in all of creation that we submit it is singularly worthy of worship. It is real. It is not ideological or necessarily religious. We are not starting yet a new religion, but outlining a format for a non-religion, what we call a trans-religion, something that comes after religion once it’s no longer a valuable or viable building block of civilization.

Enjoy our archive of ideas, and check this space almost every day for something new on all fronts of social, economic, and ecological justice and the tools we need to build our better future.

As always, comments and feedback are welcome: columbia@venusplusx.org.

 

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Reproductive Sex Gets More Abnormal Every Day

Editor’s Note: Periodically we have fun delving into our archives to bring you still relevant items. This one was written in 2011 by our co-founder Dan Massey that puts reproductive sex in its place. Comments welcome, as always.

Last Wednesday night (8/3) we hosted a meet-the-author event for the launch of Gloria Brame’s new book, The Truth About Sex: Volume 1. More than 30 fans of kink and more showed up, many from the Alternative Sexualities conference the same day in DC. There was a lot of Q&A and raunchy banter leading to some observations of how “non-reproductive sex” had come to be widely accepted in the last 50 years as an important part of the total sexual experience.

Adam and Eve

When confronted by an assumption that does not seem warranted, I try reversing my perspective, looking through the opposite end of the telescope so to speak, and often find my altered viewpoint enlightening. In this case, I felt the discussion was overburdened with the millennially long uphill climb of humanity from the pit of obligatory reproduction. No sooner did we figure out what caused children than all the usual scolds came out of the woodwork to try to force us to do it anyway, even when we didn’t want to.

So I spoke up to say that I thought, when you considered all the possible varieties of sex, orientation, affinity, gender identity, and gender orientation, the so-called “normal” (i.e., cisnormative heteronormative) reproductive sex act becomes a mere footnote to this multidimensional space in which we can all freely express our joy in life.

By now it should be clear that reproductive sex (without any form of intentional fertilization control) is something to be avoided unless one is fully prepared to deal with the consequences, namely the birth of a child, with sufficient preparation and capability to safely oversee eir formative life period. No child should ever be born into a situation where they are not desired and respected as the highest good to their parents. No potentially fertile couple should ever consider (or even be allowed to consider) reproduction without having attained some maturity that qualifies them to raise and educate a child.

In short, there is nothing more unusual, abnormal, and potentially self-destructive in the entire domain of sexuality and eroticism than the actual act of breeding. How could anyone possibly have thought masturbation was dangerous relative to actual reproduction? Was nobody paying attention to anything real at all? Even if masturbation really did grow hair on your palms, wouldn’t that be obviously preferable to creating an unwanted child, a child that would suffer endless personal abuse and humiliation until one day he might take vengeance on his tormentors?

Sex is about joy, pleasure, happiness, and personal sanity. Breeding is not about any of these. It is a unique and different aspect of life that, while extremely important to many people, is just one tiny and extremely dangerous corner of the universe of sex. Reproduction is an act in and of itself, which has nothing to do with erotic sex, except for the physical association in the wiring of human body. But the wires that give joy and delight actually don’t have much to do with operating the plumbing that makes babies. For the beast, the erotic senses drive behavior towards reproductive sex; however, for observant and rational humans, they actually have nothing to do with reproduction.

We are not animals. We are human, even transhuman beings, able to orient ourselves in the world, to observe the events and activities of our environment, to decide on the most appropriate next action to take ourselves, and to take such condign action in a timely way. And when we thus become fully, rationally conscious of what is really happening and our role from moment to moment in making things happen, it is easy to see the optimal choice—to finally dispose of the delusion of reproduction as the whole of sex and raise our eyes to the vast opening sky of possibilities.

Planetary society is entering a new and fabulous age of sex and gender freedom, when the range and domain of such experience and exploration is no longer defined by the mechanics of reproduction. At last the challenges of uncontrolled reproduction can be addressed, as all are educated to a life of sexual experience beyond simple interhuman bestiality. The making of babies is separate and secondary to the desires and actions of the lover to do good to the beloved. Fulfill your lovers in every way from the sensory to the transcendent, according to each individual’s sensitivities, and put reproductive sex in its place.

