Somebody once told me that it was impossible to be transgender and to be a Christian at the same time. While it's tempting to bust out my Bible and go toe-to-toe with these folks, pointing out every affirmation of gender outsiders in Scripture, at the end of the day, all I can say is, I'm here. I'm transgender, I am a Christian, and I am here. Here, in the church and in our society, is often a hard place to be. When I get discouraged, when I risk getting kicked out of the sanctuary or out of the bathroom, I think of God's promises on Isaiah 56 verses 1 through 8. For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples, thus says the Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel.


Kenya beats all African countries. Kenya is one of the most vibrant and dynamic countries in Africa, with a rapidly growing economy and a youthful population that is eager to embrace innovation and technology. In recent years, Kenya has become a leader in digital transformation on the continent, implementing a comprehensive plan to digitize public services and drive economic growth. At the heart of Kenya's digitalization efforts is the government's commitment to creating a more efficient and transparent public sector. By reducing bureaucracy, eliminating corruption, and making it easier for citizens to access government services, Kenya is working to improve the quality of life for its people and create a more business-friendly environment that can track foreign investment. One of the key areas where Kenya has made significant progress in digitalization is in the financial sector. The country's mobile money platform, M-Pesa, has revolutionized the way people in Kenya and across Africa access financial services. By allowing users to transfer money, paid bills, and make purchases using their mobile phones, M-Pesa has helped to bring millions of people into the formal financial sector who previously had no access to banking services. Kenya beats all African countries over social media curiosity. Kenya's digital transformation continues to positively influence all facets of life as the government works towards digitizing most public services. This was affirmed by a new 2023 digital overview report by Meltwater, which has ranked Kenya as the number one country in the world that has the highest number of users who source and purchase products online. According to the report, 65.4 percent of Kenyan social media users between the ages of 16 to 64 use social media primarily to find different products purposely for purchase out of the total 5.2 billion internet users worldwide. The report further detailed that the users visited different sites to view content specifically from their favorite brands. Brazil and Indonesia were ranked second and third with 64.6 and 64.4 percent respectively of social media users who purchase and view content from different brands online. Third are addressing internet usage. The 2023 report ranked Kenya second globally in the category of individuals who use social media for work-related activities at 54.6 percent. In this category, Kenya ranked below Nigeria which had 61.9 percent of individuals using social media for work. These activities include networking and research and following contacts or companies that are relevant to work. The report read in part. When it comes to the number of social media users, Kenya leads East Africa with 59.1 percent of internet users having at least one social media platform. Tanzania follows with 17.4 percent and Uganda ranks third with 17.4 percent of social media users. However, adult internet users in the country were reported to show a high level of concern about misinformation online ranking second globally after Nigeria. The Meltwater report stated that when it came to countries offering cheap 1 GB data plans, Kenya ranked third in Africa on average offering the package at $0.83 and 27th globally. As part of the government's digitization plan, State Department for Immigration and Citizen Services on February 20 revealed government agencies whose services would be fully digitized by June 2023. The agencies included the Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Ports Authority, Communications Authority, Add National Serials and Produce Board, the National Environment Management Authority, Kenya National Library Services and the Kenya Airports Authority. As Kenya continues to invest in digitization, it's clear that the country is poised for even greater success in the years to come. By harnessing the power of technology to create more efficient public services, drive economic growth and promote innovation, Kenya is paving the way for a more prosperous and inclusive future for all its citizens. We hope you found this video informative and that you'll continue to follow Kenya's digital transformation journey as it unfolds. Kenya is the leading technology hub not only in East Africa but in the entire Africa. Thanks for watching. To get more interesting updates from Africa Reloaded, please make sure to like, share, comment and subscribe to our channel. Remember to turn on the notification icon to get notified of our new videos.


Yes, good morning. We have two students online. Perfect. So, if we could have one of you pray. Jeffina, is that okay? Would you be able to pray? Sure. Go ahead. So, I'm going to be coming to you under the name of Jesus. Thank you for this day. Thank you for this time of prayer that you have given us. Go ahead. As we are about to start the class, we just invite you to be with us and guide us in your work. We are blessed, blessed to be with you. My name is Jesus. I pray with you, which is the name of Jesus. She can share this deep truth in the Bible in a way that you can understand. And God, I pray for all the classmates who are about to come. Help them to come on time and give us good life and connection throughout the session.  Jesus, open our spiritual minds, our spiritual lives and spiritual lives. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Thank you. So, we begin. So, we are back. Yeah, sorry. I think there was a temporary issue with the internet, but then we are back online. So, yes, we will be doing chapters 20 and 21 today. If I could please have, you know, volunteers reading out the verses even as I request. You know, we'll just go through this as quickly as possible. So, we can begin with verses 1 to 10, I guess. If we could have someone please read out for us. The first 10 verses of chapter 20, we will look at some details regarding this. So, John chapter 20 verses 1 to 10. If anyone online could please read out for us these 10 verses. Go ahead, please. Now, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early while it was still dark and so that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid them. Peter therefore went out and the other disciple and we're going to the tomb. So, they both ran together and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he stooping down and looking in. So, the linen clothes lying there, yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came following him and went into the tomb and he saw the linen clothes lying there.  Then the other disciple whom who came to the tomb first went in also and he saw and believed for as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their own homes. Thank you. So, we see that early on the first day of the week, we have Mary Magdalene coming here to the tomb and then when we look at the other gospels, we learn that at least five ladies were there. So, different gospels give us a portion of the information. So, when we put it all together, we observe that at least five ladies, if not more, as a group, they all come here to the tomb on the first day of the week. Now in the Jewish calendar, you would have the day beginning in the evening. So, as the sun goes down, that day is now considered ended and a new day begins. So, at sunset on Saturday, the day is now considered complete, the Sabbath day is complete and now a new day would have begun even as it becomes dark. So, on the first day of the week, many, many hours after sunset, early in the morning is when these ladies have now come to complete some of the burial honors which could not be done earlier because if you remember, this was a high Sabbath. This was a special, this was a Sabbath day when you would also have a festival being celebrated. So, those would be called your high Sabbaths and so on this high Sabbath, the Passover was celebrated. So, for the sake of those festivities, they had to quickly take down the three crucified persons and so Jesus was buried quickly wrapped in linen but all the ceremonies which are involved were not performed at that time. Last week, we had looked a little bit at some of the burial rituals which they practiced in their day. So, we saw that when member of the family who was passed away is placed inside the family tomb, that body is laid out in one particular portion of the large cave for about maybe one year or two years until all the moisture inside the body gets evaporates and you have all the internal organs drying up and the skin will shrivel up and stick to the bones and after all that has happened, so the word that would be used is desiccation. After the body has become desiccated and dried out, then they would be able to put it in a box called an ossuary and then they would place it in one of the compartments which have been carved out of the walls of the cave. So, you would have entire generations being buried in that way. So, the entire family would be placed in the family tomb which is why to kind of speed up that desiccation process, they would bury the body along with herbs and spices and other things which will aid in that entire burial process. So, all of these details could not be taken care of when Jesus was brought down from the cross, so everything had to be done in a hurry. So, now these women have come here to finish the procedure. So, they come along with spices and herbs to honour the body of Jesus in this manner. So, when they enter into the, I mean the details are not given over here about how they wonder among themselves who is going to help them in opening the tomb stone because you see these would be family tombs, so they would not want anyone disturbing the remains inside. So, generally these tombs would be blocked by a very large rock and so in front of that cave they would probably carve out a kind of deep channel and this very very large stone would be rolled and placed inside that groove, inside that channel so that if someone wants to open the entrance they would literally have to roll it along that groove, open it up and then once they have finished with whatever procedures they want to do, the stone is rolled back. So, the stone kind of sits inside a groove which has been carved out for that purpose and it serves like a kind of doorway. So, these ladies are wondering who would help them in opening up that and then when they come over there they see that already the stone has been rolled away. All of those details are not mentioned over here in the Gospel of John. We just get to know that they go inside and when they look inside they realize that the body of Jesus is no longer there and we are told in verse 2 that Mary Magdalene, she immediately runs to the disciples to inform them what has happened and these are the words that she uses. She says they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him. So, in her mind she is assuming that whoever they are, some enemies of the Lord have come and they have stolen the body just to maybe dishonor the body and she is very deeply upset about it and so she immediately goes and informs the disciples regarding this and so we see two of the disciples quickly running to the tomb to confirm whether what has been said is indeed true and so you have Peter and John running over here to the tomb and they look inside and when they look inside they see that the strips of linen were lying there. Now the word that is used in the Greek is not really the word which is used for