Recovery
Healthy human being is a noun and a verb. It can refer to an individual healthy human being. It can also refer to a healthy lifestyle, the healthy lifestyle in general or an individual human being living that healthy lifestyle. Being healthy.
Human consciousness is the apex of the evolution of life on earth (Baha’u’llah, 1863). Our brain stem and midbrain generate our instincts and emotions, which is the foundation of human consciousness. Along with our inner ears, our cerebellum enables our sense of position and motion. Our cerebrum generates our creativity, language and rational thoughts.
Our instincts and emotions are our motives. In order to get anyone into recovery, we need to influence them to want to recover. That could include ourselves or anyone else.
Eating disorders, sexual misconduct and drug abuse all create unhealthy patterns in our brain and our mind. Surround yourself with people who are good examples of healthy human nature. Mirror neurons contribute to all human beings resonating with each other. Everyone influences everyone. Do not ignore the nature of symptoms but focus your attention and effort on solutions and recovery, not problems.
Read a lot of literature about recovery. Watch videos about healthy human nature. Replace your dysfunctional thoughts, words and deeds with healthy influences. Work on replacing those dysfunctional motives, which are hardwired into your brain and mind by experience, with new and healthy thoughts, words and activity.
Total immersion in a spiritually inspired recovery program is a good idea. Professional psychological assessment and treatment may be helpful. Just remember that you are responsible for your recovery, not your doctor, counselor or any other human being, other than the Manifestation of God.
The Manifestation of God is the Author of all the world’s sacred writings, like the Holy Bible, the Holy Quran, the Bhagavad Gita and the Kitab-i-Iqan. Read those stories from start to finish. Don’t get hung-up on the details. Just read through and let the results be what they are. The objective is to learn how to practice submission to God in every detail of your life.
I’ve read the Bible five times from start to finish. Sometimes I would read a whole book, such as the Book of Genesis, at one time. Other times, I would read from the beginning of the first chapter on the left page, to the beginning of the first chapter on the next left page. So, I worked my way through the whole story two pages at a time.
Unless prescribed by a qualified physician to treat some medical condition, using mind altering drugs degrades human consciousness. Using drugs to artificially alter how you feel is insane. Any kind of intoxication degrades your mind, both acutely and chronically. The altered state of consciousness is a degraded state of consciousness and the physiological damage to your central nervous system, caused by the drugs, is permanent and cumulative.
The interface between the brain and mind is an incredibly intricate, dynamic and delicate electro-chemical system. Adding drugs to that system is like connecting your car battery jumper cables up to your computer mother board. Its electricity all right, it’s just not the right kind or amount of electricity, and it will fry the delicate circuits on your computer mother board.
Recreational drug use does exactly that. Maybe not immediately, but it gradually fries your brain. Notice all the drug zombies wandering the streets of most cities in the United States. The vast majority of them were not born that way. Drug abuse is causing at least 70% of that homelessness, if not more.
Holistic Health Care
Creativity is the most primal instinct in human nature and in all of nature. The Holy Bible’s saying that God created man in the image of God, implies that man is creative. It also implies that God is imagining us. Exercise your creativity, your imagination.
Seek the truth. Seeking truth is the antidote to addiction. Jesus, the Lord of all creation, says, “Seek the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Freedom is lawful, not lawless. There are laws of human nature and civilization that are not made by any man, including any man made government or your own self. I once thought that, “I make the rules in my life,” was a profound idea. It was profound all right. It was profoundly wrong. It is a gross perversion of human nature and civilization.
God makes the rules. That’s what God does. At least, that is one thing He does. He makes the rules. The universe and everything and everyone in it, are a result of the rules that God makes. Natural law is the basis of the universe and everything in it. God is creating us because He loves us.
All life on earth is related. While the Human Kingdom of life on earth has the laws of biology and physiology, and even some of the laws of psychology, in common with the Animal Kingdom, the Human Kingdom is separate and distinct from the Animal Kingdom. The Human Kingdom is diverging from the Animal Kingdom, just like plants and animals diverged billions of years ago.
Self preservation is one of the most primal instincts of all life on earth. Human beings have that in common with the Animal Kingdom. Faith, religion, spirituality, seeking the truth, seeking God, knowing and loving God, is the most primal instinct of civilized human beings. The idea God does not exist in the animal kingdom. It is the foundation of human consciousness.