—Dan Massey

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

How to Make Your Wishes Come True

One of 140 sex-themed sculptures at Loveland Park in Jeju, South Korea Photo by Cecil Lee Flickr/creative commons

One of 140 sex-themed sculptures at Loveland Park in Jeju, South Korea
Photo by Cecil Lee
Flickr/creative commons

Editor’s Note: From time to time current discussions about sexual freedom prompt the reprinting of some of our earlier posts. This one from March 2011 is all about how orgasm translates to more effective living. Comments welcome, as always. [Media added.]

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Remember starting puberty, discovering your groin’s “sweet spot” which when stimulated becomes increasingly sensitive and increasingly generates feelings of goodness and happiness and total well being that grow and grow until, suddenly, they burst forth in an outpouring of oneness with the universe, an uninterruptible pleasure that no earthly restraint can ever hope to supersede, a fresh feeling each time that sweeps away all fears and puts us in direct contact true joy?

The experience of orgasm is intense and deeply engaged in the circuits of love in the human body and mind. Orgasm encourages our natural, heartfelt desires to become an active force in the universe. The feelings of well being, love, and connectedness expressed in the moment of orgasm are our first inklings that the power of orgasm extends further into all aspects of our will’s choosing. Orgasm’s power assures us, constantly reminds us, that our desires, not just sexual desires but all desire for truth, goodness, beauty, and love, can be made real in time and space. More than any other earthly experience, the orgasm humanizes the innate hunger for sexual freedom. As such, sexual freedom becomes the bedrock of all other freedoms.

Of course, no power of the human mind can directly change material reality. Wishing to find gold or win the lottery while jerking off is not a productive use of either your time or your orgasm. And yet you somehow feel the essential truth that what you most ardently desire at such a moment cannot possibly be denied you. And that is practically true.

Understand that any change that occurs will necessarily be an adjustment of your own perspective, response, or evaluation of situations that enable  you to find the most adaptive response, given the limits of physical reality. Your intuitive understanding of your place and role to do good and make beauty in each life situation is limitless. And through such insight, you come into contact with others who resonate with this same version of  life’s ultimate purpose.

Such personal transformation is available through the power of heightened desire. You may not get what you think you want, but you will most certainly get what you really need. Our task is to relax our selfish desires and become open to the increased awareness of Love and application of Truth that stand ready to flood your being with the power to do Good to others and make more and more harmonious associations.

That in a nutshell unlocks to secrets and true reality of sex magic and sacred sexuality. These are the experiences that empower our desires to become perfect avatars of Love and Truth. Anyone who sets foot on this path will surely find their true heart’s desire and learn to employ the direction of their true will to change their world and, hopefully, benefit all humanity.

These remarks complement the second half of my paper, “The New Age of Erotic Freedom–Part 2 of 2“.

Dan Massey

 

Transreligion for Athiests and Non-Athiests Alike

Religious myth has only degraded and inhibited human progress. Essentially all contemporary religions are myth based. Christianity fails the test of worth when it relies on Hebrew racial myth (the old testament) and Greek philosophical myth (the concept of the Christos and related ideas) as absolute truths. We know that nothing that draws on such ancient Sci-Fi can be either true, good, or beautiful, except by accident, and thus stands forever opposed to the power of love in the world.

There are, fortunately, many people (now and in the past 2000 years) who love others, serve others, do good to others, and make our world more beautiful by their efforts. Some of these people call themselves Christians or Jews or Muslims or Atheists or something else, which is their choice, but their lives have taken inspiration from the universal powers of love and truth in the human mind, not from religious myth or dogma.

Eddi van W Flickr/creative commons

Eddi van W
Flickr/creative commons

Transhumanists continue to debate the appropriateness of any kind of religious faith or behavior as a component of Transhuman life. My own post-transition perspective illuminates many ethical and moral concerns of the Transhumanists. Foremost, if we are to foster the emergence of a genuine Transhuman philosophy of life, we need to create an inspirational framework that justifies and motivates rational behavior. We should evaluate candidate inspirational frameworks according to their individual ability to satisfy essential requirements that must be met by any proposed framework.

In my view, a satisfactory transhuman rationally religious world view ought to address five basic requirements that bridge the gaps of sex and gender and merge the physical, psychic, and inspirational elements of joy into a total personal and socially transforming experience of reality. At the same time, we recognize that a genuinely operational inspirational framework, a true transreligion, can only emerge from the collective unification of individual joyful experience. This list is just a starting point for further thought and discussion.

