A huge, eternal laugh is built into the Universe. We can see it in the funny and strange animals, such as the giraffe, hippo, and sloth. The giraffe has such an amazingly long neck. It defies gravity and makes us wonder how it survives with such a heavy upper body. Can you imagine having a stiff neck if you are a giraffe? Yet it is precisely, and ironically, this long neck that has allowed this animal to thrive because it can eat vegetation other animals can’t reach. Its smile-inspiring neck looks like a liability and ends up being its main asset.

The hippo is funny too, unless you get next to one on a bad day. Then the cute and cuddly-looking giant water pig can get nasty and murderous very quickly. It is large and lumbering but can swiftly overcome a man or other large animal and run up to 19 miles an hour on its stubby legs. So the peaceful hippo, grazing on water veggies, ironically turns into the animal that kills more people than any other animal in Africa, including lions and tigers.

The sloth, too, is a humorous looking creature. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of its long, curved claws, but it can’t move fast enough to do much damage with them. It moves in such exaggeratedly slow motion, most people have to smile when they see this. Yet, ironically, sloths have been around for a long time, since pre-history, when the giant ground sloths slowly crept through the Pliocene and Pleistocene jungles of South America. Their low-stress lifestyle may make people laugh at them, but it is working out for them because they are not extinct yet.

The fact that they are so slow has helped the six existing sloth species on the planet to survive today. They do very well exactly because their movements aren’t fast. Sloths have a very low-energy lifestyle because they eat leaves that are very low in nutrition. They stay out of the “rat race” of swift and desperate food procurement on the prowl. They also move slowly so they won’t be identified as prey. So while we are laughing at the sloth and its almost insanely hesitant movements, it has a proven survival strategy that makes us look like the butt of the joke.
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These are just three of the many examples of the sense of humor of the Universe, which is on display all around us. From plants that get people to do things for them to the crazy dances of the New Guinea Bird of Paradise to playful kittens, puppies and otters, the world is full of joy, play, irony, humor, and laughter.

We can make very sure that the world we experience is not just a figment of our imagination when we bang our toe on the table leg, burn our hand in the fire, or bruise ourselves after falling down the stairs. We will feel pain and it is not all in our imagination. It hurts, and rightly so, because our nerves are sending signals to our brains. We can see the black and blue bruising. It is tender to the touch, especially when we forget about it and bang ourselves again.

On the other hand, imagination is the process of making something up that never happened. The fall did happen. We did get hurt. We might even have broken a bone. We are not making this up. No one is sharing this imagining with us either. We are the only ones feeling our specific pain. We are the ones who need to get that broken bone reset.

But what I would say is that the world we experience, may be and can be, a shared misperception. For example, the earth looked flat to people before global navigation began and proved this flatness not to be true. Yes, it looked flat but that was due to our ignorance and to our limited visual perception.

Another shared perception that is not true is that we are seeing the stars just as they are now. In reality, it has taken so many millions of light years for some stars to be visible to us, they have already died and all that is left is their glow in the night sky. One more example of shared false perceptions is that the sun “sinks” in the west and “rises” in the east. Of course, we know now that the earth’s rotation causes this visual phenomenon and no active sinking and rising is going on.
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Imagination is making things up that don’t exist and never have. The universe and you exist. You are not making it up. But how you perceive the universe and all of physical reality can be highly flawed, faulty, and based on ignorance. A whole culture and planet can share these misperceptions and take them to be the truth, when they are false.

You have hit upon an important point by linking organized religions with role playing. When we are children our parents and our culture teach us the roles we must play and the rules of those roles. If we stray from these rules we risk being outcasts, unloved, scorned, and not supported.

Rules and roles go together. When we play the role of a devout religious person, regardless of which religion it is, we will be admired, accepted, and ensure our survival. If we flagrantly oppose, ignore, or evade those roles, we might be put to death, publicly stoned, or even be considered insane.

If I had to choose which religions to role play, I would pick the ones that embrace the fun of life. The ones that include dancing and singing in their rituals. I would play the ones that view sexuality as something clean and wholesome. I want to play the ones that include forgiveness and inclusion instead of the punishment of an angry male god who is watching every move everyone makes on the planet, so he can torture them accordingly before after they die.

I would role play a religion that places women on equal footing with the male decision-makers in their organization. If we look at the major world religions, right away we see the gender imbalance when it comes to their hierarchical structures. I would not like to play any role where the wisdom of women is discounted or nullified.
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And I would not like to play a role in a religion that self-righteously kills others because they hate and fear a different belief system, roles, and rules.

One of the challenging questions, which has been a puzzling people even before modern times is: If God is all good, all wise, all loving, and all knowing, then why is there so much hardship, suffering, and cruelty in the world? Why couldn’t God just make a happy world where everyone gets along?

Various religions have attempted to answer this question, some have answers that will stand the test of time. Others may go by the wayside as did the Greek and Roman system of gods and goddesses:

Judaism:
Suffering is caused by a weakness in one's devotion to God. God gave humans free will to feel pleasure and pain, and His purpose in allowing deep suffering of the innocent must be good even if mysterious. God suffers along with the sufferer. God's sense of justice, and therefore the reasons for human suffering, are beyond human reason.

