In today’s worldwide culture of pervasive greed, deceit and competition, is it still possible to genuinely be of service to one’s community?

Photo: Ken Dunning

The short answer: yes! However…

How many average citizens foresaw the kind of dystopian world we are facing in 2022?.  There were some prophets who did foresee such a world, Biblical prophets and prophets within other spiritual disciplines.  There were prophets within literature and other media.  George Orwell for one, and others whose names aren’t coming to me at this time.  In the United States of America, and in many other countries, the agencies, laws, standards of community behavior which humanity as a whole has been working to develop for centuries, millennia, have to a great degree been perverted.  In every field of human endeavor, the various disciplines and fields of science; medicine, public health, banking, insurance, education, psychology, sociology, religion, agriculture, energy production, communication, journalism, and government, have all to a significant extent seen their original purposes, their organizing principles, deviated from the service of promoting the well being of individuals, communities, and societies to the service of the acquisition of power and wealth by a relative few. A relative few who are willing, and increasingly able, to inflict whatever injustices, assaults, and other harms upon humanity they deem necessary or desirable in order to achieve their aims. 

Medicine is no longer about the health of the patient, it is increasingly about turning a profit.  Public health is about seeing that regulations which would hamper the machinations of the profit motive of industry do not become reality.  Agriculture is no longer about the production of healthful, wholesome, nutritious food, it is about producing profit.  Energy production is not about producing clean, abundant energy for communities and industry, it is about keeping the profits flowing to owners of the existing obsolete energy production systems.  Psychology is not primarily about increasing our understanding of human mental functioning in order to promote health and well-being, it has shifted to primarily serving the goals of manipulating populations to serve the agendas of those relative few in their pursuit of power and wealth.  Communication: the media, television, radio, movies, and journalism have in large measure become merely the public relations devices for that relative few.  Education has become about children learning how to follow the rules and perform the tasks within industry and the military which they foresee needing.  Banking and insurance are no longer primarily about providing services which help keep individuals, communities, and societies economically whole and healthy but are, again, turned to serving the acquisition of power and wealth by those relative few.  Within religion, the saying that religion is the opiate of the masses has never been more applicable.  And government? There may never have been a time when more governments around the world, most assuredly including the Government of the United States of America, have prostituted themselves more completely to the interests of the moneyed few.

It is necessary to qualify the above statements with the statement that every single field of endeavor which is mentioned above still has practitioners, workers, who are motivated and struggling to serve the benevolent goals which generally were present when that field of endeavor came into being.  And we certainly need more. 

Again, however…

The challenge facing individuals who aspire to a life of benevolent service is the increasing power within the respective systems of those whose hearts and minds are captured by the lures of wealth and power. Too often such individuals have captured the reins of control within the respective endeavor and use that control to render even those of genuinely benevolent motive subservient to their agendas. 

Can a person of genuinely good intent manage to negotiate the obstacle course of perversions within their field of study and manage to acquire useful knowledge and bring their aspiration of genuine public service to fruition?  Yes, just as it has been possible at any time in all of human existence, it is possible now.  However, for such individuals to be able to keep the integrity of their honorable purpose, it requires work.  Work in developing self awareness and a constant vigilance for the sometimes subtle, sometimes tempting, and sometimes intimidating attempts at corrupting that honorable purpose and their (your) personal integrity, which they (you) will face.

Of all the challenges a person who genuinely seeks to serve humanity, and of course earn a decent living will face, the one which manages to derail the honest intentions of the greatest number of people is the lure of greed.  Either you will be expected to accept as normal the greed of the people whom you work for; to serve it and feed it.  Or you will be groomed to believe that you deserve an inordinate, exorbitant income yourself.  And of course your bosses deserve more because, well, they’re your bosses.  Contemporary civilization has not only almost completely ignored all the warnings of the prophets and sages against greed, it has been glorified.  

