Jungian

I have friends and family who already consider me to live in a different reality than they do. Some even think that I need psychological help. This post will surely provide more fodder for those who think me weird. Nevertheless, I am compelled to share this in case it serves some of you.

Dreams, archetypes and synchronicity are topics of Jungian psychology. These three things pushed their way into my life these last two days. Unbidden and unexpected.

The night before last, I had an extremely vivid dream that woke me up at 3 am. In this dream, a tall blond woman came to visit me to deliver a message. I somehow understood that she was from the Pleiadian star system. This is what the gist of her message was: the next three months are going to be very difficult for your world; but, you do not need to worry – you will be ok. You are where you are supposed to be. Continue to trust Universe. I awoke, shocked at the clarity of the dream and the emphatic delivery of the message.

Later, during my dawn beach walking meditation (and once again during today’s dawn beach walk), I clearly felt, rather than heard, a message from Mother Earth. It was this – this is where you are meant to be – here on this beach. That was cool. I do feel at home here. Connected.

Then, last night, I was invited by a friend I have here, to join her in watching the Edmonton/Colorado hockey playoff game. After the 2nd period in which Edmonton scored 3 goals, she said to me that a friend of hers, who works for the N___S___Agency had told her that shit was about to get ugly and the lockdowns of the last 2 years would seem like small stuff in comparison – that she should stock up on food and water and be prepared a period of chaos that might last weeks.

This was weird. This friend is what the conspiracy-minded refer to as a ‘normie’. She is a lovely human being but thinks that my opinions about what has been going on since the beginning of 2020 are questionable. Anyway, for her to just up and tell me this in the middle of watching a hockey game at the local pub, was uncharacteristic of our normal conversations.

While I was eating breakfast this morning, it occurred to me that my dream, my felt message on the beach and her tidbit of info were all connected. It also occurred to me that, despite the reactions that this post would generate, I should share this. So here you are. Make of it what you will.

The Book of You

This is the story behind the Book of You. The book for these times.

Two days after I landed in the land of the Maya in February of  2021,
it came to me that I had to write this book. It was not something I had been thinking about doing.

I was in the midst of creating video content for the online courses that I had been working on for more than a year. Creating those videos had been the entire focus of my attention.

But, suddenly, I felt a deep compulsion to write this book. It had appeared whole in my mind, as if already written.

Watch the video below, then head on over to https://www.eventcreate.com/e/book-of-you

Addiction Intervention?

This article was written as an op-ed for RT by Memoree Joelle, a writer and constitutional conservative living in Los Angeles.

Americans have a fear-porn addiction, and it’s time for an intervention.

Be it an epidemic, a ‘foreign adversary’, or apocalyptic climate change, the elites will always find a way to keep us scared.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Regardless of how you feel about his New Deal, those words hold timeless truth that I wish more Americans today would take the time to consider.

America was founded by men who risked their lives in the pursuit of liberty for all. Our founding fathers stood up to the power of the Crown when they formed the States, knowing full well the potential repercussions if they failed. They also knew that to be free, you must be fearless. You have to believe liberty is worth fighting for and even dying for.

You have to believe that you are a divinely created sovereign being, and that your rights come from God, not the government. If you believe this, as they did, you have the basis to create something truly wonderful. How far we have fallen.

America in 2022 more closely resembles a giant mental asylum inside a circus than a country of the brave and the free. Sometimes I wonder if most of my fellow citizens even believe in freedom anymore, or are they so fearful and shellshocked they’ve forgotten what that word means?

I see young people in the prime of their lives walking around Los Angeles wearing three layers of face masks because they heard on TV that will keep them safe. Shoulders always slumped, heads always bent. I see people wearing surgical masks while driving alone, locked in their cars.

We’ve had more than two years, multiple vaccinations, a slew of well-documented early viral treatments, and still it’s not enough. Everything is sanitized, every cashier is behind a plexiglass barrier, and every germ is now seen as a threat. Everyday phrases like “See you later” and “Take care” have been replaced with “Stay safe.” It’s almost like safety is the new American pastime, replacing baseball. Or worse, Safety is the new religion.

To quote Nabokov, “The poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open.” And that’s exactly what our new fearful citizenry has been subjected to – an enormous national fear-wound, inflicted by our own government, whose taste for power has unleashed a monster. That monster both creates and feeds off of the fear, churning out more and more fresh poison with every news headline.

It doesn’t begin or end with Covid-19, or epidemics in general. Lock yourselves down because monkeypox is coming! Along with West Nile, Zika, and Covid variant numbers 5, 6, and 10,000. Oh, and the world is going to end in ten years due to climate change, just like it was about to end ten years ago, and ten years before that. Better stop driving! (So the world’s elite can fly more private jets and buy yachts, of course).

And you should definitely be afraid of (insert foreign country) and oh-my-god what if aliens attack?! The barrage never ends. And we’ve been living like this for years and years. It’s difficult not to be affected. If you’re an American reading this and you live in a big city, ask yourself this: When was the last time you felt lighthearted and carefree?

Why would our government and their news media lackeys do this to their own people? Simple. To control us. A fearful populace will go along with almost anything, which we witnessed at the onset of Covid-19 and the countless small businesses that were crushed by the lockdowns. When we are controlled by fear, we are easy to divide and conquer. And they got what they wanted.

Neighbors ratted on neighbors, calling the cops over a simple house party (or, in my neighborhood, over a family gathering to grieve together after a funeral). All of it driven by instilled fear, all of it devoid of human empathy.

Americans were already facing nationwide crises that impacted our mental health long before Covid. Just look at how obsessed we are with Hollywood, social media, and the new ‘influencer’ class. We have endless pharmaceuticals for anxiety and depression, and an epidemic of porn addiction. We’re dealing with an opioid crisis, and the delusional idea that one can change their sex or pick one of 78 genders.

All of this doesn’t bode well for a healthy, functioning society, but when you add in a hysterical media and a ruling class working together to instill fear, you’ve got a direct path to the total destruction of a nation. I’m afraid that if we don’t collectively, as a nation, gain control over this (manufactured) fear, that’s where we’re headed.

Not only are fearful people easy to control, they aren’t capable of functioning in a normal human way. Humans need to be with other humans, not isolated or communicating through phones and computers. We are highly social creatures designed to take risks, to try new things, learn, create, and explore.

We can’t do that if we suspect everyone to be a personal health threat, or if we believe we’re on the cusp of nuclear war, or if we fear food shortages, or that we may not be able to pay for the things we need to live. When we reach this point, we begin to develop mental illnesses, addictions, and neuroses like the ones I described earlier.

A president I happen to think was much wiser than Rooselvelt taught us that, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” It’s worth standing up for our God-given human rights and not giving into fear, which only serves to enslave us. Freedom is still worth fighting for, and it’s not as hard as it may seem. Step one: Turn off the fear porn.

_________

I remind you once again that the word ‘scared’ is changed to the word, ‘sacred’, simply by moving the letter “c”.
Change your ‘seeing’ of self and the world from the profane scared to the divine sacred and all this evil will melt away.
Turn off your television and turn on your inner vision.
~ Leslie

Spiritual Gratification

I have nothing against masturbation. In fact, I have been a practitioner of the art for half a century now; and, with all due modesty, I can claim to be an adept. I can attest to its many benefits; but will refrain from mentioning them here. However, even the most ardent fan of self-gratification must admit that it is not anywhere near as fulfilling as making love to another human being.

Likewise, I have nothing against any form of spiritual self-gratification. In fact, I have practiced meditation for almost as long, and with more frequency, as I have practiced masturbation and I highly recommend it. The many benefits of meditation are well documented, so there is no need for me to catalogue them here. I was introduced to meditation in 1969 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. If you are curious, the official TM website lists some of the benefits.

Any solitary form of spiritual pursuit, such as prayer in a cathedral, meditation in a Zen monastery, chanting Om in an ashram, trance dancing in a rave club, induced states of altered perception in a shaman’s care, fasting in a desert for 30 days or solitary walks in the woods, although enormously gratifying, can never be as spiritually fulfilling as finding and practicing a way to be intentionally and consciously of service to your fellow human beings.

Meditating in a cave in the Himalayas, or beneath a Bodhi tree, until you achieve satori is not the “be all and end all” of spiritual practice. The noblest rationale behind any form of self-realization, self-actualization or spiritual practice of any kind is to become more in order to be more creatively contributory.

All human souls are on a journey of self-discovery. All are an aspect of divine consciousness. Your willingness to be of service, to contribute, to be creatively offering of yourself, is to honor the divine. It is the best way you can show your reverence for the sacred source of all that is made manifest by the infinite and ineffable.

The spiritual urge to connect to the sacredness can be pursued in solitude. There is nothing wrong with that approach. And, for many, it is a necessary precursor to further development. However, the purest expression of spiritual growth is one’s way of walking through life. What one does, how one demonstrates compassion, how one commits to being contributory, is the spiritual pathway that leads to real fulfillment and lasting bliss.

