Wake Up Wow 15--Being Aware of the Reactions of Ego and Others

Please watch video 14 before watching and listening to the 15th video in this series.  Your response to the reactions of ego and your apparaently outside world are a measure of your consciousness.    These two can be experienced sequentially in the same day.

OK, let me clarify the title, which was used to get your attention.  I don't see anyone as being a sucker; we can sometimes behave like suckers, and I observe this in how people cling to hope.  Our behavior is just another teacher for us when we are aware.  It is not who we are.

Many of us learned that hope was some kind of virtue.  Consider the possiblity that hope may be one of our most love-draining distractions.  Though our dictionaries may not express it this way, our culture defines it as inherently including a sense of vanity: you may not get what you hope for.

And our culture uses the word hope to imply that some outside source is going to save you from whatever it is you think you do not want.  With your attention on your heart, please contemplate that.

Somebody else or some outside thing is going to fix the world for us?  Does this make sense to the heart?

We tend to look outside of ourselves for the very things that are best found within.  We hope that the next trip to India to visit the guru will save us from our anguish.  Maybe you deify the guru, forgetting that true oneness is all about accepting our divine equality.  We hope that the visit to the latest vortex of light will transform us. Maybe the next book by your favorite guru will fix you; the last one was pretty good, but somehow your life seems to be the same as it was before you read it.  Those words didn't fix you, but maybe if you read more of it....

While astrology, tarot and divination tools can be very helpful in giving you clues about the will of your heart, some folks rely so much on these things that they allow ego to use them as tools to avoid going in and being with and listening to the will and the wisdom of the heart.  Now is the time to wake up to the true loving power of the heart.

When we drink the 12-pack of beer, watch the mud wrestling on TV, or immerse ourselves in romance novels or other mind-numbing intoxicants, we do it in the hope that we will feel better.

If you are hoping that something outside of you is going to fix everything about your self and your world that you do not like now, you are feeding the egoic part of yourself that does not seem to exist except as you feed it.

It's interesting to note that the campaign themes that brought both Adolph Hitler and Barack Obama into power centered on the theme of hope.  I say that without judgement; it's just an observation, one of life's curveballs.

We tend to hope that our government or our religion will save us.  We hope that the government will bail us out, and that it will back off its behavior of bleeding the middle class, its torture of terrorist suspects, its insistence on fighting stupid,destructive wars.  We hope that there is some god who will save us from eternal torture, who will find some writers to give us some scripture that will not be so contradictory, who will deliver us into his heaven.

For a 9 minute video wake up call that includes a brief meditation on dragonfly medicine, click here.

We are just beginning to see that all these external institutions are simply mirrors for the ego.  The following is adapted from "TheWake Up Book," which I finished writing late last year:

How Most Religions and Our Governments are Mirrored by the Human Ego

(I am observing the following about false religions that feature a harsh God, eternal damnation or dogma that suggests “correct” belief makes the believer better or more worthy than others.  Only some of the so-called “minor” religions may be seen as uniting and empowering, so the following would not be referring to them.)

• Our corporotocracy government thrives on the promotion of war

• They give the illusion of freedom and choice while dedicated to virtual enslavement.

• They refuse to take responsibility for their actions, blaming something outside.

• They pretend to be great bearers of truth and justice.  In reality, their very existence is built upon hiding the truth from people as a way of maintaining their power.

• Religion takes simple things like Love and makes them appear complicated, attaching rules and conditions.

• Religious dogma and books (like governments’ laws) are purposefully self-contradictory and misleading.

• Both’s number one weapon is deceit.  They are imposters.

• They are centered in creating fear of condemning judgment by God or other “superior”, “more worthy” beings/authority figures

• All have stories that justify their existence.  Most of the stories, upon rational observation, are either simple fabrication, rewritten history, or clever lies.

• So far in our history, their apparent motto has been “Order Though Chaos.”   To maintain their apparent power, these institutions require us be feel weak and divided.  Internal reflections of each of these---government, religion, and ego---appear to fight with each other, fanning the flames of our inner battles as we engage in both inner and outer debate.  Much of the message contradicts itself, discouraging our reliance on reason and common sense as it encourages division and feelings of weakness or powerlessness.