Will it last? Because Judaism permits people to call themselves Jews without believing in any of the dogma, there is a chance that it will endure as a culture for many centuries to come. The challenge of a paternalistic God who punishes like an angry father may be difficult for modern, scientific minds to embrace. Women of the world may object to God being portrayed as a male as they attain increasing autonomy in the world.

Buddhism: 
All of life is suffering and suffering is caused by attachments to worldly things. This attachment, which can take the form of greed, hatred, and ignorance in this life and past lives, can, unless mitigated, return as more suffering (karma)—as in Hinduism. Suffering is not necessarily punishment from a divine being, but rather something that must be transcended by not clinging to material objects or relationships.

Will it last? Because it is a system of thought and meditation, Buddhism does not depend on a paternalistic God who moves people around like chess pieces according to His divine whims. They leave God out of it completely. Buddhism depends on personal and practical life choices to alleviate individual mental and physical pain. Therefore, it is compatible with the most scientific research to date.

Christianity:
Many Christians see suffering as:

• God's punishment of sinful people.
• God’s punishment of the world as a whole.
• The a way a loving God tests the faith and fortitude of believers.
• Evidence of the unknowable will of a God who "works in mysterious ways" toward an ultimate good.

Will it last? The large, corrupt organizations and hypocrisy in high places may bring Christianity to a halt in centuries to come. It may not be rational enough for the modern, sophisticated thinker to trust that a punishing old man in the sky is manipulating everything for some end result that only He knows. For it to last, Christianity must undergo some radical changes and be more relatable to the educated people of the planet.

Islam: The word "Islam" means "submission." Many Muslims believe that:

• Enduring pain or loss is a way of submitting to the will of Allah.
• Some suffering is Satan's doing or is the work of his cohorts in the spirit world (the "jinn") and is allowed by Allah as a test of humility and faith.
• Suffering and adversity strengthen one's faith, as pain often leads to repentance and prayer and good deeds.

​Will it last? As in Christianity and Judaism, Allah also is paternalistic and male. This approach may not be compatible with female empowerment that is sweeping the globe today. Modern, sophisticated thinkers may see the wisdom in submitting to what comes their way as a means to achieve inner and outer peace. But they may decide to leave Allah out of the equation, seeing the process in terms of Universal Principle instead. Culturally too, Islam like Judaism, has given structure to people’s lives and may endure just because of the comfort factor in retaining the “old ways” and devotional practices.

Hinduism:
Suffering is punishment for cruelties committed in this lifetime or past lives. Even an innocent person who has not eradicated bad karma from past lives through charitable deeds may feel the pain of the karma of past misdeeds. Suffering is placed in the broader context of a cosmic cycle of birth, life, destruction and rebirth. Victims will be reincarnated and have the chance to be happier in their next life.

Will it last? Because the responsibility rests on the individual and his or her choice of action, we don’t have a God who is sending capricious punishment for reasons beyond our understanding. We also don’t have just one God. There are lots of them, some of them embodying destruction and even evil. But still, we have the reason for our suffering right now and it has to do with what we did and how we behaved. The form that Hinduism takes today, with its myriad colorful gods and goddesses may not endure but the idea of our basic responsibility for our own suffering is compatible with modern rational approaches to the reasons behind why things are the way they are.

Women’s menstrual cycle’s are linked to the moon. They are synced up with the waxing and waning of the moon, around every 28 days. If we are synced up with the moon's cycle, we will menstruate around the new moon and ovulate around the full moon.

The moon governs the ocean’s tides and it affects so many aspects of our planet. We, as women are part of this. The entire planet could not exist without the moon and its gravitational influence. Without the moon helping to keep the earth on a steady tilt, scientists have even imagined that life on earth may not have evolved the way we know it.

So it’s not mystical nonsense but something you are feeling and sensing but may not have known why. For centuries a full moon (or staring at a full moon) has been connected with lunacy — general craziness. In fact, “lunacy” comes from the latin word luna, meaning moon. A full moon is also supposed to send pregnant women into labor and make nursing home residents more agitated. According to ancient philosophers, the moon affects human behavior and health by its gravitational pull on body fluids.
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A paper published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine (1987 ) claimed to find that 80% of randomly selected nurses and 64% of doctors in emergency rooms in selected hospitals believed that lunar cycles affect their mental health and moods. The paper also noted that 92% of these nurses said they should be paid extra—“lunar pay differentials”—during a full moon.

Morality is about behavioral codes agreed upon by a society. Science is about discovering the truth about how everything in the universe comes about, works, and interacts. Science has nothing to do with what a society determines to be the right way to behave or think. It is only concerned with what can be proven under laboratory conditions after repeated results.

History shows us many cases in which Science and the morality of the time clashed. Galileo was imprisoned because he dared to defy the common morally-held belief at the time that the earth was the center of the Universe.
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The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered three parts:

• Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy" when he stated that the Earth is not static and stationary at the center of all that is but it moves, contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to “abjure, curse, and detest” his statements.
  
