Archive for the ‘World’ Category

This one is personal.

Time Magazine’s cover story this week is “Sex, Lies and Arrogance:  What Makes Powerful Men Behave So Badly?”  It’s been prompted by the recent revelations of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the alleged criminal behavior of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.  Perhaps, if we use the moment wisely, and exhibit more than the attention span of a five year old, we as a nation (and maybe even a globe) can finally embark upon a long-overdue discussion upon which literally rests our future.

It goes something like this. Women are not property and no one, confidant or stranger alike, has the right to take what they want when doing so infringes upon the person of another.

That’s part one.

Part two is that an exclusively male dominance in ruling nations, setting governmental policy, establishing religious tenets, administering academic institutions, controlling the private business sector and even writing history, for over two thousand years, has resulted in a world woefully out of balance.

The attempt to subjugate, demean and obscure the Divine Feminine role in everything from Creation to spouses has led us to the precipice of moral blindness and, potentially, the inevitable extinction that must follow.

Poor behavior and shameful choices require neither financial success nor notoriety.  Someone I knew and trusted, a very ordinary guy of average means, tried to rape me.  While so doing, he actually expressed his belief that “our relationship” gave him the right to have sex if he wanted it.  My rights didn’t seem to be a consideration.  Miraculously, while being physically overpowered, I had the presence of mind to somehow speak and act in a way that gave him pause, which allowed me to ultimately escape the moment.  I will never understand how I had the ability to forgive him, which in my heart I did, although it changed my ability to trust him.  In hindsight, he said it never happened… but denial is one of many mechanisms for abdicating personal responsibility when the truth is too painful to bear.

In the final analysis, sex, abuse of power, violence, greed, deception…a whole host of behaviors… are about Free Will.  They’re about the choices we make every minute of every day because every choice is an act of self-definition.  We are who we choose to be.

If male energy is about survival, and if left unchecked mutates into dominance, then it’s time we acknowledged and, yes, honored the critical and necessary standing due female energy, which is about nurturing and compassion.  Together these energies co-create a framework in which their combined efforts exceed, by leaps and bounds, what either could accomplish alone.

Co-Creation. Balance of Power. The Divine Feminine. The Sanctity of Male and Female Alike.  These are the timely and necessary topics of discussion.  Without such discussions, and without resurrection of the Divine Feminine role in co-creation, we are all dinosaurs on the brink of extinction.

 

 

 

Lately, there is much talk of personal responsibility.  Perhaps nowhere is this concept more relevant than when applied to our thoughts.  As we look around the globe at social, economic, and political conditions it seems appropriate to ask, “What are we doing, or not doing, that is directly related to what we are experiencing?”

But what if the same question is equally relevant to the escalation of violent weather conditions we are experiencing worldwide?  What if we are causing those conditions, not by global warming or disregard for natural resources, but by our thoughts?

At the quantum level, physicists have proven that the conscious presence of an observer affects and changes the outcome of the event being observed. Consciousness, awareness, is energy that affects matter. “Pay attention”… that admonition you often heard repeated as a child… now takes on new meaning.  Your attention is energy.  How you use it, where you place it, matters. Literally.

We have the freedom, Free Will, to place our attention on anything we choose. When millions, maybe even billions, of people place their attention on the same thing, the effect is likely to be profound.

Which got me thinking.

It’s often said by environmentalists and others that Earth and weather upheavals in the form of volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, warming, hurricanes and the like are “Mother Earth” telling us, in her own inimitable way, that She has had enough.  But what if Earth and Nature are not reacting to our behavior, but to our thoughts?  What if as we think imbalanced and violent thoughts we create  imbalanced and violent Earth conditions?

What if the more people who think violent thoughts then the more extreme and widespread are manifested Earth conditions?

Maybe President Obama and others want to rethink encouraging “revolution” across the globe.  Change need not be violent unless we choose it to be.  Maybe we ought to rethink how we communicate and apply certain words and concepts.  Maybe thoughts are things which, once given voice, are made real. Maybe all the violent change humanity seems to be experiencing globally starts in our minds.

Perhaps starting today we each can be more circumspect around what we think and say.  Perhaps there is good reason to put an end to watching, and thereby energizing with your attention, the violence the media loves to disseminate.

A Native American proverb makes the point.  A grandfather talking to his young grandson tells the boy he has two wolves inside of him struggling with each other. The first is the wolf of peace, love and kindness.  The other is the wolf of fear, greed and hatred. “Which wolf will win, grandfather?” asks the young boy.  “Whichever one I feed,” is the reply.

Today, by your thoughts, starve violence and feed peace.

Personal Responsibility starts there.

