Link: Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four

Link: The Shift

Link: Many Faiths, One Truth

When I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.

Read the full post by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, here... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html

Link: Once a rising star, chef now feeds hungry

Narayanan Krishnan was a bright, young, award-winning chef with a five-star hotel group, short-listed for an elite job in Switzerland. But a quick family visit home before heading to Europe changed everything.
"I saw a very old man eating his own human waste for food," Krishnan said. "It really hurt me so much. I was literally shocked for a second. After that, I started feeding that man and decided this is what I should do the rest of my lifetime."
Krishnan was visiting a temple in the south Indian city of Madurai in 2002 when he saw the man under a bridge. Haunted by the image, Krishnan quit his job within the week and returned home for good, convinced of his new destiny.

Read the full article here... http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/01/cnnheroes.krishnan.hunger/index.html

Link: Divine Pride and the Integral Movement

You are the cutting edge of evolution.

Go ahead, take a few moments to feel into that. It's not hyperbole—billions of years of evolution are at your back, plunging you into greater consciousness, greater compassion, greater freedom, and greater fullness. You are already perfect, and always have been—and yet, there is something making you even more perfect, something shaping you in its own image, something inviting you to step more fully into your own life.

Read the full post here...
http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/602

Link: Make Poverty History

For the Man Who Hated Christmas

It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas--oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it--overspending... the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma---the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.

Read the full post here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=7893

Consciousness: An Awareness of Self

This morning, over breakfast, I was listening to an NPR story about the Prague Spring with my son 8-year-old son, Tasman. We got into a conversation about the former Soviet Union, a bit of world history, the Cold War, and Stalin. I decided to advance the notion of deep ecology to him using Stalin’s horrific genocidal killings as a prybar.

Read the full post here... http://www.basilandspice.com/mind-and-body/consciousness-an-awareness-of-self.html

The Story of Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Watch the video here... http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Did you know?

Thomas Berry and the Earth Community

Clinging Causes the Pain

Genuine love and kindness is desperately needed in this world. It comes from appreciating the object, and rejoicing in the object, wanting the object to be happy and well, but holding it lightly, not tightly. And this goes for possessions too. You are in an extremely materialistic society in which the possession of more and bigger and better is held up as the total criteria for being happy.

Read the full post here... http://www.ijourney.org/?tid=658

Blog Action Day 2009

Dan Reed - The Dictator

Charlie Chaplin - The Great Dictator Speech

The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes

Charter for Compassion

Man in the mirror

Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror
Uploaded by classics007. - See the latest featured music videos.

The Origin of the Word "Kind"

Have you ever wondered why we make such a big deal about living kindly? For a lot of us it’s just innate, feels like the right thing to do. But, that little voice in my head warned me one night, “Don’t take kindness for granted—find out why!” So I did, and made an exciting discovery in the process.

Read the full storey here...
http://www.helpothers.org/story.php?sid=12559

Home Project

http://www.home-2009.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

A long movie (1h 33m) and well worth watching if you have the time. Some more positive facts towards the end.