The natural laws of language are the most primal set of rules of human consciousness. Grammar, syntax, nouns, verbs and the structure of language is the basis of human thought and human culture and civilization. We have instinct and emotion in common with the Animal Kingdom. Language and thinking are a distinctively human capacities.
Note that one of the first things Adam does in the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis in the Holy Bible, is name the plants and animals in the garden. That is language. The first thing the Apostle John says in the Book of John in the New Testament is, “First, there was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
Language is a set of rules or natural laws that evolve over time as human consciousness adapts to our evolving circumstances. It is an impulse that is causing human nature to diverge from the Animal Kingdom and advance toward one universal and divine civilization.
Instincts and emotions are definitely important. Emotions are our motives. The prefrontal cortex and the executive decision-making faculty of the human brain is the front half of the brain, where art, language and thinking are processed. This enables humans to reason and to regulate the expression of our instincts and emotions into civilized attitudes, behavior and culture.
Putting any artificial drug into that incredibly complex and delicate brain/mind system of neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones and electro-chemical processes, flowing back and forth and all around, is insanely harmful. Do not use drugs for entertainment. Your natural human emotions are far more fun and healthier than any drug induced sensations.
Back in the days when humans were struggling to survive in icy weather and fighting each other all the time, alcohol and other drugs were probably useful. In our present civilization, striving to build one global, peaceful and prosperous civilization for all the people of earth, using any mind altering substance for pleasure is extremely harmful, to the people who do it and to all the people they interact with.
Small adjustments in the interface between our brain and our mind can cause dramatic results in our life. A lot of damage is done by ignorant parents. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean that proper child development is the most important prevention for addiction and other harmful attitudes and behavior.
Teach your children how to reason, by reasoning with them. Never hit your kids. Don’t even yell at them. Reason with them. Explain things to them. All kids are natural learning creatures. Teach them. Gently and firmly discipline them. Teach them to respect themselves and everyone else. Teach them that every human being is a precious, noble creature.
People are not born civilized. We learn culture and civilization by observing our family and our neighbors, and by education. Mother is the primary teacher. Father is an absolutely vital teacher. In case the mother or father dies in an accident or anything like that, then the larger family and the community must respond to help that family grow up healthy and wealthy.
It all boils down to the rule of man verses the rule of law. Practice principles before personalities. This relatively sudden flowering of science, technology, prosperity and civilization during the last few hundred years, is a direct result of people seeking the truth. For example, we can build machines that fly by investigating, discovering and following the natural laws of aerodynamics.
We can liberate humanity by seeking the truth about human nature and civilization. There are natural laws of human nature and civilization, just as real and constant as the law of gravity and the speed of light. Attraction and radiance are the yin and yang of all existence.
Everyone wants to be important, and everyone is important. Wanting to be more or less important than anyone else is a harmful and destructive character defect. Selfish ambition is the dark side of human nature. It is the cause of all violence, crime and war.
Your state of consciousness is always a mixture of appetite and love, fluctuating in response to your internal equilibrium and to the ecosystem around you. Responsibility is your ability to respond. Cultivate your ability to respond.
Creativity is our most primal instinct. It is the fluctuating spectrum of appetite and love in action. It is the all-encompassing motive. Appetite and love are the yin and yang of human creativity. Dominance and compliance, inducement and submission, appetite and love are all components of creativity.
Spirituality
Submission to God is the true nature of freedom. It’s principles before personalities. It’s the rule of law, verses the rule of man.
God makes the rules. God is the Creator of nature, the Author of all natural law. The Kingdom of God is a top down structure and God is the top of the structure.
Submission to God liberates one from the rule of man. The rule of man is being ruled by any human king, including being ruled by yourself. This does not mean you should rebel against any king. Being an honorable citizen of the country you live in, is one of the principles of the divine rule of law, revealed by the Manifestation of God, Baha’u’llah. Being ruled by God is real freedom.
Animals are ruled by their own instincts and emotions. Civilized human beings are ruled by God. We have instinct and emotion in common with the animal kingdom. Human beings also have intellectual and spiritual capacities that no animal has.
Human beings are responsible for our thoughts, words and deeds. Animals are not. Human beings have language, communications and education, in addition to our carnal desire, our instincts and emotions. Civilized human beings use our executive decision making capacity to regulate the expression of our instincts and emotions, animals do not.