 

For a new way to think about personal responsibility, language and global change see my new book The Lightworker’s Handbook: A Spiritual Guide to Eliminating Fear. CLICK HERE to learn more.

I don’t want to believe that Barack Obama means to intentionally disrespect the Constitution of the United States, destroy out international alliances and jeopardize the security of Israel and so I won’t believe those things. 

Instead, I choose to believe (Free Will) that he is an individual lacking in a core understanding of who he is and what he believes in.  This was my conclusion after reading A Bound Man by Shelby Steel in 2008 and why I did not vote for him that year.  It was later reinforced when I read The Roots of Obama’s Rage by Danesh D’Souza, a well-documented and intelligently thoughtful analysis of Obama’s heritage, life and character.

This core lack in Obama makes him not so much vulnerable to outside pressures, as some have asserted, but subject to the hunger and need of his own ego.  When the vessel has a hole in it, no amount of water can fill it up.  Lacking core values, Obama gives no weight to the values of others. Consequently, he feels free to override, or altogether bypass, 1) the American public in forcing the passage of Universal Healthcare when 62% of those polled did not want the bill passed; 2) Congress by circumventing the War Powers Act in Libya and ignoring the values set forth by the Founders in the U.S. Constitution and, 3) the Israeli government and its valuing of the safety and lives of its citizens.

It’s unlikely that we’ve had many Presidents who did not suffer from some degree of need to fulfill their egos.  And it’s probably safe to say that more than a fair share of them had huge egos.  But to make a distinction worth noting, it’s not Obama’s ego that makes his Presidency so dangerous… it’s the fact that no amount of railroading, conquest and imposition of his will upon those who oppose him can satisfy that ego.

I once her a psychiatrist explain “A neurotic is the easiest type of patient to treat.  He or she just has an excess of something.  It’s a matter of reducing or minimizing those excesses.  But someone lacking input at critical stages of development is the hardest to treat because you’re trying to put values in where none have ever existed.  There’s no foundation or reference point.”

This description, I believe, describes Barack Obama

It is for those of us who see the present dangers posed by a leadership so lacking to speak our minds and shine a bright light upon the problem.  While he is but one man in the history of a great nation, he has both the bully pulpit and the power at the moment.  If the Great Man theory of history holds true, that great men appear at critical points in history and take the people where his vision leads him, then we have much to concern ourselves with where the vision is highly personal and is born of need.

We must be careful that some version of the rationale people often use when explaining why they don’t fly in airplanes does not wind up applying to our nation’s destiny:  What if it’s not my time but it’s the pilot’s time?

 

In a rapidly changing world in which the flow of information by major media outlets is controlled by corporate ownership and investors with an agenda we, the public, are easily manipulated by selective and biased reporting.  Therefore, it is critical that you think for yourself and dig deeper than surface reporting in an effort to be truly informed.

In fact, inner guidance, more than any other source, will be the most reliable place to verify reality.

Example:  The Egyptian Revolution.

President Obama, as well as mainstream and social media, were enamored with the recent revolutionary uprising in Egypt.  Each was certain the uprising was democracy in action and a harbinger of better things to come regarding Middle East relations with the U.S. and Israel.

Now that the dust has settled, so to speak, the reality appears to be something altogether different.  What is emerging from the chaotic aftermath of the riots in Egypt is a very vocal and vehement expression of defiance against the United States and a blatant intention to destroy the State of Israel.

I find two conclusions instructive from events as they have unfolded:

1.  This Administration and the media fueled the flames of uprising with a false premise and now that the winds of change are directing the fire on a deadly path, both are disturbingly and shamefully silent.

2.  Mubarak may have been a dictator but he was also an impediment to Muslim extremism taking hold within Egypt.  (Not to excuse his dictatorial hold on the country, but rather to highlight the possibility that unless you have set in place enlightened leadership or a viable alternative plan for governance, it may be best to bypass revolution as a vehicle for change).

As to my point about inner guidance, I think that as the days of rage unfolded on camera, common sense (or just plain checking in with your “gut”) probably told anyone who was conscious and not living in a fairy-tale-wishful-fantasy world that events in Egypt were at best precarious and at worst foreboding.

Unfortunately, time has proven the latter to be the case.

The most valuable lesson to take away from this experience is that reality is best obtained from within rather than imposed by external sources…  too often motivated by an agenda that is little concerned with our well being.

Let us not behave like sheep but rather individuals who possess the wisdom to tune in within and surf our own channels.

 

 

 

When I read that the military’s code name for Osama bin Laden was “Geronimo” I had an uncomfortable feeling and immediately went to Wikipedia to read the history of the Native American Apache leader.  What I read turned my uncomfortable feeling to disgust.