It is an inescapable reality that no matter the nobility nor the utility of the products or services which an individual or group of individuals may contribute to a people, the benefits provided can be ultimately outweighed by the harms done if the economic costs to provide the product or services captures an inordinate amount of the economic resources of those purchasing those products or services.

To withstand the lures, temptations and intimidation of those who have captured enormous wealth and power, largely through their narrow focus on the pursuit of those things, it helps greatly to have some understanding of the true, enduring nature of our existence. The more, the better.  There are enduring, spiritual reasons why, for centuries, actions such as lying, stealing, cheating, greed, murder; in general harming other people through overly self-centered actions, have been discouraged.  Someone might say, of course they were discouraged, they are wrong.  However, why are they wrong?  Are they wrong merely because they defy some arbitrary rules which humans made up because they seemed like the thing to do?  No, the reasons run deeper than that.  The reasons such actions have been so universally discouraged through the ages have to do with the interconnected nature of humanity.  Routinely and callously engaging in actions which foster distrust, hatred, fear, and poverty in others erodes the spiritual/social fabric we all need to be healthy. The spiritual/social fabric we need in order to achieve our highest potential as a species on this planet.

In summary, it is possible to have a life of service to humanity. Not one of self-sacrifice, but one in which worthwhile service is rewarded with a worthwhile wage. However, there is no shortage of individuals, groups, corporations, who will strive to see that service turned to their exclusive benefit regardless of however harmful the result may be to humanity as a whole. They are skilled at appealing to a person’s ego in achieving that goal. Such individuals, groups, corporations are regrettably short sighted. They have yet to realize that ultimately such an agenda is as harmful to them as to those whose well-being they routinely hold in contempt.

The solution to this situation is one which spiritual leaders and many religions have been proclaiming for centuries, not always phrased exactly the same, the meaning is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Applying this concept to our lives is not always as simple as saying it. It takes effort, self-knowledge. However, ultimately, we see everyday in many horrible situations around the world where the alternative leads us. It’s time to embrace idealism.

Demonstrations, protests and riots are going on all over the U.S. Why?

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Why do I use Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs so often in my articles? Because it informs us of a concept key to a successful life as a person or for a culture.

In many important, essential ways, people, by and large, aren’t all that complicated.  Maslow knew this aspect of our reality and took the time to try to organize our needs by importance in relationship to our survival and well-being.  Of course we don’t always find ourselves involved with filling each need in exactly the order Maslow arranged them, however, if our needs aren’t met at one level, the more desperate the need we feel, the more we’re stuck on that level.

We need to keep this reality in mind when we are working to understand and/or figure out how to respond to the demonstrations, protests and riots going on in the U.S. and elsewhere.  What these events are, every one of them, are symptoms of unmet needs.  They are populated by people who can no longer stand idly by while feeling their innate human needs go unmet.  It might have worked for them at one time.  A time when they were, for whatever reasons, able to suppress their internal urges because they felt hope that a pathway was going to open up for them to pursue fulfillment.  But when that hope wanes, desperation comes in on it’s heels.

The “rugged individualists”, particularly the ones who have found themselves in comfortable positions, might say:  well it’s their fault, they didn’t work hard enough to take care of themselves, they’re lazy.  Maybe, to some extent, for some of the people, there is some degree of truth in that.  But there is something obvious that really flies in the face of that logic:  those “lazy” people are out marching in the streets.  They are feeling a need and somebody, or something, provided them with a direction.  When one is desperate, doing something, anything, even if it’s wrong can be preferable to doing nothing.  If a direction offers some degree of even blind, hope, it is going to have an attraction.  That’s how desperation works.

The fact people are out marching, protesting, even rioting, shows that, given a direction, they are willing to take action to do something, anything, to try to gain fulfillment for their unmet needs.  It is clear that what most people need in such a situation is direction.  What is being demonstrated in these events is raw, potential energy looking for a way to become kinetic, to provide what is needed to fulfill the unmet needs.

In a civilized society it should just be a given that we are working together to meet the needs of all.  Whether we privately own things, communally own things or work with a model that embraces the best method for the immediate needs at hand, as long as we have the mind that it is a combined effort for the good of all, we will be fine.

