The time has come for the ecological century. Nature does not respond to our interdependence with it by trying to minimize itself out of existence, but instead by growing and flourishing. Good design does the same.
Conformity, whether rationalized or simply imposed, undermines our government, our press, and our educational systems. We've had to learn some hard lessons about this in the last 10 years. Surely one of them is that we must defend diversity as a tool for innovation and for responsible decision-making.
This is a profound example of quiet integrity -- staying true to one's own nature and staying whole. Steadfastness, in its deepest regard, inhabits the resolve not to be persuaded or worn down to be something we are not.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says, "The spirit soul bewildered by the influence of false ego thinks himself the doer of activities that are in actuality carried out by the three modes of material nature."
Will pragmatic liberal education instigate skillful and compassionate strategies -- here and abroad -- for addressing our most pressing challenges?
After about two decades of being a voracious reader, I'm still at a loss as to why so many people have elevated Jane Austen to the level of literary herodom. To put it bluntly, I just don't the seemingly female-gender-wide obsession with Ms. Austen.
Theologians through the ages remind us that doubt is integral to belief and even to prayer. Paul Tillich argued that "doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith." God is present in our doubt as much as our certainty.
No matter where you are in the world you will recognize many, if not all of the subjects chosen, and if you are like me, you will come away stirred by those with great accomplishments; moved by those whose lives were cut off too short and motivated by what can be accomplished.
As we approach this crucial election, I want to reflect for a moment on the influence of one of our founding thinkers on the issues before the American electorate, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who has even been mistakenly connected to the egocentric assertions of Ayn Rand.
Groundbreaking and fascinating, Greetings From Fire Island is framed between the erection of a mid-19th century lighthouse and, almost 150 years later, its return as a historical monument.
This was radical stuff in pre-Civil War America. Emerson was essentially turning religion 180 degrees on its axis. Instead of a deity presiding over creation from somewhere up there, divinity was here, there and everywhere.
I've been so impressed by the consistent links between education and freedom that run through American intellectual history. As we celebrate America's birthday, let me share just two.
That this year's Guru Purnima comes the day before Independence Day strikes me as symbolism worth reflecting upon. Both India and America have always stood for something special in the world's eyes, and the two civilizations have enriched one another immeasurably with their gifts.
It has been rising up in the hearts and minds of individual seekers ever since the days of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it's been spreading like kudzu through the soul of America.
Even though Obama is not the progressive that many supposed he was, he is a man devoted to finding the true path among alternatives and as such has, I believe, earned the trust of most Americans.
It's a good thing that, when push comes to shove, we're really not rugged individualists. I'm thinking that it's almost time for us to accept who we are.
David LaChapelle bridges commercial, fashion and high art photography with his hyper-saturated, juicy images and his newest exhibition hits just in ti...
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia offered this advice about our political process: if you do not like the rash of intensely negative campaign commercials on television this year, the ones made possible by the court's 2010 decision in Citizens United, then turn off the television.
Some years ago now the brilliant physicist David Bohm, who studied with Einstein, had this to say about human thought: Thought doesn't know it is doi...
Good professors know that discussing nature in the confines of a classroom is not likely to stir the soul, no matter how enlightening the lesson. What awakens, they realize, is experience. Getting hands dirty. Immersion.
Here is the crux: Moral nature is lost in the way the Church has evolved. It is the past we are to worship, not anything living.
Suddenly I heard it: the Quaker in Oprah. The emphasis on a light inside each of us is the central Quaker concept of the way God works. Oprah's theology in a kind of a mass media sermon seemed to be a fresh way of putting those things.
Good news that the beautiful Kate Moss is joining the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge at No 3, The Grove, Highgate, London. Coleridge first came to live ...
Okay, so it feels good to say "all is one" in the yoga studio. But during the other hours of the day, aren't we all behaving as if it's you versus me, in a dog-eat-dog world?
All of us can look at our lives and count the times we thought we had made a sacrifice -- that is, giving up our personal desires to meet the needs of others.
