It may not quite be an iPad, but then again it’s not quite priced like one either. India this week unveiled a $35 laptop that could increase access to computers for millions. The touchscreen gadget, designed for students, carries Web browsers, a PDF reader, and video conferencing capability, along with room to add more components. It was developed for the Indian government by research teams at the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science. Now, the government says it is already in talks with global manufacturers to begin mass production. It hopes to have it in classrooms by 2011 when the price could drop to $20. The ultimate goal is for it to cost no more than $10.

As you may have noticed, we have switched mail systems and want to make sure everyone is happy receiving daily alerts. We can make it once a week if you prefer. Please respond to me at jefhut@gmail.com. If you are happy receiving daily updates, please do not e-mail me. Only if you would like to be on a once a week list with the posts for the week.

Living Beyond Belief is a voyage to an island of truth in a sea of confusion. There are many books that provide insights into the human condition and how we might better make our way through our life’s journey.  Few contrast the two worlds of Mind and Soul more deeply or elegantly than Jaia Lee’s Living Beyond Belief.

Jaia is not writing from the viewpoint of one who has read many books, distilled their wisdom and put them in her own words. Rather, she has been through her own dark night of the soul that included one hundred pounds of insulation from an abusive husband and the drugs she took in an attempt to numb her psychic pain.

Coming through the other side of her personal hell is a compassionate woman and mother whose words reflect the choices that led her to freedom. It is that gift of freedom she offers readers and, as she points out many times in her book, it is neither an easy choice nor path once chosen, but the ultimate rewards are the embodiment of Love, Peace, Joy and the magical adventure life was for many of us as children.

As we leave a free spirited childhood, we can easily begin losing our spontaneity, our creativity and our connection to the oneness we felt with life. For many, this shutting down process continues until we are mere shadows of our former Selves. Once we give up our dreams, we can easily morph into frustrated, angry and depressed teens and adults and leave our passions and the gifts we came to share behind.

A kind and generous teacher, Jaia shares her wisdom based on her life experiences so we might reclaim our connection with our Self and the deep fountain of life available to us if we begin to remember our Source. She begins by sharing her experience with her daughter, Ariel, who was the catalyst for her awakening and whose precious life was placed in her hands. In kinder garden, Jaia learned that Ariel had a seventh-grade reading comprehension level and intuitively knew that in order to nourish her genius, home-schooling was a wise choice.  Public schools are unable to provide individualized education and a rich and nourishing environment for the soul and creativity of each child. As a result, Ariel’s genius expanded and continues to. A

And, Jaia believes that Ariel’s genius is present in every child awaiting release. Rather than placing limits on Ariel, Jaia encouraged her to reach for the stars of her dreams, explore, be, and discover as she does for each reader of her book. When asked how she was able to raise a child who was so bright, outspoken and at the same time respectful, Jaia replied, “I just loved her …and asked what would serve her on a Soul level.”

Part of the success Jaia achieved came not from her own mind but from trusting that everything would unfold perfectly from a place of deep listening and wisdom that she describes as Divine Intelligence.

The rest of her wonderful book is all about moving beyond the limiting ideas we may have about our children, ourselves or others and how to tap into that world that lies largely hidden in a culture fixated on the material world while disregarding the invisible. The fact that we only see a very small part of the world through the visible spectrum does not usually register when we are hypnotized by media and authorities we are taught to obey at the expense of our intuitions.

Our childhood wounds and fears can easily color our world and have us projecting idealized images and ideas on others,  giving up our power and living as vistims. How to untangle the insanity, the cognitive dissonances of life at almost all levels is hardly an easy task but Jaia is living proof it is possible and through her teaching helps others realize their own inherent potential to live an engaged life. Making the process even more challenging, our egos seek safety and security guarding our Soul’s expressions rather than serving them. Through the books deep conversation, Jaia is able to speak Soul to Soul and before long, a familiar territory can begin to reveal itself, a remembering of the way it was and still is.

A few quotes from Living Beyond Belief may help illuminate several of its reoccurring themes. Many will pass this book by and continue in their self created suffering but some will choose to allow its words to penetrate their hearts and souls bypassing the conditioned mind and for those, the journey may be like a breath of fresh air. The book is self selective and each individual will know if this is the right book at the right time in their lives. And, even if this book is not a life changing catalyst as it has been for many, there is enough truth and wisdom in it to provide readers with a glimpse into another dimension of being and at least some of the ideas may prove useful.

