Blind Allegiance to Religion and Government is Loyalty to Ego
As we ride the now-rocky road towards a more enlightened society, a large part of the challenge that we are collectively facing has to do with loyalty.
At what sometimes seems like a snail’s pace, we are communally learning that we have misplaced our loyalties on many levels.
Many have suggested that we support our government’s decision to wage war on multiple fronts and to have over 369,000 military personnel at over 761 military bases our country has around the world. In many of these countries, our presence is not welcome. Some are uneducated enough to suggest that the so-called a major part of the collective problem is that lower classes of society are taking advantage of “the rest of us” and thereby draining society of its wealth and its heart. There is a different, "truthier" truth: It is the ultra-rich who are feeding at the public trough and milking the financial resources of the rest of society. The corporate bail-outs are just an example.
Some people confuse the idea of being loyal to their country with being loyal to their government. It has been suggested that we must support our troops, stand behind our elected officials, our Supreme Court judges, our religions and our other institutions. There are those who think that to waiver in such loyalty would be wrong. They do not consider that the purpose of our institutions is to serve the people. They represent us and we must be awake enough to require that they do so effectively.
Our most popular religions, our American government, and other institutions designed, supposedly to serve the people, are not doing so. They betray us consistently. It is time to wake up to this in a way that empowers us. Responses of fear, anger, indignation, violence or hopelessness are not the ways to meet the challenge of realizing the thorough corruption of the kinds of institutions we would most like to trust.
Our out-of-control institutions are a lot like the human ego. We identify with ego just like we have aligned ourselves with the actions of our governments and our religions. As we come to realize that our governments and our religions do not truly represent us, we may also come to realize that our ego does not either.
Consider the other ways that the human ego can be compared to our
Through non-response to our government’s torture of foreign and domestic prisoners, we act in approval of it. Remaining quiet and resentful of the corporate bailouts, we weaken ourselves and give inspiration to those who want to continue taking advantage of us.
The leaders---from politicians to clergy---often act insanely, yet, like the ego they ask us to identify with them, encouraging nationalistic fervor and religious exclusivity that clearly divides and weakens their followers. In a sane world, the purpose of any religion would be to unite and empower.
When policy or creed is questioned, our institutions are quick to point a finger elsewhere. Like the irresponsible ego, they are quick to spin it so that it looks like they are innocent and there is definitely somebody else to blame. Collectively, when we have heard the spin often enough, we tend to believe it.
It all comes down to this: We are being challenged now to see the truth about our identity and about the true definition of power. As we identify with the heart/soul, and as we recognize that our communal identity is all about loving connection with each other and ourselves, we will grow in harmony.
When we communally recognize that the exercise of power has nothing to do with manipulation, provoking fear, money corruption, coercion or deception, then the door will be open to a society in harmony. The only real power is that which is based in love.
Most governments and religions, like the ego, pretend to be servants of the people while they promote a thoroughly corrupt agenda.
Like the ego, our institutions have fostered fear, division, feelings of unworthiness and powerlessness. Rather than get angry about it, we are being challenged to respond with love, to recognize the power of unity, and to grow in our willingness to be loving, and to live in the knowing that we are all divine and equal.
Like the ego, the leaders of our governments and religions fight daily to keep that kind of knowledge from the collective consciousness. Our institutions have become like the spoiled child who fears that their teething rings may be repossessed. They mirror for us the insanity of the human ego that sees love and power as polar opposites.
It’s counterproductive to get angry, indignant, isolated or weakened for any reason. Our corrupt institutions want us that way.
We pledge allegiance to a flag. We sit dumb while our government steals from us and systematically dismantles our freedoms. In the world we are heading for, our allegiance will be a loving one that has compassion for everyone, even those who have stolen from us and have abused us. This is the path of power.
The time has come to build our love for ourselves and each other. As we do this, the world will be saved from the artificial masters. The world of love will appear when we are willing first, to see what is in front of us and then to collectively become willing to respond consistently all experience with love
Sure, it’s a radical solution. But is there any other?