1) Assure complete freedom from reliance on any myth or backstory. Our beliefs are based on plain observational knowledge and insights of personal wisdom.

2) Demonstrate open and informed attitudes, viewpoints, and experiential training for all of the many dimensions of sex and gender.

3) Practice group communion for collective psychic inspiration and empowerment, through the exploration and experience of sex and gender as acts of communion.

4) Fellowship every transhuman living on this planet. Empower them to know the joy of living, showing how love finds expression in true service to others by doing good and making beauty.

5) Be open to alliance with any cosmic government that may make its presence or influence felt in human affairs, with a willingness to facilitate transhuman emergence. In the meantime dedicate your life to the highest principles of love, truth, goodness, and beauty.

To summarize, we help one another by starting with baldfaced mythless truth and showing each other the joy that is really important and gives meaning to life. A universal acknowledgment of the possibility that some external force will intervene keeps us mutually focused on progression towards our ideals of truth and love, regardless of what the future brings. And our intent to combine free and open acceptance of all forms of sex and gender expression with equally free and open communion, joy, and fellowship guarantees our ability to lead the destined evolution of human affairs.

Transhumans may find something like this just fine as the basis for a way of life and be finally able to leave the god talk to the past. But a religion, the social expression of a community of individuals who share common ideals, is not designed, so much as grown through the social customs of the community. Setting aside old, incorrect beliefs, the inherent truth of principles like these will emerge and cause focused will actions. Through trial and error, the community will gradually discover convenient and innovative ways of serving these principles to more and more people. And that will be the emergence of true Transreligion.

Now is the time for a new inspirational framework to replace the outdated and overly interpreted ideas of our pastfathers. I do not know what will emerge, but I trust that it will necessarily be true to ideals and principles such as those stated here.

Editor’s note: This was published a few years ago to offer a framework for a new non-religion incorporating the ideas of sex and gender freedom. It is re-issued today to help spur the coming together of many diverse points-0f-view who are striving for a humane world unified with shared ideals. 

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

Another for Independence Day: Sexual Freedom is the Bedrock of All Freedoms

Another special for Independence Day 2014, we are representing one of our key issue posts that explains why sexual freedom is the underpinning of all of other freedoms. Please let us know what you think, and for more see A Manifesto for A New Age of Sexual Freedom and Transhuman Erotic Freedom.

Why Sexual Freedom is the Bedrock of All Freedoms was originally published on July 17, 2011.

(También en Español)

Flickr/creative commons

Flickr/creative commons

Our sexual pleasure response is completely individual. When we feel it, those precious moments, we experience unbridled exhilaration that is at the same time indescribable by mere words, even in great art or poetry.

There is only one way to replicate this experience of unrestrained freedom and that is to recreate — re-create increasing favorable circumstances to plug in at a healthy pace. Although sexual pleasure exists by definition in a time and space all one’s own an imperative to share it and enhance it with others is built in. Studies have demonstrated over and over again the irrefutable benefits to mental health, prosperity, and longevity of a life regularly punctuated with the desired number and rate of pleasurable encounters. This inviting pressure brings people into relationship, the midwife of personal growth.

These cumulative states of sexual pleasure, those knowings of  at-one-ment in the universe, can be mutually acknowledged as both a singular experience and the bodily guarantee of true pluralism. It is the one authentic human experience that virtually all other humans agree exists, and no other experience comes close to this criteria. Pluralism leads inevitably to democracy and the extension to more and more people their birthright to pursue sexual freedom and all other freedoms that emanate from this mutual acknowledgement of each other’s immutable bodily freedom in the form of sexual pleasure.

Our own sovereign portal to experience physical pleasure and love in infinitely inexhaustible manifestations makes possible a mutuality of individual autonomy that is expressed as true pluralism and the quest for universal equal rights for each person without qualification. Everyone shares that inner experience of freedom to the same extent everyone else does and is why civilizations progress in making all freedoms universally felt in society.

This inner experience of sexual pleasure is what joins together each and every person on earth, an organic unity all of us can recognize and agree is important, even a type of magic, that makes our world better day by day.

