Cosmic Summit 2025, North Carolina (6/20)

Is monoatomic gold "manna"? - Randall Carlson on ancient calamity

Urfa Man, oldest human statue - Praveen Mohan on the giant skeletons of the USA, 18 feet tall

Giants are real, and the Smithsonian knows it.

WHAT IS COSMIC SUMMIT?

The Cosmic Summit is a live, four-day event featuring speakers who challenge what we think we know about human history, earth history, science, and the hidden patterns shaping our world. With over 20 fascinating speakers, Cosmic Summiteers can expect to be blown away by the latest findings from scientists with decades of academic experience, ancient history podcasters, and boots-on-the-ground explorers. More: CosmicSummit2025.com

• KOURY CONVENTION CENTER
• Greensboro, NC (JUNE 20-23, 2025)
• The Monoatomic Secret of Ancient Egypt

• VIDEO: Ancient Peru: link between elongated skulls and megaliths (MSN)
• Early human ancestors used their hands to both climb trees and make tools, new study shows
• The sunken world of Lake Titicaca: myths, artifacts, and submerged structures
• Early Christian graves in Israel reveal rare African figurines made of Asian wood, hinting at cultural exchange
• Dead Sea Scrolls possibly even older than scholars thought
• Last ever Neanderthal ‘Thorin’ helps scientists crack mystery of the disappearance of our ancient [dumb white] relatives
• 14 lost cities that continue to fascinate historians
• This ancient Alabama cave contains America’s most complete record of prehistoric life
• New big-eyed creature found lurking in ancient Roman mine
• VIDEO: Exploring the Osirion, Seti 1 Temple, and more at Abydos in Egypt (Brien Foerster)
• Explorers mistook 500-year-old artifacts for ‘trash’ that was found deep inside a Mexican cave
• 300,000-year-old skull of ‘Maba’ continues to puzzle scientists because it does not match any human species
• Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Alan Watts: The Buddhist Secret (audio)

Alan Watts (alanwatts.org) via What do you desire?; A. Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

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The Buddhist Secret

Zen's circle or ensō (faena.com)

Over time as fewer people realized enlightenment, Mahayana (Maya-yana?) came up with newer and more creative ways to trick oneself into realization, with the paradoxes of Zen, and stories of not trying, skillful means (upayas) and methods (yanas). Alan Watts explains them in the context of what this latter day form of Buddhism, which takes itself back by patriarchs to 200 years after the passing of the now little regarded historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, the "Sage of the Shakyas [Saka/Scythians]" Shakyamuni.

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What Mahayana set up in place of what the historical Buddha taught was falling back on Brahminical teaching based on the Vedas that today are generally referred to as Hinduism when in fact Buddhism, like Jainism, began as a revolutionary, anti-establishment wandering ascetic (shramana vs. brahmana) movement school. Buddhism in Japan, famous for Zen which it imported from China, came upon the conception of jah-riki vs. tah-riki: If self cannot become enlightened, then it must be done by other (likened to the Protestant Christian concept of "grace" over "works").

"We don't think our way into right action, but we can act our way into right thinking" is a good recovery-based summary of two of the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path. Support the WDYD channel to promote the great work of Alan Watts at patreon.com/whatdoyoudesire.

• Part 1: How Can You be Enlightened?
• Part 2: You are the Whole Cosmos
• Part 3: Why the World Depends on You
• Part 4: Be Comfortable Under Any Circumstances
• Part 5: The Buddhist Secret (this video)
• Part 6: Waking Up from the Illusion

Travel for wisdom (video)

Dhr. Seven and Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." - Saint Augustine

(Funny Commercial) Lionel Messi versus Kobe Bryant: Globe-trotting Selfie Battle. A soccer superstar and basketball all-star join forces once again with the help of Turkish Airlines.

"Not all who wander are lost" - JRR Tolkien

Travel! Originally, all Buddhist monastics were encouraged to behave like proper "wandering ascetics" (shramanas) in Indian. Rather than staying put inhabiting temples like Brahmin temple-priests (brahmanas), they wandered far and wide to break the sense of identification with one group, culture, way of looking at things, what one might call parochialism.

 

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”

- Maya Angelou

Buddha walking (WQ)

While travel was difficult for mendicants, it was possible due to vast India's dana system, a mutually beneficial system of providing for the needy, particularly to spiritual seekers. They were provided with requisites as a means of social cohesion and making merit. "It is only right to give food to those who do not make or store food," was the common outlook.

"To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries."

- Aldous Huxley

East-west travel along the Silk Route went between the large city-states of India (Bharat) through Central Asia. The enriched the Buddha's hometown in present day Afghanistan (not Nepal), which was the northwest frontier of India, according to Dr. Pal. It made it possible to go long distances when desired. But it was quite enough to travel lesser distances and still benefit by being exposed to great variations from clan territory (janapada) to clan territory -- different customs, observances, dialects, ways of life.

“As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than [one] who has never left [one's] own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.”

– Margaret Mead

Having left the comfortable social order, take self-responsibility.

In a time when most humans lived and died within ten miles of their birthplace, it was quite eye opening and conducive to getting the most out of the liberating Dharma the Buddha taught. The same holds true for us today. 

In spite of the ease of travel, most people stay close to their birthplace most of the time. Some may never leave, but even the few who do return and linger in the region. We seek comfort and familiarity. We have ties and social circles. And these tend to blind us to others and other ways of doing things. Therefore, travel then and now can be a wonderful thing, opening one up to a connection to all people on the planet, our t small place in the grand scheme of things, our parochial and small minded attitudes.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness... Broad, wholesome, charitable views of [people] and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

- Mark Twain (The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It)

• Memories can be passed down through DNA
• How to meet your guardian devas with Doreen Virtue
• My Son is a great travel destination (Nat'l Geo)
• PHOTOS: Bicycling through Asia
• My Son travel destination (Lonely Planet)

Google ramps up plan to make robots

Two million stolen passwords online

Writer Suri honored for bad sex

Union jack with Scottish bit removed?
Leg bone gives up oldest human DNA

Mexico radioactive material found

Two million stolen passwords online 

Next-generation USB is reversible

Thousands of Eritreans "abducted"

Launch of world's biggest "ship"

Rockwell painting in record sale

Close "torture camps" N Korea urged 

Leg bone gives up oldest human DNA

India's Holymen

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the subcontinent:

• India moves to revamp security after Mumbai siege
• Pakistan turns screw on charity linked to Mumbai attacks AFP
• Pakistan vows to comply with U.N. curbs after Mumbai Reuters
• Pakistan acts against one of India's most-wanted Reuters
  VIDEO:
• Video: 'No evidence' of Pakistan link BBC
  Video: 60th anniversary of Human Rights Reuters
  Video: Terrorists at Large FOX News