...gram Mellel, with an Apple iMac. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors are grateful for permission to use material from the following: Joseph Epes Brown (ed.)... ...ious questioning has occupied the minds and hearts of a large share of the population. Religious questioning is now a concern of the entire world, Wes... ...ontinue to list themselves on the census forms as Christian or Jewish, but for many people these terms have come to lose nearly all meaning except to ... ...iew. In order to help you understand my religious biases and to compensate for them in your own mind as you read this book, I wish to set before you a... ...idays and the use of head coverings in church. When it comes to indigenous populations, it becomes virtually or totally impossible to distinguish betw... ...first look briefly at these Hindu beliefs. HINDU BELIEFS Hinduism is a God-centered religion, in which communion with God is all-important. According ... ...h comes after a discussion of the attributes of God, emphasizes the Divine Center in every being. Many Westerners are under the impression that Hindus... ...o them, as well as the conduct of prayers, rituals and festivals, form the center of religious faith. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BUDDHISM Gautama initiated ... ... ways and teachings of the Buddha, their number is but a tiny spark in the population explosion, as is the number of Christian 64. The Republic, 564b-...

...l structure. It has been only in the past two or three centuries that religious questioning has occupied the minds and hearts of a large share of the population. Religious questioningis now a concern of the entire world, West and East alike. One sign of this is the extraordinary proliferation of new religiouscreeds and organizations. It sometimes feels as if there are as m...

.............................................. 31 Evolution of the Human Desire for Pleasure ..................................39 CHAPTER 2: THE BOUNDA... ............................................. 110 CHAPTER 8: EVERYTHING IS READY (FOR LIFE’S PURPOSE) ..... 115 EVOLUTION OF THE GENERATIONS .............. ...entist and a researcher, Rav Laitman has been studying and teaching Kabbalah for the past thirty years. As a Kabbalist, he has published more than ... ...t plague us. Moreover, the natural, egoistic human predilec- tion to seek self-centered pleasures at the expense of others has intensified over time.... ...ng drugs at least once during their lives is approximately 42% of the overall population. 4 In Europe, consumption of cocaine has reached an unsett... ...be nuclear wars that would result in the obliteration of most of the world’s population. Albert Einstein expressed a similar fear in a 24 May, 1946... ...strates that belief is Spaceship Earth, an attraction at Disney World’s Epcot Center in Orlando, built in the be- ginning of the 1980s. Here, visitor... ...treating wolves as ruthless and dangerous ani- mals. However, when the wolves’ population diminished, their contribution to balancing the deer, wild ... ...n this manner, we can make the desire to acquire the quality of altruism the center of our desires. This brings up the question: “How can we increas...

... this mistrust is a result of a 2. natural process that has been evolving for millennia and is culminating today. t o resolve the crisis, we must frs... ..., and we were confident that by late afternoon we would be boiling water for supper at the camp. 10 B ail Yourself o ut Since we planned on being b... ...limited navigation skills. Reluctantly, we turned to our map and compass for guidance (back then, a gPS was still a top- secret military device). w ... ...ed “Babel.” The city was bustling with life and action. It was the trade center of what we now call, “the cradle of civilization.” Befitting a civi... ...become stronger than the desire to give; it had become a desire for self-centered satisfaction, or egotism. Abraham understood that the only way to ... ...preads, otters are no longer there to eat sea urchins, so the sea urchin population has exploded. But sea urchins live off seafloor kelp forests, s... ...rring that were food for the seals and sea lions. with the decline in the population of sea lions and seals, the orcas must turn to otters.” 34 B a... ...e giving force into our lives, it will shift the public’s focus from self-centeredness to camarade- rie. Today, the most popular viewpoint should be,... ...es at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musi- cal Esperanto is staggering. …Popular music has br...