folded. I mean those are some translations used the word folded. It just means the word used over there indicates something that is just lying in its place. It could be something that is folded and kept in its place or it could just be something that is lying in its place which is why NIV tries to use that kind of translation just to kind of bring out the meaning of what these two disciples see when they look in. So, it could either mean that someone neatly folded up the linen and kept it, all the body linen was kept in one place and the linen used for the head was placed in a different place or it could mean that everything was just in place as it was when they had left immediately after the burial. So, either it could be that when Jesus rose up when he resurrected he literally just came out through the cloth and the cloth remained in the same position in which it had been when he was buried. So, he could have maybe evaporated through the cloth and come out because you see now solid objects don't seem to be an issue for his resurrected body. He goes in and out of walls as he wishes. So, it could be in that sense that everything was still lying in place in the form of a body but there is no body inside or it could be that maybe angels came down and folded the linen and kept it in a folded position. So, we don't really know what is indicated over here but one thing is very clear that no grave robbery has taken place because if someone wanted to steal the body and for some reason they wanted to remove the linen before they steal the body what would they have done? They would have removed the linen and scattered it all over the place and then they would have left with the body. They would not have neatly folded it and kept it in place or it would not still be retaining the same shape of the dead body. That would not be the case. You would in fact maybe see strips of linen fallen all over the place in case there had been a robbery. So, over here what John is trying to clearly indicate to his readers is that even though Mary Magdalene goes and says they have taken the Lord that is not what has occurred. There has been no robbery of any kind rather Jesus has risen and the positioning of the linen indicates that no robbery has taken place. So, most probably when he resurrected he just simply rose out through the cloth and the cloth maybe just stayed over there in the shape of the body and he is no longer inside it because he has resurrected. So, that probably is the explanation. So, we have this being briefly referred to even in Luke where it says Peter looked at it and went away wondering what it meant when he saw these strips of linen in the position in which they were. It just says over there he looked at the linen and he went away wondering what it could mean. So, my assumption is that maybe Jesus just literally came out from the cloth without even disturbing the cloth and it just was positioned as it was originally. When it talks about the handkerchief the translation which is used in some of the Bibles regarding the head cloth that would just basically be the cloth which is generally used to keep the jaw closed in place because once the person passes away the jaw kind of opens up so they keep the tire cloth around the face to hold the jaw in place. So, that is positioned near the head. The rest of the linen is positioned a little away from that. So, all that John is trying to communicate to us is that no robbery has taken place. The body was not disturbed in any way. It's just that Jesus has vanished. He has resurrected. So, up to here the storyline is rather clear. After that things get a bit puzzling if we were to do a comparison of the four gospels. So, what are the passages? In case you are interested you could just jot it down. So, in Matthew it would be Matthew 28 verses 5 to 8. In Mark it would be Mark 16, 2 to 8. In Luke 24 it would be verses 1 to 8 and of course here in John we are looking at John chapter 20. So, in Matthew we see one angel being mentioned who comes and tells the women not to be afraid and that Jesus has risen up and that they should go and inform the disciples about it because later on he is going to come and meet them in Galilee. That's the message which this one single angel gives in Matthew. But when you look at Mark, in Mark 2 you see a young man, they see a young man sitting at the right wearing a white robe. In Luke it talks about two men or two angels in dazzling clothing which shining clothes. And here in John again we have two angels being mentioned. So, based on these eyewitness accounts of these ladies who have actually seen these angels we get the impression that they were not all standing together and they did not see the angels together. So, what do we assume? Most probably we have these two disciples coming running over there to the tomb to confirm whether indeed the body has disappeared. They see that this has happened. They go back to their home but it looks like as these women continue to stand around wondering what to do and most probably they kind of spread out to go searching to see whether his body has been hidden somewhere nearby. So, they probably spread out and so some of them encounter one angel, some of them encounter two angels. So, that is why we have a difference in the eyewitness reports that are being given. And it looks as though Mary Magdalene has somehow, you know, it's kind of separated from the others because they all have their encounters with the angels. They are terrified, they're excited, they quickly run back and tell the disciples, you know, we've seen angels and the angels are saying that Jesus has risen. So, that's the report which they have given. But it looks like Mary has kind of been got separated. Maybe she went searching farther or far than the others. I mean, I do not know. But now she has come back and she's still standing over there near the tomb and she's weeping because she's heartbroken that someone would do something so cruel where they would actually steal the body of her master. And so, as she is weeping, she looks inside that would be in verse 12 and she sees two angels in white and they say to her, why are you crying? That would be in verse 13. And this is again what she says in verse 13. She says, they have taken away my Lord, where they have put him, I do not know. So, she's still thinking about it in terms of a robbery and the angels do not say anything to her because Jesus himself is going to give her the message about his resurrection. So, she kind of looks back and she sees a person standing over there. She does not recognize him, which means that Jesus now looks different from the way he did earlier. And so, she just assumes that maybe he is the caretaker of that place and so she says to him in verse 15, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him. It shows the deep commitment and devotion and the gratitude that this lady has because you see the Lord delivered her from all those demons that were persecuting her and had made her life miserable. She's so grateful to the Lord for what he has done and now she is so heartbroken that she's unable to find the body and then Jesus says to her Mary and that one word is enough, it opens her spiritual eyes and she realizes that she is literally in the presence of her master even though he looks different. And so then in the Aramaic language, she says Rabbanayi, which basically means teacher and so obviously she either probably fell down at his feet I know and held on to his feet or she was holding on to his arm. We don't really know but basically she's very thrilled, very, very happy and then Jesus says to her in verse 17 Do not hold on to me for I have not yet ascended to the Father go instead to my brothers and tell them I'm ascending to my Father and your Father to my God and your God So earlier, we had the early translation saying Do not touch me as though in some way a human being touching him would contaminate him in some manner and that was bringing out a very wrong meaning So now most of the translations are careful including NKJV They're all careful to use the more accurate Greek translation So even NKJV now it says Do not cling to me is what Jesus is saying So all he's not saying don't touch me because he's going to get contaminated in some way No, not at all. I mean throughout his ministry he happily went and touched lepers and he never got contaminated So this is not about anything wrong being done by someone touching him Rather he's saying don't cling on because there's one final thing that has to be done So he says I am ascending to my Father and your Father Go tell this to my brothers So we get the indication that some kind of an ascension takes place at this point Now we know that Jesus continues to stay for 40 days He interacts with a lot of people, he meets them, shows them that he's alive So all that happens for 40 days and then bodily, physically he ascends But now at this particular point something does take place And most probably this is what we read about in Hebrews chapter 9 verses 11 to 15 Where we are told that this Jesus Christ our High Priest in Hebrews 9 It says especially in verse 12 it says He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves But he entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood Thus obtaining eternal redemption So now this is purely theory because we don't know the details Jesus does not mention the details over here in the Cospels Maybe in spirit he goes into the tabernacle, not the human temple The actual, the human tabernacle was a representation of what is there in heaven Where you literally have the most holy place where you have the Triune God seated So he goes over there to that most holy place, not the earthly one In spirit probably he goes over there and he declares See I have completed the work of atonement The word atonement means peace being made between God and humans So I have now made the atonement So therefore I have now obtained eternal redemption for humankind So he goes in over there presents the sacrifice which he has made The perfect sacrifice And thereby what happens if you continue to read over there in Hebrews 9 In verse 13, why does he do this? It says in Hebrews 9, 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a hyper sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean Cannot sanctify them It can sanctify them so that they are outwardly unclean But what does Jesus Christ do? The blood of Christ it says in verse 14 It cleanses our very consciences So it's not just outwardly that we are made clean He literally cleanses from us on the inside So this is something that happens I think immediately after Jesus makes his announcement to Mary Magdalene And he says I will go tell my brothers Because you see this is his immediate family He first wants to assure them and inform them I'm fine Everything is good You know everything is because they're in mourning So he needs to assure them So after he has told this I'm assuming that in spirit he goes Presents himself in the most holy place in the heavens With his blood to show that now the eternal redemption has been accomplished And so by doing this He everyone who now believes in him and has been following him Not only are they going to be outwardly made clean Their conscience is going to be cleansed From the inside out they are going to be cleansed So this work of redemption takes place now In the heavenly realm In the spiritual realm And then Jesus makes an appearance to different peoples He makes an appearance on the road leading to Emmaus Where he appears to two disciples to two followers And then later on in the evening he comes and he visits the disciples So I'm assuming that this is the sequence of events which takes place So he says now over here to her Before he does this He says to her don't cling on to me For I have not yet ascended to the Father So this is something that he needs to do And then he says go tell my brothers He doesn't say go tell my followers Go tell my disciples He's now talking to family members Because