When we are willing to respond more consistently with love, the world will be much happier and calm. Does that possibility entice you? Or are you afraid of losing the egoic life where everything can seem so chaotic, angry, judgmental and oppressing?
Please click on your pause button and contemplate these ideas.
Conditioning Ourselves to Love
With all the apparent craziness going on the world, what can we do about it? In our search for stress relief, many still choose the old, tired, unproductive ways of reacting to the world. Maybe the easiest road, because we likely know it already, is to react with some combination of avoidance, powerlessness, isolation or fear. There is a more productive way that can also be easy and results in a better you and a better world.
When we focus our attention and energy on what we want to “remove”, we create fear and anxiety in ourselves. Many have been conditioned to believe that we must fight violence with violence. As Gandhi said, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Collectively, we are still in the process of integrating this knowledge.
We have all been conditioned to live and think in the ways that we do. Our financial/corporate institutions, governments, religions and mass media---along with family, friends and co-workers---have repeated certain behaviors with us over the years. The quality of our lives depends largely on how we have responded to their propaganda. So many have reacted with fear, anger, isolation, anxiety…
There are some who would suggest that it is time for us to rise up in collective anger and righteous indignation over the events of the
Our mass media, largely controlled by our financial institutions/corporations-—-as is our government---is telling a lie here. And in doing so with frequency and repetition is attempting to condition us with false propaganda. Since when is it “nothing new” that a country we fund with billions of dollars is funding and supporting the Taliban in
Yet if we respond with fear, anger, anxiety or denial, we sap our own strength. What we are being called to do is respond with loving compassion to all that is occurring in our world. This means also not focusing on what we want to get rid of, but what we intend to create.
Key to this is to trust ourselves enough to be willing to be honest about what is happening in our lives and to have the courage to respond with love. Sending loving compassion to the oil leakers, to the Taliban, to the WikiLeakers, and to all people---especially those experiencing pain or suffering---is what I believe we are all being called to do.
The agenda of the corrupt forces of the world is to promulgate fear. That is how they have stayed in control. These forces are very content having you focus on what you do not want because they know you are weakened by such focus.
We have been conditioned in this life to think and act as we do. What we are collectively challenged to do now is to realize that we have the power to condition ourselves.
A synthesis of what is above:
With trust and courage, let’s be real about what is in front of us.
Let’s focus on what we intend to create.
Let’s create a world of loving compassion.
Let’s make all this important.
This is the gift of allowing Heart Propaganda to speak its voice. Consider clicking on your pause button now to contemplate this. Listening to our own Heart Propaganda may just be the most effective form of stress relief available to us.
Awakening from the Ignorant Dream
Much of what is written below is written with line breaks that are there for a purpose. The end of each line is an opportunity to pause and to contemplate what you have just read before moving on to the next segment.
The world seems a mess. Anxiety seems to be running rampant. The world seems to be imploding.
Is it time to wake up from the ignorant dream?
Has the time come to claim our fully loving nature?
How do we do this?
How do we become what be came here to become?
In the claiming of love comes the release of the imaginary ego,
That counter-productive imagination that sucks our loving energy, but only if we feed it.
Collectively, we have fed it by identifying with it, as if it is who we are.
We are challenged to see and feel and know that we are not that ignorant ego.
To do this, the true challenge---positively-stated---is to claim our true power.
Ego perverts the definition of true power.
For true power can only be an aspect of that which is based in love.
What is it to be in one’s true, full power, all the time?
It is to see, feel, taste and hear and trust the love in every experience,
And then do our best to practice always the fully loving response, in every moment.
It is too see the love in the most beautiful of creatures just as you see the opportunity
To practice it when confronted with the face of an angry, violent zealot.
It is to hear the love in the silence of meditation which is a ticket, of sorts,
To loving consciousness when practiced with optimum frequency and duration.