  
• He was sentenced to formal imprisonment, which was commuted to house arrest, under which he remained for the rest of his life.
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• His writing were banned; publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.
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Galileo was a scientist who just told the truth about his observations and calculations. But the moral code of 17th Century Europe couldn’t take the truth. They tried to suppress it through punishment. He died condemned by the Catholic Church for "vehement suspicion of heresy."

Years later, we all know that the the entire Universe does not revolve around the Earth and that the earth revolves around the sun. To put anyone in prison for declaring this fact would be highly immoral by today’s standards.

Morality is about making choices in life—It is about how you choose to live your life in a way that produces the highest amount of joy and the least amount of pain for yourself and to others.

Throughout history, rules have changed. In Victorian England it was OK to chain a mentally ill person to a pilaster for passersby to taunt and abuse as they would an unprotected animal in a zoo. The rules changed and then it was criminal to treat people this way.

The rules changed, but the morality stayed the same. It is cruel to treat less fortunate people like berated animals to be laughed at and scorned. Happily, at this stage of our planet’s history, if someone did that to another human, they would be prosecuted.

When we depend strictly on rules for our morality, we are going along with the fashion of the times. And when these rules are heavily enforced, it implies that they do not come naturally to us and so we must be frightened into obeying them.
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True morality does not come from some external source that threatens punishment. It comes from our own inner reflection on how it would feel to us if we behaved in a certain manner or someone behaved in that way towards us. I do not harass the less fortunate because it doesn’t feel good in my heart to do so—not because someone is watching to see if I break the rules. That is the lasting source of true morality and not someone holding a big stick over my head.

Religions of the world preach to us that we must love each other. But does preaching really work? Just because someone wearing priestly vestments tells me I must love God, does that mean I can or will do it? And if I must be kind out of fear of going to hell, how true is that kindness really?

Kindness implies that it is unforced. I am kind because it feels good, I care and don’t want to hurt people, I love them—not because the preacher told me I must be kind. Yet when I look at the inquisitions, the holy wars, the atrocities committed in the name of religion even to this day, it makes me wonder about the hypocrisy being spouted from the altars and shrines of the world.

If morality is based on such tenets as the Ten Commandments, and we see “holy men” embezzling, cheating, killing, molesting children, then we can question whether religion has contributed anything towards kindness and morality.
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If you listen to the words of all the great ascended beings, you will see that they had nothing to do with the organization of any religion with rigid, punitive belief systems. They are truly about kindness and morality but are without the power-based structures that have evolved in our history.

Integrative complexity is about how people process information. Some people see things in simple terms (all pigs are dirty), and some may view them in more complex ways (given the chance, pigs like to be clean too). In this way, integrative complexity involves being able to:
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1. See that there is more than one way to look at things.
2. Create links between these disparate things and to bring them into a coherent overall resolution.

Most great business leaders, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk (including Nobel Laureates) have demonstrated integrative complexity skills. They each have shown, in their own way, that they can develop and entertain opposing values and ideas and then integrate them into larger creatives wholes. Things are not simply black and white to them—and they make the most of the gray areas.

Other examples of this skill are:

• The ability to see the big picture, the tiny details, and all levels in between, and merge the views gained at those different levels.
• Being creative, systematic, and practical all at the same time.
• Being assertive and open-minded at the same time.
• Doing things that people assume don’t do together. For example, being wildly creative yet highly organized with intense attention to detail and precision.
• Having a mental map of how things need to be done for highest efficiency—yet being open for improvement.
• Being both humble and intelligent, willing to ask questions and satisfy their curiosity.

In short, integrative complexity skills are the key to our future creativity on this earth. Being tied into rigid rules and narrow prejudices is not the path for our evolution as a species.

Before the dawn of human consciousness, we were like all other animals on the planet: Concerned mainly with survival, eating, and reproducing. Most people are still in this pre-conscious mode. They operate according to the dictates of their culture and never question their purpose or their existence. They are willing to turn others into victims to fulfill their own biological needs, without awareness of the moral implications of their actions including the pain they cause others.

When human consciousness arose, we were taken beyond merely surviving and brought into a state where we wanted to know more and understand more about the great questions of life, such as: Who and what am I? Simply surviving for the sake of surviving is not satisfying to anyone who has the capacity to think, because we know that tomorrow we may not make it anyway—then what?

When we became conscious, we became attuned to that part of us that is immortal: Our Souls. Advanced beings pointed the way. For example, the Buddha saw that suffering was all around him. He sought a path out of this suffering. He found higher consciousness through peaceful meditation. He experienced and was attuned to the forces of the Universe that operate through us. And he saw that this is the way out of misery. He brought this message, but even to this day, few people are able to assimilate it.
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Attuning to this higher consciousness is the only salvation for this planet. For if we go on plundering, pillaging, and depriving each other of health, happiness, and freedom, we will destroy this globe. Or it will reject us for its own health and we will be an experiment in nature that just didn’t make it. By evolving our consciousness and awareness beyond mere survival, we are actually ensuring our survival but with the addition of peace and joy.