This is part of a letter I wrote in response to an old
gun-toting, Republican friend who had just sent an email suggesting
that I was a bit off my rocker, and being way too optomistic...and he
added: "Don't Drink the Kool-Aid!"

I am leaving out the very personal part of this letter that I wrote
in response to my high school friend who has been repeatedly sending
agressive messages and graphics denouncing our American president,
Muslims, and others.  I realized that each of us had been sending
the other our messages---I sending my own ideas about the loving
shift we are experiencing---but neither of us had really ever
responded to the other about these beliefs.  We were just sending
our own stuff.  And most of his stuff was angry.

He and I had lived through four years of  all-boys Catholic education
over 40 years ago.  Just previous to this exchange, I had sent a video
link that include a request that he summon the courage to watch the
video.  This aroused his ire, expressed in the first lines of his
reply, deleted here.
I invite your discussion in the comments section of this blog.
**************************************************************

Starting, I believe, sometime in August, a lot of shit is going to hit
the fan even harder than it has been: monetary system, geophysical
changes, government disclosures and religious scandal that will
decimate the Church....and undeniable evidence that will rock the
world.  We are moving beyond our stupidity. 

Collectively, we are reaching the point of being  fed up:

Fed up with how we are treated by our governments, fed up

with organized religion, and fed up with the basic way that

we have been treating ourselves and responding to the world.

In the meantime, I see so many people---including my old high school
and college friends---living as if everything is rosy and that the
insane world in which we live makes it acceptable to live life in a
way that is spiritually draining and consciousness deadening.
And so many are just avoiding life, trying to stuff the pain.  Our
friends (XX and YY) are literally eating themselves to death.......
using food for their fleeting comfort.  They don't want to be with life.

I see people leaning on religion in a way that just saps their power.
We all have a right to believe in the god of our choice, but it is sad
that religion as we know it, virtually all organized religion, is just
set up to make us weak.  Real religion unites and empowers people.
Big church religion divides, disempowers, and is fear  mongering.  Its
my passion to express these ideas in what I write.  More fully
integrating and sharing  them is what my life is all about.

And I generally don't waste my time expressing them personally to
anyone whom I do not sense may be somewhat receptive.  When I had a
little stretch of homelessness back in May, I had a talk with a
fundamentalist guy, a Baptist.  As we sat by the sea shore, it became
clear that the basis for his deciding his beliefs wasn't at all having
to do with verifiable facts, obvious realities, or internal guidance.
The number one criteria for all his spiritual beliefs was the Bible
and what his minister said.  The guidance of his own heart was never
mentioned.

So many do not trust themselves.

We--the world---are coming into a time when we are going to be
trusting ourselves more completely.  Where we don't think we need some
pompous religion to tell us what to believe spiritually, where we set
our own commandments because we trust ourselves.
We are learning that you do not fight fire with fire.  That love is
the intended response to everything we experience: we learn this as we
evolve.

Call me an altruist, but I believe that we are soon to become a world
in full harmony, willing and naturally able to respond to each other
and all experience with love.

Anger, fear, vengeance, remorse, guilt, and hopelessness are products
of our allegiance to blood-sucking government and spiritually stupid
religions.  That is just my truth, not a judgment but a simple
observation.  I honestly do not understand how anyone who is really
awake and has some level of intelligence can call themselves Catholic.
 No kidding.  I don't get it.  To me, that's like saying to yourself:
"I need someting outside myself to know what is spiritually right for
me.  I am too stupid or unworthy to trust myself to live in a
loving way that will not find me damned by God to an eternal frying
pan."
I  feel sad  in being so up-front about it, but that kind of thinking
feels like its just Homer Simpson-stupid.

If there was ANY hard evidence to back up the whole eternal damnation
thing, the unworthiness, the separation, all that.....then maybe I
could understand why so many people delude themselves with
Catholicism. Sure, there is some worthy content in the Bible, but the
Bible and most church teachings are full of guilt and fear mongering.
Its about people controlling the flock.  And there are a whole lot of
people who are acting like ignorant sheep in being a part of that
flock.

There IS plenty of evidence that the most empowering aspects of the
Bible have been ripped out of it over the centuries.  Just check out
the Gospel of Thomas, discovered with the other Dead Sea Scrolls.

