Conventional science has a running debate over which is more important, environment or heredity.
This is typical of the dualism that pervades our civilization. If you just meditate on this question about your own life, you will discover something in you that is certainly neither of these two most powerful forces. However, it is very subtle and would be apparent only to yourself. This is one of the ways to become aware of the spirit in yourself, where you are your own Being and not that of either your parents or your surrounding circumstances.
When you awaken to your own spirit, you can discover in this contemplation that you have pre-existed and that you will live again. This discovery will enable you to rise above the small ego that makes you so insecure and fearful.
www.classicinsights.com offers courses that will help you to get over your fears and insecurities by becoming much more aware of your true self.  The courses that most directly deal with the issues of environment, heredity and your spiritual self are:

Course # 3 Lincoln  http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/81-the-destiny-of-abraham-lincoln
Course # 17 Bhagavad Gita and Self-Education  http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/95-the-bhagavad-gita-and-self-education
Course # 21 Understanding the Modern Ego  http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/99-understanding-the-modern-ego

What does repent mean?
Religious people keep repeating this word, but do not understand its implications. Repent means to re-think, not to use merely your brain but to contact the spirit in yourself, the Logos, the Word, and Love itself. Unless you learn how to rise above your environment and heredity, you are not repenting. You must learn how to experience body-free, sense-free thinking. The easiest example of this thinking is in geometry. The concept of a triangle is pure thought. It is Universal, not to be seen on the physical plane until it is drawn where the particular is always different.
In the Middle Ages there was a major controversy between the Nominalists and the Realists. The nominalist claimed that there is no reality but the name for the thing itself. The Nominalists won out and today most everyone is a Nominalist. Today the nominalist is accepted as being a Realist. We all must repent this false view because it is gross materialism which disavows the Spirit World of Pure Thinking. The World of Universals, of pure Concepts, is where Humankind can find the path to spirit and come together in Freedom and Love.
For much more on this subject take the www.classicinsights.com course:
#23: Thinking About Thinking http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/101-thinking-about-thinking

#17: The Bhagavad Gita and Self-Education http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/95-the-bhagavad-gita-and-self-education

Why is it essential to know that the secret name of God Is “I AM”?

What is the difference between the “normal” use of “I am” and the experience of the much greater “I AM?”

Our “normal” way of thinking is no longer the healthy way of thinking. The normal way is solely using the brain and the intellectual aspect of yourself . The healthy way does not come naturally, but must be awakened through contemplation, meditation and spiritual activity.
The path through pure thought is the only healthy way to experience your own spiritual self. Any other way to God will miss the crucial role we all play as Spiritual Beings working through our physical bodies.
Pure thought does not depend on your environment or heredity, but is sense free, body free. A good example of this is the concept of a circle which is the same no matter what your race, religion or culture is.
For much more information about this take a look at www.classicinsights.com

Course # 1: Rembrandt, Herald of Our Age

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/79-rembrandt-herald-of-our-age

Course #4: Sufi Tales as a Key to Learning

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/82-sufi-tales-as-a-key-to-learning

Course #22: Toward a New Form of Consciousness

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/100-toward-a-new-form-of-consciousness

Mozart & Beethoven Blog

What can the music of Mozart and Beethoven tell us about ourselves?

If we realize that Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute was about Freemason initiation, we can begin to take our own initiation into spiritual matters much more seriously.

Mozart worked like a channel for his inspiration.  His manuscripts are very clean with almost no corrections.   Beethoven, who lived just a bit later than Mozart, had many, many corrections to his manuscripts.  From this we can learn that there has been an evolution in spiritual self- conscious awareness, just between Mozart and Beethoven.  What about our own spiritual evolution?

Find out much more about initiation, music, and the evolution of spiritual self-conscious awareness by taking these courses in www.classicinsights.com:

Mhttp://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/84-mozart-and-the-revolution-of-western-musicozart

Beethoven

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/96-beethoven-the-spirit-of-prometheus

Towards a New Form of Consciousness

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/100-toward-a-new-form-of-consciousness

Also, please ask any questions about our program you want by responding to our blogs.

In what ways was Ben Franklin an alchemist or a seer?  What is an alchemist or seer anyway?

In the Alchemical tradition, the highest aspiration is the fertilization, gestation, and birth of a higher being within the soul of the lower human personality. The first birth is into a body of flesh, governed by the laws of nature and returning to nature when we die. Alchemists seek a second birth that is, as Jung said, a work against nature (opus contra naturam).

A seer is one who sees much more clearly than others.  Franklin was both an alchemist and a seer.  To find out much more and to become both an alchemist and a seer, why not take one or both these courses of www.classicinsights.com?

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/94-benjamin-franklin-american-initiate

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/110-the-alchemy-of-transformation

Or better still, why not also participate in our seminar on Ben Franklin on May 18, 2012?

http://www.classicinsights.com/seminars/may12seminar

Let us know any comments or suggestions you may have.

What are Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism?  What is their value to us today in the way we live?  What was Ben Franklin’s relationship to these organizations?  What did they mean to him?

Both of these brotherhoods promote spiritual experiences and the brotherhood of Humankind and are not burdened by doctrine and dogma,  Rosicrucianism being much more secret.  Rosicrucian Alchemy, in contrast to the gross Alchemy that was much better known and practiced in Medieval times, contains the Spiritual Science of Future Ages.  Both groups have had an enormous influence on Human evolution although historians have not awakened to this fact yet.

To find out much more about all of this take course #26 of www.classicinsights.com and/or participate in our seminar on this subject the weekend of May 18 at the Interlaken Inn, Lakeville, Ct. http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/94-benjamin-franklin-american-initiate

If you are up to it, you can also take course #32: The Alchemy of Transformation.

http://www.classicinsights.com/courses/course-descriptions/110-the-alchemy-of-transformation