Have you ever been poor?  After two-thirds of the month has gone by have you ever found yourself wondering how you’re going to eat for the remaining third?  When you are in that position, and you walk into a grocery store, you want EVERYTHING.  It can seem that you couldn’t possibly buy enough to satisfy your hunger.  However, if you’re not poor, if you’re well fed and you enter a grocery store, it’s not that hard to be totally satisfied picking up whatever it was you came for.  People are like that, in more ways than simply regarding food.  When we are feeling an acute shortage of something, a deep-down need for something, we can easily find ourselves thinking we want it all.

No matter how absurd or grandiose the participants’ expressed demands in the heat of desperation may be, when the people involved see and feel their needs are being genuinely fulfilled, they will, however tentatively at first, begin responding favorably to whatever is providing, and shows it can continue to provide, that fulfillment.   To merely offer such a movement resistance is to stand squarely in the way of much needed hope and change.

A footnote:  This is not to advocate for a program of ongoing free stuff for all dissatisfied people.  In Maslow’s hierarchy, self esteem is a basic human need.  Working at a fair rate in exchange for what one receives is a part of healthy self esteem.  Sometimes a person’s being able to accept “free” stuff is needed in order to pull that person up when they are down, but it’s not a viable long term solution.

A house divided against itself…

Fotosearch_k22192444
(c) AlexMax http://www.fotosearch.com

In our attempts, our efforts, at building a viable, vital society, we can learn much by observing and understanding the functioning of our own bodies.  There is a saying attributed to Hermes Trismegistus:  “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.”   This is often shortened to “As above, so below, as below, so above”.  This concept, or the observation of the nature of our reality, provides us with an understanding, which, if applied to our efforts at creating and maintaining a human culture, can do much to guide us toward what will be in harmony with the natural world.  The natural world which we are working with and within and therefore toward a more vibrant, stable and enduring culture.

Our bodies are miracles of design.  They are self-repairing, self-renewing, and they offer us multiple senses, or avenues of interface, with our environment.  They provide us with much enjoyment and pleasure.  And provide us with discomfort and/or pain to let us know when we’re not supplying them with what they need, or too much of what they don’t need.  Ultimately what makes the whole thing work is the the organs, the cells, within the body work together to keep the body, the whole, alive and well.  One of the serious threats to the health of our bodies is the occasion when some cells become sickened and engage in a pattern of runaway duplication (growth) and a voracious appetite for energy.  One could say they get greedy for resources and want to take over.  They behave more competitively than cooperatively.  Of course, as our ancestors knew centuries ago:  Mark 3:25, Jesus states, “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”  

Now really, just think about that last statement for a minute, it’s not rocket science.  It’s something that immediately makes sense both intellectually and emotionally.  I think this is one of those truths that people just innately know, that comes with birth.  Yet it is one many people quickly turn their backs on when the world dangles some bling in front of them and says:  Go now and compete.  Within human cultures around the world that is the genesis of a cancer that is destroying our cultures with the same certainty that an untreated malignant cancer destroys a human body.  I can imagine someone thinking, but isn’t that just exercising personal freedom?   Yes it is.  And freedom is an essential aspect of a healthy human culture.  However, it is also just exercising personal freedom to take an automatic weapon to an elementary school and start shooting students.  Freedom is a double edged sword and is only an asset to humanity when it is combined with wisdom.  Such as the wisdom that if we aren’t all working together, cooperatively, for the good of the whole of humanity, the body of humanity, we are in the process of destroying that body.  And just as the cells of a body cannot survive for long once the body as a whole becomes unviable, no matter how adept a survivalist one might think they are, human beings cannot survive indefinitely outside a viable human culture.