A child could go through his or her entire childhood and never really be seen for who he or she is, but only for what they are supposed to be according to someone else’s definition of good. Only then, when they are fitting nicely into that idea, are they given positive acknowledgment. To most, this is an absolutely justifiable parenting strategy; but in the long term, it produces disastrous results, since the discovery process is the very thing needed to bring out the genius within. You have to color outside the lines to be a great artist. You have to fail hundreds, if not thousands of experiments to discover anything of real significance. What the conditioned mind usually does is stop that organic process in its tracks in order to maintain the illusion of control and the joy, the discovery, the unique gift, gets replaced by the idea of what is acceptable. Life becomes stifled. Beliefs are formed about behavior. We end up living at the effect of a dead and lifeless belief system, rather than the First Cause, fully alive, Self-aware, unlimited, creative Beingness We truly Are.

We couldn’t be doing a better job of conditioning people to see themselves and their lives as fragmented and compartmentalized than by teaching subjects in a disassociated fashion, as opposed to demonstrating the interrelatedness and interconnectedness of all subjects and their enhancement of, and dependence upon, one another.

When we experience life from the eternal part of ourselves rather than our personal selves, we can begin to exist in a world independent of personal reaction and the effect of that reaction. We will be able to remain in a state of equanimity and peace regardless of outer circumstances. We will be able to demonstrate more fully what is most real about us as spiritual beings and generate numerous creative win/win experiences and solutions.

It’s the letting go part that is always the most challenging – letting go of blame and judgment. Of fear. Fixed identities. Control.

In an expanded awareness – an awareness of our unbounded, unlimited Self and Life – we realize the error of believing anyone guilty of something we needed to forgive them for in the first place.

We begin to experience life outside the relative bounds of good and evil, we stop measuring events and people against a set mental standard of right and wrong and we begin to trust that everything that comes our way is in service to, and an opportunity for, our growth, our joy, our expression and Our Life. We see that everything that happens in the world is an opportunity for Life to take on a greater expression and seek a grander vision.

How threatening are these ideas to our Ego and fixed ways of thinking? Very and many if not most people may think these the ideas of a lunatic-of someone out of their mind which is exactly the point. In order to escape the prison of the past we must let it go and discover what lies on the other side. A book title by spiritual teacher Krishnamurti comes to mind, Freedom From the Known. If we allow ourselves to take this voyage into the unknown, it is quite possible we may never shrink back to our former selves but instead, learn to reside in a new expansive Self generating world of creation. If life has left you or a friend wanting more authenticity than more money, more passion than more comfort, this book might be for you and you might discover when you allow yourself to be used by the evolutionary field and become a servant of your Soul and the world,  that the life that unfolds provides all you have ever dreamed of and more. As Jaia says, “you are not here to live out your idea of a great life, but your true Life.”

Everything comes to you in order for you to reveal greater versions of your Self, in a complete surrender to the process, a complete Trust in Life, there is no stress, there is no worry, there is no fear.

A true sense of wholeness comes from being able to find your true voice and communicate from the deepest part of your being. It comes from being able to see yourself in another and have great compassion, love and understanding for anyone. At any time. It comes from seeing yourself as the beloved and knowing you are supported, directed and sourced by the Universe itself because you have come to know you are the Universe and so is everyone else.

What Jaia is describing here is a life of Spirit, a life of God, a flow, simply being yourself, paying attention, and listening for and taking action on your next step when you become aware of it.

Chapters include Purpose: What Am I Doing Here?; Belief: The Foundation of Experience; Projection: Polishing the Mirror and Intention: The Rudder of Your Ship.

Included in each chapter are a selection of Jaia’s poetry including this one that ends the book:

So when did you forget?

The game isn’t over yet

When did you stop playing?

If you choose to stifle

and keep your Self bridled

it’s only joy you’re delaying.

The wise ones all know

to possess that glow,

one must become like a child,

It’s somewhat tragic

to cut off the magic

that remains within all the while

So just let yourself go

and always know

that heaven is at hand

When you can smile

and just play a while

Life becomes more than you planned.

In this piece by SF Gate columnist Mark Morford, he describes the plight of the tuna, the possibility of losing heart and his thoughts on keeping the faith.

I call it a “Republican moment,” one of those surreal and disturbing thoughts that sneaks into my soul every now and then like an unwelcome but insistent visitor, a nasty little thought made of equal parts greed and unchecked entitlement, all overlaced with a sort of willful ignorance that entirely blocks out that dangerous beast of burden known as “conscience.”

The moment came as I was reading the horrifying and deeply sad piece in the NYT Magazine about the plight of the wild bluefin tuna, the world’s most overexploited game fish, a top ocean predator and a totem animal like few others, an undeniably magnificent creature that is rapidly nearing extinction due to gluttonous overfishing and unchecked international greed.

