Tag: Metaphysics

Our World of Plenty

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Spirituality, Unified Field

Oliver and the fishFor decades we have been being conditioned to believe we live in a world of scarcity. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We live in a world of plenty. However, our resources are only plentiful if managed wisely. Hoarding, polluting, withholding, squandering, all serve to interfere with our relationship with our resources and consequently, the health and well-being of our species.

In keeping with the saying attributed to Hermes Trismegistus: “As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…”, we need to look within to see balance and efficiency in the service of life. Our own bodies present us with a model which, if emulated in our social models, would serve to provide us with much healthier, more stable societies than human kind is currently trying to cope within.

The various organs, the cells, the functions within our bodies all work together for the common good. It is as if they are aware that the good of the individual cell is inextricably joined with the good of the body as a whole.

Quantum Spirituality

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Environment, Spirituality, Unified Field

008Imagine an entity, a great entity filling an entire universe. Then take it a step further, not filling the universe but actually being the universe. Alive, sentient, experiencing itself.
Within that universe everything that is, is an inherent part of that universe. There is nothing within the universe that is outside the universe. All sentient beings are manifestations of the universal consciousness; experiencing itself. A single, universal, creative, experiential spirit. From our individual perspectives we are continually providing feedback to the universe, to our source, on our experience of the life, the environment it has gifted us with. And if the universe responds to our feedback, then we experience what we tend to call “an act of God”.

We are all of the same “cloth”. The same substance. All substance, everywhere, each and every person, are all part of the same “cloth”. We are all part of the same fabric as our planet, our solar system, our universe. In this we, all of us, have a divine birthright. We are gifted the ability to participate in, to enjoy our world. How we act toward each other, how we regard and treat our environment, is all de facto feedback to our shared, essential, divine, conscious source. From the feedback our source, our creator and sustainer, is getting from us, how do you think it perceives our experience of the reality it has gifted us with?

Do we love our beautiful world? Do we love and care for our families, colleagues, playmates, fellow residents, co-inhabitants, explorers and experiencers? The other manifestations of the same consciousness we are part and parcel of? Does the universe feel our combined love flowing within itself? Does the universe feel our gratitude, our enjoyment? Or does the universe feel hate, fear, anxiety, envy, jealousy, avarice, loneliness, pain, suffering, despondency coming from us? Does the universe perceive that it has given us a gift? Does is feel our gratitude, or the pain humans create through a lack of gratitude, a lack of humility?   If so, how long is the universe going to tolerate that pain before it decides it’s time to cleanse itself of what must be like a tumor, a malignancy, growing within a portion of it’s being?

We have, we are, a gift. How are we handling that? Are we grateful or resentful? Recently I read a son is suing his parents for giving him birth when he did not request they do so. The latter assertion is debatable, however, is that similar to what the universe perceives humankind as doing? Are we behaving like spoiled children who will give their parent no gratitude, no love, because we are constantly screaming for “more”? Or screaming for retribution for something horrible someone else did? All the while not taking the time to appreciate and love what we already have?

If that is how the universe perceives us, I hope with all my heart the universal creative spirit, which is the source of and animating force within the universe, will have patience with us, And with all my heart I hope we can mature past the relatively petty fights over land, money, or whatever, and realize our interconnectedness. Devote ourselves to nurturing each other and our world. May we, through our words and actions, express true gratitude for the wonderful gifts we are, and have been given.

We Can Heal Our World

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Fixing our Culture, Healthcare, Mental Health, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Unified Field

IMG_1010My life from early adulthood has been focused on learning what I can about mental, physical, and spiritual health.   I’ve managed to accumulate time in 5 colleges, earning 3 degrees.  I’ve accumulated countless hours in workshops, seminars, trainings, not to mention all the I’ve time spend reading studies and research reports.  I’ve traveled a good deal, seen a lot of different cultures both within and outside the U.S.  Also, I’ve spent time in 4 different jails and 2 maximum security prisons (one in the U.S., one not).  I’ve spent time with people from all walks of life:  doctors, shamans, people holding high governmental office, engineers, rocket scientists, writers, outlaw bikers, priests and ministers, drug dealers, prostitutes, psychologists, veterans and draft dodgers, bankers and bank robbers, persons inside the intelligence community and the mob.  Hippies (I’ve experimented with many psychoactive substances), wealthy “straights”, a lot of musicians, the homeless and some with multiple residences, murderers, artists, bartenders, hermits, socialites, social workers, nurses, people from every race, sexual orientation and religion.  At one time I have sat across the table from and had a conversation with a cannibal (we weren’t having dinner).  I could go on, but even I am getting weary of the list.

Where I am going with this is:  all of these people, all of them, are much more alike than dissimilar.  

