Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

great fiction and poetry address core universal human issues.

When you stop and deeply consider these insidious pandemics of injustice, disease, and imbalance, you start to see connections between them that make it much more difficult to examine them individually.

My hope is that as we develop an understanding of our spiritual reality, and seek ever greater levels of community and an economy based on sharing, our ancient primal need to amass and obtain at all costs will be replaced with that other primal need: to lend, give, sacrifice, and collaborate.

We take in, blend, and yet transcend senses, creating a peculiar alchemy of the awareness and sensation of being a human, of having a moment-by-moment experience of living. In the philosophy and science of mind, these little bites of memorable conscious experiences are called “qualia.”

The red wheelbarrow of consciousness, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens of experience. It simply doesn’t compute that it all adds up to nothing. In fact, when someone asks about “the meaning of life,” aren’t they really asking about “the meaning of consciousness”? What does this complicated, personality-filled life experience mean?

the world’s eight richest men currently own as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the world’s population, according to Oxfam International. That’s almost four billion people! The top three billionaires own as many financial assets as the poorest forty-eight countries combined!

The bottom line is that young people are suffering greatly. They seem to be lacking in the tools, skills, and ability to find solutions to these difficult issues. To befriend, to bond, to connect, to self-soothe, to find joy. To create community. They are seemingly cut off from what nourishes them, suffering from diseases of despair, and oftentimes

What kind of old human do you want to be? That is, if my perspective is right and your consciousness and its corollary—your soul—exists beyond your physical body, who is the person you are taking with you when the old age segment of your life is finally over?