Meditation | Alternative natural view of the world

Once upon a time
*From Concentration & Meditation* By: Christmas Humphreys		... The greatest mind can not function through a faulty instrument any more than a great violinist can fully manifest his genius through a poor violin. It follows that the physical body, being a necessary instrument of the mind, should be made and kept fit. But in order to to control the the body one must learn its laws, and a brief study of physiology and anatomy is most useful in the proper care of the body. Not only in the average man person grossly ignorant of the functioning of his own mind, but he is equally ignorant of the mechanism of his own physical machine. Yet such elementary knowledge is as intensely interesting as it is easily acquired. Moreover, very little knowledge of anatomy and physiology will provide the a wealth of material for meditation, the laws pertaining to the body being reflections of the laws of the universe, which function on every plane ... ... There is a law as old as man to the effect that he who acquires the least advantage of his fellow men by the development of his own indwelling faculties must use them solely for the advantage of those fellow men, and never for himself alone. The law is utterly impersonal, and the penalty for disobedience at least the loss of powers gained and, if the wrong course be pursued, what seems to be a shriveling up of the mind which makes the sufferer the pity of his friends. One can not over-estimate the the importance of right motive in any attempt at spiritual development ...
*From The Power of Myth* By: Joseph Campbell		The animal envoys of the unseen power no longer serve as in primeval times to teach and to guide mankind. Bears, lions, elephants and gazelles are in cages in our zoos. Man is no longer the new comer in a world of unexplored plains and forests. And our immediate neighbors are not wild beasts, but other human beings contending for goods and space on a planet that is whirling without end around the fireball of a star. Neither in body nor in mind do we inhabit the world of those hunting races of the Paleolithic millennia, to whose lives and life ways we, nevertheless, owe the very forms of our bodies and structures of our minds. Memories of their animal envoys still must sleep somehow within us, for they wake a little and stir when we venture into wilderness. They wake in terror to thunder! And again they wake with a sense of recognition when we enter anyone of those great painted caves. Whatever the inward darkness may have been to which the shamans of those caves descended in their trances, the same must lie within ourselves nightly visited in sleep.
*American University Commencement Address* John F. Kennedy, June 10th, 1963		... And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal ...
*Letter of Indian chief Seattle to his people*		The president in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people, every shining pine needle, every shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We are a part of this earth and it is a part of us. The perfume flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lake tells of memories of events in the life of my people. The water's murmurs are the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers. They carry our canoes and feed our children. If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us. That the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind, which gave our father his first breath, also receives his last sigh. This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men? And the view of the ripe hills are blotted by talking wires? The end of living and the beginning of survival! When the last red man has vanished with his wilderness, and his memories are only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any spirit of my people left? We love this earth as a newborn loves his mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it as god loves us all. One thing we know: there is only one god. No man, be he red man or white man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.