Spiritual Empowerment IIa-- Shifting Away from the Need to Fight

As we see so many challenges in front of us---in America and around the world---we have also seen a variety of responses to them.  As the controlling monied forces, with the assistance of our paid-for governments and our so-called free media, have methodically taken away many of our freedoms, masses of people have generally  had one of four responses:

1.      Apathy: “There’s nothing I can do about it.  I do not have the power.”

2.      Denial: “It’s not really happening, and if it is, it’s no big deal.”

3.      Distraction: Unconsciously: “Ice cream, beer, drugs, TV, romance novels….

Which of these can I numb myself with today?”

4.      Confrontation or Fighting: “I gotta get angry.  I gotta show ‘em I am upset.  I am fighting mad.”

Let’s take these one at a time.  Apathy is “I don’t know and I don’t care.”  It’s provocation is the simple sense of powerlessness.  Deep down, there is a sense of caring, but if one doesn’t feel empowered to do anything about the problem then to avoid pain, the egoic mind pretends nothing challenging is happening.

This is no solution.  It is avoidance, a state of pretending not to care in order to avoid the potential pain of facing a reality.

Denial is just another way of avoiding reality.  If one pretends something difficult is not happening, then for the moment, pain is avoided.  The tricky thing is that when challenges are ignored, the potential lessons keep on getting projected to us until we face them.

This brings us to the “solution” of distraction.  People want to numb the pain that comes with challenging realities.  As a result, record numbers of people in “developed” countries are obese or find themselves controlled by their perceived need to distract themselves with excess quantities of harmful foods, alcohol, drugs or destructive activities.  Some say these actions are a way of trying to self-medicate so that we can feel better.  There is some truth to this, but unfortunately the challenging situations do not just disappear.  They keep coming back, so many people just increase their dosage of silly foods, booze, drugs, the venting of rage on family members, or mindless entertainment in the name of very short-term relief from their pain.

Distraction is the ultimate tool of the ego-mind.   Temporary satisfaction comes with the pint of ice cream or six-pack of beer or the vicarious living that comes with reading romance novels.  The problem is that the satisfaction is quite temporary.  When the hang-over wears off, when the quart of ice cream is emptied, when last page of the silly novel is completed, the challenges are still there in front of us.

Sooner or later, in this lifetime or one to come, we face what is in front of us that is asking us to see it.  Some are now willing to see the realities of our world.  Often, it seems, their response is one of anger and confrontation.  This has not worked.  Angry confrontation is not a solution.  The emotion of anger says that what is happening right now is not OK, that one does not accept what is happening.

The hope in anger is that it will produce a solution to the perceived problem.  What it does is often exacerbate the problem, because without trust anger is no more a solution than apathy, denial or distraction.  Trust is a prerequisite to solution.  Rather than trust, some people cling to hope, something that implies that some external power will save us from ourselves.  Hope is the ultimate masturbation.

In America, our President recently spoke about how we must “fight” for what we know is right.  Whom shall to fight?  Part of what we are here on this Earth to do is to learn how to cooperate with each other, to let a more loving way of living be our way of life.

In the same speech, President Obama said this: “There are things that have to be done.  And that means marching forward, not standing still.”  Of course, when we see something that we intend to accomplish, perseverence is important.  Still, I see it as ironic that the true solutions to all of our apparent problems in this world will surface when we are willing to sit or stand still.  When more of us are willing to be in the silence, to quiet our silly, panicky minds, to accept each other and love each other, then the need to march or fight or harshly judge the worthiness of any other person will evaporate.

Next: Our Collectively Stupid Beliefs

Spiritual Empowerment I

It is a paradox.  The pointlessness of upset is that it serves no loving purpose to act or feel upset at circumstances or self.

For the “nitpickers” out there, I do not mean feeling the feeling of grief, for example, as a response to the death of a loved one.  I am not talking about experiences such as brief sadness felt when you read about people starving in the world.  It is when these experiences are felt deeply over time about the same experience that we sap our own energy.

I put the word nitpickers in quotations in the last paragraph because my sense of it is that as soon as I label someone as a nitpicker, then I have suggested that somehow I am better than that person. I do not make that suggestion.  We’ll talk more about the pointlessness of judgement in Spiritual Empowerment II.

To seethe in anger or to vent that anger at another being does not serve one.  It is a willful draining of one’s spiritual power by ignoring that loving, trusting power that exists within you.

What is more important to you: to win an argument via an angry or demeaning response…or to exercise an opportunity for compassion and acceptance?

To hold resentment of any kind for another does nothing but abuse the resenter.  To envy another is to block oneself from receiving whatever it is that the other person has that you resent them for.