It is to hear it in the drone of a loud ambulance or fire truck siren,
As an opportunity to send love to someone who may be injured.
It is to taste the love in the most flavorful culinary delight just as you can choose loving patience and presence when you taste something extremely bitter, spicy or otherwise challenging.
It is trusting that whatever occurs in my experience can be accepted with grace,
Allowing me to be more fully at peace with myself and my world.
We are collectively on our way to integrating this trust.
This is what I trust: That there are basically two kinds of experiences along the path. One is the kind of experience that is easy to enjoy, easy to appreciate: the caress of your lover, the witnessing of the most kaleidoscopic of sunsets.
That brand of loving experience is easy to love unless you have bought into the foolish idea, fomented by misguided parents, political leaders and religions, that you are unworthy of experiencing joy and contentment. I challenge you not to condemn those who would have you believe such lies, but to simply steer your life clear of their influence.
The other kind of experience that has been not so easy in the past to deal with is the emotionallychallenging one. It’s when your world seems to scold you, judge you, manipulate you, ignore you, hate you or otherwise challenges you to be with what is just as it is. It is usually the opportunity to practice giving love to either yourself or another or both of you, or to just be calm in your response. It’s your opportunity to respond to life with love.
While the term “enlightenment” can be defined in many ways, here is a simple way that might make sense to you:
There are three steps to it.
(1) First is to deeply understand what true love and true power are.
Artificial love is a product of pity, guilt, obligation, condition, domination , manipulation or repression of the heart’s expression. True love is unconditional. False power is based in the false self of ego, enforced by the same factors shown above that make artificial power unreal. All real power is loving power.
(2) Feeling worthy of living completely as a reflection of that kind of power.
(3) Prioritzing your practice of fully loving power.
This means more and more ruthlessly choosing awareness, discipline and trust.
Are you willing to choose this, or would you just rather remain oblivious to your own deep power?
Please close your eyes now and contemplate what you have just read.
Press your pause button now and ask your heart: "Is it time for me to wake up from the ignorant dream?"
The Loving Power of Seeing Your Life As Teacher
With all the changes going on in our world, often it seems that our natural choice is to respond with fear, anger, sadness or the feeling of powerlessness.
From catastrophic world events such as the current oil spilling into waters in the
Life is seen as an ongoing hurricane of emotions, financial pressures, and what may appear to be endless evidence of our inability to find peace with our own selves and each other. Escalating pressures seem to face us more forcefully. Many turn to addictive distractions in a vain attempt to deal with daily life: drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sugar and carb addictions, reading escapist fiction, and numbing ourselves with mindless television.
Collectively, we are in the process of discovering that these distractions are not worth the price we pay for indulging in them. After the hangover wears off, the bills still need to be paid. When the high wears off, the pressure is felt again to either deal with life as it is or to get high again. Life can become a seemingly endless cycle from anxiety to addictive indulgence to higher levels of anxiety.
For some, dealing with life may not be about addictive distractions as most people think of addiction. We can let off emotional steam by regularly treating our loved ones in a mean-spirited way, stealing from a neighbor or employer, or finding some other way to artificially feel better about ourselves at the expense of others.
Just living from day to day can become a crushing weight upon your shoulders, a kind of living hell. You may not feel that you have either the time or the energy to take the steps necessary to pull out of your cycle of pain, to deal with life positively and proactively.
Collectively, we are a society of avoidance addicts. As we identify ourselves with our ego, the frequency with which we indulge this addiction expands in scope. It can be seen as a way to self-medicate, a way to deal with the pain so we can feel better. Whether it is shoveling excess food into yourself, sticking a needle in your veins or getting drunk, the satisfaction of avoiding the life that is yours is always short-lived if you are self-medicating in a way that hurts yourself or others.