It’s a harrowing, heartbreaking tale spanning generations, cultures and clashing beliefs of how we treat the earth. There are fascinating subtexts, politics, food history (the article is part of a larger book on the subject, Paul Greenberg’s “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food”). But the grand upshot was simple enough: We are quickly destroying the last of humanity’s great food stocks, a truly marvelous, powerful and even mystical creature unlike any other. And very soon, there will be no turning back.

The facts are brutal. Simply put, we are gorging our way to the bluefin’s oblivion. Stocks in the Gulf of Mexico are now considered to be in full collapse with maybe 9,000 total fish left, all suddenly made far more dire and irreversible by the BP spill, which is destroying millions of fish eggs right at the start of spawning season. …

(click here to read the rest)

Mark Morford’s new book, ‘The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism,’ is now available at daringspectacle.com and Amazon. Join Mark on Facebook and Twitter, or email him.

Mark’s column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate. To unsubscribe please click here and remove one article of clothing. To get on Mark’s personal mailing list (appearances, books, blogs, yoga and more), please click here and remove two more. His website is markmorford.com.

Life today reflects a huge gulf between the way it is and the way it might be while mother Earth lies bleeding. If we were stewards rather than manufacturers and consumers with little regard for the effects of our actions, life itself would always be our first priority. Instead, we live with the consequences of not thinking about consequences like using the chemical dispersant, Corexit 9500, a violently toxic compound so notoriously lethal it’s been banned for years by the EU.

It’s an effect of the shadow of old paradigm economics that places profits ahead of all life forms including people and our ecological systems. It’s time to reexamine our priorities and decision making processes to be certain that before we proceed with any project, that there are zero negative net impacts on life. Those who wish to drill for oil at 5000 feet depths or any other highly risky undertaking with massive potential financial rewards should be required to prove their ability to handle even more massive worst case scenarios. All chemical manufacturers should be required to prove the non-toxic nature of their products before they can be approved commercially. Otherwise, the earth becomes a living laboratory with humans and all life forms as experimental subjects. This methodology would ideally mirror medicine’s promise to “first do no harm”.

And, the first adopters would gain the loyal following of millions of individuals who want to be part of the healing force for good that is reflected in the very high and continually growing percentage of the population calling themselves “environmentally concerned”. At this moment I am certain it has never been higher and is rapidly approaching 100%. New websites that offer consumer intelligence around product ingredients have arrived and are proliferating.

I can imagine a world in which this is the way things are. We are far from it now, but books like  Cradle to Cradle by visionary eco-architect William McDonough, Jenine Benyus’ Biomimmicry, and Gunter Pauli’s The Blue Economy:10 Years, 100 Innovations, 100 Million Jobs describe and point the way toward a world in which we use nature as our design template. It’s a huge undertaking to move an industrial civilization from its profits before life operating mode but it is happening in growing numbers of socially responsible businesses including the former poster child for evil business, Wal-Mart that is asking suppliers to go green or face deletion from their distribution. One wishes they might also consider planting organics next to or near their stores to supply locally grown organic produce grown and harvested by members of the local community. I’m going to send that idea to them.

I heard a quote yesterday that relates to the oil spill and the vilifying of BP and oil in general. “Let he who does not use petroleum cast the first stone”. It points to the fact that we are a petroleum based society. A search reveals that petroleum is used in cars, houses, toys, computers, phones and clothing. Asphalt used in road construction is a petroleum product as is the synthetic rubber in tires. Paraffin wax comes from petroleum, as do fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, detergents, CD’s and DVD’s, photographic film, furniture, packaging materials, surfboards, paints and artificial fibers used in clothing, upholstery, and carpet backing. Oil is simply a ubiquitous part of our lifestyle.

We are dealing first and foremost with a design flaw. When we design things with a view to only making money, destructive consequences are not taken into consideration. Conversely, if we acknowledge that life is sacred and design our goods based on the precautionary principle, we could live in a nature-based world with minimal human impact.

Perhaps more of us, particularly those who manufacture goods, will wake up and realize our disastrous impacts. That would be a good thing. There are some who have come to this awareness. May their numbers multiply until it becomes our standard as expressed in Buckminster Fuller’s instructional Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.

In the meantime, each of us can examine our own negative impacts of the things we purchase, use, and consume. That’s the best place to begin for as demand for things that compromise life decreases, the incentive to produce them will diminish. The emerging trend of websites dedicated to consumer intelligence regarding the contents of products including cosmetics is a step in the right direction. And, we can explore and apply the simple ideas put forth by businessman, architect, and Harvard divinity scholar, Joe Simonetta in his books and DVD Seven Words That Can Change the World and his most recent title, Will Humanity Survive?. His suggestions include a respect for the environment and kindness toward each other.

