Six Challenges of Life

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Six Challenges of Life

• Changing Times Conference
• The Townsend International School
• Czech Republic
• Prof. Michael L. Penn

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Six Challenges

• The Challenge of Development
• The Challenge of Entropy
• The Challenge of Power
• The Challenge of Sexuality
• The Challenge of Suffering
• The Challenge of Authority

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The Challenge of Development How do we improve
the quality of our existence?

• Existence is relative and not absolute. There are
  different levels and qualities of existence.
• Development consists of improving the quality of
  existence.
• What develops in humans are awareness, autonomy,
  effectiveness, peace of mind, and the ability to
  manifest heavenly attributes.

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The Great Learning
The ancients who wished to illustrate
illustrious virtue throughout the empire, first
ordered well their own States. Wishing to order
well their States, they first regulated their
families. Wishing to regulate their families,
they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to
cultivate their persons, they first rectified
their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts,
they first sought to be sincere in their
thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their
thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their
knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in
the investigation of things. --Confucius
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End (Issue)
3 Goals of Development
To Illustrate Illustrious Virtue
Tranquility Happiness
To Rest in the Highest Excellence
3 Requisites of Development
Knowledge of the Highest Good
Renovation of the People
Origin (Root)
Investigation of Things
Model of the Analytics of Confucius
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What is Needed for the Development of the Human
Spirit?

• Love
• Justice

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What is the nature of love?

• Love is an e-motion. It gets us to do things we
  would not do were it absent.
• Love is a force of attraction and arises from the
  recognition of intrinsic value.
• Authentic love requires an appreciation of
  latent potentialities.
• Love is a necessary cause of healthy human
  development.

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Love Justice Development

• Love an attraction to intrinsic value,
  manifested as acceptance concern
• Acceptance the recognition of the value of
  another
• Concern active service on behalf of anothers
  development

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Love Concern Acceptance
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Growth consists of the proper development of our
innate capacities
Capacity
To Love (Heart)
To Will (Volition)
To Know (Mind)
Its manifestation
Thoughts, Ideas
Feelings, Emotions
Intentions, Actions
Truth, Truthfulness
In Health
Love, Compassion
Service to Development Of Self Others
In Illness
Powerseeking, Competition for Value
Falsehood, Delusions
Narcissism, Egocentrism
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Choice is the most essential human characteristic.

• Every human act is characterized by knowledge,
  volition and action.
• Cognition, affect, and intention animate the
  power of choice.

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Human virtues are configurations of the capacity
to know, love will.

• Generosity, for instance is
• Knowing that others have needs
• Feeling attracted to the idea of serving the
  needs of others
• Choosing to set aside our own wishes in service
  to the needs of others.

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The Challenge of Power

• The conscious renunciation of the pursuit of
  power is the key to establishing altruistic (or
  authentic) love in our relationships with others.
• Professor William S. Hatcher
• The Ethics of Authenticity, pg.40

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The Challenge of Entropy
All real power is derived by association. Thus,
all entities and systems are interdependent and
contingent. All are in a state of need.
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Meditation One Antidote to Entropy

• Meditation can serve us at many levels. It can
  help us to face serious illness, it can help us
  avoid or metabolize stress, it can help us
  envision and realize personal growth.

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Achievement comes easiest to those Capable of

• Concentration
• Relaxation
• Clarity of Thought

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One May Choose to Focus Concentration on

• God or the Human Soul
• Ones Own Breath
• Visualization of a Goal or Desired State

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Meditation is Based on the Idea that

• We have the power to create within ourselves
  peace of mind in most circumstances.
• We have the ability to transcend suffering and
  to become more relaxed and in harmony with
  ourselves and others.
• We have the power to quiet the restless mind and
  to focus the powers of the mind.

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Relaxation

• Both mind and body need periods of relaxation.
  Relaxation is one of the central objectives of
  meditation. It is the conscious letting go of
  tension.

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Affirmations

• We may encourage ourselves during periods of
  meditation. We may speak to ourselves with words
  of encouragement. We may ask ourselves questions
  and await answers.

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Practice

• With practice, we generally find that it is
  easier to enter into a state of meditation. We
  learn to gain control over our minds in the same
  way that disciplined movement can give us
  greater control over our bodies.

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Healing Effects of Chanting

• For more than 25 years laboratories at the
  Harvard Medical School have systematically
  explored the benefits of mind/body interactions
  in inducing favorable health outcomes among
  populations at risk for life threatening
  cardiovascular disease, for depression, anxiety,
  hypertension, and excessive anger and hostility.
• The research has shown that when a patient
  repeats a word, phrase, sound or movement while
  disregarding other intrusive thoughts, a specific
  set of physiologic changes ensue. There is
  decreased metabolism, heart rate, rate of
  breathing, and distinctive slower brain waves.
  These changes are the opposite of those induced
  by stress and have been labeled the relaxation
  response.

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Two Basic Steps Necessary to ElicitThe
Relaxation Response

• The repetition of a word, sound, phrase, thought
  or muscular activity
• The passive return to the repetition when other
  thoughts intrude

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Conditions in Which the Relaxation Response Has
Been Effective

• Hypertension
• Cardiac Arrhythmias
• Chronic Pain
• Insomnia

• Anxiety
• Hostility
• Depression
• Preparation for Surgery

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The Challenge of Sexuality

• The Challenge of Self-Mastery
• The Challenge of Sexual Identity

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O peoples of the world! The Sun of Truth hath
risen to illumine the whole earth, and to
spiritualize the community of man. Laudable are
the results and the fruits thereof, abundant the
holy evidences deriving from this grace. This
is mercy unalloyed and purest bounty it is
light for the world and all its peoples it is
harmony and fellowship, and love and solidarity
indeed it is compassion and unity, and the end
to foreignness it is the being at one in
complete dignity and freedom with all on
earth. -Abdul-Bahá
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How good it is if the friends be as close as
sheaves of light, if they stand together side by
side in a firm unbroken line. For now have the
rays of reality from the Sun of the world of
existence, united in adoration all the
worshippers of this light and these rays have,
through infinite grace, gathered all peoples
together within this wide spreading shelter
therefore must all souls become as one soul, and
all hearts as one heart. Let all be set free
from the multiple identities that were born of
passion and desire, and in the oneness of their
love for God find a new way of life.
-Abdul-Bahá
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Until a being setteth his foot in the plane of
sacrifice, he is bereft of every favor and
grace and this plane of sacrifice is the realm
of dying to the self, that the radiance of the
living God may then shine forth. -Abdul-B
ahá
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The Universal House of Justice Writes
Baháulláh tells us that prejudice in its
various forms destroys the edifice of humanity.
We are adjured by the Divine Messengers to
eliminate all forms of prejudice from our
livesIf we allow prejudice of any kind to
manifest itself in us, we shall be guilty before
God of causing a setback to the progress and real
growth of the Faith of Baháulláh.
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The Challenge of Suffering

• The challenge of suffering revolves around
  several interrelated questions If life (and the
  Baháí Faith) are so good, why are they often so
  painful?

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There are four types of suffering -- two physical
and two spiritual

• Physical Sources of Suffering
• Misuse of freedom
• Trials sent for our own perfecting
• Spiritual Sources
• Misuse of freedom
• Trials sent for our own perfecting

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The Challenge of Authority

• The challenge of authority involves the question
  what are legitimate and reliable sources of
  authentic knowledge?
• It also involves the question of the legitimate
  or moral acquisition and use of power in the
  governance of others.
• Who should govern and why? How should leaders be
  chosen? What qualities should be sought in
  leaders and who should participate in selecting
  them? What is the best structure of governance?