What if for just one day you chose to see life in a completely different context. For the next 24 hours, what if you chose to see everything that occurred in your life as your teacher? If you look at everything that happens to you for this one day as an opportunity to become a better person rather than as a monstrous weight upon your shoulders, life takes on an entirely new meaning.
For one day, you can choose to respond to the challenges in your life by asking yourself three quick questions when you experience a tough time emotionally.
- What is happening right now?
- What emotions am I experiencing?
- Can I allow these emotions? (Then take three deep and long breaths.)
- What can I learn from this to enhance my life and to be of service?
By seeing your life as a teacher, you open up new possibilities for yourself. If you see life as an endless series of burdens, you just create more burdens for yourself.
Viewed from the spiritual perspective---the only perspective that really matters in the long run---we might come to understand after a while that the only reason we are all here is to learn how to love more effectively and consistently.
For just one day, consider carrying these questions with you, giving yourself a little time out just as you would to a misbehaving young son or daughter. What can we learn about ourselves in claiming this quiet time with ourselves when we ponder life’s challenging moments from the perspective of learning rather than feeling victimized by life? We learn how to love. This learning is the process of spiritual empowerment.
Notice how it works when you carry these questions as shown above with you for a day. You might just find that it serves you to keep them with you beyond just this one day. As you become more and more willing to be with what is, as you treat yourself more kindly, and as you learn to trust your life as your greatest teacher, you may also find that the world becomes more of a friend than a bully.
Waking Up to the Way It Is
From the perspective of anyone who is paying attention, the world seems to be going into the tank. We are being brought to the brink of destruction by the institutions we have allowed to run our lives.
Our governments are controlled by corporations. We let big business poison our foods. Local governments are allowed to poison our water supplies with the main ingredient in rat poison, fluoride, or with fluorosilicic acid. We let farmers “hormone-ize” livestock for profit enhancement purposes, without listening to what the scientists tell us about how those hormones are messing up our moods. We let our government go to war with other countries’ governments preemptively, as if an initial attack is morally justifiable.
Drug makers tell us the solutions to our problems can be found in little pills.
Religious leaders implore us to choose their god for current and eternal salvation.
Governments pretend that they can solve our social ills, and that they can make us safer by wasting our soldiers' lives and a trillion dollars of your money on war with two small countries on the other side of the ocean. Meanwhile, we let 10,000 people starve to death every day in our world community.
How stupid are we?
Most of our religious leadership practices the opposite of what they preach, arrogantly claiming superiority over other religious entities while reminding the faithful of their god’s unhappiness with our collective inferiority, unworthiness and damnable behavior.
Our food producers feed us poisons, approved by our governments: health-killers like aspartame, brain toxins such as monosodium glutamate and tension creators like excess sugars in darn near every processed food. Without a care as to the long-term effects of genetically modifying foods and seeds, producers rush these products to market in the name of profit and control, humanity be damned.
Our medical institutions bleed us while withholding low-cost, effective modes of treatments and stifling the promotion of natural, more humane products. While nature created many simple products loaded with health benefits---hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and water, to name two---our governments and medical institutions conspire to keep the great power of these gifts to us under wraps because there is not enough profit in selling them.
Most popular media lies to us or give us half-truths while they concurrently provoke us to fight with each other, to judge, to damn, and to be fearful that there is absolutely nothing we can do step off the path to destruction or total despair.
Our experience will soon be so beyond denial that we will be forced to surrender to either our more powerful loving nature or to the essentially minimal forces that we have empowered by collectively staying asleep.
Institutions as the Mirror of Ego
The corrupt behavior of the institutions we wish we could trust serves a very important purpose in our communal evolution: Our governmental, religious and corporate institutions are a microcosm of the human ego as we collectively identify with it today.
What is the purpose of this mirror? It is to show us ourselves by the unproductive examples that stare us in the face every day. Sooner or later we will get it: we will drop the false power of ego and embrace a more loving way of being. One way of doing this is to choose to be aware of how we treat each other and how our institutions are treating us. We learn and grow by paying attention to what is in front of us, and by then responding in a more loving, truly productive way. That we allow our institutions to treat us so poorly is an indication of our sense of collective sense of unworthiness or weakness. Let’s snap out of it.