Underlying all of this is the deeper issue of separation of humans and nature and humans and each other. If we truly embodied oneness, we could not hurt another animal or human because we would profoundly understand we are them and they are us as Pogo said “I have met the enemy and they are us.” And we would not pollute because we would understand the earth, air, water and soil are us. It is this disconnect that is at the root of our pain and suffering. Maybe we need reconnection, appreciation and compassion training to look into the eyes of a fellow animal or human and see ourselves and to be immersed in nature in a remote place without other humans and truly understand that without the precious air, water and soil to grow our food in, we cannot survive and life will cease to exist. We must come face to face with the ecocide we are part of and understand that we face what EO Wilson describes as “the death of birth.” The time is now for us to wake up to the crisis and act in new ways for it is the old ways that got us here and more of the same will simply prolong the pain and lead to the breakdown of our life sustaining systems.

When some read in the Bible that man shall have dominion over the earth, they take it to mean they should dominate rather than care for life. If we are to inhabit a livable planet and leave it better than we found it for future generations, we have a lot of work to do. Enlightenment is an inside job-not left to others like government and “the authorities.”. We must begin right where we are-here and now-and learn how to connect deeply with all life forms. If you have accomplished that task, you are a leader and your responsibility is to let others know how vital that connection is and help awaken and embody this interconnectedness. When every person feels the connection and pain, we can use this sacred wound to move forward together in a new direction…one that heals and sustains life. If you have not yet made that connection, there are many resources and wisdom keepers among us who can help us appreciate our deep connection with life.

Among them are:

Joanna Macy describes this moment as The Great Turning that redefines us as living parts of a living planet rather than consumers who help to use up our planet’s resources at ever increasing velocities. The Great Turning marks a transition from an Industrial Growth society to a Life Sustaining Society. How we set goals and measure success is very different in each of these societies. So is how we define growth. Is it in terms of health, longevity, wisdom, beauty and grace in the eyes of God or pure profits? We’ll know the answer if we look with open eyes and hearts. We can see now it is a doomed economy and system on runaway, playing out its last act because it is seeking to maximize one part of life at the expense of the rest. It is a system literally devouring itself like a cancer without balance and sustainability.

She describes three connecting pieces of The Great Turning. Slowing down actions that have us say wait a minute, we need to slow down the Industrial Growth Society and includes soup kitchens, protest marches, tree sitting, and legal and legislative campaigns. But its not enough because a Life Sustaining Society needs structures and new ways of doing things. These she describes as Gaian structures and patterns of organizing. New ways of holding the land, ancient ways of growing food, ways of measuring prosperity (Hazel Henderson’s Calvert Henderson Index that includes many pieces that are left out of GDP that are quality of life measures), new ways of educating and waking each other up. But that is not enough either because any actions will wither and die on the vine if they are not rooted in our values and what we believe is worthwhile and our assumptions about the nature of realty.

This shift in consciousness is happening too at a colossal rate of speed and includes new findings in quantum science, chaos, systems and holographic theory that unite with the wisdom traditions that offer the same perspective-the intricate and interconnected nature of all life-new ways of seeing the sacred-new forms of spirituality. A marriage of the spiritual and scientific that in itself is a reuniting of what has been separated at great cost.

It is an incredible time to be alive-a source of privilege and excitement. It means that life can go on and that can be an exquisite reason to get up every morning.

Perhaps the entire process can begin with something as simple as a walk on the grass. A new book, Earthing: The most important health discovery ever? by Clinton Ober, Stephen Sinatra, M.D., and Martin Zucker reveals that walking on grass has measurable positive health impacts.

Another excellent book on feeling the peace, wisdom and balance that living in harmony with nature brings is Michael J. Cohen’s Reconnection With Nature. Most of us have been conditioned to ignore nearly 50 sensitivities that connect us to the natural world. This separation stress contributes to many of our environmental and personal problems. Through the chapters and activities of Reconnection With Nature, Dr. Cohen suggests ways to use nature’s wisdom to re-awaken dormant sensitivities, rebuild our spiritual connection with the Earth and enhance wellness.

As we get back in touch with nature and its array of life forms, we can protect and guard the most precious of our gifts: life itself and its many processes that allow us to be here. We must move from Sustainability toward Thrivability (sustainability+vision to flourish+ways of being). Humanity’s new work is to realize Bucky’s vision of a world in harmony with nature that works for everyone with as little environmental damage as possible. His vision, expressed now in many ways by countless others everywhere, must be the new basis for our existence.

Jeff Hutner, Editor