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Hope is simply an anemic substitute for trust.  And we can choose to trust all of our experience as our teacher.  If the experience is easily seen as loving, it is easy to love back: the caress of the most desirable lover is easy to reciprocate.  And if someone is attacking you verbally without any reason, is it worth building your trust in yourself to simply respond with love or just calmly walking away?

Trust of self is only possible when one is truly willing to go within and get in touch with oneself.  In a world in which there is so much chaos and suffering, we are being asked to tap our inner courage to move through all the changes more gracefully.  It takes courage to move from the known--even when the known is so difficult--into the unknown, the unexplored.

And one cannot have courage until one is tested.  You don't build it when you are either feeling like a victim or feeling like every day is like a day at the beach.  Trust is the precursor of true courage.  And the paradox is that it takes courage to claim true trust, the courage to move beyond the the tired, old ways of living.  This is at the heart of what spiritual empowerment means.

Ego, like most of our governments and religions, wants you to stay stuck.  If you do not trust that what is unfolding is a more loving and harmonious world, then, at best, you are hoping that something outside of yourself might just save you, and you are also believing that maybe it wil not.

Collectively, this month will give us plenty of opportunities to make heart-based choices for loving trust.  Calm and trust will be two of the greatest assets you can have during the tumultuous times that I see going into much higher gear in the coming week.  Big wake up calls are coming from the Universe and these wake up calls will become more and more in our collective face starting this week.

As Gary Zukav has so eloquently pointed out, at all times you are coming from one of two orientations: either love and trust or fear and doubt.  If you are just hoping that everything will work out, that something outside of yourself is going to make it all better, you are sapping your own strength and forgetting to tap one of your most valuable resources: loving trust.

I'll let one of my favorite teachers, Yogi Bhajan sum it up for me: "Trust only comes when you trust yourself.  When you trust your dignity, you will always be dignified.  When you trust your love, you will always be lovable.  When you trust your beauty, you will always be beautiful. When you trust your greatness, you will always be great."

Please click on your pause button and maybe let that sink in.

Suggested keywords for the week:

Calm and trust.

All Love,

Carlo

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I have created many tools for those who see the value in unfolding their loving power. Many of these are included for free on this website, including over 40 very short inspirational videos.  The books, eBooks, and CD are designed to help you move along the spiritual path with more grace, calm and speed.

Humbly offered as your equal: 9 minutes of expression, sound and words that are designed to help you find more clarity, more calm and peace in your life on the advent of major changes in our world.

If you are not into it after two minutes, just click out.  Not everybody is ready for this.

So many of us are feeling overwhelmed during these times.  The world seems to be demanding a lot from us.  To move through these times balancing our spiritual lives and in taking care of worldly responsibilities requires focus and trust.  If we cop to the ego insistence that we do not have time for attending to our own spiritual nurturing, we simply feed the imaginary ego and choke the will and the wisdom of our own hearts.

I sense strongly that we will be particularly challenged between now and the 11th of this month.  This is the time to be in touch our inner resources of calm, love and trust.  The free and very short videos at yourpausebutton.com can also be used to remind you of your loving power.

For many of you, there will be the egoic impulse to obsess with either avoidance tools or beoming totally immersed in the ideas presented here and in the video.  Please be aware of these impulses if they arise and choose balance: handling what is in front of you and taking time for nurturing your deeper self.

I encourage you to download the free Solfeggio tones below to listen to frequently.  This can be a significant aspect of the process by which you recondition yourself to move totally beyond the old and tired definitions of what power really is.   The ego will tell you that it is all too simple, that there is no music that can help you feel better about your life.  That ego is two-faced: if there is genuine substance and value to some ascension tool that you find, it will tell you that it is too complicated or that you do not have time for such foolishness.  Ask your heart and it will speak to you in feelings.  This will happen more and more easily as you build true trust in your Self and your heart.

Here are those links:

This is the file of what you heard on the video. Ignore the bar at the top of the page that comes up.  You do not need to register. Just scroll down very slightly and click on the green download button.  I have scanned the file and it is clean of any virus.

Here I suggest you download both the 9 Solfeggio Frequencies file and the Sedona 11:11 Frequencies

Another powerful set of healing tools is to be found here.  Tom Kenyon has created some amazing sounds. When you go to this page, check out the Heart and Pineal Attunements and pay attention to this page. I particularly recommend that you get the Ascension Codes CD or mp3.