now through his redemptive act We have become family Actually literally immediate family Amazing And he says I'm ascending to my father and your father So you see now this heavenly father Is our father as well Because now through this redemptive act We have been bought Literally into the family of God So this is an amazing thing which the Lord says over here And having said this So Madeleine stops clinging to him She quickly runs back to give the good news So that would be in verse 18 Where it says He told them that he had said these things to her So the first eye witness report Of the resurrected Jesus is given to a woman Now in the ancient culture of that time Women were never regarded as trustworthy eye witnesses So in case there is a court case You know in case something has happened And there is a court case being conducted It's always the male witnesses who are called To give their testimony in the court Never a woman You may have three women standing over there And having witnessed the same event But when the court case is being conducted It's always the male witnesses who are called Simply because the status of women Was not good in those days They felt that women cannot give a clear testimony They will not be able to tell this Present the facts clearly And yet here Jesus deliberately chooses a woman To be his first eye witness Who will go and report to people And say I have seen him I mean it just shows the way Jesus The way God looks at women So differently from the way you know The people of that time looked at women So this is just an important point Because you see if somebody living in those days Wanted to choose their first eye witness Of something as spectacular as a resurrection They would probably have chosen a Roman An important Roman official Or they would have chosen some important Jewish leader But Jesus chooses to make his first appearance To a woman and she becomes the first one To go and give the testimony of what she has seen It just shows that God looks at his people In very different way from the way The world looks at them Alright So now in the evening After having finished appearing to the two Followers on the road to Emmaus And then having appeared probably to other people I mean we do not know who else Jesus appeared to On that particular day Finally in the evening Of that same day Sunday Of the same day Now he comes here to the disciples Where it clearly says to us When the doors were shut It says in verse 19 The doors were shut and the disciples were assembled For fear of the Jews So they have locked themselves up Here somewhere in some In some place in Galilee Because they are afraid of All the events which have taken place Their master has been crucified Not following legal procedure You know legal procedures were bent To make him To have him crucified So now they are wondering what would be the consequences For them So reports have been coming in throughout the day First was Mary Magdalene coming With the shocking news that she literally saw him Before that the ladies had come Saying that the angels are saying that he is resurrected Then the men from Emmaus They also come and report saying They have seen him All these reports have been coming in But they have not believed And that is very clearly brought in So it is not really mentioned over here But in Mark we get to know That they have not believed in spite of hearing All these reports which have been coming Into their ears throughout the day And now Jesus himself Is standing over there He does not knock on the door He literally just comes into the room Through the wall And he says to them So over here we are just told That Jesus says peace be with you But in Mark we get to know He rebukes them For not having believed all the reports Which were brought to them So in Mark if you were to read Mark 16 verse 11 It talks about Mary Magdalene And it says in Mark 16 verse 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive And that she had seen him They did not believe it And then it says about these people From Emmaus In verse 13 These returned and reported It to the rest But they did not believe them either And then in verse 14 It says that Jesus comes over there to them And it says he rebuked them For their lack of faith And their stubborn refusal To believe those who had seen Him after he had risen So Because if you remember In the final weeks leading up to the crucifixion Again and again he had spoken about this He had spoken about how For a little while he will go away And then he will come back And all of that And they just somehow could not understand those Things So now he rebukes them For their lack of faith And then he says to them Peace be with you So he is assuring them That he will take care of them They do not need to be afraid He was 20 onwards John 20 was 20 onwards He shows them his hands He shows them his side So we get to know that even though He now has a resurrected body He retains these marks Of the crucifixion And in fact Even in Revelation when we see It talks about the lamb who looked As though it had been slain That is the wording that is used over there So Jesus Chosen for all eternity To retain those marks And in that sense He is standing over there In the presence of the Father And he is interceding In the sense of he is over there Showing always for eternity That I have mediated On behalf of the humans And therefore now the Propheciation has been Paid And the atonement Is now complete So those marks are always an indication That he has done this on our behalf And therefore now peace is established Between God and us And we can call God our Father In the same way that Jesus calls Him my Father It is an amazing amazing status That has been given to us So Jesus has retained Those marks And he shows them to his disciples And it says that they are overjoyed And then he says to them Again in verse 21 Peace be with you As the Father has sent me I am sending you So Jesus was sent to the earth With a great commission That humankind Can be restored once again to the Lord And Jesus fulfilled his part Of the commission Now he is passing on to them Their part of the commission The Father sent me and now I am sending you You need to go and tell people What I have finished The work that I have completed So that they too can be restored to the Father In the same way all of you Have been restored to the Father And so Having said that In verse 22 it says And with that he breathed on them And said Receive the Holy Spirit And what had he said to them earlier You know when he was speaking to them In John chapter 16 If you were to look at that Entire portion John 16 Versus 7 to 11 Over there you know we had read Jesus had said Unless I go away The Advocate will not come to you But if I go I will send him to you So Now He seems to have gone into the heavenly realm He presented himself over there As the atonement that is required And now having completed that He can now impart the Spirit to them In such a way That the Spirit will now reside inside them Up to now the Holy Spirit Could be with them But he could not be in them But now that he has finished This high priestly act In the most holy place In the heavenlies He can Very freely, generously say to them Receive the Holy Spirit And in a moment they just will So that has now become possible So Great, amazing, eternal Things took place on that day It must have been the most Amazing Experience for these disciples To have experienced All of that He says to them I am sending you They receive the Holy Spirit And he says now that this has happened Verse 23 If you forgive anyone Since their sins are forgiven If you do not forgive them They are not forgiven Again you see he is referring to What he had talked about And explained to them earlier in John 16 Because he said If I go away I will send the Advocate to you And what will the Advocate do When he comes he will prove to the world The world to be in the wrong He will convict them of sin, righteousness And judgment So in that sense now The believers can speak to people about The gospel and they can Declare to them Through the Holy Spirit About sin, righteousness and judgment So when they speak out This truth of the gospel Convict the people of this They will not convict of course The Holy Spirit will convict them of their sins The Holy Spirit will tell them About sin and righteousness So if the people Accept it Their sins will stand forgiven If they do not accept it If they reject it Then their sins will remain upon them So in that sense verse 23 Should be taken In line with the explanation Which is given by Jesus in John 16 If you forgive anyone Sins, their sins are forgiven In that sense Through these disciples who are being sent out The Holy Spirit will convict He will do his work of bringing People to the Lord If they choose to believe that true message Yes, their sins will be forgiven If they refuse it Their sins will Not be forgiven So here in verse 23 It's not talking about any human leader Speaking over a person And saying I declare your sins forgiven This is not talking about some kind of Human Confession Ritual We cannot go up to a spiritual leader And say I'm coming to you please forgive me My sins even as I confess them to you No Humans will not Cannot offer you forgiveness It's a divine act That has to be done by the Holy Spirit Who does that work Of conviction inside the person So if that person repents Then the righteousness Which the Holy Spirit is telling them About that will come to them If they have accepted Jesus Christ So verse 23 is not talking about Us going to a leader And confessing our sins and that Human leader declaring Oh I forgive your sins It is not talking about that We cannot separate what Jesus taught In John 16 with what is happening Over here the two are connected And we need to take them in that Sense all right So If Jesus over here Is breathing upon them They have received the Holy Spirit Whatever is going to occur next in their ministry Is going to happen through the Holy Spirit It's not human beings Who are going to go around declaring People's sins forgiven and forgiving them It's a divine work Of the Holy Spirit that's going to take place Which is why you know when we talk About sharing the gospel That's all we are doing We are testifying and saying This is what Jesus did for me in my life This is what I have learnt from the scriptures This is what the Lord has taught me From the scriptures about eternal life So we just go and we testify And we share and we tell about these things It's the Holy Spirit Who does that internal work Of transforming that person And bringing them to the Lord The Holy Spirit was inside us He does the eternal work Of converting those people And bringing them into the fold Of the Lord So please let us not take this Verse as talking about some kind Of human confession made To a human leader Or some kind of spiritual authority No it's not talking about that All right so That was an important point that we needed To develop on Now let's move to Verses 24 Onwards If we could have someone Read out for us please Verses John chapter 20 Verse 24 to 29 Verses 24 to 29 If someone could read out from John chapter 20 Now Thomas called the twin One of the 12 Was not with them when Jesus came The other disciples therefore said to him We have seen the Lord So he said to them unless I see In his hands the print of the nails And put my finger Into the print of the nails And put my hand Into his side I will not believe And after 8 days his disciples Were again inside And Thomas with them Jesus came The doors being shut And stood in the midst And said peace to you And he said to Thomas Reach your finger here And look at my hands And reach your hand here And put it into my side Do not be unbelieving But believing And Thomas answered and said to him My Lord and my God Jesus said to him Thomas Because you have seen me You have believed Blessed are those who have not seen Yet have believed And it is a bad rep They say oh my the man refused to believe But even the other disciples also