The Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement: January 2007

Monday, January 8, 2007

Illustrations and Examples

of the Interreligious Cooperation, InterFaith Work,

Multiness Understanding, and

Organised Global Consciousness that

the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement

promotes and actualises.

WARNING. CAUTION. DISCLAIMER:

The content of many of the hip hop and football video clips is extremely violent, profane, and offensive.

The links to these video clips are posted because this is an increasingly accurate communication of hip hop, and the intrinsic function of hip hop is directly communicating the suffering of those within our society who have been woefully ignored by convention.

An Introduction

to the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement

(above illustration: A Straight Rainbow and the World)

Introduction
The Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement is a For Prophets, For Government, InterFaith organisation that advocates for the alleviation of the respective suffering that has been experienced by each individual and all life. We consist of orthodox progressives and progressive orthodoxy, all of whom maintain a propensity for conservation and liberation.

Our pragmatic methodology is two fold: advocacy and consultation. We advocate for the alleviation of the respective suffering that has been experienced by each individual and all life; we lobby the World and Universe. We provide direct and indirect consultation to reconcile transgressions and to facilitate enhanced understanding, respect, cooperation, and even amicability amongst individuals, families, groups, organisations, institutions, societies, and traditions that have experienced historic differences; we heal the World and Universe.

Brief Explanation of Uni Dittoism
Our purpose, premise, and pathology are predicated upon the principles within the Faith of Uni Dittoism. ‘Uni’ is a traditional English prefix, with Latin derivation, that is utilised to specifically communicate the number, ‘1,’ and effectively to communicate a singularity within the aggregate of the term being utilised. In this manner, ‘Uni,’ is utilised to communicate the ‘Oneness’ of the Universe and God. ‘Ditto’ is an informal English term (slang or colloquial expression) that is utilised to communicate a certain symmetry and congruence. In this manner, ‘Ditto,’ is actually an extended acronym for ‘DTO.’ DTO is the abbreviated acronym for the ‘Dharma of Tikkun Olam.’ ‘Dharma’ is a Sanskrit word that means the ‘Truth,’ with other involved meanings including, the ‘Path,’ the ‘Doctrine,’ and the ‘Law;’ this is taught within respective Vedic religious traditions. ‘Tikkun Olam’ is a Hebrew term that means to ‘Heal the World,’ and can be understood as healing the Universe, the Creation of God. When utilised together, the ‘Dharma of Tikkun Olam’ means the ‘Truth of Healing the World and Universe.’ This is what we believe; this is who we are; this is what we do.

Pragmatically, Uni Dittoism adheres to the respective teachings, principles, and observances from within Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. We also acknowledge the manner in which Truth is revealed and practised within each respective religious tradition within the Universe.

Our Advocacy Work
Much of our work through this time is substantially advocacy through the auspices of being an interFaith organisation. Political action committees and interest groups lobby government representatives to effectuate specific public policy initiatives. Being an avant garde interFaith organisation, we recognise the intrinsic responsibility that each individual maintains for promoting the wellbeing of each other, and indeed the entirety of life throughout our global community and the Universe. So in this respect, we lobby individuals who maintain a considerable responsibility for facilitating such promotion of life and wellbeing; this particularly includes religious leaders, public officials, educators, political leaders, and additional advocacy groups, organisations, and institutions. Much of this advocacy work is unsolicited and challenging, yet this is necessary when prompting the enhancement of status quo. It may also be considered that specifically within Democracies, receiving unsolicited advocacy is an intrinsic responsibility of citizenship.

We also substantial exist within and beyond the confines of conventional society. A common euphemism is ‘thinking outside of the box.’ Within the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement, we are encouraged beyond even seeing a box. This provides certain autonomy from convention. Through this autonomy, we are increasingly able to perceive the suffering that has existed within the Universe, to address such suffering, and to contribute to the alleviation of such suffering.