And if there was any evidence that Mohammed was anything other than a
gangster, then I could understand what the Muslims believe.  But
there's nothing. The Muslim and the Catholic scriptures are just a
bunch of self-contradicting, fear-inducing content that is largely
lies or fiction.  There is nothing in the way of evidence to suggest
otherwise.  Nothing.

Some people have become so conditioned by their upbringing that they
believe a whole slew of lies that they call truth.  All based on
nothing that makes any sense to the heart.

We are soon to become a heart-based society.  Those who do not want to
join in that---those who cling to the old ways that do not work and
never have---will not make it.  If you cling to the vengeful,
kick-ass, get angry, get hopeless or get righeously guilty ways of
thinking, you will not survive the coming shift in their current
bodies.  They will be "left behind"  to reincarnate until they fully
discover and practice their loving natures.

There is no them.  It's all us.

And you can think that deluded or not, your choice, buddy.  I wouldnt
write this stuff if I didn't love you.  It has been quite a challenge
to me to live in this insane world and I have, at times, let it
depress me for long stretches.  I have lived most of my adult life
on the financial edge and have lived big chunks of time
isolated, alone.

That has pushed me to where I am now and I am OK with it.  Its good.
So that is my loving vent, -----.  I am moving along a path as best I
can. I intend to be of service to as many as I can. But I have no
attachment to your having any particular opinion or judgment about me.

And unless I hear another preference from you, will refrain from
sending anything spiritual to you in the future.  I now get that it
has not been welcome and am not attached to you being anything other
than who you want to be.

And I would also appreciate your taking me off your "Pissed Off at
Obama and the Muslims Email List".  Thank you.

Best to you and your family.

All Love,

Carlo

_________________________________________________________________

I present this without judgment: I am observing behavior rather than
suggesting someone is bad or evil. 

Consider: How might you have handled such a situation with someone
you care about but rarely connnect with? 

Does it ever serve you to be attached to changing someone else's
spiritual philosophy or religious outlook?

How do you know when to draw the line between being proactive in
sharing your truth and respecting others' right to live their own lives?

Is it your "job" to wake up others?

Whether you are looking for a new friend or a more intimate relationship with a new partner, you will tend to approach possibilities differently than when there was no emphasis on consciousness.  For those caught up in ego, the basic question when considering a new friendship or romantic relationship is, “Can I have fun with this person?”

We tend to have standards by which we decide whether to bring someone into our lives on a regular basis.  If you are stuck in the old school way, then the most influential criteria might be how much the other person lets you control them, or it may be about how they look or how well-connected they are to others you would like to spend time with.

As you evolve spiritually, your values change.  You learn that certain standards you may have had before are not as important as you had thought they were.  You learn that perfectly-formed body parts—your own or your potential partner’s ---are not as important as you had thought.  You learn that prioritizing spending time with someone based upon how much money they have is not something that feeds your higher self or theirs.

As we learn how to trust, we tend to look for friendships and partners who help push us along the spiritual path, and those who can learn to trust us to push them without control or attachment.   We also tend to learn how to let the other person be as they are, to not make the relationship about fixing them or about it being about them fixing you!

Ego-based relationships tend to be based in supporting what I call false power, the "power" that is experienced through control, attachment, and possession.  True power is that which is based in love.  Loving power is the only real power.

When deciding how much time you want to spend with any friend or lover, here are some questions that you might find worthy of your consideration:

• Do I trust this person or do I think I can develop trust with them?
• Am I willing to accept them as they are right now?
• Can I see our connection developing to a point where we are both strong enough to call each other on our “stuff”?
• Can I see our connection with each other growing to a point where we will both be OK with having the other challenge us on our “stuff”?
• Am I attracted to this person because I think I can control them?
• Are they attracted to me because they want to be controlled?
• What can I learn from this person?
• What might this person be asking me to teach them?

What other questions can you come up with here that might be worth asking yourself as you consider a new friendship or romantic relationship?

If you are single, or if you are just intending to increase your circle of friendships, you may find great value in journaling about this, writing your thoughts down about these questions as a way of more clearly understanding what you really want.  Push your "pause button" now, if you will, and tune into what your heart has to express about these questions.

Enjoy the process!