An Atlantic article: What does ISIS really want?

1920What ISIS Really Wants

from the Atlantic

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

What is the Islamic State?

Where did it come from, and what are its intentions? The simplicity of these questions can be deceiving, and few Western leaders seem to know the answers. In December, The New York Times published confidential comments by Major General Michael K. Nagata, the Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East, admitting that he had hardly begun figuring out the Islamic State’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea,” he said. “We do not even understand the idea.” In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.

What to Do About ISIS?

Continue reading “An Atlantic article: What does ISIS really want?”

The greatest secret of life is that life is a gift. And so is happiness

osho: the man who loved seagullsI think, that of all Osho’s talks that I know, this is the most significant, and the most helpful, if you EVER want to be able to return HOME, to the present moment, where you can be content, happy, and start living.

Osho talks: The Man Who Loved Seagulls

7 May 1975 am in Buddha Hall

There was a man living by the seashore who loved seagulls. Every morning he went down to the sea to roam with the seagulls. More birds came to him than could be counted in hundreds.

His father said to him one day: I hear the seagulls all come roaming with you — bring me some to play with.

Next day, when he went to the sea, the seagulls danced above him and would not come down.

The greatest secret of life is — and remember it always — that life is a gift. You have not deserved it in the first place. It is not your right. It has been given to you, you have not earned it. Once you understand this, many things will become clear.

If life is a gift then all that belongs to life is going to be a gift. Happiness, love, meditation — all that is beautiful is going to be a gift from the holy, from the whole.

Click to continue reading this article on my Osho blog Also mp3 file and pdf there