All my life I have heard Charles Darwin exalted as one of the, effectively, high priests of the natural world.  I don’t think it’s possible to think of Charles Darwin and not think of the phrase survival of the fittest.  That is the phrase those most industrially disseminating information within popular culture have locked onto regarding Darwin.  But today those who are seriously researching Darwin’s ideas and adaptive strategies are saying friendliness and cooperation is the most successful strategy for survival.  This is just one more example of how spirituality and science are converging in the world today.

If we are to survive as a species on this planet we must recognize our oneness, our interconnectedness and interdependence.  Not merely within cities, or nations, but as global body of humanity.

The Lifeguard Principle: What it is, what is it good for, how to make friends with it.

Fotosearch_k22192444
(c) AlexMax http://www.fotosearch.com

I am realizing that many of us, me included, have a tendency to readily notice and respond to the things in the world that are blatantly wrong, or problematic, and that this may consequently mean we simultaneously are not giving enough attention to the things that are right. 

I first became aware of this tendency decades ago when I worked a couple summers as a lifeguard.  When I found myself in the lifeguard chair, looking at a large, crowded pool with lots of noise and activity, I had a moment of doubt.  I wondered how in the world am I going to see someone in trouble in this chaos?  I asked an older lifeguard that question and he replied that I just needed to keep my eyes on the pool and if someone got into trouble, I’d see it.  Sounds too simple, right?  It isn’t.  As it turns out our attention is drawn to the things that aren’t right.  Whether it is inconsistencies, differences in movement, sometimes the obvious shout for “help”, or some other more esoteric phenomenon, it is a reliably real thing.  I would always find my attention drawn to someone in trouble.  Sometimes a few seconds before they were actually experiencing the distress.  Of course it is also true that my mindset, my internal desire, was to see such occurrences.  That may be a part of the function at work.  I began calling this tendency to have our attention drawn to what is wrong “the lifeguard principle”.

While paying attention and looking for trouble was an explicit part of that job, I think it is something we all do to a greater or lesser extent.  It definitely is a survival trait in times of threat.  Maybe it’s a carry over from the days when we were walking through forests or jungles and we had to be aware of our surroundings to avoid being eaten.  It definitely is a behavior that is necessary in times of warfare, one person, gang, tribe, nation, attacking another.  I believe it is universal among humankind.   For those interested in looking into such things, there is some correlate in the functioning of our “exciting” and “calming” neurotransmitters.  Our bodies have evolved in a way that we deplete our “calming” neurotransmitters well before we are in danger of running out of “exciters”.  I suppose that would help keep us from just lying down and being eaten when being chased by a tiger.  But now, in the year 2020, for many if not most of us, the dynamics we face in our day to day lives are not quite the same as they have been through much our existence.

It’s not that there still aren’t some acute dangers in the world; in some places much more than others.  However, the dangers most of us face in developed nations are more of a chronic nature.  We don’t get pounced on and quickly killed and eaten by a tiger, we get killed more gradually by being slowly consumed by worries, fears, anxieties, and insecurities.  Just as the nature of the threats has changed over time, our reactions to the threats we’re facing needs to change also.  A sudden, pervasive startle, fight or flight reaction to all the, sometimes subtle, threats an average person may face during their day would certainly result in a person becoming overly stressed, burned out, and significantly more at risk for a plethora of diseases.

Sometimes we need to intervene in what direction our “autopilot” chooses and become more reasoned with our reactions to life’s events.  Having an innate sensitivity to things that are “wrong” in our environment can be part of an important survival system.  Our “lifeguard principle” exists for just that purpose, to help guard our lives.  This brings to my mind a book by Gavin De Becker:  “The Gift of Fear”.  It addresses the important role fear can and does play in our lives.  However, with both the “lifeguard principle” and “The Gift of Fear”, whether or not these innate aspects of our being serve us or sabotage us depends entirely on how we react to the input we receive from them.

In our complex, more populated, human culture primitive responses to what are often sophisticated situations become less and less viable.  As a culture, we need to get way more invested in learning more about what it is to be human and what we inherently, and universally, require to establish and maintain healthy, vital, lives.  When we learn to respond to human, social, problems in a manner based in seeking to solve those problems on by seeing needs met and lives stabilized, it will benefit us greatly.  We are going to find ourselves in a thriving, vibrant world such as we have only had glimpses of, during a few periods of time in the past 150 years.