Collectively, we still think we are the ego. We see power as the ability to manipulate, deceive, dominate or enslave. We always want more of some things and less of something else, never allowing ourselves to be content with what we have. This, too, is the way of life for those who control our governmental, corporate, financial and religious institutions. They want to control everything, no matter the price paid by the larger body of humanity.
We wear masks, just like our institutions. Our government pretends to be the greatest benefactor on the planet when it is actually its most ruthless controller and imperialist. It likes to tell us that we are the richest nation in the world, but the truth is that we’d have to sell every square inch of this country to pay our national debt.
Our religions wear the mask of love, while most of them promote divisiveness and spiritual neediness. Our silly addiction to religion has the world in lethal, potentially apocalyptic conflict. Despite this, our leaders continue to encourage us to exercise the “freedom” to promulgate philosophies that arrogantly suggest adherence to one of several“true” religions as some kind of ticket to either worldly prosperity, a better seat in heaven or at least escape from an eternity that would otherwise be spent in a burning pit.
Our institutions fear the loss of power. Discontent on the part of the citizenry or flock of “sheeple” is met with entrenchment and new rules for control. What does your ego do when you make a loving resolution to shift out of some unconscious behavior? Ego wants control, at any price. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt, just that control is increased or maintained.
Ego says: “An eye for an eye”. Gandhi rightly observed that living that makes the whole world blind.
Like the ego, our institutions prioritize loveless power. While they are willing to subvert morality in the name of control, the ego-controlled citizen makes it important to have a bigger TV than the folks next door, or a shapelier girlfriend—even if she’s got to have plastic body parts. We have been indoctrinated to think that what we have, how we look, and who we can control are more important than being who we really are.
The perverted ego that so many see as what defines them places no practical value in love, seeing it as a facet of powerlessness. We either avoid love altogether or we approach it schizophrenically: When it comes to love, we tell each other: “Come closer further away. I am intrigued but afraid”. We gussy-up our words to our love partners when this is what we really mean: “I’ll love you as long as I can control you” or “I’ll love you as long as you pay all the bills”. And we tell ourselves: “It’s good to have a lover waiting in the wings in case my main relationship dissolves.” This is the way of the ego.
What is the alternative to allowing our institutions to dominate and enslave us? The answer is the same one that would apply to understanding the alternative to identifying with the egoic mind. The answer is a “four-letter word”, to some: Love.
Love exerts its true power when we identify with the heart. It takes trust and courage to make the shift out of ego identification. Like the “Little Engine That Could” shifting into identifying yourself as some combination of your heart and soul is simply a matter of belief creating reality.
Those attached to ego extend the reign of fear. Embracing Love is the ultimate solution to the often apparent chaos of the world.
Change is happening at light speed. Each time someone makes the shift into a life committed to love, the world evolves just a little bit more, becoming a more loving place. As more and more do it, we take larger and larger strides toward a world in harmony.
Our institutions have been showing us the futility of clinging to worldly power as they mirror the stupid ego for us. This is a gift. If collectively we refuse to soon unwrap and productively apply this gift, we will destroy ourselves and our planet.
I’m betting on us to survive and thrive, to become the loving world that is our destiny. Spiritual empowerment will spell the end of anyone feeling terror.
Each response to every experience makes a difference. You make a difference. It’s a revolution that we are in the middle of right now, one of Love. The “weapon” of Love is more powerful than all the bombs and guns on Earth. As we collectively come to realize the power of Love, any worldly forces aligned against it will fade away.
That’s the way it will be. All we have to do is to collectively choose the true power to more and more often lovingly be with what is. If love is not at the foundation of something, then that something has no real power. Artificial power is temporary and spiritually draining.