Bliss is a sublime state of being. It is to be revered in any form, no matter how fleeting. Achieving orgasm or achieving satori in isolation is an honorable pursuit; but, just as true sexual fulfillment comes from intimate congress with a beloved partner, real and lasting spiritual fulfillment comes from practicing compassion towards all life; and in, in an attempt to emulate  the creative source of all that exists, being as enabling, empowering and enriching as possible in each moment, in each act, in each intention.

I believe that you will achieve the highest form of spiritual expression in discovering how you can enlighten, enrich and empower your fellow human souls as they journey through life; and, in being reverent of all creation.

Passion is the force that is behind sexual (and creative) energy. Compassion (and creativity) is the force that is behind spiritual energy. They are both expressions of love. Love, sweet love, is your source, is your power, is your true beingness.

Finally, ponder this: gratification and gratitude are related words (concepts). I begin each day with a prayer of gratitude for the new opportunity to revere, to relish and to contribute. Try it out for thirty days. I believe you will find it most efficacious and gratifying.

PS. My latest public contribution is Prosperity Mojo. I know it will add value to your life. I hope you avail yourself of its benefits. Simply go to http://www.myprosperitymojo.com/

My Declaration of Independence

No flag, nor country; no dogma, nor church commands my fealty. My only allegiance is to the great, ineffable source of all that is. I am not patriotic. I am an Earthling. The entire Earth is my home.  I am not bound by tribalism, nationalism, racism, sexism or secularism. I see all human beings as members of the same family. We are all Earthlings. We breathe the same air, travel around the same star and share the same genetic code.

I am free of the mind numbing addictions of postmodern consumerist society, the soul-sucking ideologies of church and state and from the fear-based pathologies promulgated by the psychopaths who wage war on all that is sacred.

I do not need, nor want, a guru, priest, pope, ayatollah, rabbi, preacher or proselytizer to set my moral compass. Love is my credo. The same infinite consciousness that creates, sustains and enlivens the universe resides in me and is my only guide.  My sole fealty is to the set of ideals I hold.

I am a fully functional adult human being; and, as such, am responsible for my own thoughts, emotions and actions. My inner child does not need healing or coddling. I am a spiritual warrior and I am proud of my many scars. They offer testament to my willingness to play full out.

I chose to be here now and I live my self-assigned purpose to revere, to relish and to contribute. I am an integral part of all that is; and do not need anything or anyone to complete me. I am already whole.

I do not follow any paved highway girded by directional signs. I forge my own path. I enjoy my journey. It is a great adventure. I am filled with wonder at, and gratitude for, the unfolding universe I inhabit.

I know who I am; and when I look intently and honestly in the mirror, my most deeply felt response is a wry amusement. I am a beach bum who strolls down the sands of time on the beach at the edge of the infinite cosmic ocean.

And now, with that declaration made, I am going to find a beach bar, drink a cold beer and watch the waves rolling up on my beach while soaking up the glorious shining light of my nearest star.

 

 

Surviving a Toxic World

The natural world is organized to enable all life, including humans, to thrive. It is a closed ecosystem with air, water, earth and fire all synergistically enabling life, in its many manifestations, to prosper.

The unnatural world that we humans have layered over the natural world is toxic to life. We have poisoned the earth, the water, the air. We have even poisoned the food we feed ourselves.

In addition to poisoning our environment and our food supply (and thus have poisoned our bodies), we have also poisoned our minds and spirits. Continuing down this path toward greater and greater toxicity can only lead to degradation and death.

We humans have, through ignorance and hubris, become out of sync with our place in the natural world and with our spiritual place in creation. In order to survive and to be able to live coherently (thrive) with the natural world, we will need to first go through a period of detoxification; and then, once the detox process is complete, adopt a way of being that engenders harmony with the natural world.

If, we, as a species, do not voluntarily undertake this process of detoxifying, it will be imposed on us by the forces of degradation we ourselves have unleashed. This is urgent. If, each of us, as individuals, does not commit immediately to our own self-realization and then, to do all that is necessary to steer humanity into a harmonious relationship with our environment, the inevitable cleansing will be traumatic.

Indeed, this inevitable humanity-wide cleansing process may already be so far underway that it is irreversible and, although it is your personal moral and ethical responsibility to help enough other people to become awake, aware and active in order to attempt to avert the resulting trauma, it is possible that you will have to resign yourself to being as prepared as possible to survive the ordeal that awaits us all unless we radically change the way we go about living on Planet Earth.

Imagine you are caught up in a giant whirlpool or vortex. As you approach the eye, the center, you would travel faster and faster, feeling perhaps progressively out of control and unable to escape.

Now look at your world with clear eyes: everything is speeding up. Time itself seems to be flowing faster. Everything appears to be spiraling out of control. Changes to every system and every foundational structure that underpin modern human civilization and culture are taking place faster and faster.

National economies are falling apart. The debt-based global financial system is in crisis and heading for complete breakdown. The capitalist/consumerist economic model is collapsing. It is inevitable. It has been built on faulty foundations and they are now crumbling before our eyes.

The world’s resources are limited. There is only so much oil, so much water, and so much arable land available to grow food. We are consuming these resources as if there was an unlimited supply; but there is not. The more we consume, the less there is left to consume. And, despite the fact that resources are dwindling, we are consuming more and more.

The more that we consume, the more garbage we end up producing. More crudely, the more we eat, the more we shit. All that garbage ends up in our environment, poisoning our air, land and water. The more poisoned our environment becomes, the more the world’s immune system becomes compromised and unable to heal itself. The resulting ecological crisis, which exists because of the greed-based capitalist/consumerist social model, is so severe that multiple species are disappearing from the planet every single day and the survival of human civilization is seriously at risk. This is not hyperbole; it is fact. We are running out of water, food and even the air we breathe.

The oceans are becoming acidic. Phytoplankton, which is both the base of the ocean’s food chain and the major contributor of atmospheric oxygen, is dying off. The other major contributor of atmospheric oxygen, the world’s rainforests and boreal forests, are being destroyed. Meanwhile, we continue to pour tons of carbon into our atmosphere; having already created irreversible climate change by so doing. More carbon (and other pollutants) combined with less oxygen in the atmosphere translates to “no air to breathe”.

The coral reefs are dying. Most of the oceans fish are already gone. The amount of arable land to plant food is shrinking; much of what remains is so corrupted by deadly herbicides and pesticides that crop yields are falling. The remaining food supplies are rapidly being corrupted by Genetically Modified Organisms that cause cancers and other diseases. The creatures (bees, butterflies, birds) that pollinate plants are being extincted by our pollutants and once they are gone, most annual plants, including all flowering food crops, will follow. All this translates to “not enough food to eat”.

Fresh water supplies are shrinking while demand is growing. Rivers, lakes and aquifers are becoming progressively more polluted by industrial effluents, agricultural runoff (pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers) and urban garbage. This translates to “no water to drink”.

In short, we are so seriously polluting our water, air and earth that environmental collapse appears inevitable and massive human suffering is seemingly inescapable.

So, there it is, looming economic and environmental collapse coming at us faster and faster. It is abundantly clear that humanity is caught up by forces that are pulling us toward a crunch point of some kind or another.

And, of course, there is a lot more going on at the same time as environmental degradation and economic collapse. Anyone who educates themselves about what is taking place around the world can see that it is all swirling together as part of an inescapable process as the vortex pulls us into its maw like a black hole sucking up all matter in the surrounding space.

Make no mistake; this is going to be a traumatic experience. In order to survive as a species, we will be required to transform the way we go about living on this planet. We will need to detoxify our culture, our belief systems and the way we live. We must make the choice to continue acting as we have been, which is as a parasite; or, to transform our relationship to Planet Earth to one of symbiosis.

If we do not undertake this transformation, and do it urgently, Planet Earth will undertake its own detoxification process and that process may very well include cleansing itself of the parasite called modern human civilization.

Let’s make it personal… in order for you to even hope to survive the profound transformation that is in the process of happening and to come out the other side of this vortex, you will need to be physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually healthy. And, in order to be healthy, you will first need to rid yourself of the toxins currently present in your body, mind and spirit.

Detoxifying your body:

Step One: Eliminate Excitotoxins from your diet. These food additives are not only causative factors in many major health problems, they also affect your ability to think. Put simply, they make you stupid and sick.

The major Excitotoxins are:

• MSG or monosodium glutamate, which is often deceptively labeled as Glutamic Acid, Hydrolyzed protein, autolyzed protein, textured protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed plant protein, protein isolate, textured protein, yeast extract, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch, calcium caseinate, maltodextrin, monopotassium glutamate, glutamate and even the innocuous sounding ‘seasonings’ and ‘natural flavor’.
  