Party on.

On this Independence Day — Religion: Real and Fake

Stepping back in history for a moment to uncover the birth of religious freedom in this country, and how it was hampered by the Puritans, we are gladly representing a post we delivered a couple of years ago.

Religion: Real and Fake, originally published on July 20, 2012

Society suffers from a severe misunderstanding of the nature and role of religion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ongoing arguments about the “separation of church and state.” Blame the Puritans.

The basic idea in the U.S. Constitution is one of freedom FROM religion, expressed as “freedom of religion.” The tenets of any religion may not be imposed on its citizens who disagree. This concept is fundamental to the unalienable human right to absolute privacy of person, and pillar of sexual freedom and the bedrock of all other freedoms.

120px-Human_soul-1The pilgrims who came to Plymouth imagined that they could impose their concept of the divine will upon everyone who opposed them, that the free exercise of their religion meant forcing the world into compliance with their beliefs, a severe misdirection victimizing all sincere people. A few years later, Puritan fanaticism swept England herself into a great civil war. Such foolishness has characterized many fanatical conflicts throughout history, and can be seen today in the demands and schemes of theocratic groups worldwide, including today’s America.

A real religion is world religion. One could say there are as many religions in the world as there are people. Even atheists and agnostics objectify “god” and choose to exclude these hobbled, uninspired notions. World religion is superstition- and mythology-free and an immediately accessible and consistent guide to living in tune with the rhythms of cosmic destiny. This vitology—our urge to persist—gives each person a vision of immortality, an unending, improving, and harmonizing ecology of living.

Our faith is one of loving—desiring to do good to one another. This perpetual cycle of love shared is powered by all kinds of love, especially including the erotic, and it gives us a unified power for progress the world has yet to see. Our inherent and inherited capability for sexual pleasure and orgasm (erotic joy) is the living and loving communion that matures us individually to the service of Love and its destiny, and unites us as a team in shared fellowship—a loving siblinghood.

For more on Transhuman Erotic Freedom…

 

 

An Introduction to the Worship of Love

Photo by Jonathan Emmanuel Flickr/creative commons

Photo by Jonathan Emmanuel
Flickr/creative commons

Here is small clip* from A Course in Immortality, (en espanol, Un Curso En Inmortalidad), written as an Appendix for our upcoming book, The Unseen Journey (working title), about the erotic connection to cosmic technology. The Course’s complete table of contents can be found here. Tell us what you think either by commenting here or on Facebook/VenusPlusX or by private email (columbia@venusplusx.org).

The most direct, basic, physical manifestation of the reality of Love is experienced in erotic joy, in the intense experience of neurological orgasm, in which the stimulated sensorium explodes with joy as the individual consciousness briefly impinges on the reality of absolute Love.

And what should be our attitude towards this experience of momentary contact with maximum joy? Certainly not fear, though that is the reaction of far too many who have been told and/or come to believe that they are unworthy of pleasure.

What is the appropriate action of any person confronted with a vast goodness beyond any other human sensory experience? There can be only one answer.

Worship.

Worship erotic joy.

Worship the living experience of orgasm.

Worship the most basic sensory experience of Love.

Worship is the conscious act of surrendering one’s mind, one’s will, to the object of worship. Worship makes the worshiper more like that which is worshiped.

Worship of the orgasmic spirit of Love defeats barriers to interpersonal expression of Love through service. Worship opens the door of the mind to Truth, which directs our action.

Through erotic worship the human spirit is progressively attracted to higher levels of understanding, enjoyment, and service.

Those who would deny this first great step, this open and personal acceptance of a physical gift of Love, place a barrier between the human state and the progressive expression and experience of Love.

When worship of Love is only invoked in the abstract or in deep meditative states, extreme focus is required to experience enlightenment. By comparison, when the first step in the path of Love recognition and worship is taken in the erotic, growth of the consciousness to experience greater enlightenment is simplified and expedited for most people. All humanity knows erotic joy. The time has come for all humanity to acknowledge the supremacy of erotic joy and join in worship of this amazing, far too long ignored, gift of Love to humanity.