Within the current available knowledge from the fields of psychology, sociology, physiology, and spirituality, we have all we need to have more than a good start.  It only requires our will and determination to do so.

Our World of Plenty

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.

What’s changing the attitude of immigrants?

sailing-ship
(c) NesaCera http://www.fotosearch.com

There have been a number of posts about how someone’s ancestors (like mine) immigrated to the U.S. Were glad to be here, learned the language, and assimilated into the culture. That used to be the norm.

As is all too clear from the news that is not necessarily the case with immigrants today.

However, there is something else that is different that isn’t as widely distributed via the news. When my ancestors, and others, in the past came to the U.S. it wasn’t because U.S. individuals and corporations, and foreign tyrants, often with assistance from the U.S. government, had destroyed living conditions in their countries of origin.

That being the case, why would they want to come here?   Why come to a country whose governmental policies obviously, and increasingly, show moral bankruptcy?  A country which the home to those who have absconded with a great deal of their country’s natural resources? That’s a good question, however, it also provides the answer. They are just, as the phrase states: following the money.  The wealth which, at one time, resided in their home countries, or was the land they lived on and farmed.

Countries are like ships.  While conditions are acceptable on them, whose going to jump overboard and risk the dangerous swim to a ship on the horizon?  Nobody, or very, very few.  Everyone needs a ship to live on.  We all need a home.  We all need hope.

So, unless we want to see this mad scramble continue indefinitely, this mad scramble to find space in one of the ships of state where conditions still offer hope, one of two things has to happen.  1. We either try to revitalize conditions on the other ships in our world, or, 2. We kill a whole lot of people around the world, stop the flow at the source.

At this point a lot of you are offended, shocked by the latter option.  Good for you, you’re still fully human.  But there are some reading this who may not be shocked at all.  Who will think, good idea, let’s take that second option.

There are a number of ways that a human being’s innate sensibilities can be numbed to the point the second option seems attractive.  Ongoing trauma, over years, might do it.  Chronic severe stress, again over years, might do it.  Or belonging to a group, a family or club, which engages in practices designed to numb, to obliviate, those aspects of our humanity; empathy or any other innate connectivity to others, can do it.  And if you aren’t already aware, there are such groups, families, and clubs.   If you occupy a position of authority, it doesn’t seem to be all that difficult to find some who will blindly follow.

Humankind has a sorry history of people being willing to be used by those in positions of authority.  We’ve been doing it for decades, centuries.  Sometimes it doesn’t require a whole lot of effort on the part of those working to manipulate us to serve their agendas.  If starting with a human being early enough, with the right indoctrination, mass murder can just seem normal.  I think that was probably one of the goals within the Hitler Youth movement.  There are many reports of practices among groups claiming to be satanic which feed such a state of being.  And, as noted in the prior paragraph, there are others.  If you doubt this at all, look around, events in the world clearly show there are a good number of  people who do not flinch at the prospect of killing, murdering others to gain some worldly resource or another, or simply because someone in a position of authority told them to.  They can be found in dark alleys, on battlefields, and  they can be found in what has come to be known as “polite society”.

I tend to think it requires even less in the way of indoctrination to get people to perform activities which support rapacious, materialistic behavior when all they know of it are figures on a spreadsheet, abstractions.  White collar crime has, in many places, had many of it’s forms legalized by those who benefit most from it’s practices.

So, what about the rest of us, those of us who are still fully in possession of our innate human faculties?  Do we just follow the example of the three monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?  Following that model will only help pave an unobstructed road for those who seek to prey upon the world at large.

I am in the U.S., the examples I have given refer most directly to things going on the U.S. However, the behaviors, the actions, the dynamics described in this post are most certainly not limited to the U.S. The very same dynamics are going on around the world. Different predators, same activities.