Get control of your unruly passion. You are responsible for your thoughts, words and deeds. Self discipline is a precursor to freedom. Submission to God is a voluntary attitude and activity. It is a conscious decision that every human being makes for him or her self.
This human consciousness is a result of the evolution of language and education. We learn about God and the divine rule of law by education. We’re born with the capacity to learn it, and even an instinctual attraction to spirituality, but we learn it by education. Just like we are born with a physiological capacity to speak and then we learn a language by assimilation, after we are born.
Loyalty and patriotism are good attitudes. Attraction and radiance are the yin and yang of nature, including human nature. Attraction is your attitude of love for the people around you. Radiance is the result of that attraction, the behavior that your attitude causes. Just like gravity attracts material into a star and causes the sunlight to shine.
When every human being is motivated by attraction to God and radiates that attitude into society, that is the Kingdom of God. It’s already here, it always has been and always will be. It is a complex, dynamic system, evolving as a result of the progressive revelation of the Word of God, the divine education of all mankind.
Family Values
The divine law of marriage will never change. The marriage of one man with one woman is one of the most important features of human nature and civilization. Voluntarily following that divine law of marriage is an act of self-discipline. It is one of the most significant differences between a wild animal and a civilized human being. That voluntary self-discipline is a precursor to freedom. Submission to God and the divine rule of law revealed by God is the difference between wild and free. Selfish ambition is the dark side of human nature.
Human beings normally make love face to face. Most animals do not. That eye to eye intimacy is important. One man and one woman grow together into one family. Children soon arrive and the family grows. This is human nature, created by the Creator of nature. The human family is a biological, psychological, cultural and spiritual reality.
Animals have sex with whoever they want to, according to their own instincts and emotions. Civilized human beings get married and raise kids in families, according to the divine rule of law.
The relationship between a man and a woman who are married to each other is a fundamental, natural feature of fully developed, civilized human beings. Of course, there will be exceptions to that rule. For a variety of reasons, not everyone will find a mate. We should love and respect every human being.
Everyone needs love and affection. Everyone wants to be important. Everyone is important. Wanting to be more important than anyone else, is a natural instinct growing out of control, just like cancer is a normal biological process growing out of control.
Men and women are equal partners, always have been, always will be. Men and women need each other, to be fully human. One man and one woman, married, living together with their children is normal, natural, healthy human nature. Living and working with grandparents and grandkids is natural and healthy. Grandparents are the best marriage counselors and the best baby-sitters.
Life begins at conception. Children start learning at conception. If the mother feels safe and loved, that will cause a healthy chemistry in her womb. A woman is a man with a womb. If mother feels alone, in danger or pain, that will produce an unhealthy chemistry in the womb. Conditions fluctuate according to what is going on. Safe and secure is the best environment to grow up in, in the womb and during childhood.
Children can also hear and otherwise sense the presence of other people around their mother. They sense the presence or absence of the father. The loving friendship between the mother and father has a profound influence on the development of the child, before and after birth. While what the parents say is important, it is the chemical balance of hormones and neurotransmitters, etc., that influences the developing child. If the mother is happy, that will influence the child to be happy.
Teach your kids to reason by reasoning with them. Never hit them or even yell at them. Calmly reason with them. Apply firm discipline, in a reasonable way. Explain what and why. “Because I said so,” may be appropriate in some circumstances, but should always be followed up with a reasonable explanation of what and why.
I think that schools are a good way to educate kids, but Internet based home education, seems like a reasonable solution to the corrupt political agenda being taught in most public schools these days. Having kids meeting and interact with each other is good and healthy. We just need to make sure that our academy is teaching the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Parents should be intimately involved in their children’s education, whether they are taught at home, or in public or private schools.
Productivity
Being productive is kind of like eating. Its not the purpose of life on earth, but you do need to eat to live on earth.
You have to be productive to be healthy. Unproductive people are worthless. It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are. You should be producing at least enough material prosperity for yourself and some extra to profit for yourself and your family and your community.
It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Do something to add value to our one world economy. The economy starts at home, in your own holistic home office and radiates out to our world wide free trade zone. Earth is one free trade zone. At least it should be, as soon as possible.