In addition to prayer and meditation, one of the means through which we tangibly facilitate this autonomy from convention is through abstaining from holding or exchanging money. So to maintain our respective livelihoods and to maintain the necessary resources for the sustenance of life as well as substantially modest comfort necessary to build families and facilitate the procreation of life, we rely upon bartering and benevolence. And it is this respect that we offer the service of consultation.

Our Consultation Service
In a simple explanation, we provide friends with answers to questions, concerns, challenges, and dilemmas pertaining religion.

We are an interFaith organisation that maintains a considerable awareness of, knowledge of, and insight towards many of the contemporary issues involving the interaction amongst different religious traditions (including amongst distinct religious denominations), nations, cultures, races, ethnicities, languages, societies, and civilisations. Our immediate network of individuals, families, organisations, and institutions is rather modest; and in addition to this modest network, we have information and contact details for numerous additional individuals, families, organisations, and institutions respectively and immediately involved within these contemporary issues.

Through this awareness, knowledge, insight, network, and information, we are able to provide consultation to our friends in order to effectively reconcile tangible dilemmas that others have experienced amidst any one or a combination of these contemporary issues of religion, nationality, culture, race, ethnicity, language, society, and civilisation. The proceeding is a partial categorical listing of friends to whom we provide consultation:

Individuals
Families
Organisations
Institutions
Congregations
Schools
Universities
Community Groups
Corporate Executives
Grassroots Organisers
International Civil Servants

(note: international civil servants employed with the United Nations are referred to the Temple of Understanding, http://www.templeofunderstanding.org/, the International Association for Religious Freedom, http://www.iarf.net/, the World Conference of Religions for Peace, http://www.wcrp.org/, and the World Council of Religious Leaders, http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.org/, before receiving direct consultation from the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement)

One of the specific characteristics that specifically distinguishes us from conventional consultants is our religious and interFaith awareness, knowledge, insight, network, and information. The rationale for the relevance of our interFaith methodology is comparable to the same conventional notions and practices pertaining benefit of diversity and diversity training with respect to race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, and language. Amidst the tangible and comprehensive phenomenon of globalisation, religion must be respected and respectively adhered.

Specific Format of Consultation Service
We provide consultation is one of five basic manners: written response, verbal conversation, urgent response, brief response, and group consultation.

Written Response: this is facilitated primarily through email correspondence. Friends are welcome to forward us a communication soliciting consultation pertaining a specific matter. Then, we appropriately respond with a written (or typed, as the case may be) reply to the initial communication and we include any appropriate consultation we are able to provide. Each solicitation for a written response is provided with a specific and direct written response. In addition to specifically addressing the question, concern, challenge, or dilemma, written responses may also include standard information such as previously prepared profile explanations, contact details to additional references, and additional considerations that generally pertain to the specific question, concern, challenge, or dilemma being communicated.

Verbal Conversation: this is facilitated primarily through telephone or through visitation to the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. Friends are welcome to telephone us, to visit us without announcement, and to visit us with announcement, soliciting consultation pertaining a specific matter. Then, we respond with providing immediate consultation through verbal conversation. When a telephone call is made during a time when we are otherwise occupied, we appropriately respond to telephone messages and provide a return telephone call. When a visitation is made during a time when we are otherwise occupied, we appropriately provide a return telephone call or similarly appropriate communication.

Urgent Response: this is facilitated through different means, including email, telephone call, and visitation. In this manner, friends are welcome to specifically communicate that a question, concern, challenge, or dilemma is of some urgency and requires comparatively immediate response. Then, we respond through providing appropriate response in a comparatively appropriate manner.

Brief Response: this is facilitated through different means, including email, telephone call, and visitation. In this manner, friends are welcome to specifically communicate that a question, concern, challenge, or dilemma is comparatively trivial or simple without the requirement of formal or intricate consultation; instead, a brief response is solicited. Then, we respond through providing an appropriately brief response in a comparatively appropriate manner.