There is another side of upset, its purpose.

The purpose of another’s upset directed at you is the manifestation of an opportunity for the you and any witnessers to respond with love.  This is the only purpose of upset.

Responding w anger or another strong negative emotion saps one.

When we respond with love, we grow and we simultaneously enhance the energy of others in the world.  As we do this more and more consistently, we will evolve more and more rapidly.  We will see with more and more clarity, the world we intend to create.

Note: In my books and articles, I use this pause button icon to show a place where I suggest that you pause and consider or meditate on what has just been expressed.  If you breeze through this article without stopping, you will not get maximum benefit from it.   You might choose to pause for 10 seconds or for an hour, whatever feels right.

Need is a strange and largely useless word.  Yes, it is powerfully used when it is said that we need to feed more hungry people since over 30,000 people starve to death every day.  Even that usage of the word can be a pointless provocation of collective guilt rather than an impetus to dig into our pockets to help feed.

Unfortunately, the word “need” is used much more extensively, inaccurately and unproductively.  Such use sucks the energy from any intent of having higher levels of spiritual empowerment.

Our words and thoughts are powerful.  It is important that we respect this if we intend to spiritually and emotionally mature, to unfold.

Our use of the word “need” is so important, I believe, that I made it one of the four “Things that Matter” in my first book, All That Matters:

Ask for what you intend to have, but choose not to need anything.

Our minds are quite creative, but can be rather stupid.  At a deep level, the mind does not understand negative terms:  Mental stress is created when you say, “I need to find a loving relationship.”   The Universe responds: “OK, he is a person who has defined himself as needing a relationship.  That will be what he continues to be.”  

Similarly, you create anxiety for yourself if you say, “I want to stop smoking” rather than “I choose to be a free breather”.   So expressing or thinking that you do not want something tends to bring that thing to you.  So it’s quite counter-productive to say or think that you need more money, sex or love.  Doing that is a way of ignorantly defining yourself.  It exacerbates anxiety, stress, fatigue and muscle tension.

When you say, “I need” something, the Universe accepts that as a definition: You are a person who needs whatever it is.  This does not become a cue to the Universe to give that to you, but it is a clear signal to the Universe that since you have defined yourself that way, then needy is what you are and will remain until you change your mind

I have great respect for the modern day mystic Darryl Anka who receives channeled wisdom from a being in another dimension, Bashar.   Most of what I hear from him is just so darn wise, that in this rare case, I believe in this channeling.  In this time of mass freak out about money, Anka gets this from Bashar about abundance: He defines it as “the ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it.”

He’s on the right track with this new twist on abundance, yet that little four letter word gets used twice and that takes the guts out of it.  When one says or thinks that they need something and they do not immediately have it, then the mind tends to take that and twist it into something harsh, judgmental and quite crazy-making.

Here is how I would express the Bashar quotation:  Abundance is the ability to do what you are faced with doing when you are faced with it.

What we are faced with at all times is to respond to all of life in a loving way.

When you say that you need something that you do not possess, the mind tends to generate one or more of the following thoughts:

• I am not good enough since I don’t have it
• I am not smart enough
• I am bad
• I am a disappointment
• I am not OK as I am
• I am not worthy (the most ridiculous religious doctrine of all time)
• Since I haven’t had any in a long time, I probably never will

The fact is that in any given moment, you have zero needs that are not fulfilled.

That’s right, nada.  In any present moment, you do not need air.  In any present moment, you do not need food.  You do not need anything.  As you label something as an unfulfilled need, you denigrate yourself.   The Universe gives you an earth to be on and gravity to keep you from flying off into the clouds.  If you can be present, you realize that, right now, you have no needs whatsoever.

Right now, your mind may be objecting, finding apparent but baseless exceptions.  What does that do for you?

Letting go of the phrase, “I need” is a great step to a more loving way of living and becoming what we all came here to be.

Please consider taking a step in your own spiritual empowerment  by clicking on your internal pause button now, and feeling how it feels to be needless.

Our individual and communal spiritual empowerment expands to the extent that we are not only aware of the lessons of our world, but how we respond to these lessons. The most productive response to life's challenges has to do with not an "action" response, but a "being" response. If you feel beset with difficulties, what you choose to be tends to be a much more positive response than what you choose to do.

As you may be aware, there's at least a partial "spin" to nearly all the news on television, radio and much of the Internet. With all the changes we are hearing about in our world--- our government, our monetary system, and the Earth itself---how can we know what is real news and that which is invented? If we want to respond appropriately to the news, how do we get to the real news?