What brand of power are you claiming?
Push your pause button and consider.
Guest Article by Wynn Free on Why We Suffer
Editor’s note: This article is so extraordinary that I obtained permission from its author to republish it here. I suggest that you read it twice, then pause for an extended time to contemplate its wisdom.
A huge part of what is to propel our communal unfolding into a more harmonious society is our willingness to be aware and to be open to new ways of thinking, new possibilities. So many of us were indoctrinated into believing lies about who we are. We believed these lies because they were told to us over and over by people we trusted and felt dependent upon. Consider this alternative way of thinking about a very important subject, please:
Why We Suffer by Wynn Free
Once upon a time you and I were part of God. It’s not that we’re not part of God now, because we still are. The difference is we knew it back then, so because we knew it, we could act like it was so. When we acted like it was so, we were able to have anything we wanted, after all God is the creator, so in as much as we were part of God, so were we creators too. As fast as we could conceive of something, it would manifest and exist. With one exception; since everyone else was also part of God, we couldn’t create anything that would violate someone else’s Godliness.
For a while it was great fun. But eventually it got boring. So we all made an agreement to forget that we were part of God. And since we were Creators, we had the power to do that. We would create a planet, put bodies on that planet and then inhabit the bodies. But we wouldn’t remember we did that, once we inhabited the bodies. Of course, when we died, we would remember, but the way we set up the game was that until we could remember who we were while we were in a body, we would have to keep returning to that planet in new bodies. But there would be endless chances. And as soon as we would remember who we were, we could transform ourselves and have anything we wanted once again, as we reconnected with the power of the God/creator self inside us.
Most of us didn’t remember. We did things the hard way. Nothing came easy. And we suffered. We had long ago forgotten our origins and were living in a state of amnesia. We made up our own rules and did our best, but unfortunately our best wasn’t very good. We got all kinds of aches and pains. There was always this sense of isolation, loneliness, and confusion. But there also were numerous clues. For example, every night we would go to sleep and in our dreams, we would return to that place of original creation where we could, once again, have anything we wanted. And so we did. In our dreams we could have it all. But every morning, we would once again wake up in our state of amnesia and have to do everything the hard way.
So the original creator God decided to give us a little help. Various reminder people were allowed to show up in bodies; people like Lao Tzu, Buddha, Muhammad, and Jesus. On one hand, this violated the original rules of our game, but as a group, we were suffering so much that we petitioned the Big Guy for help and this is how he gave it. These new guys could speak great wisdom. The reminder people told us “why do everything by the sweat of your brow” when you could “put the kingdom of heaven first and all other things would be added.” They were able to remember that they were part of God and could create whatever they thought as long as it didn’t violate anyone else’s reality. And people did listen. And they were inspired. Except, the people kept thinking that these new guys were part of God but they themselves weren’t, so they put them on pedestals and worshiped them, even when they were directly told that “these things I do, you can also do and much more.”
The people continued to suffer because they had very limited ability to invoke their God/creator self. They continued to doing everything the hard way. Oh occasionally they would pray to one of those reminder people who were now exalted on pedestals. But most of them missed the real message. They mimicked the words and lived in the constant fear that they were doing something wrong. And they were going to be punished. The Big Guy had become a wrathful Father, separate from them instead of a loving support system. And that was OK, because eventually they would figure it out. Perhaps not in this lifetime. Perhaps not even in the next thousand lifetimes. But eventually they would tire and pay attention to their dreams and get the idea. They would understand the real message of those who had come to remind them.
If you happen to be one of those people who is still suffering and perhaps don’t believe in God, or entertain the thought that God has abandoned you, or put others on pedestals above you, or live in fear and guilt that you’re doing something wrong, here’s a key to awakening the God/ Creator inside yourself. Act as if it’s so. Assume that it is true and see if there’s a shift in the world around you. You must prove to yourself beyond a shadow of a doubt that it works this way. This is the meaning of faith – acting as if it’s so before you know. Eventually you will get an experience and you won’t have to imagine anymore; that you can think about something and it can occur as long as you don’t violate someone else’s reality. (also you must create the physical circumstances where it has the possibility of happening.