* All humanity knows erotic joy. If you are among the less than 10% of adults who have not yet experienced ecstatic orgasm, or for some reason you cannot, don’t feel left out! There are innumerable instances that are considered non-sexual experiences of erotic joy happening for you everyday. Maybe it’s your friend’s hand on your shoulder to comfort you when you needed it. Or that thrill that courses through your body during exercise or sports. Or how your pet makes you feel. Or when your child embraces you. Or that feeling of well being when you acknowledge the certainty that you are in the right place at the right time to turn a situation to the positive. Your internal love pathways are alive within you no matter what, so think of those as you read this.

Also see: Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual Freedom

Appendix available on-line for upcoming book

A Course in Immortality was written, and translated to Spanish (Un Curso En Inmortalidad), almost 2 years ago as preparation and background for our planned book on the erotic connection to cosmic technology. This course is an explicit, prescriptive guide to navigating the paths of individual and collective erotic destiny. When published, The Unseen Journey (working title) will have this series of papers (number 0.0 – 0.9) as its Appendix.

(Dan Massey and I cowrote A Course in Immortality, and just before Dan set out for higher shores unexpectedly in early 2013, we completed the first working draft of The Unseen Journey.)

by Alice Popkorn Flickr/creative commons

by Alice Popkorn
Flickr/creative commons

The gradually released excerpts from the upcoming book are meant to stimulate conversations and critiques with our formal editorial group, our informal network of sexual freedom advisors, here and abroad, and visitors to venusplusx.org. The Course in Immortality serves as background and a reference for this work. Around here, we crave criticism and feast on opportunities to revise our writings prior to formal publication. So . . . we hope to hear from more and more people over the coming months.

The first paper in the series serves as an introduction to our concepts within a framework that may be called, spiritual, by some; however, it is more about how anyone, believer and non-believer alike, can develop a personal consciousness of their true transhuman destiny.

Transhumanism is best described as a way of thinking about the world that nurtures creativity and progress, in your life and in the world around you. A transhuman, and you may already be one without knowing it, is anyone who can: (a) conceive of a better world ahead; and, (b) actualize these concepts in their everyday present. Everytime you think about a better world, you are experiencing the future. Pretty simple attitude but revolutionary at the same time. Try it for week and see what happens. Surprise yourself. It’s free.

In the upcoming book and elsewhere we refer to a Supreme Being, or The Supreme, not in the usual religious sense but as shorthand for the embodiment of cosmic LOVE. When we talk about worship it is in terms of happiness, pleasure, and the erotic, alone or in combination they are all aspects of erotic joy. Erotic senses built into each of us are activated (turned on) in both non-sexual and sexual experiences, from a friend’s hand on your shoulder that comforts you when you may have needed it to the experience of ecstatic orgasm, and everything in between. These are the aspects of cosmic technology, the delivery system for the power of LOVE, that are central to discovering your immortal destiny. The corporate religion industry offers to take control of your destiny while doing nothing for you or it, inserting itself as an entirely unneeded but nevertheless paid intermediary between you and whatever the cosmos actually holds for you. These are just contortions of your misguided cohorts and an another form of patriarchal enslavement.

Long ago, Dan and I set out to do nothing less than change the world by freeing humanity from the man-made constraints upon the fundamental freedoms we are born with. We focus on the coming New Age of Sexual Freedom because that signifies the end to racism and sexism throughout the world, eradicating this desperate, ultimate, and final bastion of those who would enslave us. Racism and sexism are at the root of all our world’s ills, everything from war to local policies and laws. The faster we wipe racism and sexism from the world the closer we come to that future better world.

In my recently released Manifesto for The New Age of Sexual FreedomI expand on this idea by unpacking the mechanics of human progress. Like transhumanism, there is nothing new about understanding the irresistible forward urge of progress, and practically all man-made religions (they are all man-made), secret cults, and philosophies, and movements, from Marxism to Feminism and Transhumanism, have attempted to talk about these mechanics. Progress has an observable ecology and when we work in harmony with it we are engaged in raising up cultures, communities, and civilizations, escorting them to a better future. There is even a formula for it, something I like to call the Peace Formula, that’s easy to remember: GET RID of everything that is old and coercive, useless, and inhumane; SALVAGE anything that is old that actually serves the best interests of the whole of humanity. And, REMIX that old and also good stuff with new, humane voluntary associations, ones that benefit all of humanity. Check out the complete Manifesto for some examples.

