Posts by Manny

  ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE & LIFE   #1:  Life Is Not a Game of Roulette No one can legitimately accuse a roulette wheel in a credible casino of being unfair. The wheel spins, the ball lands on a red or black number, and fortunes are won and lost. It’s regarded as a straightforward game…

  THE PUZZLE OF PRAYER #1:  Break Out of Your Personal Agenda Prayers Do you remember learning how to ride a bike? Chances are, when the training wheels came off, you recall a harrowing experience that might’ve involved a scraped knee or two. In preparation, you may have received coaching or even read a book…

  WHAT LOVE IS #1:  Love Is a Force of Biology As strange as it seems, several religious and spiritual traditions have teachers – including priests, monks, nuns, and yogis – who experience great fulfillment and illumination from a devoted life of celibacy. Over millennia, many of these individuals have reported experiences – often in…

  THE DOOR KNOCK OF DIVINITY   #1:  Divinity Isn’t as High Up or Far Away as You’d Think During the last Ice Age, about 35,000 years ago, an early human lived near a cave in what is now Southern Germany. Out of a mammoth tusk, this person carved a sculpture that is widely recognized…

  THE GOD PERSPECTIVE   #1:  See Children Everywhere You Look Children are mostly unaware of how the world works. Their inability to see long-term costs for short-term gains (like a rough day at school after going to bed too late) largely eludes them. Although this lack of awareness comes with frustration, for both kids…

  THE MAGIC OF MINDFULNESS   #1:  Be Quick, But Never Hurry Years ago, I had the fun and exhilarating experience of being driven around a racetrack by a world-class Formula 1 driver. I remember him saying to me, “Things must be done quickly in a racecar, but never in a hurry.” It wasn’t until…

  FORTIFYING FAITH   #1:  Think with Faith Faith is defined as ‘complete trust and belief with strong conviction.’ It can be applied to something as trivial as a trusty tool to something as monumental as “the arc of the moral universe,” as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it. But to some, faith is a…

  THE FLAW IN FIGHTING   #1: Fighting Isn’t for Everyone Given this is a spiritual philosophy podcast, fighting is framed here as something we can one day evolve beyond. The catch, of course, is that we’re all in different stages of spiritual evolution. Those who still engage in fighting, though, are not lesser people…

THE MISPERCEPTION OF EVIL   #1:  Context Brings Understanding There are certain species of insects and snakes whose females consume their mates, when they have no more use for them; alpha male lions and alpha female meercats often kill and eat the cubs and pups of rivals; chimpanzees have been known to cannibalize members of…

THE ILLUSION OF DEATH   #1:  Behold Death with Wonder Many of us were fortunate to have experienced the splendor of childhood… playfully living in the moment… not knowing what each new day would bring… and being amazed by discovering wonders in our world for the first time. As we get older, it can be…