Group Consultation: this is facilitated through different means, including email, internet conferencing, telephone conferencing, lectures, training sessions, group meetings, public fora, private fora, and additional meetings and conferences. Friends are welcome to communicate to us an interest in having us participate within a specific event. Then we respond through reviewing our schedule and comparative availability and, given such availability, we coordinate with our friends to make the necessary arrangements for such participation.

Bartering Policy
There are two basic methodologies for trading with the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement: formal friendship and informal friendship.

Formal Friendship: this is the official term utilised to describe the conventional construct of trade involving the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. There are specific legal documents, including an international treaty (the Convention of Formal Friendship) and a standard contract (the Standard Agreement of an Exchange of Resources within the Context of Formal Friendship), through which formal friendship is facilitated. Through this specific methodology, there is a specifically acknowledged exchange of resources: products and services. This acknowledged exchange of resources is conducted either through documentation or through another comparatively official manner.

This is the process of such trading through formal friendship:

1.) We, at the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement, measure the amount of time that is involved in providing specific consultation to our friend, after this specific consultation is provided. This measurement includes the respective age(s) of those of us who directly contribute to the consultation.

2.) Based upon the measurement of the time involved within the past consultation and the respective age(s) of contributor(s), we describe the amount of ewkahs solicited for the provision of such consultation (additional information is available to explain what ‘ewkahs’ are). We utilise the Standard Method in calculating the amount of ewkahs.

3.) Irregardless of the amount of ewkahs that we solicit for the consultation provided, each of our friends maintains the prerogative of autonomously and definitively determining the value of the consultation that we provide, and thus, determining the actual amount of ewkahs (and effectively, the actual amount of products and services) to forward to us in exchange for the consultation that we provide. Each of our friends also maintains the prerogative of selecting the valuation methodology in determining the amount of ewkahs that are involved within the consultation that we provide.

4.) After the consultation is provided and effectively valued, this value is maintained within a credit account with our friends.

5.) These credits are accumulated until we are able to utilise these credits for the exchange of products and services from our friends to us.

6.) These products and services can only be forwarded to us after we accumulate a sufficient amount of credit with our friends.

7.) These credits can be transferred amongst our friends.

8.) The transfer of these credits can be facilitated through the transfer of ewkahs (respectively listed within a respective credit accounts), through the transfer of monetary units, and through the comparatively tangible transfer of products and services.

9.) We maintain continual records of the respective credit accounts we respectively maintain with our friends. Our friends are also welcome to similarly and autonomously maintain such records. We determine occurrences of exceeding generosity (when our friends place a value for the consultation that we provide that is higher than the value that we determine for such consultation).

10.) We solicit exceeding generosity to be transferred (in ewkahs, monetary units, and/or products and services) to additional religious organisations and institutions, interFaith organisations and institutions, religious congregations, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and/or similar service organisations and institutions.

11.) For conventional purposes, the actual provision of the products and services that our friends provide can be listed and valued as a loss or as a trade.

Informal Friendship: this is the term utilised to describe the conventional practice of providing gifts, favours, and help to friends and another means through which trade is maintained with the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. There is a comparative absênce of any specific legal document that defines this practice.

This is the process of trade that we maintain through informal friendship:

1.) We provide consultation to our friends without measuring or calculating the temporal parameters of such consultation (time, age, et cetera).

2.) We maintain a continuously updated list of products and services that we require.

3.) From this list, our friends provide us with products and services as our friends respectively deem appropriate.

4.) Despite the informality, and unless specific solicited otherwise, we maintain the propensity to record our receipt of these products and services from our friends.

5.) We maintain the propensity to forward exceeding generosity from our friends to religious organisations and institutions, interFaith organisations and institutions, religious congregations, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and/or additional similar service organisations and institutions.

Our exchange of resources with our friends is presumed to exist within the context of informal friendship, unless directly and specifically solicited to be within the context of formal friendship. We abstain from placing any favouritism amidst any of our friends. We work towards providing balance amidst the respective actions of all our friends.