Consider that in the process of shifting, which is also the process of reconditioning yourself, the very same mechanism that is central to the tools that people call propaganda and indoctrination can be very successfully employed on your own self: repetition.  This applies to music and spoken word recordings as well as power statements and other belief statements that you can refine and repeat, including those found in my books and on the Quick Retreats CD.

In many cases, the more senses and modalities that are involved in a spiritual practice, the more potential power it will have.  Consider burning incense or putting a drop of your favorite aromatic essential oil on the bridge of your nose when listening to the healing sounds.

One last idea for you here: Send loving energy to all the world, including the sick, the homeless and those emotionally challenged.  Please remember to include the so-called "bad guys": the corrupt, the greedy, those who want to dominate us.  Let's drop the role of mimicing the schizophrenic "god" who would damn anybody.

In the coming era of harmony, our responses to everything will be loving.  Are you willing to visualize such a world?

Let's choose to truly realize the depth of our loving power, and choose to also trust and envison the world of harmony that is soon to come.

--

Carlo

Coming Soon : The Wake Up Book by Carlo Ami

After two and a half months of reorienting, I am back, and nearly ready to release the retitled and reworked book now called "The Wake Up Book" (formerly "The Seventh Direction."   The book asks the reader to do something many are unwilling to do: go within themselves for answers to the most important questions.  As we are being readied for a major shift in how the world functions, now is the time for us to further understand who we are and why we are here.  This book provides a framework for your own understanding of these questions, and for how to find your won answers to them.  This new book, introducing an entirely new genre of self-exploratory spiritual writing, is designed to enhance the spiritual empowerment of those who read and ponder it in small segments as provided.  Do you have the courage to go within yourself for the real answers to life's most important questions?

Here are the first pages from that book.

The Wake Up Book

Opening thought to ponder:

This book is for those of us who are ready to get our minds out of the gutter.  It is for people who are ready to at least start considering to point themselves consciously in the direction of living a fully heart-based life.

The gutter is anywhere that is not apparently loving.

The heart of the enlightened one sees the Love---and the opportunity to exercise it—in each experience.

To move intelligently in the Loving direction requires the reconditioning of the mind by the heart.  By surrendering to the will of the heart, we become fully loving and free.  Why would we want to do anything else?

To move beyond old, tired, destructive patterns, we are quested to use the same method by which we were falsely conditioned.

This book is about reconditioning your head by the will of your heart.

You can make the choice to do this.  Are you willing?  Are you ready to wake up?

Preface

Worldly and Heart Propaganda

Do the same kinds of challenging things keep happening to you over and over?

Do you keep on responding to these challenges in basically the same way?

If so, there is only one reason that your life is the way it is: Conditioning.  You are conditioned to look at the world in the ways you have been seeing it and you are conditioned to respond from the imaginary part of you that does not really exist, your ego.

If you are dedicated to empowering your own life, consider using this book as a heart propaganda tool.  So what does that mean?

Many people tend to associate the term “propaganda” with that which is negative and political. Propaganda goes far beyond the political arena and into advertising, religion, news buzzwords, the parent-child relationship (“don’t” , “stop”, “no”) and much more.

The mechanism by which propaganda conditions us is repetition.  If one sees or hears the same words spoken over and over, after a certain point those words tend to be accepted as truth whether they are true or not.

Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them.                                                                                                                                                                            -- Harold Evans

Could it be that what makes heart propaganda different from the propaganda promoted by the apparently corrupt or ignorant is that heart propaganda speaks only the complete truth.  Please ponder this:

The wisdom and will of my heart is complete in its Love.

More and more, I trust the wisdom of my heart to guide me.

As I write this book in 2010, the world appears to be teetering on the brink of oblivion.  Our religions, our governments, corporate interests and our media all seem to be out of kilter, often appearing to do the opposite of fulfilling the roles we may have envisioned for them.

"When people decry civilian deaths caused by the U.S government, they're aiding propaganda efforts. In sharp contrast, when civilian deaths are caused by bombers who hate America, the perpetrators are evil and those deaths are tragedies. When they put bombs in cars and kill people, they're uncivilized killers. When we put bombs on missiles and kill people, we're upholding civilized values. When they kill, they're terrorists. When we kill, we're striking against terror.

--- Norman Solomon

We look at this and we see the mirror of our ego in the apparently bigger world.  What other response could possibly be as appropriate as kissing that imaginary part of ourselves goodbye?  It is the petulant, spoiled brat.  It exists only as we feed it.  Such stopping is a natural by-product of the choice to live life with the central recognition of Self and world and all inhabitants of this Earthly home as equals infused with Love, nothing but Love.