• Fluoride, is most commonly found in municipal water supplies and toothpaste, but is also found in many non-organic fruits and vegetables. Sodium aluminum fluoride is a commonly used pesticide that ends up in everything from the cereal and fruit juice you have for breakfast to the salad you have for lunch or dinner; and, in levels considered too toxic for human consumption.
  
• Aspartame, the artificial sweetener marketed as Equal or NutraSweet is added not only to diet drinks and foods, but is added surreptitiously to many other foods as well. This is an extremely dangerous poison that should be avoided at all costs. It seriously messes up your brain chemistry.
  
• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS), while not exactly classed as an excitotoxin, is as damaging to your health as anything could possibly be. There is a better than 80% chance that it is made from genetically modified corn, which is a carcinogenic. The chemical process of refining cornstarch into corn sugar produces mercury residue that is a highly dangerous excitotoxin.  High fructose corn syrup is also often deceptively labeled as corn sugar or glucose/fructose or isoglucose or maize syrup/sugar.
  

Step Two: Avoid foods that contain Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), unless, of course, you want cancer or unless you want your baby born with pesticide already in his or her blood. Stop buying processed food with additives.

Step Three: Eat nutritious, locally grown, organic food whenever possible. This will not only contribute to your own health and well-being, it will disempower the multi-national food conglomerates (who are presently poisoning your food) and empower your local farmers and food producers.

Detoxifying your mind:

Step One: Stop watching TV or, at the very least, severely curtail your television habit. Television news is not simply information or educational; it is propaganda. It dumbs you down. It shapes your beliefs. It limits your ability to think and act freely. TV programming is designed to program you.

Step Two: Start examining what you think about and why you think it. Then, start consciously choosing to discard those thoughts that disempower you. Also critically examine your beliefs and discard those that do not serve you.

Step Three: Stop having inane conversations with ignorant people. Stop repeating the propaganda and misinformation you heard on TV or from uninformed people. Remember two simple things: everything you say to yourself and to others is an affirmation of who you are and who you are becoming; and the old adage that simply and correctly states: average people talk about events and circumstances, below average people talk about other people, above average people talk about ideas. Exceptional people talk about ideals. Become exceptional.

Step Four: Educate yourself.  That means getting truthful information about how the world works and what is really going on around you. That kind of information is NOT available on your television set or in your daily newspaper. It also means, finding a way to connect to your inner knowing, through meditation and/or through altered states of consciousness, so that you can discern truthful information from disinformation or propaganda.

Detoxifying your spirit:

Step One: Start practicing forgiveness. Anger and resentment are emotional and spiritual toxins. They poison, body, mind and spirit. Forgiveness frees you and enables your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.

Step Two: Stop being fearful. The forces that currently run the planetary power game use fear to manipulate your thoughts, beliefs and actions. Face that darkness boldly and shine your light of awareness into the darkness. One small burning candle can light up a completely dark room. Imagine what the bright shining light of your awakened courageous soul can do.

Step Three: Start being loving. Spiritually developed love is felt and expressed as compassion. Your compassion should extend to all life. Let go of any sense of separation and recognize your intimate and sacred connection to all creation. Once you have extended your compassion to include all life, your own sacredness will become apparent. You will be empowered. You will be connected to the source of all things.

Step Four: Stop allowing your culture to be your cult. De-program yourself.

In order to survive and come out the other side of this vortex, it is crucial that you start immediately working at becoming a self-actualized human being. You must connect with the sacred. You must become awake, aware and active.

Put bluntly, if you do not wake up, your current dream state will soon turn into a nightmare; if you do not become aware, you will be unable to free yourself from the cultural miasma that is in the process of self-destructing and it WILL take you down with it; if you not become active, you will be de-activated.

All these words can be simplified to these few: stop acting profanely and start acting sacredly. Therein lies your salvation.

Additional Resources:

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism

http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2241

http://save-as.org/GreenNews/News/phytoplankton-the-oceans-vital-force-is-dying-out_1675

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_looming_oxygen_crisis_and_its_impact_on_worlds_oceans/2301/

http://www.wri.org/publication/content/8426

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/land_deg/land_deg.html

http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQAsNbxmQz0

http://youtu.be/4ECi6WJpbzE

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXAs-0XE8pqXOu_TYxwpc4Bqtq1TmijKd

Where Do You Stand?

“We must be the change we want to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

As a result of the personal decision to make a greater commitment to the empowerment of my fellow human beings and to the protection of the health and well-being of this beautiful planet we all call home, I have been going through a period of self-reflection and a close examination of the way I have behaved in my relationships with other people and with all that which can be called the sacred.

Although it has been somewhat uncomfortable to look honestly into the mirror and to recognize my transgressions and my capacity for self-delusion, it has also been a liberating experience. It is clear that in order to become empowered to help effectuate change in the world, I need to change my own way of being.

And, fortunately, this is not difficult. It is simply a question of identifying the ideals I aspire to exemplifying and, in each moment, each choice point, to make a conscious decision to think AND to act in the way that will best serve to bring me ever closer to those ideals. It is also necessary to identify the opposite end of the spectrum in order to honestly assess when I have erred in the past and what aspects of my personality I need to be aware of in order to make those conscious decisions that take me closer to my ideals.

After some thought, I decided that if I was a more fully self-realized human being, I’d be a lot more like the Dalai Lama; and if I was completely at the opposite end of the spectrum, I’d be a lot more like Dick Cheney.

After doing some research and looking closely at the personal attributes of each example, I discovered that the attributes of someone who is completely the opposite of a fully self-actualized human being are those of a psychopath.

A psychopath is incapable of feeling empathy and is totally without remorse; while a self-actualized human being is comprehensively compassionate and is capable of feeling great anguish.

A psychopath is parasitic, power hungry, egocentric, manipulative, materialistic, narcissistic,  amoral, feeds on fear and refuses to accept responsibility for his choices and actions. On the other hand, a self-realized human being is contributory, empowering, altruistic, sincere, spiritual, has a high degree of morality, a sense of connectivity to other human beings and all life, is nourished by love and accepts responsibility not only for his/her own choices and actions, but also for the way the world is unfolding.

About 5% of the human population is a psychopath and the overwhelming majority (at least 80%) are men. Also about 5% of the human population can be considered a fully self-realized human being; with a smaller majority (about 60%) being women.

Most people, including me, fall in between the two extremes and show some degree of the characteristics defining either the psychopath or the self-actualized human being. 90% of the human population is in this intermediate range somewhere between the complete psychopathic personality and the fully self-realized human being.

For example, most people feel some level of empathy for family, lovers and close friends. However, they do not allow themselves to feel compassion for strangers; and can even justify the suffering of those who are distant and/or different. People who are more self-realized tend to feel a sense of compassion for all humanity and feel empathy for others, no matter how remote from their own lives these others may be.

A fully self-realized human being’s sense of compassion includes all life forms and is saddened by the suffering of any living thing. On the other hand, a psychopath has no empathy at all and feels no compassion for any other person or living creature; and, in many cases, actually takes pleasure from the suffering of others.

Let’s take an example, the American invasion of Iraq, and examine the variety of response to a simple statement of fact: OVER 500,000 innocent women and children have been murdered during that ongoing event.

For most people, this is just an abstract; these are just numbers, they are not really real people… they are just too distant and too different to cause any anguish. For many other people, this causes a real feeling of sadness. For fewer people, those who are more fully self-actualized, this engenders a profound sense of empathy and even outrage. The 5% who are true psychopaths feel no pity or compassion at all; and some of these, perhaps 1% of all human beings, actually take pleasure from this suffering.

Take a look at the photo below and honestly analyze your response. Do you naturally tend toward the psychopathic or the self-actualized end of the spectrum?

This is how a self-actualized human being responds to the evils of war…

Now take a look at how a psychopath responds…

Psychopathic personalities are parasitic. Self-realized people are contributory. This is really very simple: parasitic people feed on other people’s energy; contributory people feed energy to other people. To fully understand this, we need to talk a little bit about energy. In the broadest sense, the entire universe is composed of energy, so all things can be considered energy and that understanding is important to anyone who walks the path to self-realization. However, in this discussion, I want to narrow the discussion to human energetic output.

Human energetic output is varied and complex and a full discussion would take up more time and space than is available in this essay, so I will only provide a few simple examples.

There is physical energy as exemplified by work. There is creative energy as exemplified by ideas. There is emotional energy as exemplified by fear and love.

When work produces something of value to other human beings or to all life, then it is contributory. When work does not produce value or extracts value from other life, then it is parasitic. The farmer who plants a crop in the spring and sends it to market in the fall is contributory. The Wall Street derivatives trader who buys and sells currencies is parasitic.

Creative energy can also be called mental energy. Those people whose ideas focus on how to take advantage of other human beings are parasitic. Those people whose ideas focus on how to enhance the well-being or upliftment of other human beings are contributory.

