Category: Philosophy

The quest for greater unity and truth is achieved by the famous dialectic, positing something (thesis), denying it (antithesis), and combining the two half-truths  (synthesis) which contains a greater portion of truth in its complexity.

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Ram Dass 

Ram Dass
“I’ve died and been reborn so many times in this life. In the ’50s, I was a professor at Harvard and then I died from that and I became, with Timothy Leary, part of the ‘turn on, tune in, and drop out’ messianic whatever-it-was in the ’60s. This was a whole different incarnation. And then that ended. I went to India and I came back with beads, a long beard, and white robe, Baba Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher, more or less an Indian guru. But then I died from that. In the late ’70s and ’80s it was the Seva Foundation: hospitals in Nepal, India, and Guatemala, a work of service. And then the stroke happened. If I think back to my old life–my golf clubs in the closet, my cello in the living room–if I think that I’m the person who plays music on that cello, I would really suffer and be so sorry for myself. But I’m not him. He died. Now I’ve been born again into this disabled body. This is who I am now. You have to take the curriculum as it comes to you.”

~Ram Dass

Maharajji said to me, “Love everyone, serve everyone, and remember God.” …and I have been trying to do what he told me.

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Number 3 in American Culture

Three American Flags by Jasper Johns

THE NUMBER THREE IN AMERICAN CULTURE

By the late Professor Alan Dundes of the University of California at Berkeley

Allan Dundes

Professor Allan Dundes

Students undertaking professional training in anthropology are rarely, if ever, required to formally study their own cultures. They must demonstrate competence in various topics and areas, but these do not normally include materials from their own cultures. They may be told that the identification and careful delineation of native categories may be crucial to a fuller understanding of that culture which they investigate, but their own native categories, the identification of which is equally important for an understanding of another culture, may not be considered at all. With our present knowledge of the cultural relativity of perception and cognition, it seems clear that students of anthropology should be encouraged to analyze their own native categories with the same care and methodological rigor that is demanded of them in their fieldwork in other cultures. If the reduction of ethnocentric bias is truly an ideal of anthropological scholarship, then anthropologists should go into the field with as comprehensive an understanding of the nature of their own culture as possible.

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THE MOUSAI

The Mousia
Muse with barbiton, Paestan red-figure lekanis C4th B.C., Musée du Louvre
Muse with barbiton, Paestan red-figure lekanis C4th B.C., Musée du Louvre

THE MOUSAI (Muses) were the goddesses of music, song and dance, and the source of inspiration to poets. They were also goddesses of knowledge, who remembered all things that had come to pass. Later the Mousai were assigned specific artistic spheres: Kalliope (Calliope), epic poetry; Kleio (Clio), history; Ourania (Urania), astronomy; Thaleia (Thalia), comedy; Melpomene, tragedy; Polymnia (Polyhymnia), religious hymns; Erato, erotic poetry; Euterpe, lyric poetry; and Terpsikhore (Terpsichore), choral song and dance.

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