Book Review: The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself. Michael A. Singer. New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA. (2007).                                                                                                     The Mind Screams: “No!

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We Are More Alike Than We Are Different Human beings are far more alike than we are different.  The differences between us are actually very minor. Human beings all over the world are overwhelmingly similar. We all share the same anatomy and physiology. Our brains operate the same way. We have the same triune brain, with a brain-stem that controls fundamental life processes like breathing ,a mid-brain which controls and regulates emotion and a cortex, the outer brain, which controls thinking and reasoning and is the seat of language. We Make Up Stories to Explain Our Pain Our one compelling drive is to survive and to reproduce.

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If we really wanted to create a more peaceful world, what could we do? What if it was up to you and me? What would you do? If you think President Bush is doing it wrong, what would you do differently? If you don’t like those terrorists exploding themselves in car bombs in Iraq or in the subways in London or God forbid, slamming more airplanes into buildings in our own country, how would YOU get them to stop? We tend to think creating peace is something that the experts are supposed to do, the politicians, the diplomats, the top elected officials, and then the rest of us go to war when they tell us to or we complain loudly when we think it was a mistake, but aside from that, most of us have delegated the job of peace-making to someone else, to those people whose job it is or to those saintly creatures who choose to work in war-torn lands trying to get people to love each other.

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As US planes head off into Operation Swarmer with Iraqi forces to carry an offensive against a pocket of insurgents, I find myself wondering about power. President Bush said today that first strikes or the ability to wage pre-emptive war remains one of our most important weapons in the War on Terror. You hurt us or you even threaten to hurt us and we’ll hurt you so bad you won’t even know what hit you. You know, the old shock and awe idea. If your enemy is dead they can’t threaten you anymore. Sadly, we have found out in the years since 9/11 that this idea doesn’t seem to work in reality.

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We live in a world with a tremendous amount of violence and suffering, much of it brought on by human beings themselves. And yet, with so much grief, loss and pain, caused by our own actions, it seems we human beings have not learned much in the past several thousand years. Yes, we have made amazing advances in technology and health care, gone to the moon and back, but we are still killing and murdering our fellow beings with a ferocity and cunning that is chilling. We could be having such a different experience of being alive. This planet is breathtaking in its beauty and human beings are capable of acts of grace, generosity and wonder. Why don’t we love each other more and hurt each other less?

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