This is our reality.  We are all so similar; it’s like we’re all from the same, very large, family.  This being true, how have human actions and interactions gotten so fucked up?  You would think after all those experiences I might have encountered some answers.  And I have.  Why do we so often mistreat each other and destroy what we need?  The reasons all come back to something one of the shaman I spent time with shared with me:  “All sickness is sickness of the mind.”  I know, what about germs:  bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc.?  Yes all those things exist and all of those things, and more, can and do affect us.  Yet, when we track it all down to the least common denominator, to the source that saints and prophets, spiritual leaders have been informing us about for centuries, and which quantum physics is now confirming, the instruction I was given by the shaman back in the early 1970’s is absolutely correct:  “All sickness is sickness of the mind.”  As a matter of fact, what is becoming increasingly clear, is that all that is, is of the mind.  But for now, for this post, I’m going to try to stick to sickness, and health.

It took me a surprisingly long time to realize that the inverse is also true:  All health is health of the mind.  Now, that is something to weigh into.

That includes your or my personal sickness or health, our families’ sickness or health, and up to and including the sickness or health of cities, nations, and the world.  Whatever the case may be, the origins of it are in our minds.  Does this mean that all the doctors should just send their patients home with prescription that says:  “Think Healthy”?  No, although positive, healthful thinking is never going to hurt the situation.  Our reality is a little more complex than that, our minds are more complex than that.  But on the most profound and inclusive level of our being, it is that simple.  We get to decide a lot about how things are going, both within our personal body and, collectively, within the body of humankind.

Let’s heal our world!  There are three criteria necessary for us to heal our world.  That’s all.  With these three criteria met, we can build a world which can be a nurturing, supportive, exciting, wondrous home for all of humankind.  And a much more hospitable world for all other living beings, and species, upon this planet we call home.

These three criteria are:

  1.  The Resources Needed to Create and Sustain It.  In spite of all the doomsaying about depleted and disappearing resources, we have enough to handle the population of the world, and then some.   Our problems have never been about insufficient resources, not on a planetary scale.  Our problems in this area have all stemmed from our management, or mismanagement, of what we have.  For one thing, we have allowed various resources to become like pieces on a game board for certain players to capture and hoard.  This is a horribly dysfunctional manner in which to manage the precious resources of our planet.  Another horrible aspect of our mismanagement to date is the quantity of resources we have allowed to become unusable due to our too often  cavalier regard of them.  This includes polluting our precious natural resources in the name of monetary profit.
  2.  The Knowledge to Engineer the Reality.  There also is no deficit in the knowledge needed to heal our world.  Again, not on a planetary scale.  Today, too often the most potentially beneficial innovations and inventions are often shoved into a closet.  Effective treatments and cures for illnesses, which aren’t the potential money makers for those who currently control and monopolize healthcare and pharmaceuticals, are either ignored, suppressed or somehow co-opted.  Realizations about better, more efficient, cleaner energy resources are ignored by those in power in deference to the money being applied by those controlling the archaic, dirty, systems which have managed to monopolize world industries.  If we were to measure the what, when, where, how and why of the resources and methods we employ in our day to day lives by the yardstick of human well-being, we would find we have all the knowledge we need to create and sustain a culture which provides for all of us, with food, housing, education, jobs, medical care, opportunities, and with abundant, exciting wonders to go around.
  3.  The Will to Make it So.  One might think this would be the most readily available of the three criteria.  Who, in their right mind, wouldn’t want a healthy, thriving, prosperous, exciting, wonderful world for themselves, their loved ones, friends and neighbors?  Especially as we’ve already seen centuries of what the alternatives are:  war, death, illness, suffering, hunger, homelessness, hopelessness, depression, stress, anxiety, loneliness, trauma, abusiveness, every plague; physical, mental and spiritual, known to human kind.  We get to take our pick.  The will to make it so is the only criteria which is the stumbling block right now.  Are we going to opt for the sickness or the health of it all?  

It is easy for anyone to look at these three brief descriptions of the criteria needed to heal the world and think:  but that’s not enough details.  We need more details!  The reality is that all the needed details are readily available.  All it takes is looking to find them.  Articles, videos, books, information detailing innovations which provide all the materials, engineering, health related and sociological knowledge needed to heal our world exists.  It is waiting for us:  online, or in the libraries and, most importantly; the minds of people around the world.  It’s all there, ready to be accessed.

Just to “prime the pump” of awareness a little, start looking at the possibilities available if only we would optimize all the uses of hemp.  Look at the health benefits we would reap if only we would clean up our environment, eat organic food, lower the toxic burden on our bodies.  Imagine the benefits of increased nutrition, education and health care, along with decreased stress.  I’m telling you, it’s all here, now.  All we have to do is want it enough to make achieving it, bringing it into reality, the organizing principle in our thoughts and actions.  If we do that and truly act it out, treat each other how we would genuinely like to be treated, we’re there.  We’re home.

