Soul’s Code

SPIRITUAL IQ QUIZ — Religions channel the fears and aspirations of our collective unconscious through archetypal images and stories. That’s why the religious enterprise has been so successful for such a long period of time.

And maybe it’s also why video games are the fastest-growing form of modern entertainment.

If you don’t think video games are also spiritual, you simply haven’t played very many. Video games are rooted in the same myths and archetypes that have shaped us for millennia.

The key difference: video games put the audience in the middle of the action, whether that means blasting armies of alien invaders in Halo Reach or fighting with crooks and your own conscience in Grand Theft Auto IV.

Lessons learned from L.A., Johannesburg, Sao Paolo and other metros where road rage is a danger to your body — and soul

BY RICK LEED — When stuck in your car in painful, frustrating, unimaginable traffic, already late for an appointment, who hasn’t felt like a Looney Tunes cartoon character, with steam coming out of their ears, fists pounding the steering wheel, and eyes turning red and bulging out of their head?

Road rage is usually directed at someone else who has done something heinous — or at the least, rude, like cut you off, changed lanes unexpectedly, or flipped you the finger.  But the inward-focused rage and fury that has no specific personal target is so often worse, creating more stress, more anger, more intense negative energy:  ‘Why the hell isn’t this traffic moving?’

Spiritual cinema: From the Rolling Stones to religious war, these 5 flicks are enlightened and entertaining.

1. 9th Company, the Russian side of “Charlie Wilson’s War”

Hulu.com, the website where you can play TV and movies for free, finally has a foreign flick worth watching. (Actually, make that any flick).

Hulu just posted 9th Company, “9 Рота” in the original Russian — the first time that a mass American audience has been exposed to the best movie we’ve ever seen from the post-Soviet Union (and in that spirit, it’s a co-production with Finland and the Ukraine).

Yes, the movie does has subtitles. But think of it as the Rus version of Platoon with the nitty-gritty psychological naturalism of Stanley Kubrick’s Natural Born Killers. But it’s actually based on a true story.

A Soul’s Code short-list of magical, mystical tours

Where does the tallest tree in the world live? As old as Christ, a redwood called “Hyperion” went ‘undiscovered’ by humans until recently

Where do NASA and Nova research the origins of life after the Big Bang? Mono Lake, California is the most primordial place on the planet

Who is building the “Temple of Transition”? Burning men, August 29 – September 5, in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert

From the anti-false witness clause in the 10 Commandments to Bill Clinton, lying is as old as our genetic code

Psychologist Abraham Maslow on survival: The Hierarchy of Needs

Born Liars: “How to spot a liar?” (Toronto Globe and Mail)

Online dis-inhibition: Group-think and de-individuation

Not surviving, or winning: Movie star Matt Damon pulls out of June 20 fundraiser for Congressman Weiner (New York Daily News)

Socially (unconscious) media: “When does online fantasy become infidelity?” (Salon.com)

Euro Group prez says it’s his job to lie: “I’m not going to go to confession because of a false denial. God understands more about the financial markets than many who write about them.” – Dr. Jean-Claude Juncker in Der Spiegel

Author Tony Samara insists that anyone, anywhere, anytime – in a cancer hospice, or on Afghan battlefields – can be in bliss. A new excerpt from his book, From the Heart.

BY TONY SAMARA — Whether your suffering is a low-grade depression or a paralyzing fear, you can rise above it. From the Heart is a collection of satsangs (Sanskrit for “association with truth”) from live workshops with spiritual seekers from around the globe. In this excerpt, a uniquely-simple way of overcoming one particular source of pain in our lives: the mundane.

An up-close and personal account of infidelity from a Soul’s Code contributor goes deeper than the public contritions of governors, celebrities and other cheaters

BY CASSANDRA KELLY — Sometimes, to amuse myself, I think about the parallels between my life and the lives of those that our society has deemed “famous” or “stars.” For instance, I grew up in poverty — so did Gloria Estefan.  I’m a pilates lover and so is Jen Anniston.

Two new movies, Seal Team 6, and Catherine Bigelow’s next hit, invite us to look in a mirror.

BY DAVID RICKEY — Yes, Bin Laden was a very evil individual who masterminded much and mentored many. However, his death will stop neither the consciousness that breeds terrorism nor the historic causes that feed that consciousness.

The decision to bury Bin Laden’s body at sea within hours of his death demonstrates, it seems to me, a level of sensitivity that counters much of the insensitivity that lies at the root of the present pandemic of terrorism (although already there is conflicting opinion and criticism for this action).

While there will always be people who express their selfish anger in acts of aggression against others, the “West” — that over-encompassing term describing what we might describe as the “more enlightened” people in Europe and America — would do well to reflect on our own actions over the past 3+ centuries that have contributed to the anger in Africa, the “Middle East” and southest Asia that underpin the terrorist argument.

The pscyhe of the world’s solo superpower not only boasts a ‘Morning in America’ ethos but a persistent streak of pessimism.

May 21, 2011 doomsday mania: A fundamentalist chain of bible-thumping radio stations taps into fears of the Apocalypse and the Big One

Doomsday church rolling in dough: Oakland, CA-based “Family Radio has received $80 million in donations

Moral of U.S. Marines plummets: According to a U.S. Army report released this week, 1 in 5 troops in Afghanistan suffer from acute stress, depression or other psychological disorder

Joseph S. Nye on American power after bin Laden: “Cultural pessimism is very American, extending back to the country’s Puritan roots.”