Experience and Publications
The Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement is the culmination and the concentration of specific and continuing efforts maintained since almost ten years ago. The tangible progression of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement, as an organisation, includes being initially referenced as an education and cultural organisation, a multiness advocacy think tank (the Asona Group), an interFaith community and advocacy think tank (the Asona Ashram), a contributing entity to this InterFaith Settlement, and now as the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. Through this progression, we maintain a considerable amount of awareness, knowledge, experience, and friends within international business management, international law and diplomacy, and interreligious and interFaith cooperation. Additional information pertaining the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement is available upon direct solicitation to us and through visiting some of the respective websites affiliated with the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement: our provisional website, http://geocities.com/interFaithsettlement; our group website, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/interFaithsettlement (Account ID: interFaithsettlement; Password: interFaith), and the InterFaith Forum web log, http://spaces.msn.com/interFaithforum.

Within the past few years, we are able to provide a number of publications, including an InterFaith Guide towards Healing, an InterFaith Guide towards Womanhood, the draft humble Constitution of the United Nations, the draft Charter of Asona University, the draft Constitution of the Sovereign Nation of Afrea, and a revised edition of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We are working towards completing two additional publications within the near future, an InterFaith Guide towards the Battlefield and an InterFaith Guide towards Nature. There are also many additional formal and informal correspondences, essays, and Theological considerations that are made and are made, and continue to be made, through the auspices of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement and by the Grace of God.

With specific respect to the consultations that we provide, we are working towards completing additional materials including: 1.) an expanded edition of the brief introductions to respective religions provided by the MultiFaith Centre of the University of Derby (England), http://www.multifaithnet.org/, that also includes information provided from the Berkeley Centre for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University (District of Colombia), http://irpp.georgetown.edu/, as well as information specifically pertaining Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, additional secular belief systems, and a general and comprehensive consideration of respective indigenous religious traditions; 2.) contemporary profiles that describe respective modern circumstances, geography, denominations, and histories of respective religious traditions; 3.) a calendar of the respective, major observances within many of the respective religious traditions of the World and Universe, specifically including Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam; 4.) an augmentation of, and brief descriptions within, the listing of respective religious and interFaith organisations and institutions now included within the InterFaith Forum web log; and 5.) answers to frequently asked questions pertaining religion and interFaith.

Personal Qualifications
The Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement consists of two basic categories of participants: 1.) volunteers and 2.) fellows and fillas. Volunteers provide direct and indirect support for us without specifically making the formal commitments that are involved with the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. Fellows are men, and fillas are women, who respectively commit to the basic tenets of Uni Dittoism and to the specific precepts and guidelines of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. Only fellows and fillas are able to provide consultation to our friends through the direct auspices of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement.

Before providing consultation to our friends, it is necessary for each fellow and each filla to complete a specific course of training. This course of training involves:

1.) Reading and/or listening to the Universal Principles of Faith

2.) Adhering to the Universal Principles of Faith

3.) Reading and/or listening to Dittoistic Cosmic Guidance

4.) Reading and/or listening to a Sermon (a specific compilation of respective Holy Scriptures respectively from Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam)

5.) Reading and/or listening to the brief descriptions of religions, provided by the MultiFaith Centre of the University of Derby

6.) Reading and/or listening to the Dialogue Decalogue, provided by Dr Leonard Swidler of Temple University (Pennsylvania)

7.) Reading and/or listening Ewkahs Explained (a specific essay describing a transmonetary valuation system)

8.) Reading and/or listening to Debt and Wellbeing (a correspondence describing basic, respective religious principles pertaining economics)

9.) Abstaining from holding or exchanging money

10.) Knowing how to smile

These are the requirements for fellowship and fillaship within the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement.

