mezzemuff.

If you take the word “merry” and trace its roots, you might find it implies not only joy and happiness but it also alludes to being a bit tipsy or drunk. I, for one, have no problem with that at all — and so I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases!

May the New Year bring us all better fortunes and more love than the year we are leaving behind. Let’s all make an honest attempt to be even just slightly better than the person we have been and contribute to the betterment of our world one by one.

Commit an act of random kindness. Offer a smile and a helping hand to somebody you don’t even know. Make a point to be nice whenever you’re feeling grumpy. Remember that we’re all in this together.

Cheers and peace to you all.

ag•nos•tic -noun

Definition from Dictionary.com:

1.	a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

2.	a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study

Word History: An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist. The term agnostic was fittingly coined by the 19th-century British scientist Thomas H. Huxley, who believed that only material phenomena were objects of exact knowledge. He made up the word from the prefix a-, meaning “without, not,” as in amoral, and the noun Gnostic. Gnostic is related to the Greek word gn?sis, “knowledge,” which was used by early Christian writers to mean “higher, esoteric knowledge of spiritual things”; hence, Gnostic referred to those with such knowledge. In coining the term agnostic, Huxley was considering as “Gnostics” a group of his fellow intellectuals—”ists,” as he called them—who had eagerly embraced various doctrines or theories that explained the world to their satisfaction. Because he was a “man without a rag of a label to cover himself with,” Huxley coined the term agnostic for himself, its first published use being in 1870.

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A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream. ‘What are you?’ I cried to them as they drifted by. ‘I am a bubble, of course’ nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed. But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered, ‘We are this stream’, and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude.

- Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

According to a BBC News report, France has convicted the Church of Scientology on fraud charges in the country and is seeking to ban the organization from operating there.

The French government refuses to recognize the Church of Scientology as a real religion and instead classifies it as a sect. The allegation is the the organization is only a commercial venture designed to fleece vulnernable victims of as much money as possible.

This stance has drawn some flak on the French government with accusations of violations of France’s constitutional guarantees on religious freedom as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. (more…)

Buddhist philosophy and Timothy Leary merge into a profound statement of existentialism… A quote from Timothy Leary (1966):

“I gave way to delight, as mystics have for centuries when they peeked through the curtains and discovered that this world- so manifestly real was actually a tiny stage set constructed by the mind. We discover abruptly that everything we accept as reality is just social fabrications.” (more…)