Here is small clip from The Course in Immortality, to start you on your way towards discovering your individual and collective erotic destiny. A complete table of contents can be found here. We encourage everyone to read all 10 papers in the course (they are not very long, just a little booklet) and check out our weekly or sometimes twice-weekly released excerpts. Tell us what you really think either by commenting here or on Facebook/VenusPlusX or by private email (columbia@venusplusx.org).

These prescriptions are based on examining and integrating rational human knowledge and understanding effective mental and spiritual technologies.

“Reverse engineering” the process can explain how personal immortality comes to be, can provide motivation to engage confidently the process, and show us what to expect.

Reverse engineering is the technique of analyzing a product or process to determine exactly how it works and why it is designed to work a certain way.

The benefit of reverse engineering is that, if you understand how a system is put together and works, what principles are involved in its operation, you can use it more intelligently, as well as potentially improve its operation or repurpose it.

Although manufacturers generally try to discourage reverse engineering of products in which they have a proprietary intellectual interest, no such conflict exists with the cosmic government of the universe.

Spiritual technology is something quite different from proprietary products and processes—it is a gift of Love to humankind.

We know, or think we know, a great deal about faith, even lack of faith, as an experience, but those insights portray imagined products of spiritual development without providing any convincing explanation of the how or why.

These articles are meant to correct that misunderstanding.

We believe based on our own and observed experience that, if you understand how spiritual growth technology actually works in the universe, you will be more willing and able to participate in the important work ahead of us as a global society.

Join us in manifesting The New Age of Sexual Freedom.

 

What is real and genuine?

This is a newly carved out space to periodically share excerpts from our new book prior to its publication later this year. We welcome (we crave) your comments, suggestions, and critiques.

We already shared an excerpt pertaining to the unification of eros and agape, along with a little wisdom borrowed from Goldilocks. Next, we began to introduce the concept of the Supreme Being, not as a religious construct or mystical superstition, but as a logical conclusion of and representation of actualized Love. In fact, substituting the word, Love, for the words, Supreme Being, or the Supreme, will always be factually correct. Love is the cosmic power that connects us to each other and all available elements of cosmic technology.

by Alice Popkorn Flicker/creative commons

by Alice Popkorn
Flicker/creative commons

How does an individual learn to unify the experiences of eros and agape? There is no one specific answer to this question. The necessary path must be found and established within the experiences of the individual and will not generally be the same for all. But there are some obvious consistencies in one’s approach that can be identified as signposts along the way.

Since people acquire their initial concepts of agape from socialization of myth, and since such concepts tend to be wildly distorted, even while preserving a thin thread of Truth, we begin by examining what is real and genuine in the worshipful experience of agape. Only in this way can we know we are talking about the same experiences for all people, even when those experiences vary greatly in detail.

The simplest and most efficient explanation is that orgasms and eroticism in general are directly connected and a key component of one’s adoration of the Supreme.

The key understanding is that the Supreme, as the creator-person of the universe, enjoys a personal connection to every human through which every thought, emotion, attitude, belief, pain, or pleasure of that human is shared and appreciated by the Supreme. The enabler of this contact is the Spirit of Truth, the active element of the Supreme in the human mind. No one is ever alone in the universe, though they may suffer from personal and social isolation at times.

The practice of agape is not a matter of personal whim. The Spirit provides to every human a certain conviction of Truth—that which is real in the universe and consistent in the intellectual mind, and so, in human experience. Individuals who ignore these leadings because they conflict with greater attention to greed and fear, or shame and guilt, lose any rational basis to consciously choose the Supreme, abandoning their fate to the leadings of their self-centered and primitive human mind.

Genuine, vitally powerful agape depends on the willingness of the human to set aside preconceived notions of personal importance and desire in favor of the subtle direction of the Supreme. Fortunately, human engagement with the spirit is a self-correcting process that leads to significant personal enlightenment. In effect, one must first decide to exchange one’s personal desires and attitudes, no matter how deeply felt (or how shallow), for the inspiration of the best ideal response to life circumstances. But once this decision has been sincerely made, the Supreme can take over management of the uplift of personal desires and attitudes. You will never be forced to act or not to act in specific ways. Rather, you will always choose something, be satisfied with the result, and gain further insight into your choice, which may affect subsequent choices you make.