did the same thing And Jesus rebuked them as well I know so They only after they saw With their own eyes When he showed the marks in his hands And his side It says they were overjoyed And they believed So Thomas too is following in the same footsteps He too has to see And only then he will be willing to believe It is another 8 days before He actually chooses to believe So Jesus says reach out your hand Put it into my side I think he actually does not do that He is just I mean someone just walked in through the wall I mean the doors were closed I think that itself was enough for him So he says my Lord and my God So We got to remember this was the Thomas Was willing to go with Jesus To Lazarus If he is going to be killed Let's die with him These are good men Who loved the Lord So now he is willing to believe And Jesus makes this amazing statement He says because you have seen me You have believed Blessed are those who have not seen And yet have believed So you and I are those great people Who have not physically Seen the marks in his hands We have not physically Put our hand in his side But we have believed And the Lord has himself Spoken a blessing over us So you know we can remind the Lord And say Lord you said that we are blessed So I think that blessing rests Upon each of us, all of us Believers who did not get to See with our eyes what these Disciples saw And yet by faith Through the convicting of the Holy Spirit We have chosen to believe We are blessed So John wrote these words For his first time readers Because many of them did not get to see They were not there in that room When Jesus appeared And they all chose this account Which John wrote They chose to read it Believe what John has written over here So he was telling them You people are blessed Because we got to see You didn't get to see but still you have chosen That what himself said That you people are blessed Because we have chosen to believe in this way So it would have been a great encouragement To his readers to know that this is What Jesus said about them And the same encouragement Is given even to us We are blessed because we have chosen To believe him And so over here We see John concluding and Saying in verse 31 He says Jesus performed many other signs Which are not recorded But these are written That you may believe That Jesus is the Messiah That he is the Son of God And that by believing You may have life In his name So in the name of Jesus We have life Eternal life in us So Jesus never said that We will not have trials and difficulties Those will always be there But the power of his name It is with us because what does Jesus say In his intercessory prayer If you remember when we covered that He says the power of your name You know Lord let it be with them So that they will be protected They will be kept safe So yes trials will be there Everyday difficulties would be there Persecution in fact also Would be there For that name The power of that name That's always there with us So as long as we choose to believe in this Jesus Choose to believe what he has said in his word Choose to Believe to the extent where we submit and obey The power of his name Is always with us He will be there to take care of us Which is why he says When he is talking to his disciples He says you will face trials But do not fear Do not be disheartened Because I have overcome the world Is what the Lord says So he is with us We can have that confidence That no matter what we are facing The Lord is always by our side Through his name Because we trust in that name So this is the privilege Which is granted to us So we will Now be looking into John chapter 21 If Let's just get into the Chapter maybe we can cover At least a few verses So in John chapter 21 We see That These disciples have Chosen to go Fishing To the To the sea of Galilee Alright so in John chapter 21 Verse 1 This is where it says That Jesus appeared again to his disciples By the sea of Galilee And we are told that Later on in one of the verses That this was the third appearance That Jesus makes to his disciples So the first of course Was immediately on that same day The resurrection day in the evening The second occasion of course Was when Thomas was present And now this is the third time When he comes to these One of them was a traitor He is gone but then we have 11 disciples Here so this is the Third appearance of Jesus to these People And in verse 2 And 3 We get to know that they decide To go fishing and there's a lot of Negative things that are said about the disciples Going fishing as though they have Abandoned the Lord and gone back Into the world and all of that But we don't really see This anywhere in the New Testament Where people are just Depending On the people in ministry Are just depending on charity and not Earning their livelihood We don't see that Anywhere in the New Testament Yes there were people contributing To the ministry of the Lord But all these people Were doing whatever they can To continue supporting themselves They were not a burden To society So if you look at Paul he follows the same Practice later He is deeply interested In spiritual matters He in fact Chooses to be trained under Gamaliel he chooses to buy heart Because in those days someone Who is getting trained under Gamaliel would have had to buy heart Huge chunks of the Old Testament So he did all of that And later on when we When he is talking I think in Galatians is it or is it in Philippines He says when it comes to the matters Of the law I kept it most perfectly So when it came To all the spiritual matters Paul was Fully completely involved In all these religious spiritual Things But he never depended on the charity Of people he taught himself How to trade He taught himself how to make tents And that is basically what he did He supported himself Before he became a believer After he became a believer He had a Means of livelihood In the same way the disciples over here They are not going to sit around Waiting upon other people to give them Money This is their way of earning a livelihood And so they go fishing Any kind of crime in going and fishing They were supporting themselves They would gather the fish They would sell them They would feed their families So over here Even as we just look at the beginning Of this chapter Let us understand That these disciples Have not committed any crime In earning their livelihood Now we will go on to see After the break what Jesus says to them And we will see in what Way we should understand what is being Told So let us take our break And come back in 10 minutes


So, thank you all for being here and thanks to Hank and the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Before I actually begin, I'd like to survey you a little bit. Hank was talking earlier about his own life and his multiple religious affiliations over lifetime. There are other people who have grown up in a single faith. How many, and I think Lincoln will probably be one of them, grew up in a single faith and are still part of that? How many like me and Hank have multiple different faith experiences? And how many are atheists? Good, I'm glad to see you all here. Because I think it's really important that we respect one another and learn from one another as much as possible. If you stay within a group of like-minded people and resist any interaction with people who think differently, you're going to have an impoverished experience. You're not going to see the strongest arguments against what you believe in. And the people who have those arguments are also not going to hear from you why you believe what you do and maybe in that case learn something. So I'm going to look at multiple world models from different sources. We've already seen some different kinds of cosmologies here today. I'm going to present still another one and put it within the context of a broadly Eastern teaching, mostly Buddhist. But first, let me talk about transhumanism as I view it. Transhumanism, I consider to be a species of Meliorism, which is the idea of progress leading to an improved world through human effort. But it's also satisfying. It's considering alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. Therefore, transhumanism is not leading to the ultimate good. It's leading to progressively better and better conditions. I'm also going to be using the Buddhist two truths doctrine, two truths that sounds realistic, but it's very simple. There's a conventional truth of ordinary life and there is an ultimate truth, which from the perspective of our ordinary lives seems to be when we hear it metaphysical, perhaps contradictory, doesn't particularly make sense. The Buddha, in contrast to what was common at his time in his place in India, around 500 before the current era, B.C., did not take an idealistic position. That is, he didn't say, there is this ultimate God Brahma, there are all of these things that you have to believe. The Buddha began his teaching by saying, there is suffering. Actually, he used the word dukkha, which is often primarily translated as suffering, but the secondary and I think actually more accurate definition is unsatisfactory. Life is unsatisfactory. If you surveyed any group of people at any point in history, the vast majority of them will have to admit that things could be better. So this is a realist argument. The Buddha did not argue that you had to believe a bunch of things. He said, look at your own experience. Is there suffering? Is it unsatisfactory? And then he pointed out that your experience, no matter what it is, is impermanent. It is not the same from one moment to the next. It lasts for some period of time and then changes. And he went on to explain, and I'm obviously compressing things substantially, explain a path that leads to the end of suffering. So in this sense, from the realist perspective, the Buddha began by saying something that's very transhumanist. Life has many shortcomings. There is suffering. It's not satisfactory. And there's a path that leads to the end of suffering. The Buddha goes all the way to an ultimate truth. And my argument would be that transhumanism can't actually take us that far for reasons that I'll go on to explain today. But it is a necessary precondition because we live in the time we live in. When we have science and technology that can be used to improve lives. And just as Lincoln said that his own religion, Mormonism, mandates transhumanism, I would argue also that Buddhism does. Now I'm going to define heaven quite arbitrarily as the ultimate place. And I want to distinguish that from paradise, which would be a really nice place. You can think of it as the difference in paradise and heaven. There can be any number of paradises that have different degrees of satisfaction of desires associated with them.  