Yes, to you that may seem like a radical thought.  How well has your way of thinking so far in this lifetime served your sense of happiness, contentment, and trust?

Times of radical change require radical change in the way we have been living.

Before the European settlers arrived in what is now the United States, many Native Americans had a very wonderful set of beliefs about what religion and spirituality can be.  The settlers from Europe wiped them out, wouldn’t allow them to practice their religion, and imposed upon them a schizophrenic, dangerous God.  Our government, the one so many support without question, has found ways to break nearly every treaty it has made with America’s original inhabitants whose land and way of life was stolen from them.

Are you willing to consider the notion that our government has broken---and continues to break---its basic agreements with us?

From your head, ask yourself if this is acceptable to you as a way of life.

Ask your heart to reveal to you the solution right now.  

*************************************

We have been witnessing our collective  decline for centuries. We watch anxiously as our religions preach to us in ways that divide, persecute, anger, belittle and disrespect us.  As our governments foment war and pander to the wealthy elite, we sit silently as they withdraw our liberties, deplete more of our income, torture their enemies, and withhold life-saving medical knowledge as a way of protecting the wealthy.  To serve the corporate interests, our government allows brain-toxic chemicals to be added to processed foods.  They allow livestock to be abused., While the government poisons our land, air and water, we collectively look the other way, as if to say that there is nothing we can do about it.

Still, if you care to do even a small amount of research, you will learn that all of the above allegations are true.  Most would rather not know this or even look to see if these assertions are valid, because to recognize them as true might bring the deeper pain of realizing that we are in a virtual prison created by our unwillingness to see what is in front of us.

We have allowed our religions and our governments to abuse us.  Let’s take a deeper look at how these institutions show us the ignorant destructiveness of the human ego on a macro level.

How Most Religions and Our Governments are Mirrored by the Human Ego

(I am observing the following about false religions that feature a harsh God, eternal damnation or dogma that suggests belief makes the believer better or more worthy than others.  Only some of the so-called “minor” religions may be seen as uniting and empowering, so the following would not be referring to them.)

• They give the illusion of freedom and choice while removing both
• They refuse to take responsibility for their actions, blaming something outside
• They take simple topics like Love and make them appear complicated.
• Their dogma and books (like governments’ laws) are purposefully self-contradictory and misleading
• They foster a brand of ignorance that they call the truth
• They  are willing to suppress obvious truth in order to maintain their version of power
• Their number one weapon is deceit.  They are imposters.
• They are centered in creating fear of condemning judgment by God or other “superior”, “more worthy” beings/authority figures
• All have stories that justify their existence.  Most of the stories, upon rational observation, are either simple fabrication or clever lies.
• So far in our history, their apparent motto has been “Order Though Chaos.”   Internal facets of each of these---government, religion, and ego---appear to fight with each other, fanning the flames of our inner battles as we engage in both inner and outer debate.  Much of the message contradicts itself, discouraging our reliance on reason and common sense as it encourages division and feelings of weakness or powerlessness.

With the passing of time, the lessons---the wake up calls concerning the state of our world---have increased in intensity and clarity.  Our religions and governments display what appears to be expanding willingness to betray us.  Yet, collectively we have remained largely asleep.  We see our religions and our governments as representing us---just as we have seen ego as who we are---when, in fact, they all do the exact opposite of representing us truly.

We have not wanted to see the truth because accepting the truth is perceived as being more painful than pretending stupidity.

Consider the words of a heroic African American who, in 1955 refused a bus drivers’ demand that she give up her bus seat to a white passenger.

“I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time... there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn't hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

- Rosa Parks

Ponder, please:

What similarities does my own life situation today have to the position she found herself in?  Am I willing to to wake up to what is in front of me to see?

How is our collective situation today similar to the one she found herself in back then?    What can you do about this collective situation?

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 Gulf of Mexico to family matters that have to do with feeding our families, it seems like we are experiencing crisis and challenge with increasing harshness and frequency.

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.

1. What is happening right now?
2. What emotions am I experiencing?
3. Can I allow these emotions? (Then take three deep and long breaths.)
4. 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.

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.

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Carlo Ami is spiritual author, living in Southern California between San Diego and L.A.