Although the surrender of one’s selfish desires takes both time and effort, the initial step of conceiving of engagement with the Supreme as the guiding principle of one’s decisions opens the door to progressive enlightenment. Once freely admitted to the privacy of personal decisions and attitudes, the Supreme is capable of refining and upgrading these decisions and attitudes to be in line with cosmic realities and destinies. One has begun the process of becoming fully human and a partner with the Supreme in the constructive development of the universe, and one’s self.

It is the adoption of this enlightened agape that makes possible the unification of eros with the divine experience. Without such conscious preparation to bring these two ideas together, eros and agape, we are forced to run the risk that unreformed egos may serve only base human desires that lead to exploitation and abuse of others, turning the human mind from adoration of Truth. Fortunately, the adoration of Truth provides a baseline vital experience to which eros may be effectively integrated.

© VenusPlusX, 2013. All rights reserved.

Already available now as a companion reference, A Course in Immortality (and in Spanish, Un Curso En Inmortalidad), which will be published as an included Appendix in the new book.

Are you sleeping through a revolution?

Portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Chris Tank located in the MLK Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, DC Flickr/Creative Commons

Portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Chris Tank located in the MLK Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, DC
Flickr/Creative Commons

“One of the great liabilities of history is the fact that all too many people find themselves amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to achieve the new attitudes and the new mental outlook that the new situation demands.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr., Springfield College Commencement , June 14, 1964

It was empowering this week to re-read and reflect on an oft-overlooked commencement address by Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered 50 years ago at Springfield College.

Just days before the speech, King was arrested with a group of demonstrators attempting to eat at a restaurant and sent to St. Johns County Jail, an infamous building that housed many civil rights pioneers for non-violent demonstrations in and around St. Augustine, Florida. He wasn’t sure he would get out in time to go to Springfield, Massachusetts, for this commencement address, or to Yale University where he was scheduled to speak the following day.

Here are some excerpts from Springfield College address, but we urge you to read it in full.

The theme of this speech cautions all social change advocates and activists to make sure they are not “sleeping through a revolution” by not doing everything possible each day to make the world a better place. He urged his listeners first to adopt a world perspective to understand the breadth of our collective social ills. Next? Wipe out poverty. And, third, recognize the “urgency of the moment.”

As long as there is poverty in this world no one can be totally secure. Somehow we are all tied together in this great system of humanity. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be; and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality. John Donne caught it years ago and placed it in graphic terms: “No man is an island entire in itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,” and then he goes on toward the end to say, “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

When we recognize this, King goes on to say, and “are concerned about our brothers who are less fortunate, then we are remaining awake through a great revolution.”

[I]f we are to remain awake through this great revolution, we must work passionately and unrelentingly to remove the last vestiges of racial injustice from our nation and from the world.

In exposing the modern problem of failing to “recognize the urgency of the moment,” King’s words cross time, just as pertinent today as they were 50 years ago.

There are people all around who are saying, “Cool off.” There are individuals all around who are saying, “You are pushing things too fast.” And they are saying only time can solve the problem. The only answer that we can give to the myth of time is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation have used time much more effectively than the forces of good will. And I am absolutely convinced that the Wallace’s, the extreme rightists and the individuals committed to negative ends have used time much more effectively in our nation than the individuals committed to positive ends. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people who will bomb a church in Birmingham, Alabama, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say wait on time. Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals . . .time itself becomes an ally of the primitive and insurgent forces of irrational emotionalism and social stagnation.

 

The speech happens to elucidate the roots and foundations on which VenusPlusX stands, articulated in our recently release of our Manifesto for a New Age of Sexual Freedom, which begins: “The New Age of Sexual Freedom is synonymous with the end of sexism and racism (the greatest form of sexual oppression), and the end of nationalism for the purposes of war (the greatest form of racism), in the shortest amount of time (because we are killing each other).”

We hope social justice advocates everywhere will be inspired by this speech and more of King’s writings, and reflect on what more then can do, how many other people they can awaken to their cause, and how we can all avoid sleeping through the revolution.

Photo by Anne Adrian Flickr/Creative Commons

Photo by Anne Adrian
Flickr/Creative Commons