Those who engender fear and use that fear to control other people are parasitic. Those who project love and use that love to nurture and empower others are contributory. Parasitic people feed on fear. Contributory people are nurtured by love.

Many people are attracted by power. The Oxford English Dictionary defines power in several ways. I limit my comments to the first two:
1) the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way
2) the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events

Almost everyone wants to have the kind of personal power in definition number one. This kind of power is often called freedom. Self-actualized people desire to empower others to be free. Psychopaths lust after power; in particular, the second kind of power. They want to have direct control over the behavior of others. In other words, they want to curtail or eliminate the freedom of other people.

A culture in which all members seek to empower each other is an ideal that would not only liberate all people, but would also serve to ensure that humanity will survive and thrive long enough to explore the many wonders of both inner and outer space.

However, we live in a culture in which a few psychopaths seek to exercise control of all humanity, seek to control all of the world’s resources, seek to feed their own insatiable lust and seek to eliminate all those who desire the empowerment and upliftment of their fellow humans. This is a dead end path that is leading inexorably to the enslavement of humankind and the destruction of our beautiful world.

A true psychopath absolutely refuses to accept responsibility for his or her actions, while the person who is moving toward self-realization understands that accepting responsibility is a necessary step. Most of us have played the blame game… It was the outside circumstances or the behavior of other people that caused me to behave in a certain way.

Many people choose disempowerment by believing that the world is the way it is and there is nothing that can be done about it.

However, it is up to each of us to decide what kind of future we shall create by our individual daily choices that determine where we stand in the sliding scale between psychopath and self-actualized person. I know that the responsibility for how the future unfolds rests on my shoulders. I hope that you will come to the same conclusion.

I encourage you to honestly examine yourself using each of the characteristics mentioned above; and then, having looked into the mirror, decide how it is that you will go about being in the days ahead. It is not only your own soul that lies in the balance, it is the soul of humanity, the future of our whole species and the future of all life on Planet Earth, that depends on the choices you make.

Revere, Relish. Contribute.

Some interesting quote from examples of both types…

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” ~ Henry Kissinger

“I don’t want a nation of thinkers; I want a nation of workers.” ~ J. D. Rockefeller

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.” ~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” ~ Henry Kissinger

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?” ~ Joseph Stalin

“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

“The most satisfying thing in life is to have been able to give a large part of one’s self to others.” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.” ~ Albert Schweitzer

“I think I have told you, but if I have not, you must have understood, that a man who has a vision is not able to use the power of it until after he has performed the vision on earth for the people to see.” ~ Black Elk

The Great Spiritual Delusion

If you can clearly and honestly look at the way certain things are being done in the world and not feel a profound sense of moral outrage, then you are spiritually retarded. Oh yes, the term “retarded” is not politically correct these days, so I will say it this way, you are developmentally delayed and need some remedial treatment.

Furthermore, if you are awake and aware enough to acknowledge the profound injustices that are being propagated by a few psychopaths and do nothing to counteract this evil, then you are morally complicit. Maybe morally complicit is too soft a term, so I will say those who stand by and allow evil to persist are as guilty as those who perpetrate the evil.

There are a few clear reasons why people do not act, and thus become complicit. The two that I see most and address here are:
1) Many, perhaps the majority, feel powerless. They are so overwhelmed by the scope of it all that they just do not know what to do.
2) Many believe that focusing their attention on evil somehow enhances the evil’s power or reality; and, that the answer lies in ignoring the illusions of the external world and focusing on an internal search for peace, truth, light and love (agape).

For those who feel powerless, I will simply say this… it is through taking action that you claim your personal power; and each act, no matter how small, empowers you to become capable of greater and more meaningful contributions.

Commitment to any contribution to the improvement of even one fellow human being is important and serves to prove that your life has meaning and purpose. Once you begin the path of contribution, your life begins to matter, you become empowered and you will no longer feel powerless. You become capable of greatness by taking a stand and by taking action.

For those who are already in overwhelm, I will remind you that attempting to obviate your despair with mind-numbing drugs like alcohol, television, religion (old time or new age) or consumerism is self-destructive and ultimately takes you farther down the path to a meaningless and purposeless life. Your salvation lies in being of service, in taking action to resist evil, in shining the light of your beingness into the darkness.

To those who withdraw their attention from the evils that exist in our world in the false belief that refusing to acknowledge something somehow makes it less real and therefore somehow WILL bring about an ideal in which this evil no longer exists are delusional. They are as delusional as the people who refuse to acknowledge the diagnosis of a life threatening disease, expecting that their ignore-ance will cause it to go away.

In response to my many Facebook postings about some of the very real nastiness being perpetrated on you and I by a few power mad, greedy, soulless individuals hiding behind corporate shields or government immunities, I received an earnest anD well-intentioned email.

“Dear Leslie,

I honor your commitment to stand up for those who suffer and to fight the bad guys. However, I would have thought you’d have learned that what you resist persists and that what you focus your attention on only increases.

I have come to understand that when we focus our attention on the imperfect things of this world, the illusions which have no reality or permanence, we in fact give life to these things. I know in my heart that peace in the world will only come when we all have peace in our hearts, so while protesting wars may seem like the right thing to do, it, in fact, only serves to empower the war makers by creating more of the same kind of energy. Fighting for peace is still fighting. Be at peace and peace will be manifest.

You already know that you are light. Focus on the light. It is the only reality. The darkness is an illusion that only becomes apparently real when you add the focus of your attention to those others who are also focused on shadows.

In love and respect,
(Name redacted)”

There is no doubt in my mind that this person is well-intentioned and considers himself to be on a spiritual path.

But, he is suffering from the great spiritual delusion of our times. His delusion is quite common in people who consider themselves to be spiritually developed. But, as I wrote in my opening paragraph, this is developmentally delayed and needs remedial education.

Evil is empowered by ignorance and not by attention; and willful ignorance is more empowering than ordinary ignorance. It is inattention that enables evil to flourish. Attention is light and truly developed spiritual people learn to shine their light into the darkness.

As an example, if everyone paid attention to the evil that Monsanto, and its ilk, are creating by monopolizing the world’s food supply and corrupting it with Genetically Modified Organisms and then, decided to actively fight this evil simply by refusing to consume GMO foods, it would disappear. It only continues because people ignore (do not pay attention) to this evil.

Refusing to acknowledge evil will not cause it to disappear. This idea that by focusing your attention only on all that is judged to be good you will somehow create a world in which good is the only reality is a great spiritual delusion. The belief in and the propagation of this delusion is yet another way that evil is allowed to flourish.

Developed spirituality is expressed as active compassion; it is not exemplified in withdrawal from the world to meditate in some Himalayan cave. If you are compassionate (capable of feeling real love for life in all its manifestations), you will draw attention to the inequities, immoralities and intentional evils that exist in the world you actually inhabit and thus, empower others to act to correct the inequities and combat the very real, not illusionary, evils that surround you.

Two people walk into a dark, dreary, dirty, disorderly basement of their home dimly lit by a single small window. One person closes his eyes to the filth and retreats to the upper floors where all is already lovely, clean and attractive. The other reaches for the light switch so that all can be illuminated and cleaned up. I choose to turn on the light. What will you do?

If you choose to ignore evil, you empower it to take over your life and your world behind the scenes.

If you decide that evil is a permanent, unavoidable or necessary polar opposite of good, and therefore make no effort to fight this evil, you also enable it to flourish.

If you decide that evil is an illusion, then you say to each of the 15,000 children who will die today from starvation that their pain and suffering is a lie and their death does not actually leave a stain on your own soul.

If you acknowledge that evil really exists but are too scared to confront this evil, you also enable it to flourish. That is why media spreads fear. To disempower you. That is why you must face the bogeyman under the bed or the monster in the closet. Turn on your light. Become a true spiritual warrior. Do something.

Get A Life

A Pail Full of Cold Water

I could have done here what many writers do… take the safe route… massage your ego and then give you some touchy-feely encouragement to be a better person; but I won’t be doing that with this essay.

My intention in writing this piece is to enable and empower you to become a fully functional human being, a consciously aware creator and to wake you up to your potential to self-actuate your divine self and sacred nature.

Imagine that you are asleep in the midst of some captivating dream and, suddenly, you are doused with cold water; a rude awakening indeed. This is going to be like that.

In my own journey, I have found that I have needed, from time to time, the rude awakenings impossible to ignore, the hard reminders, to get me back on track with what I am here to do. I suspect that many of you may need the same and this work is for you.

If it is not what you need or want, then please ignore it and get on with living your life and building your prosperity. All that is written here is my opinion, nothing more. My opinions, like yours, are only those… opinions. I am basing my advice on my own experiences and insights. I offer it out of good intent.