What those of us who still are cognizant of the interconnectedness of life, who are still guided by our innate sense of what is fair and reasonable, must do is speak out, act out.  Speak out the truths we know.  Do not quietly allow those with purely self-serving agendas slant, distort and/or fabricate the information which is being disseminated within our communities.  Act out.  Vote whenever possible to support just causes.  Participate in and support businesses and activities which truly are benefits to our communities.  Refuse to participate in the machinations working to drain the economic life out of our communities.  Refuse to participate in activities which are polluting our air, water, soil, our world, our very bodies.  Discourage our young people from becoming tools for the militaristic destruction of other people, the takeover of other country’s resources.

Love one another as we love ourselves.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quantum Spirituality

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.

What is the nature of the future we are creating? Will we have a place in it?

Oliver and the fishIn case you haven’t become aware, throughout the U.S. and other places in the world, we have been being sprayed from airplanes with metallic nanoparticles for years now.  We breathe them in, they permeate us.  Also, they are toxic, they accelerate forest fires, and they contaminate the soil and water.  Now powerful microwave stations are being set up across the U.S. and other countries (5G). What we know from the study of human brainwave activity is that the potential to affect human brainwave production with external sources of stimulation is very real. We can be induced to be anxious, angry, docile, sleepy, even dead, via external stimulation at varying frequencies. I have worked in this area for years doing neurofeedback and have seen how even a small amount of external stimulation can drive our brainwave production up or down the frequency spectrum.

By turning us into even more sensitive walking antennas through infusing us with fine metallic particles, the potential to be able to externally affect us with microwaves increases. Does anyone think this is being done with the intention, the plan, to somehow make us healthier and happier?

There are people, rich and politically influential people, who want to see us gone from the face of the Earth.  This is not some hidden agenda, it is written and there for all to see, if one looks.  The Georgia Guidestones, Agenda 21, and other sources reveal this agenda.  They believe there are too many of us. They have collectively hoarded trillions of dollars, built vast underground bunkers, some quite luxurious. Some small cities. What we common folk represent to them are people with needs. Needs they don’t want to have to think about.

The technology, the resources exist for all of us, literally every person on Earth, to have happy healthy lives. But that requires those who have captured the vast majority of worldly resources to want to use them for that purpose.

What is our future going to be?

What we have been doing through hating one another, fearing one another and being willing to abuse one another, is feeding the mean spirit of those who love material wealth more passionately than the spirit of life itself.  

We can turn this horrible pattern of events around.  To do so we must turn to our source, the Universal Creative Spirit, God, and embrace love.  Not a passive, complacent love,  but an active, vital, love.  An active, expressed, caring for life itself.  We must realize it is us who must engage in the nurturing of ourselves and the beautiful planet we call home.  We must lovingly, but firmly, resolutely, expect it from ourselves and from others.   It must be our creed, our guiding motive.  Doing so we all can not only live, but thrive.  We can experience personal development beyond anything we are commonly taught to expect.  Working together, we can heal not only ourselves but our planet.

Or we can continue with the fearful, hateful, short sighted, egoistic, greed-filled, patterns that are tearing our lives and our world apart.  It’s entirely up to us.

 

Postscript:  While the mainstream news media pretty much ignores the dumping of tons of toxic metals onto the U.S. and other countries, some information is making it’s way to the light of day.  Here are some videos which shed more light upon the subject:

Ted Gunderson was the former Director of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles office, and a couple others. After retiring from the F.B.I., working as a private investigator, he began to discover truths he had never imagined in his career in law enforcement. By all accounts, he was killed for it. There are many videos on YouTube of him reporting his findings. They are shocking, a lot of people will find them difficult or impossible to believe. His videos are indispensable to anyone trying to get a clearer picture of what is going on in the world, and why.  Ted Gunderson on chemtrails.

Documentary:  What in the World Are They Spraying?

A typical bureaucratic response:  Interview in Shasta County.

We Can Heal Our World

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.