And heaven would be some place where everything is perfect. What exactly that means, I'll explore in a little more detail by looking at some cosmologies. And also some individual reports of people's experiences of different states. So I'll say that a transhumanist paradise is possible but not a transhumanist heaven. That heaven, that perfect place, now we're talking ultimate truth, is reached by other means. So what do we know about our universe, the world that we're in? According to astronomy Neil deGrasse Tyson, there are about 100 billion atoms in a single strand of DNA, 100 billion stars in a typical galaxy and about 100 billion probable galaxies in the universe. That is the universe we can observe. But there's also the theory that the universe we observe is only one of many, many universes. According to Professor Andre Lind, a self-reproducing inflationary universe, which maybe is the type that we live in, consisting of different parts, exponentially large in uniform due to cosmic inflation, with each part looking like a separate mini-universe or pocket-universe independent of the other parts of the universe, would lead to a multiverse that is inconceivably vast. According to Lind and his collaborator Vitaliy Venturin, the number of possible universes with different geometrical properties could be counted at 10 to the 10th power to the 77th power. So imagine 77 zeros following that 10 exponent and that number then converted to zeros following that 10. This is about the most mind-boggling number I've ever encountered. And that is perhaps what existence in physical terms is. Living in one of these pocket universes on one little planet in one little galaxy among hundreds of billions of others, and that pocket universe surrounded by many, many other ones, which is theoretically countable, but it's not feasible. You wouldn't in a human lifetime be able to actually count that number of seconds. To just give you an idea, you know, this is way beyond a billion. But how long is a billion seconds? Most of you have lived that long. It's about 30 years, 10 months and a handful of days. That would be a billion seconds. So you may live for two or three billion seconds. There are a lot of ancient mythological cosmoses from the idea that the cosmos was a bunch of starry lights on a crystal dome to the idea represented by this medieval woodcut of someone breaking through that concept to see that the universe was actually much more complicated. Different concentric levels or spheres that had different properties, wheels within wheels. The Buddhist cosmology as traditionally taught is divided into three broad realms, a sense sphere realm, a fine material realm and an immaterial realm. Each of these three realms is divided into several subsidiary planes where total of 31 different planes of existence. Each one of these planes actually has many potential worlds within it. You can think of it as being like some of those pocket universes that we saw in the multiverse slide. I'm not going to read all of the text here, but the sense sphere realm is 11 planes in number and this is where we live. There are seven better planes and four not so terrific ones. We are low on the level of the good seven and just barely above the four that are not so pleasant. The four lower realms are realms where there is a lot more suffering than what we have here. These are the hellish places to various degrees. We're not in hell, but you can think of it as the elevator down from here, not that far. The better realms you can think of as versions of this place that are simply superior in the experience there. In a very broad way, if you were to categorize all of your experiences in a lifetime as being either positive, negative, or neutral. There's actually a Buddhist exercise of doing this in a meditative way from moment to moment. Numerically, here, the realm we're in, we have a fairly high percentage of suffering experiences, some neutral ones and some positive ones. If you look at our society, stratified according to wealth and people born with some genetic advantages over others, some people have greater native intelligence, they're better looking, they're more athletic, they have better musical ability and some of us, like me, are deficient in some of these. My daughter says every time she hears me sing, don't sing daddy, just don't sing. If you had a lot of money and you still couldn't sing, you'd have a lot more friends.  So the experience of someone who can't sing is not particularly good looking but has a lot of money. We'll probably be superior in terms of, first of, clothes and food and living circumstances that they can afford to pay for.  So these are not your real friends. This is quite artificial. But nevertheless, you'll have a lot of those pleasant experiences simply because you either inherited or earned a bunch of money. Is this fair? No. But it is common. It is the world that we live in in this plane. Higher planes within this sense of your realm would be a bit like having more money. In that, if you categorize your experiences numerically between positive, negative and neutral, you'd have a lot more positive ones. Is this an ultimate good? No, but it's approximate good because people like to have positive experiences. They'd rather not have negative ones. The fine material realm, 16 levels, here there is no gross matter at the level that we are at. But it is a form of matter. It's a finer kind of matter. What this actually means, translating the Buddhist perspective to the current modern understanding of atoms, I can't really say. This is more conceptual based on subjective experiences that Buddhist meditators have had. And I'll have some more to say about that in a moment. Denizens of these realms enjoy greater bliss, power, luminosity and vitality than do denizens of this realm. They live longer. They have even more positive experiences. And their nature is such that compared to us, they are thought of in a non-monotheistic sense as gods. And I can use that term, gods, but I want you to understand I'm not talking about a single ultimate god. I'm not talking about people, beings who have more power than we do just as some people where we live in this planet have more money than we do or more political power or any other kind of influence. Then come the four immaterial realms. This is mind only. The denizens of these four planes enjoy enormous lifespans and the Buddhists like Hindus like to use numbers, big numbers, 20,000, 40,000, 60,000, 80,000 great eons are their lifespans. How long is an eon? Well, that's never actually defined. The way to think of it is subjectively. If you've ever had an experience, perhaps this was an experience during a meditation or perhaps you resunked out of your mind on some chemical and time seemed to slow way, way down. You thought it was an hour. It turned out to be a minute. This is something like what the experience is in these realms where no matter what proper time, clock time might be. For you, the experience extends for, seems like forever, thousands and thousands of time units. The four planes here are named in accordance with the Buddhist levels of blissful meditation, so-called jhanas. Infinite space, which you can think of as boundless. It's the sense that there's no boundary to it. When you are experiencing this jhana of infinite or boundless space, you feel like you're in a huge space. Just as this is a larger room and probably any room in your house, and yet you can also go to buildings that have still larger rooms than this, or you can go stand on the top of Mount Amalpius and there's a lot of space all around you. So infinite space, infinite mind, similar except now it's not that you are in an infinite space, it's that your mind has occupied this infinite or boundless space. You can't find an edge to it. Then nothingness, which might sound really boring and maybe even scary, but subjectively the experience is actually very wonderful. If you enjoy getting a good night's sleep, you have some sense of what a good quality nothingness can be. Then there's this very paradoxical jhana, which the Buddha called neither perception nor yet non-perception. The experience of this jhana or this plane would be like is very much like a flashing alternation between perceiving something and then the nothingness of that preceding jhana, and then perceiving something again and then a nothingness. You've seen a movie film with a lot of individual frames and a black bar between each. If the movie is being shown and then the projector starts slowing down, you begin to see the black bars between the frames. That's a lot of what this neither perception nor yet non-perception is like, except it's also extremely blissful, which the movie probably wasn't. Now this thing about the Buddhist cosmology is the goal that the Buddha taught was not to climb up to these higher and higher levels. Life in the cosmic worlds altogether is fundamentally limited. Experience in the cosmic domain is first of all impermanent, even at those highest levels in the highest levels of the immaterial realms, where you live for 80,000 eons. That's still not forever. They're not fully satisfactory. This is a fundamental part of the Buddha's realist critique is that things are impermanent, they're not completely satisfactory, either because it's simply painful or you were anticipating an experience, you finally had this experience, you've been waiting for your whole life and it didn't live up to your expectations, or you have that experience and it's tremendous, it's even better than you expected and then it's over. So that's not satisfactory. Finally, the Buddha said in a teaching that is actually very difficult for most people to grasp, that there's no essential being in experience itself. And this is really not that hard to understand. Your experience is not you, it's something that is happening to you. You really exist in some fundamental sense, you have that being, your experience does not. I tell my students never to do this, never put a big paragraph up here, but I'm violating my own rule and I'm actually going to read this to you because it is a very good summary of what I said and where I'm going with this. According to a B.Q. Bodhi who is an American born, Theravadan Buddhist scholar and translator who completed the work of translating all of the major texts from the old Pali language into English. In Buddhist cosmology, existence in every realm, being the product of Kama, we think of as Kama here using the Sanskrit rather than the Pali and I'll use the Sanskrit, Kama and other Sanskrit versions of the words. Being the product of Kama with a finite potency is necessarily impermanent. Beings take rebirth in accordance with their deeds, experience the good or bad results and then when the generative Kama has spent its force, they pass away to take rebirth elsewhere as determined by still another Kama that has found the opportunity to ripen. Hence the torments of hell as well as the bliss of heaven, and again we're talking about what I call paradise, the bliss of heaven no matter how long they may last are bound to pass. For this reason the Buddha does not locate the final goal of his teaching anywhere in the conditioned world. He guides those who are still tender to aspire for a heavenly rebirth and teaches them the lines of conduct that conduce to the fulfillment of their aspirations. But for those whose faculties are mature and who can grasp the unsatisfactory nature of everything conditioned, he urges determined effort to put an end to wandering in Samsara, the realm of rebirth, and to reach Nirvana which transcends all planes of being. So getting to a more satisfactory state of life, and one of those other planes that I just described, or in the world we live in now, is a kind of transhumanist goal. But it's not the ultimate one. Making things better but not making things perfect. Now I'm going to say something about the cosmos of Avatar Adidas Samraj, who was born in the United States in New York 1939, named Franklin Jones, and as his spiritual life became profound and enlightened, took different names, and at the end of his life, 2008, he was known as Adidas Samraj. For people who live in this area, the Bay Area, you may have seen something about Adidas at one of his devotees. For people who have looked at new religious movements, this is probably somewhat a familiar figure. Adidas describes seven stages of life. We're stepping back from cosmology now and we're talking about human lifetime potentials. There are three physical stages which correspond basically to the periods of childhood, adolescence, and then adult maturity. Beyond that, there is a fourth possible stage, which is a spiritualization, which is actually becoming religious and spiritual in some sense that is not arbitrary, but is based on the structure that we're born with. The human body is capable of more experience, more power, more bliss, more capability, and more service to others than most of us ever get a chance to really manifest. Beyond that, there is a fifth and sixth stage of more subtle experience and deep, what's called self-realization. The unique contribution of Adidas Samraj was to explain the seventh stage of divine enlightenment, which is not following directly on the sixth stage, but becomes an orientation that