The information offered here is intended to cause you to examine the meaning and purpose of your life. The questions I raise may affront you. These are the hard reminders, the rude awakenings and the cold water that I refer to.

There is nothing warm, fuzzy and enjoyable about being woken up by a pail full of cold water. It is, however, certain to wake you up and once awakened, it is difficult to go back to sleep.

So, with that cautionary note stated, make your choice… read on or simply ignore this and go back to sleep.

Life Is A Gift

Are you wasting your life away? Each day presents you with 1,440 minutes. No more, no less. That’s all you get. How many of those minutes are squandered? You might have 9,000 days in your life or you might have 36,001. How many have slipped away from you already? Thousands, perhaps. How many more wasted moments or days are you prepared to have?

I take the position that life is a wonderful gift and that it is to be appreciated as such. Failing to appreciate the gift is to devalue not only the gift but the giver as well. To appreciate means to honor, to esteem, to treasure, to cherish, to revere, to enjoy, to relish and also, to appreciate means to improve upon, to increase in value, to contribute to.

How you choose to go about living and appreciating your life is entirely up to you. You get to choose the how of life.

There are as many ways to live as there are people who can imagine how to live. I like to say that the how of life may be complex, but the why is simple; it is to revere, relish and contribute.

Are you enjoying—relishing—yourself and your life? Are you being fulfilled? Does each day have purpose and meaning?

Are you honoring, esteeming, and revering your life? What will be your legacy? What will you do today and with the rest of your life that will demonstrate your appreciation?

Are you just spinning your wheels? Are you wasting the precious moments of your life doing things that have no value, hold no enjoyment and add nothing to your own upliftment or to the appreciation of life?

Are you a better and happier person today than you were yesterday? If not, why not? How much joy does your heart hold? How much love?

What percentage of your 1440 is spent being reverent, standing in awe of the miracle of your life and all creation; how much time in each day are you enjoying, savoring, relishing the pleasures of being alive; what are you doing in each day to make a contribution?

These are tough questions. It takes a certain stark honesty with self to answer them. There is no doubt that a large percentage of your time is wasted, thrown away as if in contempt. You may choose to be in denial about that, but if, in each moment, you are not a) standing in awe and reverence or b) cherishing and relishing the gift of being alive or c) making a contribution by consciously becoming more or adding value to the lives of others and/or the universe as a whole, then you are wasting your 1440 and devaluing the gift of life.

Take a day, any day, say yesterday, and write down how you spent your 1440. Let’s say you slept 8 hours, 480 minutes, one third of that day. That leaves you with 960. Take 20 of today’s 960 and analyze yesterday’s 960. In each of those 960, you were involved in some activity or action. You were being and behaving a certain way.

Examine each behavior, each action. Was there any reverence being expressed? What was relished, cherished, enjoyed? Were you contributing to self or universe in that action? Was life being gratefully appreciated? My bet is that, in most of those 960 moments, the answer is no. What a waste! You could have been revering, relishing and contributing, couldn’t you? It is simply a matter of choice; your choice.

You either chose to revere, relish and contribute or you chose not to. You either chose to appreciate the gift of life or you chose not to. In each and every moment, you made a choice.

Perhaps you did not make the choice consciously, intentionally and on purpose. It was, perhaps, made unconsciously, habitually, instinctually like a creature of circumstance or even, accidentally. You went through the day as if you were a choiceless, pre-programmed automaton and for all the value you received or gave, you might as well be.

Now that you are aware of that, you can make the choice to live consciously each and every moment of each and every day. Of course, you can also make the choice to go about living an unconscious life. It is always possible to go back to sleep. Try counting sheep.

What is your intention?

This is truly one of the most exquisite questions you can ask yourself at any given moment. What is my intention in doing what I am doing right now? Also ask: What is my intention in thinking the way I think? What is my intention in holding the beliefs I hold?

It will help you get to the why of life. Ask… Why am I doing this? For what purpose?

Like I stated previously, the how of life may be complex, but the why is simple. You have been given the gift. Demonstrate your appreciation by your reverence, relishment and contribution.

Let’s take a little pause here for an analogy that might help you achieve some clarity.

You are going on a journey, perhaps a little adventure. You show up at the airport for your flight only to find out that it has been delayed for three hours. What is your response? It has happened enough to me to be able to tell you what most people’s response is. It is, “Rats. Now I have three hours to kill.” Very few react to this unexpected gift of time, three extra hours, to do something useful, to enjoy. Most look for ways to kill the time.

Airports are full of stores so that people with time on their hands can indulge in a little mindless consumerism. Airports are full of bars so that people with time on their hands can sample their drug of choice. Airports are full of TV sets so that people with time on their hands can distract themselves. There are also, in airports, a few good books to be discovered and read in the extra time; spaces set aside to do some productive work; chapels where a little meditation can be done or a few prayer of gratitude can be offered.

The bars and shops are usually crowded with people killing time. The workspaces are almost always (despite the fact that a large percentage of travelers are business travelers) underutilized. The chapels are almost always empty. Most of the readers are reading books they will not even remember a month later.

Most people in airports are just hanging out, killing time, waiting to go someplace else. Are you like that? Are you, perhaps, living most or even the whole of your life like that…killing time until time kills you?

Time is your most precious, non-renewable, continuously declining asset. 1440 minutes a day. That’s all you get to spend. How you choose to spend it denotes the value you place on it and the appreciation you have for the gift of the time of your life.

So many people are very careful about how they spend their money and so very careless about how they spend their time. They place enormous value on their money but devalue their time. No reverence, no relishing, no conscious contribution. What a waste.

You Are A Gift

Have you been just taking up space and passing the time away until you pass away?

You are unique. In the whole universe of a billion, billion galaxies, each containing a billion, billion stars and countless more things we have yet to imagine or conceive of, there is only one you. There may be six billion other human beings walking around on this particular planet that you inhabit right now, but there is only one you.

Only one you with your unique attributes, your special characteristics, your distinct potentials and your exceptional opportunities to offer the gift that you are to the rest of life.

The rest of us, your fellow humans, are awaiting your contribution. The whole universe awaits — in anticipation — for your very next thought, feeling, word and deed. Imagine that. Everything that you are and do adds to the whole of creation. Each new thought contributes to the totality of the universe. Your every act ripples out like the sun’s radiation, a waveform that washes up against all else having an effect, whether you admit it or not.

The universe is, by definition, all that is. Everything that exists, exists within the universe. The universe, taken as a whole, is the sum of its parts. One of its parts is you. Therefore, every new thought you think, and every feeling you have, every word you speak, every action you take, adds to the whole. You cannot help but contribute to the whole of the universe. The obvious questions that arise out of that are: Of what value are your contributions and are you contributing consciously, intentionally, on purpose??

You are light. That is your essence. Physically, you are composed of recycled stardust. Metaphysically, you are composed of the same light or radiance that enlivens all creation. Are you shining bright enough to light the way of your fellow travelers? There is a lot of darkness out there. You can light it up. The more you are, the more you shine. The more you become, the brighter you are.

You light up my life. At least, you can if you but choose to. Have you been denying or hiding your light? Why? You really have no valid excuses. Many others, with less to offer than you do, have given more, shone brighter.

I am going to remind you of something that you already know… there are people with less education, less intelligence, less opportunity and less ability than you have who are creating more abundance in life, making a greater contribution, have greater enjoyment and are more fulfilled than you are.

Why is that? Can it be attributed to fate, karma, providence or just plain good luck? I don’t think so. I think effects have causes. I think having is predicated upon doing and being. I think that enjoyment, appreciation, abundance, contribution, happiness and success happen on purpose. They are a matter of choice, not chance.

Some people achieve a certain level of mastery in life because they have made a simple choice to live life on purpose instead of by accident. They know and practice something very important. It is this: clarity, congruency and control of your thoughts and beliefs are consciously causal and success and happiness are the resulting effects.

Mastery of the game of life, therefore, is all about bringing clarity (or lucidity), congruency (or coherency) and control (or focus) to the activities of your consciousness. Take charge of your own programming. If you must be a creature of habit, then choose those habits that serve you. Make it a habit to have a grateful appreciation of the gift of life; make it a habit to revere, relish and contribute. Get addicted to grateful appreciation.

Appreciate the gift. Your life is a gift. You are the gift. Revere, relish and contribute.

Be reverent of the miracle of your life. Become reverent in your own presence. Relish life. Enjoy your self.

Contribute to yourself and to all existence. Become more. Create more. Do it on and with purpose. Stop being an accidental participant in life.

Do you find life bewildering, incoherent and out of focus? Perhaps it is because you are.

Do you have clarity? Are you being lucid? Are you being incongruent, incoherent? Are you in control, disciplined and focused or is your life out of control?

Want to have more out of life? Get lucid. Get coherent. Get focused. Get empowered. Shine your light.

