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Flat Panel Displays - Beyond Plasma
The term set-top box will become something of a misnomer in the near future, as most displays will become too thin to allow a box to placed on top of them. As the price of plasma & LCD displays has plummeted and their image quality has improved,...
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Paying For Enlightenment
You cannot put a price tag on spirituality. Jesus, Buddha, and
the others didn't charge people for their words of wisdom. Truly
spiritual and enlightened folks give their gift away for free to
those in need. It's not about the money; it's about...
Star Trek In Flames – No Phoenix In Sight
As a recovering Trekker, I miss good space science fiction in the theater. I’d hoped Chronicles of Riddick might be some sort of revival of it at the movies, but apparently I’m the only one who doesn’t hate it. Before that, the trailers for Star...
What Makes Relaxing Music??
Music is the key to a thousand emotions. We associate music with the places we have been, the times we have experienced and the people in our lives. Music is all around us. There is no denying the effectiveness of music, so why not use it to affect...
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Schreiber, Johansson Build A 'Bridge' To A Classic
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Stargazing At The Opera
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A new theater production <em>Hope: The Obama Musical Story</em> opened this week in Frankfurt, Germany. It tells the story, in song and dance, of America's first black president. It is likely to be a big success in a country where President Obama is still immensely popular.
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Paying For Enlightenment
You cannot put a price tag on spirituality. Jesus, Buddha, and
the others didn't charge people for their words of wisdom. Truly
spiritual and enlightened folks give their gift away for free to
those in need. It's not about the money; it's about helping
others. It's the greed and hypocrisy of the mainstream churches
that turns us away from them. You cannot buy your way into
heaven. If we in the New Age Movement are to learn from the
mistakes of the churches, then we must learn to give our
spiritual gifts from the heart and not for any monetary reasons.
In going out of our way to make sure that we are not repeating
the mistakes of the corporate churches, we have set ourselves up
for failure. We have told ourselves that in order to be
spiritual, we must live in poverty. Yet we also tell ourselves
that we can manifest prosperity and abundance if we are good and
pure of thought. We dream of leaving the rat race and making a
living doing something in balance with our spiritual and loving
belief systems. We tell ourselves that karma dictates that if we
do good works then good things will happen to us. We believe
that if we work long and hard passionately helping others
through our art, our music, our writings, our healings, and our
many other gifts and talents, that we will be taken care of by
the universe. However, the minute we begin to make an honest
living at doing something spiritual, loving, and peace-oriented,
then our own New Agers come charging in demanding that we stop.
"How dare you charge me for that book that you wrote? How dare
you charge me for psychic readings? How dare you charge me for
the CD of meditation music that you wrote and performed? How
dare you pass a collection plate around after your religious
services? How dare you charge me money to hear your lectures and
speeches? How dare you charge me money to camp out on your land
during our spiritual retreat? How dare you charge me money for
your artwork? How dare you charge me money for anything and call
yourself spiritual?"
To those of you who keep asking such questions, I ask you
this.... How dare you demand that we give you everything for
free? You who live in America and have money for Starbucks,
Ipods, and Regal Cinemas, but no money for your brothers and
sisters who are trying to earn a living giving you something
other than materialism and politics-as-usual to believe in?
Personally, I have never heard from a single one of my
international readers in this manner. It's only Americans who
behave like this. How dare you tell me to write the book, edit
the book, pay to print the book with my own money, advertise the
book, pay to put it out onto the web that the book is available
to those who feel that it could help them, and then demand that
because you think you are spiritual, I should just give it to
you for free? Who is going to feed my children? Who is going to
buy their school clothes? Who is going to put a roof over their
heads and make sure the heat is turned on while I'm out there
giving you free books?
No this is not about me nor is it about my colleagues who are up
against the same negative attitudes. It's about you in the New
Age Movement who do not realize that you are treating me and my
fellow healers, musicians, artists, writers, activist, and
others as if we are evil for needing to earn a living. Do you
realize that if each of us listens to you, then we have to quit
giving our gifts at all? If only those who can afford to give it
away for free
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Understanding Surround Sound Systems
Surround sound is the concept of expanding the spatial imaging of audio playback from 1 dimension (mono/Left-Right) to two or three dimensions. It is often employed for a more realistic audio environment, actively implemented in cinema sound...
are allowed to become musicians, writers,
teachers, artists, healers, and such... then only the wealthy
are allowed to share their spirituality and enlightenment. Don't
you see? You are recreating the same thing that you think you
are trying to avoid. You are telling us that until we are
independently wealthy, we are not truly spiritual enough to
teach you, help you, heal you, or serve you in any way at all.
You are the one who is putting money above enlightenment and
true heartfelt spirituality.
Yes, there will always be greedy people who charge more than
they actually need for their goods and services. But that is not
the case with most New Age practitioners. Most of the folks I
have met could make a much better living getting a "real job"
and working for corporate America. We sacrifice so much to be
able to develop our gifts to the point that they are even worthy
of giving to you, and then to have you spit on us because we
need to put a price tag on the gift in order to subsidize our
work is so hurtful and cruel, that I don't begin to know how to
tell you what you do to us. I've watched many wonderful artists,
musicians, and writers give up and quit because the New Agers
think they should get it all for free. "Gimme gimme gimme! I'm
spiritual, so I'm entitled to everything and anything." No, you
are not spiritual and you are not entitled.
Who fed Jesus? Who puts clothes on the Dali Lama's back? Who put
a roof over Mother Theresa's head? No they did not have to pass
around a nasty rude ugly collection plate. Someone else did it
for them so that they could focus on the work they were doing.
The Catholic Church subsidized Mother Theresa. She didn't have
to charge those who were dying in her hospital because someone
else paid the bills. Jesus didn't have to charge money for his
sermons because someone always made sure that he was clothed and
fed. Are you all writing to the Dali Lama and cussing him out
because Barnes and Nobles charges you money for his books? Do
you tell him that his gift is not truly spiritual or inspired by
something beautiful and divine because those books cost you a
fistful of dollars?
No, you cannot put a price tag on spirituality. But you can put
a price tag on blood, sweat, and tears. You can put a price tag
on the years of education and training that goes into learning
how to be a good musician, healer, artist, etc. You can put a
price tag on the tools, supplies, and resources needed to create
those spiritual gifts. You can put a price on someone's time and
energy. You can put a price tag on a marketing and advertising
to get the word out to the universe that a beautiful gift of the
heart is available. And you can put a price tag on basic
survival needs that must be met in order for that person to
continue living a healthy lifestyle so that they can continue
giving their gift to the universe. If you want real spirituality
and not corporations that call themselves churches leading the
new age, then you are going to have to allow these people to
earn a living.
Copyright 2005, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge
About the author:
Skye Thomas is the CEO of Tomorrow's Edge, an Internet leader in
inspiring leaps of faith. To read more of her articles, free
previews of her books, and her astrology forecasts, go to
www.TomorrowsEdge.net. Webmasters interested in generating more
repeat traffic to their websites are invited to visit
www.TomorrowsEdge.net/horoscopes-generate-website-traffic.html.
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