Some fellows and fillas also maintain additional training, experience, and knowledge, including:

1.) Reading and/or listening to InterFaith Guides that we publish

2.) Reading and/or listening to additional materials that we provide

3.) Specifically or generally maintaining additional studies pertaining the Universe

4.) Specifically maintaining additional studies of respective Holy Scriptures

5.) Progressing and training towards becoming an ordained leader within the Faith of Uni Dittoism

Whilst the premise of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement is based within the principles of the Faith of Uni Dittoism, it is unnecessary for a fellow or a filla to specifically or exclusively subscribe to the practice of Uni Dittoism. Each fellow and fila is able to maintain and adhere to the respective religious tradition of that fellow or fila: Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and/or any of the additional religious traditions of the World. Within the Faith of Uni Dittoism, we believe that Truth exists within each religious tradition and thus we are uninterested in directly or sublimally proselytising anyone. Instead, we strive to be aware of the respective teachings for Peace and benevolence that exists within each respective religious tradition and encourage respective adherents of each religious tradition to adhere to each religious adherent’s own respective teachings for Peace and benevolence. Our objective is to make a Jew a better Jew, to make a Hindu a better Hindu, to make a Buddhist a better Buddhist, to make a Christian a better Christian, to make a Muslim a better Muslim, to make a religious adherent a better religious adherent to that religious adherent’s own respective religious tradition. In a very basic and fundamental essênce, we proselytise Peace and benevolence.

The requirements for respectively becoming a fellow or a filla are maintained to prepare fellows and fillas for interFaith work and to provide fellows and fillas with an appropriate understanding of the intrinsic nature of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement.

Additional Information
This is a working edition of the organisation description for the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement. Additional, relevant material and information includes 2.) the Universal Principles of Faith (page 9), 2.) Dittoistic Cosmic Guidance (page 10), 3.) a description of the InterFaith Movement (page 11), 4.) a description of this InterFaith Settlement (page 11), 5.) Ewkahs Explained (page 29), 6.) a specific explanation of the formation of the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement (page 43), 7.) brief descriptions of religions, provided by the MultiFaith Centre of the University of Derby (England) (page 81), 8.) the Dialogue Decalogue by Dr Leonard Swidler of Temple University (Pennsylvania) (page 119), 9.) respective curricula vitae of fellows and fillas (page 124), and 10.) a list of our friends and respective families (page 128). This information is provided as available and as available for being available.

Our Contact Details
There has been some difficulty with the email service that we utilise so this should be taken into consideration when attempting to contact us. We continue to work towards making appropriate arrangements with internet service providers and web designers to facilitate the establishment of a system wherein an effective website and email system are maintained for the Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement.

The Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement

Postal, Visitation Address: International Secretariat
This InterFaith Settlement
3825 Silsby Road
University Heights 44118, Oyo (Ohio)

International Telephone: +1 216 371 3367

Email Address: interFaith_settlers@myway.com

Instant Message Account: peterfwomack@hotmail.com

Websites: http://geocities.com/interFaithsettlement

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/interFaithsettlement
(Account ID: interFaithsettlement; Password: interFaith)

http://spaces.msn.com/interFaithforum
Universal Principles of Faith

We shall only praise the one True God.

We shall only utilise the Name of God in Truth.

We shall abstain from making any graven image of that which is in Heaven, on Earth, or in the Sea beneath the Earth.

We remember Shabbat; we keep it Holy.

We honour our fars and our mors; so that we may have long life.

We shall abstain from killing.

We shall abstain from stealing.

We shall abstain from committing adultery.

We shall abstain from bearing false witness against our neighbour.

We shall abstain from coveting the house of our neighbour, the wife of our neighbour, the manservant of our neighbour, the maidservant of our neighbour, the ox or ass of our neighbour.

We progress Right Belief, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Thought, Right Meditation.

We do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

We abstain from the consumption of animals.

We abstain from intoxicants.

We abstain from games of chance.

Peace.

Dittoistic Cosmic Guidance

There is one God; and there are celestial beings and sentient beings that manifest the Will of God.

Each individual is born with an equal amount of wealth.

There are rules, ordained by God, that govern the behaviour of all individuals.

Justice visits each individual before death.

Upon death, each individual joins God in Heaven.

Amen.

The Asona Group within this InterFaith Settlement

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Monday, January 8, 2007