“The shift from incoherence to coherence can bring dramatic effects: A 60-watt light bulb, whose light waves could be made coherent as a laser, would have the power to bore a hole through the sun—from 90 million miles away.” ~William A. Tiller, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness

Now that is power. Imagine that: The light from a single 60-watt bulb, made coherent and focused as a laser, can burn a hole through the sun. Imagine this: You emit more light, more radiant energy than a mere 60-watt light bulb. What power you would have if you were to bring coherence and focus to all that you are and all that you do?

Get empowered. Start appreciating who you are. Stop diffusing the light that you are. Give the gift of you!

Why

If there is no why to what you do, then why do you do it? The person without a definite purpose in life is more handicapped than the most disadvantaged or disabled. Your lack of personal purpose cripples you.

It is not that you will just end up with a purposeless life. It is worse than that. If you don’t choose to have a clear and definite purpose of your own, you will get assigned one.

Perhaps your assigned purpose/function is to be a consumer. Your job is to hang out at the mall with your credit card.

Perhaps your assigned purpose/function is to be the robot in the factory that produces the stuff for the consumer to consume. Your job is to be a cog in the wheels of industry.

Perhaps your assigned purpose/function is to be cannon fodder. Your job, soldier boy, is to secure the raw materials for the factory by killing or being killed. From time to time, depending on the whims of others, you get to switch job roles.

Sure, that is a highly cynical and overly simplistic view of things; but, as I said at the beginning, this was written to be a rude awakening and you cannot deny that there is more than a grain of truth in the previous paragraph.

Only those who have chosen a higher purpose for their lives have a higher purpose than consumer/producer/securer or whatever other lot in life is assigned to them. Why do you do what you do? Have you decided yet? If not, when will you?

There are many ways how to live. Some people think how you choose to live is the important choice. I think the why is the most important. Without the why, the how is meaningless, purposeless.

You already know what I think and believe the why of life is. It does not matter so much how I express my reverence.
It simply matters that I do. It does not matter much how I relish each passing moment of my life.

It only matters that I do. It does not really even matter all that much how I go about contributing to life. It only matters that I do. I have my reasons why. The how is just my way of being alive. The why is my purpose in being alive. The how gives flavor and character to my life. The why gives the meaning.

Do you have a reason why? What is it? Can you clearly express it in one sentence?

Maybe, just maybe, if you had a clear why, the hows would fall into place.

If discovering an overall purpose to your life seems a little overwhelming, start with the basics. Start by asking yourself, what is the purpose in doing what you are doing in each moment? Why are you, for example, reading this book?

Did you have a purpose in mind?

What was your intention?

With the upfront warning, you must have made a definite decision to read this. Why?

I know why I wrote it. I know what my purpose was. I even told you on the first page.

Can you tell me, anyone else or yourself why you are reading it? If not, why bother? Only 1440 minutes in this day. Is it worth spending some of them to read this?

While you are thinking about that, allow me to share something that amused me when I first heard it.

There is this story about a high-powered venture capitalist from New York that comes down to the Caribbean for a much needed holiday. He is sitting one day in this quaint little beach bar enjoying a cold drink when he sees a fisherman come back from a day’s fishing. He watches while the catch is unloaded and the boat cleaned up and put to bed.
Deciding to get some local color to tell in his stories back home, he engages the fisherman in a conversation.

“That’s quite a catch you pulled in today. What are you going to do with it?”

“Sell some, trade some and take the rest home to feed my family,” replies the fisherman.

“Do you always get a good catch like that?” asks the holidaying moneyman.

“Sure do. I am a great fisher,” replies the fisherman and off he goes, whistling.

The next day, the New Yorker visits the beach bar again and notices the fisherman is sitting there with some friends, drinking beer and playing dominoes. He asks, “No fishing today?”

“Nope,” says the local, “today is my day to be with my buddies.”

The next day, the VC from NYC sees the fisherman playing with his kids on the beach. “No fishing today?”

“Nope, today is my day to play with my kids.”

The next day, the non-fishing fisherman is seen escorting his wife out to lunch. “No fishing today?”

“Nope, today is my day to be with my woman.”

The next day, the fisherman is caught gassing up his boat at the marina. “Going fishing today then?”

“Nah, just messing with my boat a bit.”

“Why no fishing?” the VC asks.

“Today is my day to play around with my boat, take the wife and kids out for a ride and look for dolphins. Maybe the kids will want to catch a fish. Who knows?”

“Are you going fishing tomorrow?” The reply, “No, not tomorrow. It is my day to help my cousin build his house.”

“Well, when do you go fishing again?” asks the man from Wall Street.

“Tuesdays, I go normally, unless the weather is bad,” is the response.

Tuesday rolls along and the venture capitalist is waiting by the boat when the fisherman comes. “Can I go out with you and do some fishing? I’ll pay you $100.”

“Sure, mon. Why not?”

So off they go to sea and return at sunset with a boatload, most of which is sold or traded; with the rest going home to feed the family. “A great day of fishing,” says the tourist.

“Yes, sir,” says the other.

The next day, the venture guy meets up with the fisher guy at the beachside bar. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You could be making a lot of money if you took your business seriously. If you fished everyday, you’d be able to make more money.”

“I don’t need to fish more. I get enough money now to run my boat and feed my family. I eat enough fish now.”

“But, you could build a great little business with the way you can catch fish. With my contacts, I could get you some funding. You could then buy some more boats, hire some people and catch even more fish and make even more money. You could even start a charter fishing company to take guys like me out fishing and make even more money. A little advertising in the right places and you’d have plenty of clients, guys like me who need a vacation and enjoy a little fishing now and again. Of course, you’d have to make a profit and pay back the investors. But with a few years of daily hard work, you could do that.”

“Why would I want to work hard every day?” asked the fisherman.

“To make money to pay off the loan or investment and to make more money so that you can, one day, afford to retire.”

“What would I do when I retire?”

“Well, anything you want. Just take it easy. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. When I retire, I’m going to get a place on the beach, play a little golf, spend time with my friends and maybe drink a few beers. I’ll be able to spend more time with my family. I’ll probably get myself a little boat and go fishing once in a while. Do whatever I want, whenever I want. That’s what I am looking forward to doing when I retire.”

“Well, it sounds a little complicated to me, all this business stuff. I think that I’ll just stick with Tuesdays. Tuesdays work for me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friends are waiting to start the dominos game.”

Everybody has their own how to in life. You too, no doubt have made certain choices about how to go about spending your 1440 multiplied by whatever amount of days you are given.

Are you clear on why you are doing what you are doing?

Because

Everything is an affirmation. Everything is information.

All that you are exposed to; everything seen, everything heard, smelled, tasted and touched is information, is affirmation. Everything that is resounding in your head and in your heart is an affirmation. Everything you say and do is not only information, but is an affirmation of who you are, how you are being, where you are headed, what you are focused on and why you have what you have in your life.

The beliefs you choose or permit, the thoughts you choose or permit, the feelings you choose or permit, the things you imagine or intend are all an affirmation of who you are and the character of your beingness. They are also information that any insightful person can read and interpret. You are an open book. Who is writing in that book? What is being written? By whom?

What you see when you look at your world is information. It is also an affirmation of who you are. If, upon gazing at the world, you see beauty, then you are affirming your own essential beauty. If you see the lack of beauty… I think you get the picture. The world mirrors or affirms the way you are. Really, it is just informing you about exactly how you are being.

If you want the world to be better or different in any way, then you must change.
Say this out loud to yourself right now, “I must be the change I wish to see in the world.”

Say it again and again; affirm it, until you ‘get it’.

What do you want out of life? What do you want your world to be like, to reflect back to you?

If you want more abundance, you must become more abundant. If you want more love, you must become more loving. If you want more peace, you must become more peaceful.

Whatever it is that you desire, you must first create it within yourself and then enact it. You are able to create and enact or output according to the quality of information you hold or input.

There is this old (so old, it is almost forgotten) truism of the computer industry. Input equals Output or, I=O. What it means is that the quality of the informational input determines the quality of the resulting output. If it’s garbage going in, it will be garbage coming out: GI=GO.

This is also true of you. What are you feeding into yourself? Everything you input is either a toxin or a nutrient or a mixture of the two.

You know that if you eat or ingest toxins, your body will become ill and if you eat nutrients, your body will be healthy. It is almost funny how people are in denial about this basic and simple piece of knowledge. People line up for toxins at fast food restaurants and somehow still expect to be healthy. People eat things out of packages where the list of ingredients spells out enough chemicals to fill a toxic waste site and are surprised that they develop disease. These same people who are filling their bodies with toxins also have the temerity to call those who are paying attention to what they stick into their bodies, “health food nuts”. Who is nuts?

When it comes to emotional, mental and spiritual health, the level of denial is even greater. People ingest emotional, mental and spiritual toxins like a child eats candy at Halloween and somehow expect or pretend that they will be able to maintain emotional, mental and spiritual health and well-being.