can exist throughout life and could be entered actually in a profound way from the fourth stage on. The fifth and sixth stages are things that could be passed through relatively quickly, Adidas Samraj has said. He also describes the cosmos at a subtle level as looking like this. He calls this the cosmic mandala. In visionary states or in the transition that happens after bodily death, people will experience some version of something like this. I say some version of something like, because if you've read reports of people who've had temporary cessation of heart and brain activity and say that they saw a light, they rose toward it and so forth, they're having a version of this experience. These series of concentric planes, again, are experienced potentially while you're still alive and having a visionary experience and after death, at least briefly, experienced by everyone before going on to whatever comes next according to your karma. By karma, I would like to say that while you may think of this as a lot of complicated cause and effect, which it really is, Adidas describes the after death as simply this. During your life, you make mind. After death, mind makes you. Whatever mental states you have cultivated during your lifetime, that becomes the domain of your experience after bodily death. If you've been a very angry, bitter person, you're going to have some really bummer experiences. If you've been very loving, compassionate, and giving, your experiences will correspond to that, which you can think of as a reason to be nice. The red realm, this is corresponding to the lower realms of existence, those lower four, lowest four in the first realm that I talked about before in the Buddhist cosmology. The golden yellow plane, this is where we come in, we're just above the red, and this yellow band is not a single world. There are actually many subbands, many worlds, probably many universes, within this plane. And the plane is a plane of potential experience. There's a white silvery part, which is very thin and which is passed through quickly, and a black or dark blue part that's an empty space. It's a kind of nothingness, a little bit like entering a dark room before you turn on the light. Then the brilliant blue, subtle mental planes, this corresponds to the higher part, the non-material planes of the Buddhist cosmology. Avatar Adidah has spoken about the subtle realms as benign places or dimensions of existence, where the sense of separate self is hardly noticed. Thus they are places of apparently limitless joy and bliss. Experiencing them is typically free of fear. One is freer to notice and participate in the inherent nature of existence itself, which is self-radiant, love-bliss, consciousness, and light. The experience of pervasive and indescribable joy, love and radiance and awareness is characteristic of these subtle realms. But even in the midst of such potentially magnificent experience, from the perspective of the highest realization, these most refined states of existence, though they're full of joy and bliss, are still a condition of suffering, of non-realization. This is essentially the same argument that the Buddha made. However, at the very center is a white core often perceived as a five-pointed star. This is the gateway between the subtle realms of two, excuse me, from the subtle realms to the divine domain, true heaven, the domain of radiant transcendental being. So beyond the conditional cosmos, there is an ultimate place, where I'm calling true heaven. Now I'd like to share with you a couple of firsthand reports of some of these planes above where we are by some devotees of Ayurveda Samraj. Ann Rogers reported this. And by the way, these experiences came through direct interaction with Ayurveda Samraj, who said he wanted to show them something. She reports, in an instant, without any noticeable transition, there it was, another world. This was a beautiful place and extremely attractive. I was in a room made out of amethyst crystals, yet there was no feeling of sharpness to the scene. It was peaceful and bright and felt very happy and serene. Directly in front of me was a throne made largely out of crystals. Behind the throne was a window. It felt as if the room were an empty entry room or foyer into another world. I approached the window and opened it. It was glass with a frame and hinges to open and close. I could seize through the window but opened it to take a better look at the sight beyond the throne. It was an earth-like meadow but of the most beautiful quality. There was an exquisite light that made the colors of the meadow very vibrant, like the light here sometimes after a rain. There were flowers of different colors growing on the spring-green lawn and beautiful billowing trees that grew in a line which led up a slope to an inviting forest. The place had the most serene and inviting quality. It had a radiance that is not often felt on this plane. Connie Mantis, who had told Adida that she was about to change in her nursing career to begin working in hospice, said, let me show you something and this is what happened. First there was an explosion of inner sounds. Then I felt the layers of the body-mind release and fall away. I, quote-unquote, was separating out from the physical body and seemed to fly upwards, whirling through dark space at an incredible speed. I was moving toward an overwhelming, brilliant light. At one point I recall slipping through a kind of grid as a speck of consciousness. For an instant I did seem to lose all self-awareness but throughout the rest of the experience I was aware of the most remarkable clarity. I found that I felt more familiar and at ease traveling without the body than when I was dragging it along, anchored to it by my usual physical body identification. I felt myself to be alive as consciousness, at ease as the witness of mind and attention. At different moments in this cosmic journey I felt the deep urges of the body-mind drawing me back towards embodiment and I sensed the frustration of having no physical body through which to enact or fulfill desires. This made a stunning impression on me and I remember feeling how foolish it would be to waste the opportunity of a human lifetime to do this spiritual practice that could help free me of the binding attachments I had now seen so clearly. Adidas scribes his visit to the high place of transition for beings who are in the last stages of embodied existence about to pass through that star portal to the divine domain. It is the place of great souls who are being divinely translated not by any merit of their own. In other words, this is not karma and the fruits of karma but because they are attracted to the living divine. Attraction. Love. I talked about the two truths, relative truth and absolute truth. Here is a description of the absolute truth. You are not consciously a separate entity even though you may presume yourself to be such an entity through your usual association with experience. Conventionally you believe that the realm wherein you are one with God is somewhere other than your present circumstance. You believe that the divine is someone else or other. You think that the divine is so profound you could not realize God except in a totally different state, circumstance and dimension than this present one. But God is simply the shining conscious being that is your nature at all times and under all circumstances. Now, so in conclusion, transhumanism and transcendence, heaven or the ultimate place can be realized by spiritual transcendental practice, paradise or an improved circumstance of enhanced human life and can be realized by transhumanist means through science and technology. This is my argument. We need both transhumanism at the base and transcendence at the apex, not the end but the next. Thank you. Are there any questions? You have time for probably two, one and two. It strikes me frankly that transhumanism and Buddhism are paradoxical. Transhumanism seeks the best that can possibly happen in the material world. Buddhism, as I understand it, sees the material world as an illusion. So while one revels in the material world and seeks to create perhaps some of these states that you described through materialism, Buddhism actually denies the material world in its ultimate sense. And so I don't see how you could have both. I don't see how they fit in the same world. Thank you for that question. The notion that Buddhism sees the world as being completely illusory is a very pervasive misconception.  In other words, by analogy, enlightenment, which is the conventional translation of Bodhi, which literally means awakening, enlightenment is awakening from the sleep, the dream world that we're perceiving. The world really exists. How we perceive it, though, is an illusion. Another question, I think, this lady in the front row or somebody in the back? Last question here. I pretty much have the same question, but under slightly different angles. So what's the take on this whole, like Kurzweil wants to live forever, you know, never leave this physical body? And a lot of transhumanism is about, well, we have a possibility of extending this biological lifespan at infinitum. So I think it totally goes against the Buddhism practices, which is a concept that we are incarnated into this body for particular experiences, but that's not the goal. So I wonder what's the take on the ultimate lifespan? Yeah, again, the question is about perceived contradictions between Buddhism and transhumanism. And certainly there are a lot of transhumanists who view things differently than I do, since the majority of transhumanists are either atheist or agnostic. Among those transhumanists who according to our own surveys of Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies have any religious or spiritual orientation at all, Buddhism is number one with something like 8%, and Mormonism is number two, but we're a terrible minority compared to the vast majority. In my view, and again I'm speaking for myself, where transhumanism and Buddhism come together is this. The actual practice of Buddhism is about transforming the practitioner, the one who's doing these practices, living the 8-fold path which is including not just meditation, but right livelihood, how you earn your living, you know, not by selling poison or committing crimes and so forth. A transhumanist utopia, so-called, with an extended lifespan, material abundance, the freedom for people to follow their own bliss, a phrase from Joseph Campbell, would be a place where Buddhist practice can be facilitated.  It interferes with your opportunities to practice. If you ever try to actually arrange in your schedule on a meditation retreat for a week, or even just a weekend, it's not actually so easy to do. It's costly. There's an opportunity cost. There's a monetary cost. In a transhumanist world, as I envision it, where the machines are doing most of the work and we're being creative, if you wanted to go on a three-month meditation retreat, it would just be deciding to do it. So transhumanism, in a very practical sense, can support a Buddhist practice. It doesn't necessitate it, but it's helpful. Would I want to live forever? Well, I'll have to be completely honest with you now. We already do. As Adidas Amraj put it, everybody dies from time to time. The thing is, we don't remember any of these previous lives. And it's not even essential that we do. Sometimes, in the course of your practice of meditation, you begin to get some feelings of things that had happened before, things come up, and there are all kinds of stories of people finding out they lived a particular previous life. But it's not a requirement. The fact is that we have to deal with our karma as it is experienced in this lifetime. Living forever is something in this body. This body? Couldn't I get a better one? And then better and better, up to some point, again, satisfying, saying, yeah, better and better, but you get to a point where, as Khande Mantis said, carrying around the body is such a drag. Thank you.