For example, if you want a job, you must make yourself available where jobs exist.) Also, when your wish does manifest, it may not look like a miracle. It might just look like a coincidence. But you’ll recognize it and know what it is. Ask for things to happen that are in “the highest good of everyone concerned”. You were created in God’s image ultimately to be an equal partner with Him. But this equal partner business might take millions of years of training. After all, if you’re going to be equal, you’ll have to know how to create an entire Universe. But that’s down the road. For most of us, loving our wife and kids and earning a living is about all we can handle. But it’s all part of the training. Are you better than your children because you were first? The very first step is faith. Make believe it’s so and see what happens. And be patient. Sometimes it takes a while to break down the patterns that you’ve grown accustomed to. And perhaps, you still really want to do things the hard way. Perhaps you’re one of those who have grown overly familiar with their suffering and would rather stay in the reality, which is comfortable. After all, if you should ever finally succeed, at least you’ll know that you did it all yourself and you can take all the credit, without any outside help from the part of yourself we’ve identified as God.
But if you are one of those who are reaching the point of being sick and tired of your suffering and would like to try a different approach, perhaps a much faster track, try imagining that this story is true. Don’t believe it, but try it on for size. If part of you is also part of God and if you can call on that part of yourself, perhaps you’ll get an answer and something will transform in the physical world around you and you’ll have your own personal validation. Not only will the circumstances of your suffering shift, not only will you be able to see God inside everyone else, but step-by-step you will be able to create a life full of love, joy and miracles. And you might even get to be one of those reminder people yourself. And it won’t be much longer (give or take a million years) that you’ll be out there creating planets, solar systems and universes yourself.
For more about Wynn Free, see www.messageaday.net
Big Changes in Your World: Options for Dealing With Them
As we move through these times of change and challenge, there has been much discussion about how to best respond to these changes and how to most gracefully create more harmonious local and world societies. In what way is it most spiritually profitable to direct our energies if we intend to reach higher levels of spiritual empowerment?
While much of the world seems to be reacting to the civil, geophysical, governmental and financial system problems with fear, doubt and anxiety, others of us have generally taken one of three roads. Let's look at them one at a time:
1. Resignation
Those taking this approach figure that an apocalypse is coming fast and that there is nothing we can do about it. They are convinced, generally through truly silly religious indoctrination, that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and that they are powerless to do anything about it. For them, it's just a matter of waiting until we either all fry or when "non-believers" (choose your deity) will fry while the deity lifts all the good folks into heaven or another, kinder-gentler planet. This is no more sane than figuring that killing innocents will be rewarded with the eternal favors of 72 virgins in the afterlife.
This is the approach of the truly deluded who feel powerless. Over the centuries, this kind of thinking has been perpetuated by those who would strongly prefer that the masses stay weak and afraid.
2. Denial
Many people, particularly in the so-called metaphysical community, would rather not hear about the challenging realities of what is going on in the world. Their excuse is that by recognizing what is going on in our governments,in our monetary systems and in geophysical disturbances just gives energy to the negative, expanding it. They do not want to hear about government corruption or the anticipated monetary collapses, claiming that we can change the apparent course of these by ignoring impending disasters and focusing on what we want instead.
While this approach is certainly more productive than resignation to coming apocalypse, the other side of the coin is that from both an individual and collective standpoint, it is impossible to escape from a prison until such time as you recognize that you are in one. Acceptance of what is is much different than surrender to extended anguish. This is the difference between the power of now and the futility of delusion.
Those who are in denial mode often go to great lengths to distract themselves from the truth. Feeling depressed about relationships, money, war or the quality of our country’s leadership? If so, it’s likely that you are addicted to something that helps you avoid looking at it: drugs, alcohol, television, romance novels, or yelling at your spouse or kids. Where does that get you? If you are on that kind of sinking cesspool, now is the time to hop out.