What are you inputting, toxins or nutrients? Take a good look at yourself. What is in your heart, your mind, and your spirit? What are you feeling, thinking and believing?

Is your heart filled with the toxins of anger, jealousy, trepidation, doubt, worry, regret, guilt and fear? Or, is your heart filled with the nutrients of joy, peace, confidence, compassion, appreciation, gratitude and love?

What are your predominant thought patterns? What exactly are you thinking? Have you paid attention lately to how and what you are thinking? Has it occurred to you that the quality and character of your thinking is dependent upon the information you are inputting into your mind?

What information are you inputting into your very own human bio-computer? How many hours a day do you spend downloading into your mind the toxicity of television programming? How many hours a day do you spend downloading nutritional mental information? Read a good book lately? What was it about? Are you feeding yourself poison and expecting to be healthy?

Do not make the mistake of thinking that because something is well crafted, like your favorite TV shows, that it is nutritional or at worst, innocuous. A nuclear weapon is extremely well crafted, but only the most diabolical mind could ever find any nutrient value in it. It is pure toxicity. It is not a nutrient. It is not innocuous. If it is not a nutrient, it is a toxin. Surely you don’t really think that TV show is nutritious, that it contributes to your well-being.

So, you watch, almost every evening, some soporific soap opera and then follow that with the nightly nightmare news and then are surprised that your dreams and your waking thoughts are full of unpleasantness and your world is filled with neurosis, disease, danger, lack and limitation. Garbage in = garbage out.

People who claim to love their children park them in front of the electronic babysitter for hours on end and then are horrified that children walk into a school with an automatic weapon to kill their peers. ‘There is no direct relationship between violence on TV and that in the schools and in society’. Yeah, right. Who’s in denial?

“There is no direct relationship between eating fast food and obesity. There is no direct relationship between cigarettes and health problems. There is no direct relationship between my beliefs and thoughts and my reality.”

Uh huh! Sure thing. Get a life!

What, When & Where

What will you do?.

I am going to make the assumption that the reason you have read this far into this essay is because you want more and suspect that, despite my warning about being offended by my pail full of cold water, there might be something of value in here.

This is one of my most profoundly held beliefs (opinions)… If you or I want to have more, we must first do or enact more and in order to do more, we must first be more. If you want more value, be of more value. Want more valuables? Become more valuable.

What will you do? Will you keep on being and doing what you have been? Will you expect different results? Kind of nuts, eh? So, if you want things to change in your life, you know you must change. So, change your mind. You know, that part of you that is the control panel… your mind.

When will you do that?

Will you start tomorrow? Next week? When you finish school? When the kids are all grown up? When the president of the world says that you can? After you read 56.5 more books on personal development? When will you make the choice to exercise a little discipline and take control of your 1440? Why not now?

Where will you have to be?

In your next opportunity or your next life? You can always only begin or continue from where you are now. You might as well make the decision to get started right here and now to create the life of your dreams and fondest desires. You might as well begin here to appreciate the gift of life, the gift of you. Right here; right now… decide to be reverent this very moment, to relish this very moment, to contribute in this very moment.

Loose the shackles that bind you.

Drop the addictions that do not serve you. Become free. If it is true that your beliefs and thoughts create your reality picture, then, if you want to change or enhance your reality picture in any way, you must change what you believe and think.

Are you being held back by your beliefs? Are you being restricted by your thinking? We sadly shake our heads at the dilemma of the heroin addict, ‘That poor junkie. Why doesn’t he/she just quit? That stuff is ruining their life and is likely going to kill them’, but we hide our heads in the sand about our own addictions to non-productive (toxic, even) ways of believing and thinking.

Like the junkie, we are in denial about our addiction. We know in our hearts that we are ingesting toxic material but we somehow manage to deny that it will damage us. It is highly likely that you have core beliefs that are highly toxic and detrimental to you and your self-realization. It is also highly likely that you have predominant recurring thought patterns that are highly toxic.

Why are you holding onto things that do not serve you? Drop the addictions. Freedom awaits.

Examine your self honestly. Take a good close look at the who and how you are being.

The intention question is a good way to do this.

What is my intention in thinking the way I think? Do you know why you think what you think? What influences your habitual thought patterns? Take a good long critical look at the way you think and why you think what you think. You may be surprised to learn that you actually do very little thinking on purpose and that most of what goes on in your mind is, at best, useless chatter and, at worst, toxic.

It is hard work to examine your own thinking processes. Your mind will resist; like a teenage criminal, it knows that it is misbehaving and resists close examination of its activities.

Despite the opinions to the contrary held by ad agencies and propagandists, your mind belongs to you. It is your tool and like any tool, it can only be of maximum use to you if you learn how to properly control it and use it with intent. Learn how to and start now to think on purpose, intentionally, instead of accidentally or according to your previous programming.

Learn how to program yourself. Think for yourself. Always ask why.

Ask…what is my intention in holding the beliefs that I hold? My bet is that you did not have any intent when you adopted the majority of your beliefs. My bet is that those who influenced you to take on those beliefs did have some intent in mind. Are other people’s intentions controlling your life?

Truth Or Consequence

Prime probability: You have been and are being deceived by those you trust the most for your spiritual education. Some of that deception may be intentionally done in an attempt to control your behavior and your wallet and some may be done simply out of ignorance. Whatever the motivation, lies are being presented as truth; worse, often they are being presented as being THE TRUTH.

These deceptions are preventing you from knowing and owning your sacred and divine self.

Some of the lies you may have bought into are presented here and some alternative perspectives are presented for your consideration. Please remember that I am not doing this to intentionally offend or upset you and everything I say here is only my opinion. I only desire to wake you up to your freedom to choose what, how and why to believe, to empower you to be free to be all that you desire to be.

Beliefs create reality.

When you are free to choose your beliefs, you become empowered to create. When you are imprisoned by your beliefs, you remain a mere creature.

Anyone, including me, who claims to represent THE TRUTH, is a liar, a deceiver. No book, no church, no prophet, no preacher, no guru, no writer has ever been granted an exclusive license to represent The Truth. You are the only consciousness that can ever determine what is true for you.

However, please remind yourself that whatever truth you choose to hold is likely incomplete, so why imagine or pretend otherwise? If there is some grand all-encompassing truth (and I doubt it), the human intellect is not a tool capable of imagining, defining, understanding or communicating it.

Why do I doubt that there is an all-encompassing truth? Simply because the infinite is infinite and contains all possibilities and potentialities, including its own potential to constantly become more than its own grand, all-encompassing truth.

In my experience with the infinite, it cannot be known completely, only approached. That does not mean that you cannot become intimate with it, only, like a lover, you can only ever get closer to knowing the depth of what is available in the relationship.

To imagine that some current mythology, no matter how culturally pervasive or how stridently affirmed, is any more valid than any other, past or present, in any other culture, time or place is willful self-delusion.

As soon as you, or even humanity as a whole, decide something is known for certain, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be proven wrong or at least incomplete with the passage of time and greater understanding. Every human understanding and belief should, therefore, be considered to be only theory, even when, or especially when, it is called fact or truth.

All good scientists know this. Even though Einstein’s theory of relativity looks pretty good and most scientists buy into it and it is generally accepted as fact, it is still called a theory.

Quantum mechanics is only a theory, but I believe in it; I believe it is true. It is a good metaphor. It has a major impact on the way I think about and see reality; but it is only just a theory. String theory, although it is getting close to describing the whole of how the physical universe(s) works, is a just a theory. Newton’s laws… only a theory.

Why would you imagine that your spiritual truths and beliefs should be any different? The ancient Greeks were deluded in their beliefs about Zeus and his pantheon of major and minor gods and goddesses, but your beliefs are now The Real Truth? Who is kidding whom? Your most profoundly held spiritual belief is only a theory, an opinion.

That is not to say that your beliefs contain no value; it only means the value is relative, not conclusive or all-inclusive. They may be highly relative to how and why you choose to live your life, but they may not be the least bit relative or important to how and why your neighbor or I choose to live our lives. Are our choices any less valuable than yours? Who says so? Why?

Fear is what says this is THE Way. Love says there is A way. Love says this is my way and I think it is valuable enough to share. Love also says it is also possible that your way is as valuable as mine. Fear says my way is right and your way is wrong. Love says your way may be right for you and my way may be right for me. Neither one of us can know, especially if we are not prepared to consider the validity of another way.

Fear says, “I know THE TRUTH”; Love says, “I know a truth, or even, I know my truth.” Wouldn’t you rather be in love than be in fear? Love creates; fear destroys. Love uplifts; fear denigrates.

Why choose fear? It cripples you. It prevents you from knowing and becoming all that you are capable of being. Choose love. It empowers you.

