Service Projects for all Humanity

An International Online Service Community, by TOS-USA

by Fareeda Amir, Honorary Secretary, TOS Pakistan

As the global war on terrorism continues and governments join hands spending billions of dollars to rid the world of this evil, another war is also taking place, albeit silently and very often unnoticed.

It is a war against another form of wickedness. It manifests through the ignorance, superstition and tradition that deny millions of women and girls in underdeveloped countries their inalienable rights.  read more »

David Rosen
New York: Arkana-Penguin, 1997, 197pp.
Book review by Rene Wadlow
  
Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) was one of those who dealt most directly with the passage of the Piscean Period to the Age of Aquarius, especially in his book Aion.  He analyses astrological imagery embodied in Zodiacal ages in order to deal with the psychological problems of this period of transition.   read more »

Published by:
Center for Social Action Through Spirituality
PO Box 601614, Sacramento, CA 95860, 2001, 223pp.
book review by René Wadlow

Mary Byles in her book on the Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, The Lotus and the Spinning Wheel, writes

“There is a middle way between rushing in trying to effect reforms when still filled with feelings of innate hatred and ill-will and not trying to effect those reforms at all until such feelings have been killed. It will always be difficult to find that middle way, but if there is a gradual ending of one’s own desires and complete trust in a Power not self, the way will surely be found.”  read more »

This deer hunting season in the Midwest has been up close and personal for me.  I currently live with a friend who has allowed hunting on the property of 5 wooded acres.  I endured the view of a beautiful deer hauled onto the back of a truck and calling it a "harvest".  My friend is a wildlife lover, and loves nature - but eats flesh and believes in hunting for the control of the deer population.  I do not want to lose a friend, but the practice of hunting for sport on the property where I live is not acceptable to me.  read more »

(second in a series by Rene Wadlow )

G.W. Russell. “The highest minds building one upon another”  read more »

Rene Wadlow

On 31 October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted unanimously Resolution 1325 (2000) urging “Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts.” Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was the first time that the UN Security Council acknowledged that women play a key role in promoting sustainable peace and stressed the participation of women in peace processes from the prevention of conflict, to negotiations, to post-war reconstruction and reconciliation.  read more »

(#1 in a series by Rene Wadlow)

The Classical Greek writer Sophocles called Dionysus “the god of many names”, and Dionysus has been associated with the arts of civilization and with drama, and under his form as Bacchus with wine as liberating and rhapsodic. Friedrich Nietzsche saw Dionysus as the bringer of divine ecstasy, the restorer of the instinctive, unconscious unity of all life, a symbol of the periodic need of release from the rational and the common place, a return to the springs of life through the emotions. While Dionysus is associated with the vine and fertility, his main function is to teach that the soul is beyond time and space and seeks rapturous union with the divine.  read more »

by Rene Wadlow

Kathryn Tidrich has written an interesting new biography of Mahatma Gandhi: Gandhi. A Political and Spiritual Life(London: I.B. Tauris, 2006, 380 pp.) which will be reviewed separately in the Book Review section.  read more »

Hesed is a Hebrew word for Kindness. There is a place in my town called Hesed House. It is a place, often of last resort, for the very poorest people in our community. It is the mission of Hesed House to try and help turn things around for the people that knock on their door seeking shelter.  read more »

Two October is the United Nations-designated International Day of Non-Violence.  October second is the anniversary of the birth of Mohandas Gandhi who has become the world-wide symbol of non-violent action against injustice.  Speaking of the power of non-violence, which he called Satyagraha (holding fast to truth), Mahatma Gandhi warned that “Unless all of us strengthen the forces of satyagraha, the methods of violence are bound automatically to gain ascendancy.  read more »

The determination of Burma's Buddhist monks to bring about change non-violently in their country has awakened a civilian population long held in fear by the governing military. The monks are marching behind large banners saying "Love and Kindness must win over everything." Demonstrations have been growing in city after city as the monks have taken the leadership of protests which began in early September against the sudden rise in fuel, food, and transportation costs.  read more »

Published in The Quest magazine of Summer, 1990 was an article by Dr. Larry Dossey, M.D. on the healing power of prayer.  Being excerpts from his book Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and Spiritual Search, it began with these words:  read more »

Note:  These instructions are best followed by opening this article in a separate browser window or tab.  Then you can refer to it, step by step, as you create your article. Updated 1/17/2010
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by Rene Wadlow

In an earlier article Arctic Oil and the Law of the Seize, I mentioned that some such as Scott Borgerson, who teaches maritime studies at the US Coast Guard Academy and is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, are looking to the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 as a model to prevent an Arctic race for oil by avoiding the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention which the USA has not signed.  read more »

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On the weekend of September 15 and 16, Miles Standish visited the Hualapai Indian Reservation to deliver six complete computers and a large quantity of blankets, winter coats, jackets and sweaters for the needy.  The Reservation is in the western portion of the south rim of the Grand Canyon.  Donated by members of the Verde Valley Computer Club