ied I could find that out was it fiberglass or blown insulation I believe it was fiberglass bats I'm not sure but it's got the same rating it meets the specs okay first and second all those in favor any opposed motion carries unanimously thank you Gary now we move on to our consent agenda before vote on our consent agenda well actually should I pull them so I could thank them can I just thank them now we do have a speaker okay I'm sorry do we need to pull the item we would have to pull that item what item is it item 10.8 okay so I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda yes I moved to approve the consent agenda deferring item 10.8 and I have a second second okay all those in favor aye and before we move on to 10.8 I would like to acknowledge donations to the to the Emeril Lagasse culinary garden and teaching kitchen project that we just approved the change order for the first donation is from the California giant berry farm and we're very very grateful for their donation I think it was $10,000 isn't it? yeah there it is a gift of $10,000 so generous so thank you to the California giant berries sorry I'm trying to get out of that and the next donation was from the Serrano I think that's a real estate group isn't it is it Serrano? the real estate group called Serrano the 1% for good charitable foundation they similarly donated $10,000 to our special kitchen that we're building so thank you to both to both groups we couldn't do it without you so moving on to item under deferred consent item 10.8 and this item is the MOA United Way Santa Cruz first five in migrant and seasonal hit start item so this MOA is with quality accounts California and we apply for funding we actually are eligible to apply for funding as we keep the quality of services in child development programs we have to meet requirements on the matrix based on seven different elements and as we continue going up by points that's how we qualify to apply for the funding we do have a speaker to the side I'm thinking Helica with us with Lauren I have nothing wrong with this particular item I think it's awesome I'm just looking for equity the school nurses don't have they have to pay for professional development themselves we don't get professional development through the district for our licensing and for credentialing that we have to keep up the teachers get professional development and migrant first head start professional development the only way we pay for professional development is out of LA billing and this year that was a total of less than a thousand dollars that's it, that's what it is and we were told the more you bill the more you would get but we only get 10% of what that's all we get if that and so $39,000 is great I just like to see some equity when it comes to professional development for the nurses that would include our professional organizations which we are told the district will not pay for even out of the LEA funds that we earn that's how we get our professional development it's also how we get our VSP certificates which provide children with free eye exams and glasses that's where we get them so it would just be nice to have a little equity on this one thank you thank you okay I need to I think we need to approve this item are there any comments from the board on this one I think this is funded from a block grant correct so this is a grant migrant seasonal head start right and while you go out and get many grants to support migrant seasonal head start and support the professional development of teachers as well as training for child care new supplies all the things that are needed at migrant head start and many of the programs are funded through block grants correct okay so this isn't coming money from PVOSD this is coming from a grant so with that I would like to make a motion to approve this item okay all those in favor aye anyone opposed thank you for bringing it forward and thank you to the United Way and First Five I think they were on the United Way and First Five we thank our friends there for supporting our district okay moving on to item 12 close no sorry 13 action reports on closed session yeah so alright so under item 2.1 I move to approve the certificated personnel report as presented by the district administration on March 9th 2022 with 29 additional action items all those in favor aye any opposed the motion passes unanimously under item 2.2 I move to approve the classified personnel report as presented by the district administration on March 9th 2022 with 9 and 11 additional action items second all those in favor aye anyone opposed motion passes unanimously under item 2.4 the board approved a classify employee discipline agreement in closed session regarding employee number 2589 with a 601 vote and then under item 2.5 the board voted with a 501 1 vote to reject the claim identified in closed session item 2.5 that's all we have thank you so our upcoming board meeting will be on March 23rd and I appreciate everyone being here staff included thanks for a great meeting


Today, on the breakfast, supporters of the People's Democratic Party, PDP and Adama State have taken to the streets of Yola, the state capital, in protest to demand the results of last Saturday's governorship supplementary elections. The now famous Moroccan footballer, Achraf Hakimi, has been trending online for days, but why? We would analyze that today on the show. And also, don't forget, we would also be analyzing the big stories on the newspapers today. Welcome to the Breakfast. My name is Nyam Gul Agadje. Well, there are so many things that are trending, but the things that have really caught our attention are, like, the woman who was arrested for allegedly selling off her baby to repay bank loan. We have that story there. And when she sold the baby, it was not with the consent of the father of the baby. And now the father of the baby is so distraught, so heartbroken, and all that. And we're asking ourselves the question, why would it be so difficult for the woman to pay the loan? What did she use the money for? And what terms did she sign? What terms of agreement did they have with the bank that loaned her the money? It's probably one of the loan sharks that we had, had been called nowadays, the online banking, that they give you the money very readily without collateral and all that. And after that, they make life so unbearable for you. And we keep asking the question, why are the major banks, why are the mainstream banks, not having loan facilities that are as flexible as the ones that these loan sharks as we've come to call them, why don't they have this kind of loan so that people can access them and give more time for repayment? For the loan sharks, for instance, if you borrow a hundred thousand Naira, you are expected to start payment in one week's time, even though what you borrowed the money to do is not, has not matured enough for you to get back your money and start the payment, you are expected to start paying after one week. And if you do not pay and then you default for some days, somehow they make your life so unbearable. They call all your friends on your contact list, they threaten you, they send your photograph to a lot of people and so many people, it's a big shame to them and some of them commit suicide, some of them go through to very, very extreme just to be able to remove that shame from themselves. Now this woman, a promising young child has been sold just for that person to pay that loan. She may not even have collected that much but because she's been defaulting, she's not able to pay, it keeps rising. Every day there's an interest that is terrible and then it has reached up to maybe half a million and a woman like that in the picture is definitely not going to be able to pay that money readily. Now she sold the baby to pay. Well while we blame the lady that she shouldn't have sold the baby, we should also be looking at the reason she had to go to the extreme to sell this baby to pay the loan. Well that's one story that we're going to be looking at if we have someone who will be talking with us. We also have this story about the aviation workers that have already begun their warning strike. They said two days, the strike was supposed to be for two days and that means yesterday that it started and today it's supposedly going to end. But these are basic things that should have been done, what they are calling for and their excuse, their excuse was that these things have been on the table for a very long time and this government made a lot of promises and they couldn't fulfill these promises and they don't want, they're living in a matter of maybe 44 or 45 days they will be living and that means the burden will be passed on to the next administration and it's only fair that you give the next administration some time to operate, a little window to operate before they can start paying bills that the previous government has incurred. So they want to do this now because it might take longer time and they are being owed areas of about 32 months of whatever they are asking for, your minimum wage and the implementation and everything, the areas that they were supposed to pay, 32 months is not a small thing. But anyway, we'll be touching on all these issues and so much more. But after this break, we'll just take this break and watch what the aviation people were doing to register their grievances.