Let’s take a little look at some people who have chosen fear…

There are almost 10 million Jehovah’s Witnesses who believe that only 144,000 people will make it to the Promised Land, to heaven, and somehow they have convinced themselves that their religion is a nutrient and not a toxin. The toxicity they have fed themselves or allowed themselves to be fed has poisoned their spirit to such an extent that they actually take pleasure in believing that 99.9% of their fellow humans are dammed to incredible suffering on the Day of Judgment.

This judgment is predicted to happen on the last day of the world, which, in turn, has been predicted by their spiritual elders as being first, 1914, then 1925, then it was 1975, then 1999. I don’t know about you, but it looks to me like the world is still here. Next day of reckoning coming soon to a pulpit near you. Are you ready? Get ready. Read Watchtower. It will help you to prepare.

These 10 million people all must live in fear of being excluded from that very exclusive club of 144,000 special folks. How they can manage to convince themselves that any one of them deserves heaven holding such toxicity in their hearts, minds and spirits is completely beyond me. How there can be 10 million people who believe this nonsense boggles the mind. What is even funnier…they still try and recruit more members, thereby reducing their odds of gaining entry.

Ok. It is admittedly easy for one to see the idiocy of this and to make fun of it, but ask yourself this: Do some of these same exclusionary attitudes exist in your favorite religion?

Will only those who buy into your particular belief system make it to heaven, achieve nirvana or escape the cycle of reincarnation?

Look closely… it all sounds like some marketing promotion for a special event; only members of the ‘XYZ-In club’ can qualify to get tickets or passes to this event. Become a member today and you will qualify. Sign up now, operators are waiting. Have your credit card handy. Sign up today and save, no, make that—get saved.

Now, it is highly likely you are getting offended. But why? What difference does it make to you if I call into question what you believe to be The Truth? Unless it unsettles you because, deep down, you know that you may have bought into a pack of lies.

If what I believe and say is likely to put me amongst the dammed instead of the blessed, then you should be saying, ‘Good riddance. At least that is someone else who is not competing for one of those 144,000 reserved spots and the special attention of that big judgmental guy who lives in the clouds.’ 😉

Are you waiting for the rapture? The second coming of Jesus? The mother ship from the Pleiades? The ascension to the 5th dimension? Waiting for anyone else to save you from the world you are busy creating?

Come on, get a life. Wake up!

Do you hold your religious beliefs simply because you are afraid of dying? Do you attempt to find meaning for your life in some theology about an afterlife simply because you don’t have the courage to assign purpose and meaning to your life now while you are alive? Do you really need some stern parental image of divinity that doles out love and rewards according to your adherence to some set of rules?

Grow up. Get a life.

If you want to be at one with the divine and to exist within the sacred, why put it off for some imagined future. Be sacred now. Be divine now. Well, you already are; but wake up to your divinity and your sacredness. Get reverent now. Why wait?

Potency

No, not that kind.

Power and potential are synonymous. Your ultimate personal power exists, not in who you are, what you do and what you have now. It lies in your potential to become. As you become more, you are empowered… more.

Be more aware, more knowledgeable, more insightful, more in control of your own self and you become more powerful.

Be more appreciative of the gift of your life and you will become more enabled to consciously create more of what you desire.

Be more reverent of all things and you will become more empowered to be in the sacred now. Learn to relish what life has to offer and you will become more filled with joy now. Become more contributory to life and you will discover the purpose and meaning of your life here and now.

Why wait for next Saturday or the next life or the afterlife? Be in the presence of the divine and sacred now by becoming aware of your own divine and sacred nature now.

If your true power resides in your potential, then how great is your imagination? What do you imagine yourself capable of becoming? Do you have the expansive imagination of a child or do you have the shrunken imagination that many adults have resigned themselves to? Are you imprisoned by, limited by your predominant thoughts and core beliefs?

“Anything the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve,” N. Hill informed us. Can you imagine or conceive of yourself as being fully aware of your divine nature? Are you willing to believe it? If so, then it can be achieved.

In your conceptualizations and beliefs resides your power, your creative ability. Imagination and intention, thought and belief are the keys to your potential and power, your potency.

Hone your creative skills; develop your imagination, refine your intentions; develop clarity, congruency and control of your thoughts and beliefs.

Your finest creation is your self.

What do you imagine yourself to be? What do you conceive of yourself as being capable of becoming? Do you see (imagine) yourself to be limited or limitless, creature or creator, mundane or sacred?

What do you intend on being, doing and having? What is the intention in what you are thinking, imagining, conceiving and believing? Are you intending to become all you are capable of becoming or have you resigned yourself to being less than that?

Do you have or will you develop the discipline to achieve clarity, congruency and control of your thoughts and beliefs? Do you need reminding that self-discipline means to be a disciple unto yourself?

Stop being a disciple to this or that. Stop giving away your power. Become your own disciple. Learn to express your love and your will.

Look at how power is used in the world. The two primary motivators of human beings are love and fear. Which is used more? What is being used to motivate you to behave in a certain way, to think in a certain way, to believe certain things? Why? For whose benefit?

Which do you most use to motivate others? Are you guilty of abusing your power by using fear instead of love to get what you desire?

Those who want to dis-empower you use fear to weaken you. Those who want to empower you use love to strengthen you.

Learn to love yourself. Empower yourself. Learn to love others; empower others. Stop allowing yourself to be manipulated by the fear mongers. Be love. Be loving. Beloved.

What should you believe in?

Believe in you. What should you think? Whatever you are willing to. To be willing has two meanings. One is passive; to be willing is to be allowing. One is active; to be willing is to be resolute. Are you allowing or are you resolving that you will think what, how and why you think what you think?

What exactly are you thinking? Why? To what intent? To what purpose?

How are you living your life? Why? To what purpose?

Take charge of you. Stop just existing. Get a life. Accept and appreciate the gift.

Accept responsibility. Then take action. Go make a contribution. Change the world.

The Edge is Crumbling

A little over seven years ago, I wrote an article called The Precipice. It was intended to be both a wake up call and a call to action.

Today, the situation faced by humanity is more desperate than ever. In fact, we may be already well and truly fucked. The warning signs I referenced in that 2005 article are, today, no longer the strong indicators of the potential dire consequences that we will face if we do not radically alter the way we go about living on this planet. They are now the historical reports of how we ran heedlessly into disaster.

It is my belief that we have passed the point of being able to avert the environmental catastrophe that awaits. It is coming. It will be soon. All we can do now is hope to somehow survive and perhaps learn the hard lessons that await us, so that, if we manage to rebuild some semblance of a modern civilization, we won’t continue to fuck things up.

At the most basic level, we need air, food and water to live. Toys and creature comforts become irrelevant when you do not have the essentials to even survive. We have poisoned the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. And most sadly of all, we have poisoned our minds and our spirits.

Our atmosphere is degraded to the point where there is an ongoing global $trillion effort to mitigate the catastrophic effects of global warming and to attempt to replace the diminished protective ozone layer. The atmosphere is being seeded with barium and aluminum and complex polymer fibers in an attempt to save the world from environmental collapse. I do not personally think it will work. It is a move made out of desperation and the side effects will include the further degeneration of soil and water quality, an increase in the rate of species extinction and the deaths of a couple of billion people.

The pollution of the air we breathe and the degradation of our atmosphere continues unabated. We can easily blame industry. They are culpable. But, each of us contributes directly. The lifestyle we lead is the cause.

25,000 people (16,000 of them children) are dying every single day from starvation. That is about to get a lot worse and may soon include you. Yes, you. Crop yields are down worldwide. Millions of acres of previously usable agricultural land have disappeared. Monsanto and its ilk continue to contaminate the food that is produced.

We eat in order to provide our bodies the nutrition they need in order to live. Unfortunately, much, if not most of the food, we now eat contains poisons that are destroying, not nourishing, our health. GMO crops are not a solution to the global hunger problem. They contribute to the problem. So do you when you shop unconsciously at your local supermarket or eat a hamburger at your local fast food outlet.

Most people will not read this message. Most will not heed the warnings. Most will turn on their television sets and fill their minds with more poisons. Most will continue to remain asleep or in denial. Most will refuse to take responsibility for what we have done and continue to do to destroy ourselves.

Nevertheless, despite how I feel about the desperateness of the situation we are facing, I continue to believe it is my spiritual/ethical/moral duty to continue to elevate the way I go about being on this planet. That means not only doing what I can to live in harmony with Mother Earth; it also means doing what I can to wake other people up to what is going on, to encourage them to take responsibility for the situation and incite them to become activists.

So here it is again, my call to action. Wake the fuck up. Educate yourself about what is really going on in the world. Stop debasing your body, your planet, your spiritual self. Start taking responsibility. Become an activist. Read The Precipice.

For a more eloquent and detailed explanation of the true nature of our situation, read Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by BillMcKibbon

Click on the book cover below for an informative slide show from a relatively optimistic activist…