Augustus and the Prince

Augustus and the Prince “What cannot be seen with the eye, but that whereby the eye can see: know that alone to be Brahman, the Spirit, and not what people here adore. What cannot be heard with the ear but that whereby the ear can hear: know that alone to be Brahman, the Spirit, and […]

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Love vs Fear

The Essential Phil Harker Some weeks ago I published a tribute to Phil Harker. I thought it might be useful to outline some of his key beliefs. As we travelled on this journey of discovery together, his philosophical understandings and psychological insights had a beneficial effect on my life. It is likely they might be […]

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Australia’s Looming Electricity Catastrophe

The overwhelming victory by Labor in the recent Federal Election will have many flow-on effects. One of the more disastrous will be Labor doubling down on its renewable energy policy. Chris Bowen is already claiming the victory as a mandate to continue his reckless pursuit of renewable energy. It is an assertion that is pretty […]

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A Last Salute to the Good Dr Phil

  My friend of 40 years has now departed this earth. Dr Phil Harker my long-time associate and mentor has left his body and gone to a better place. The world is diminished with his passing. I first met Phil sometime around 1986 when he was part of a selection panel assessing applicants to be […]

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On Writing


It is with some trepidation that I confront my task of writing this week’s blog. As you can see from the title, I have decided to expound on writing. Whilst I have co-authored a couple of books and written one outright, I won’t mislead you by pretending I’m a best selling author. Disappointingly, sales of […]

March 3, 2010

Knowing Me – Knowing You


It is said that a rabbi who had lost one of his two daughters in a fatal accident, wrote to Albert Einstein. The Rabbi requested Einstein to provide some words of wisdom to help his remaining daughter as she mourned her sister. He wrote this famous reply. “A human being is a part of the […]

February 24, 2010

The Limits of Science


I have watched with fascination, as no doubt many of you have, the development of the debate on climate change. It is strange that science, promoted by its major adherents as being objective, dispassionate (and using that awful but now ubiquitous term) “evidenced based” could result in such subjective, passionate and unsubstantiated claims by both […]

February 16, 2010

Family Matters


It has been distressing in recent times to witness the debates in the press about access to children for separating partners. We hear of children murdered by one partner merely to deprive the other. We hear of children pushed and pulled between households without seemingly any concern for their welfare. We despair for such children. […]

February 10, 2010

Ignorance


This week I’d like to explore the concept of ignorance with my readers. Like many words there is a certain ambiguity about ignorance. Often we use the term simply to mean a lack of knowledge about a subject or an issue. This kind of ignorance is tolerated because it occurs largely as a matter of […]

February 4, 2010

Change – How We Resist It!


Some years ago, I remember reading how in the Napoleonic Wars the British Government created a position for someone to man a bonfire on the cliffs of Dover. His job was to light the bonfire if he saw the French fleet approaching so that the British might prepare for an attempt at invasion. Apparently that […]

January 28, 2010

Impermanence


In an essay called What Makes You Not a Buddhist Tibetan teacher Dzongsar Khyentse stated that: If you cannot accept that all compounded or fabricated things are impermanent, if you believe that there is some essential substance or concept that is permanent, then you are not a Buddhist. Whether you want to be a Buddhist, […]

January 19, 2010

What Does It Mean?


Lewis Carroll began his poem, The Jabberwocky, thus: `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Does this mean anything? It follows most of the conventions of English language, because we can distinguish: • Nouns – toves, wabe, borogoves, raths […]

January 12, 2010

Self Acceptance


Many years ago, my good friend and mentor, Dr Phil Harker, put to me that psychological maturity comes from a process wherein an individual should get to know themselves, and then accept themselves, and finally if they were truly enlightened, forget themselves. But of course the process is not as straight-forward as it might seem. […]

January 6, 2010

The Season of Hope


We have just celebrated our version of the Northern Hemisphere’s festival of the Winter solstice. This is a ubiquitous celebration. It was celebrated by the Celts, the Germanic peoples, the Chinese, the Jews, the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Persians to name but a few. It was subsumed by the early Christians and in our Western […]

December 30, 2009