Hello, hello everyone. My name is Laura. This is my channel Laura's Little Library and welcome to today's video Which is my March TBR journals with a TBR page of Six books for my TBR for the month and I realize that I really like that because I want to read More than six books a month, but because I am such a mood reader. I don't want all of them to be planned out So I like the idea of planning a few. These are the ones I want to read for whatever reason But still having room to kind of just pick up whatever I choose to make sure I don't fall into a slump and to kind of just Go back and forth on mood reading, but also scheduled reading and just kind of advance along my reading life in that way That being said This TBR is crazy It's interesting because I have so many things that I want to read as usual and my February TBR was pretty big and I Probably didn't even read all the books on that TBR, but I did read a lot of books in February So I'm hoping that the good reading Continues into March, but I hopefully this time I can stick to my TBR a little bit So there are different kind of sections to this month's TBR and if I have a good enough reading month Hopefully I won't have to do this again in future months. So when I was compiling my TBR together I looked at what Books I had on my TBR last month that I didn't get to what books I have from the library as well as what books Do I have on audio from the library? What books I want to read? Specifically as it becomes springtime or at least before summer comes and then what books Do I want to read for certain read-a-thons? So I looked at a lot of different aspects and a lot of them just have Many books on them. So we're just gonna fly through them in that way So the first couple books that I want to read this month are gonna be really easy for me to fly through because they are volumes four five and six of spy X family So I finally got the rest of my shipment for this manga So I now own I believe there are only six volumes out in English So I believe I have all six of them now. I've read the first three I very much enjoyed them so I can really just sit down and read four five and six in a day No problem So I really want to just kind of quick get those done Especially because this summer there is going to be an anime of spy X family And I want to be as caught up as possible for that anime So I can just set like a day aside to quick read these to get me started And then I also want to read how we fall apart by Katie job on this one. I started it last year I really want to read it. I'm about a third way through it's currently holding up my ring light at the moment So I'm not Holding it there, but it's one I've already started and one that's been on my TBR for quite a while And I just want to get it done. Also, I have Caravelle by Stephanie Garber. I have been waiting to start this series I don't know what I was waiting for. I know I really want to start it again I own it. It's also holding up the ring light right now So that one's been on my TBR for a while as well similarly school for good and evil book 2 by Sonan Chinani the Adaptation is coming this summer. So I really want to get moving through the series I own the first and second one and I believe they're like Six books in the series I don't know if it's like a trilogy and then a second trilogy like kind of like a shadow me thing I'm not quite sure but this has been on my TBR for a while. So I really want to pick this up It's a little thick, but it's it's a little bit of a middle grade like it's a it's a younger writing voice So hopefully I will be able to fly through it pretty quickly Especially because I love the first one as well. So hopefully this month I can finally get to this book and Then the last one that's been on my TBR for a while that I really want to finish is Curse of the Spectre Queen by Jenny Elder Moke this one. I also started. I'm not very far into it My my thing with this one is that I really want to read it But I really don't want it to be done I have been so excited for the story ever since I saw it and picked it up in a bookstore It's like a female Indiana Jones, but in Ireland So it kind of has some Celtic mythology and I really want more of that in books And because I haven't seen too much of it I I want to savor this one as much as possible But there's a difference between savering it and starting it and not finishing it out of fear It'll be done. So I need to actually Make progress in reading this the physical book that I have from the library right now is Ruin and Rising I just started this one I need to get this finished this month because it is due at the end of March plus I want to finish the trilogy before I watch season two of Shadow and Bone and it would be ideal if I could finish the trilogy and start Six of Crows So that I can get caught up even though I have seen season one of Shadow and Bone I am a little spoiled for Six of Crows, but I will deal with it. It is the choice I have made So I need to finish those and then I have a bunch of audio books from the library that I need to read The one that I am currently listening to isn't it Bromantic by Lisa K Adams. I love this It's the fourth one in the bromance book club series I'm hoping I'll have this done in the next day or two because I've been flying through those I've been loving them so much. So That is currently reading on my TBR But then I also have the shadows between us. I think this by Trisha Love and Seller I could be wrong I picked this up on a whim because it was a fantasy standalone and I really want to get back into reading more fantasy And I don't know if it's a fantasy romance if it is. I'm excited if not Don't know. Well, it's a fantasy standalone. I'll be fine. I want to read it. So here it is. Oh Blood and Honey, I got the audio book, but I also do own Serpent to Dove and Blood and Honey. This will be a reread which I know I never reread books But I really want to reread this one before I read Gods and Monsters because I want a refresher But also I know I didn't like this book as much But I also think I didn't quite pay as much attention to the audiobook the first time So if I reread it with the audiobook and the physical book I'm hoping I will enjoy it a little bit more and be refreshed So I can be ready to pick up the third and final book in the trilogy Hopefully next month. The final audiobook that I have is Forest of Souls I remember like one or two people talked about this book when it came out like maybe two years ago and I got all excited. I put it on my Goodreads TBR. I was like, oh, I can't wait I'm gonna buy this book then I'm gonna read it because it sounds like a fantasy I'm really going to enjoy But because I'm not buying near as many books as I thought I would be which is which is a very good thing I've decided that I'm going to bend in and just listen to the audiobook and then if I love it Then I will buy it. So it's one I've been wanting to read again It's another fantasy that I've been really excited for and just not letting myself read but now I'm gonna let myself listen to it and hopefully I will enjoy it a lot Finally there is a read-a-thon happening this month the forever romance read-a-thon this is hosted by Shelby and Allie from Dreamer with books on Instagram and I haven't quite worked out all the books that I want to read For all of their prompts yet. I know the first prompt. I definitely want to read Sway with me, which is by Saeed and Masood and this was a book that I didn't put on my February TBR But I added on to it later in February because I was reading so many Contemporary romances that I thought oh, I really want to add this one to the pile I didn't quite get to it So I'm going to add them on to my March one And I thought it was perfect that they were doing that read-a-thon because then I can continue reading Romance and I can get to this book for the read-a-thon I've also debated on well I'm also hoping to pick up people we meet on vacation by Emily Henry for their favorite romance author Questions, I loved be tree by Emily Henry. I'm so excited for book lovers coming out this year So I thought I should pick this up I've debated on saving it for summertime because it feels very summer vacation But I'm really yearning for warm weather right now So this might be a book that I pick up before summer this spring just to kind of get me ready Give me in the mood get me even more excited for summer, especially since theoretically here in Minnesota It's not supposed to drop below zero again. I Don't know if I believe that but just with the warm days We've been having it almost feels like I could go outside in a t-shirt because it's so much warmer that has been So I might pick this up a little early now There are about five more prompts for this read-a-thon of which I have not found books that I want to read to fit Those prompts so I am gonna go through my goodreads TBR and then see what books I can request from the library and through as an audiobook through the library that fit these prompts It's probably gonna be a little bit more of a relaxed thing for me Just kind of if I find a book, I'm interested in reading it. It fits a prompt I'll get it and I'll read it, but I'm not necessarily trying to sit there and read every prompt I'm gonna be a little more relaxed with this read-a-thon As you can tell that I only have two books prepared for the read-a-thon and it started yesterday So that's kind of my plan for the read-a-thon I'm gonna try and finish it but I'm not putting too much pressure on myself because if I put pressure on my shelf Myself, I'll read books that I'm not interested in and then because I'm a mood reader I will go into a slump and I don't want that so Yes Those are all the books on my TBR. It's a lot of books I think I could do it Especially since I'll have a couple days off for spring break. I think So we shall see. Thank you guys so much for watching this video If you liked it give it a thumbs up otherwise feel free to subscribe I post every Sunday and Wednesday Comment down below some of the books you have on your March TBR Maybe some spring reads that you're looking forward to or you would recommend for me to pick up this coming spring Otherwise, I have a bunch of bookish social medias Those are linked down below so you can go and follow me there And I will follow you back and we can chat and recommend books to each other even more But until I see you all in the next video. I wish you happy reading


How much time did you think you needed to get down there and feel cool range? Were you surprised it didn't run that down? I was considering that we were out of time outs, but yeah, what are you going to do? You know, it's sort of to that stud fullback and he breaks much tackle and scores. Like it wasn't the situation where, oh, don't get in, don't get in, you know, it's, you know, you got a great defense, you got to trust the defense. Like obviously we need to make a couple plays and still hit a 51 yard field goal.  Oh yeah. But still, you know, it's still a difficult kick and even to get that position, you got to hit, hit a couple of chunk plays and not have any penalties and clock and time. So look, you know, I think no one's to fault on their side, especially not juice. I mean, he's, you know, bowling people over running a little choice. I get in the end zone.