If you are in denial and want to bust out of it, watch this movie online for free. If you are sorely pressed for time, start with the last segment and then decide whether you have the courage to watch the rest. The movie is called Zeitgeist Addendum. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912#
3. Focusing on Group Consciousness: Joining and Participating in Communal Meditations and Such
We have learned that there is some power in collecting our intents and focus on a peaceful goal. The downside of this phenomenon is that so many of us have conflicting visions of what true peace and satisfaction are. For some, the "New Age of Love" or post 2012 world is one in which life will be free and easy, a hedonistic nirvana. Others see it as one that will be much simpler, with less in the way of conveniences, more in the way of "chop wood/carry water".
Note: Because he says it so well, much of the rest of this article will consist of the words of author Keith David Henry as included in an email response to an article I shared with a mutual associate. For simplicity's sake, all the words below showing in bold italics are his.
Henry says, “The idea that there needs to be some conscious campaign toward the unity of us all, while conceptually sound, may tempt us to rely upon the group consciousness paradigm which is now passing away as a primary means of achieving this unity. This approach is misguided.
Attempting to recognize and embrace everyone and everything into our thinking as valid in a move to "create unity" will create chaos instead. The dark oligarchy is counting on this. The dark oligarchy, their plans and their aspirations will crumble along with the current world systems upon which they have relied for millennia. There is no need to defeat them, nor is there the need to attempt such a counterproductive initiative. Leave them alone. Their fate is sealed. Let us not become a part of their fate by giving them so much of our mental energy via fear, anger, worry, or anxiety.”
If either as individuals or collectively, we focus on the need to “defeat” someone or some entity, or if we focus on what we do not want we drain our energies and sustain that which is not wanted. It’s like saying you do not want that pesky cat that has been hanging around your back door, but then choosing to put out a bowl of milk for it every morning.
4. Recognition and Practice of Our Individual Power, Sovereignty and Divinity
I see this as the true root of unfolding the depth of our collective power.
Again, from Keith David Henry: “By reaching into our own individual internal connectedness with source - each of us on an individual and unique basis (following our own hearts in true acceptance of ourselves, our own individual sovereignty as agents of source, and similarly embracing that the same dynamic exists within each of us, i.e. embracing each person's path as valid and sovereign) - we automatically harness the unity that already exists.”
”Yes, this sounds counter-intuitive. Yes, this is a different message than the new world order, many religions, and even many new age disciplines have taught us. But it is the only way. Each of us is our own authority. Each of us is our own window of source. This is not a paradigm of separateness, but rather the quintessential expression of the infinite diversity of source. It is by fully embracing this diversity that we connectwith the already existent unity of all things and all people.”
As a world culture, we have spent centuries looking outside of ourselves for happiness, calm, wisdom and power. And we are in the process of communally realizing the futility of making things outside of us the primary sources of what we think we need to be OK.
We are in the process of fully unlearning the notion that that which is external gives us validity, worthiness and strength. It is the growing embracing of the knowing that our nature is powerful, calm, happy and, yes, divine that will smooth our path into the coming era of harmony.
I am not suggesting that we abandon practices of community togetherness or group meditation/focus of intent. What I am suggesting is that each of us contributes most effectively to the graceful, powerful unfolding of the collective when we recognize the vast and complete nature of the love that is within us. From that recognition, and then from living it in powerful faith and humility, we literally change our world.
It is simpler than most people perceive it to be. Modern day shaman Carlos Barrios expresses it so well: "The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way."
The well-spring feeding your spiritual empowerment comes from a place where so many do not look: Within.
The Real News and Your Spiritual Empowerment
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. - Carlo Ami is spiritual author, living in Southern California between San Diego and L.A.
Quick Retreats CD FAQ
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.