As I watched a liberal news and commentary last week on the pending U.S. healthcare legislation, I had a deeper realization of the extent to which our government, our media and most of our religions put on something akin to a theatrical performance for us. Anybody who is paying attention and is willing to look into the history of these institutions will understand that they only pretend to serve us.  They exist to go where the money is and to get that money. The bankers hire enough mercenaries (sometimes called legislators) to help the rich get richer and let the people feel poorer.  How do these institutions maintain their power?

They do it with skillful fear mongering. It is done in both the so-called liberal and the so-called conservative media, with each faction speaking with righteous indignation at what the "other side" is doing. Each stirring up the pot of fear, futility and powerlessness. And neither offering any real solutions. Solutions?   I?ll get to that at the end of this article.  Let's first address the question of where we can find "real news". The Internet is a great source for finding real news. Spend about 5 minutes each on http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/ or http://www.inteldaily.com/ and then ask your heart if it would serve you to get some of your news through sources like these. You can also search "uncensored news" or "real news" and come up with other sources.

Like much of what you see in the "regular" media, much of what you find on sites like these will challenge you. It will seem to contradict concepts and ideas that you learned as truths. When this happens, you can hit your "pause button" and consult your internal BS detector, your intuition.

Most women tend to have a high-quality intuitive sense. For many men, it takes some practice to develop it. Oftentimes, you can just look at someone and know they are fibbing. As you practice using it, you will learn to more and more trust your intuitive sense. As you use it more and more---and trust it--your intuitive sense will expand.

Our communal world is not going to be magically changed overnight by sending letters to legislators, protesting in the streets, or taking your frustrations out on your loved ones. In these times of accelerating change, people are looking for solutions to our financial, government and geophysical challenges. What can we do to fix it? some people ask. Some people deny the importance of society's and the earth's sickness symptoms. Others avoid dealing with the challenges we see by numbing themselves with their favorite drugs,from alcohol to TV to escapist novels to endless venting.

For your consideration, I would pose an alternative question. Rather than ask what you can do about your perceived problems and those of society, consider asking "What can I BE to productively respond to life's challenges?" By exercising your options to BE more calm, happy, aware, intuitive and wise, you boost your individual---and the communal consciousness.

As more and more choose more with trust to BE conscious, we promote the unfolding of the world into what it can be, a loving, harmonious place for truly living. The solutions to the plethora of problems we perceive is not to be found outside of us. Our spiritual empowerment---the only real empowerment there is---starts and grows with how we respond to life, the level at which we trust it and with what we choose to be. Please be wise in how you choose to respond to life.

We're all depending on us.

Note: Many of the first questions in this FAQ are answered on the purple card that comes with the CD. I will be the first to fess up that for many products I have purchased, I skip the instructions and dive right in to figuring it out myself. This may not be the most productive way of approaching the CD!

How often should I listen to the CD?

It is suggested that you move though the CD in 35 to 45 days, taking only one track per day. You might listen to that track more than once, maybe even 5 or 6 times if it feels right to you. As you follow through on commitments, your power grows. So maybe you will commit to doing the practice daily, or maybe Monday through Friday. Choose what you know you can and will do. Following through builds your personal power.

How long should I pause when I hear the tones during a track?

However long feels right to you. It might be 10 seconds. It might be an hour. Trust yourself.

Are there other times that would be good to pause?

There are several times in some tracks where there is an audio quiet stretch of time. It is recommended that you hit your pause button whenever it feels right for you, for as long as you like. Some media players make it easy to pause by hitting your space bar. Please familiarize yourself with the options for that with the equipment that you have.

How do I know when a track is over?

The gong sound you will hear tells you that the track is complete.

I suggest that, if you have a programmable CD player or computer that lets you compile playlists, you tack on one or more of the last two tracks (music only) on the CD to complete your pause session. You might add three or more of those short ending tracks to ensure that you are complete. These music tracks help you to maintain your inner focus.

What's with all the "oomph" sounds on a couple of the tracks?

While these were not intended as part of the original production, they can be seen as gifts: you might see these as opportunities for patience. Since you can easily understand the spoken words, the "oomphs" can be experienced as non-consequential. If you make them important, then you will be distracted. Your choice. I have young children, so there is no time during the day when I can have uninterrupted quiet time.

What should I do?

This may take you a little longer. Some tracks can be completed in less than 10 minutes. Others may take an hour. Take advantages of opportunities to have a visiting friend or mate watch the kids for a little while as you move through a track. Be creative! If you make your spiritual empowerment a priority, you will find many benefits showing up in many areas of your life.