Too idealistic, too utopian?  That’s the sickness which has crept in and set up housekeeping in your mind talking to you.  That kind of thinking has kept humankind involved in all manner of war and other inhumanities for centuries, millennia.  Negativity, egoism, jealousy, envy, greed, self-defeating thoughts, grudges, apathy, depression.  These are a few of the common psycho/emotional stumbling blocks we have to overcome to realize that which is actually our birthright:  a bright, incredible future.

We have a birthright!  The primary reality it is incumbent upon us to understand, to embrace, in order to realize our birthright is this:  we are, all of us, children of the Universal Creative Spirit, the Divine, God.  We are family; we are interrelated and interconnected.  When we learn to treat each other not only with equity, trust and civility but with love, then, as a global community, we will be opening ourselves to the full benefits of the divine and transcendental nature of our being.

I feel it’s important to interject here that a global community and a one-world-government, are not one and the same.  Throughout history diverse people have managed to more than just “get along”.  Very different cultures, races have prospered together.  Today, more than every before in history, people’s lives are made richer, more enjoyable through experiences of other culture’s food, art, music, dance, science, medicine and more.  We don’t need a one-world government, but we do need people from around to world to share a few basic values.  Such as mutual respect, honesty, fairness.

This moment in history, when the world is “smaller” due to advancements in communication and transportation, and when the world is more vulnerable than ever due to the destructive potential of modern weapons of war, learning how to co-exist, to live in harmony is more imperative than ever.  If all people would adopt a few basic, user-friendly values, we could all enjoy our diverse cultures, experiences, and do so in harmony, rather than in conflict.  It is so logical, so available:  all we have to do is desire it, will it, then act in our own best interests.

Don’t Play The Victim To Circumstances You Created

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

“Don’t play the victim to circumstances you created.”  I saw that statement on Facebook and it hit me like cold shower.  Wow.  So simple yet so profound.  I would alter it some to read;  “Don’t play the victim to circumstances that you helped to create.”  The latter statement sums up what is going on with the issue of illegal immigration to the U.S.  The U.S., as a nation, is experiencing the consequences of decades of supporting tyrants and greed in Mexico, Central and South America and elsewhere.  Everyone who believes it is too much trouble to  pay attention to politics needs to wake up, politics can and will affect your life!

What do we expect when some U.S. corporations have been engaging in profiteering too often at the expense of and to the detriment of the common people in several Central and South American countries.  While, concurrently, the U.S. government has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars supporting leaders and methods which render countries unlivable for vast numbers of the populations of those countries?  

We cannot as a people continue to ignore a simple reality;  we need to be working to build a culture which is supportive and nurturing of whole and healthful human life.  And we need to support such efforts elsewhere.  What we are doing now, as a matter of national policy and culture is worshiping the “bottom line”.  It’s all about the money.  We have become a species in which too much of what we, as a species, are engaged in seems hellbent in destroying our environment…and ourselves.  Often or always in the name of corporate and/or personal “profit”.  It seems too many in positions of political and industrial power have narrowly defined “profit” to include only monetary or material gain.  This is proving to be a very costly error in reasoning.

In order to correct things one thing is certain, there needs to be balance brought back into our economic reality.  There is an absolute need for us, as a species, to recognize our mutuality and keep each other’s well-being in mind.

Why focus on something so mundane as money rather than lofty sentiments about love and/or spirituality?  Because what is happening with the material wealth we possess is a visible measure of what is happening with our spiritual reality.  I don’t think that we’re all greedy, or callous to the well-being of our neighbors, however, look at what’s happening in so many places around the world.  No matter all the high platitudes being written and spoken, platitudes about love and beauty, the truth is how we treat each other speaks much louder than the words in book or magazine or the music on the radio.

We usually think of external/worldly change happening as a result of an internal change, however, the reverse can also be true.  Sometimes when we realize the absolute need for an external/worldly change, and act upon that realization, the dynamics precipitate a fulfillment of the change within our psycho-emotional make-up.

So, as we look around at the increasing poverty and suffering of the many on one side of the scale and the extravagant, inordinate wealth of the few on the other, isn’t it obvious what needs to be done?   The only question is how is it going to happen?  Because when things get too far out of balance, the natural tendency toward a viable balance will assert itself, that’s as inherent a reality as gravity.  (As above so below, as below so above.) Will it happen in a caring, thoughtful manner or in a chaotic, traumatic series of events?  Like so much else that happens in this world, it’s all up to us.

July 2017: I need to add that the predatory exploitation of developing and/or “third-world” countries has not been limited to individuals and/or corporations headquartered in the U.S.  Nor is the government of the U.S. the only government which has a history of supporting, even subsidizing such exploitative activity.  And finally, the problem of refugees and immigrants from countries which are suffering in significant part as a result of such exploitative activity is not limited to the United States.