How insensitive, blind and continually arrogant can we be to perpetuate a false and demeaning stereotype of the wise and spiritual human beings who preceded our very existence on this continent?  How ignorant of our government to choose to identify a mass murderer by the code name of one of the, if not the, most celebrated and honored leaders of a nation?  A man who is legend to his people for his dedication, bravery and mastery.

To me, this shameful choice exemplifies two controlling principles: 1) History is written by the “victors” and 2) Until each of us is willing to honor all peoples and value their unique contributions as part of the “human family” we will continue to be led by those who favor some at the expense of others.

I think the United States government, from our President to the Joint Chiefs, owes a public apology to all Native Americans.  Failure to do so will be yet another blight upon our disregard and continued devaluation of a proud and honorable people.

The resulting shame will be ours and, ironically, give unintended credence to some of the rants of Osama bin Laden… that the West and its leaders are concerned with only their own prosperity and care little for the interests or plight of people of color and differing belief systems.

How sad and ironic, for us, should that be the case.

This is not a post about Osama bin Laden.  It’s a post about you and me.  He’s gone and that’s that regarding him.  However we remain… so how we act, and react, from here on out determines our future.  What also remains are the issues that created a world in which someone like him could develop and be successful, using the term “successful” in its most narrow sense.

In a world where people and nations vie to maximize their health, wealth and general well-being… not only without regard for others but, at times, at the expense of others… there will always be fertile ground in which to cultivate  disease such as bin Laden.  But such a destructive environment is under our dominion and control.  We very much have the power, individually and collectively, to choose again and create a world where every human being’s right to life (basic sustenance) and pursuit of happiness (the possibility that one can better oneself with effort) is guaranteed.

To create such a world we will have to re-prioritize what it is we value above all else.  Such choices will necessarily begin with compassion, dignity, and cooperation.  Such a world will need to be based upon logic that transcends Aristotle’s conclusion that solutions consist of only two options:  “x” or “not x”.   Such thinking leads to dilemma.  An alternative, or tetra lemma approach, considers “x”, “not x,” “x and not x,” or “neither x nor not x.”   In other words, simply put… one or the other or both or neither all become possibilities and thereby broaden the options for resolution.

Egypt wasn’t a spiritual, religious or political revolution.   It was an economic one where 50% of the population is under the age of 24 with no economic future of any consequence.   You cannot make food scarce and eliminate hope for the future without dire consequences.  Such are the elements that foster environments wherein diseased minds rule.

We are better than that.   But what it takes to turn this all around is not only personal responsibility but, first and foremost, personal courage.

Courage to think for ourselves.

Courage to reject systems that do not work.

Courage to speak out about values and policies that devalue others.

Courage to say no to a politically-based “collective” approach wherein the few seek to dominate the many under the guise of leadership.

Courage to speak out for spiritual Oneness, our inherent connection to all living beings, and all that it implies.

Courage to be patient, thoughtful and thorough with the process so sound decisions can be made along the way.

There is no harm in a centralized government.  We have one in this country.  But as it was designed, that central government had very limited power over the individual states that, along with their inhabitants, remain free to pursue individuality and personal creativity within an economic system intended to support growth rather than inhibit it.

Today is a new day and the quality of our choices will determine tomorrow.

I watched Social Network last night and found it disturbing on too many levels to cover all in one post.  So I’ll focus on the one I found most disturbing.

We have made a legend and role model for our youth out of a thief.

No matter how Mark Zuckerberg tries to distance himself from his character as portrayed in the movie, one fact remains.  In the final analysis, Zuckerberg paid 65 million dollars to two other young men because he stole their idea.

For me, everything else in the movie pales in comparison.

I knew virtually nothing of Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook and his meteoric rise to fame and fortune prior to sitting down to see the movie other than snippets here and there from the media.  My impression, based upon how he is covered in and by the media, was that he was some young, technological genius who created and designed the powerhouse “Facebook.”

However, after watching the movie, what I knew was that Zuckerberg built his “platform” on the backs of some other people he had no apparent problem climbing over, kicking in the teeth and crushing in the process.  He reminds me of Ivan Boesky, the 1990’s Arbitrageur who, in an address to a Stanford University graduating class, said “Greed is good.”  With that hubris, Boesky set the stage for two decades of plunder and materialism in this nation not seen since, probably, the Roman Empire.

Presently, we focused on the technological wonder of Facebook to the almost disregard for the total absence of ethics upon which it was created.  It’s like saying the economy was good during the Clinton years giving little mention to the immoral virus this nation was infected with as a result of Clinton’s wanton lust.

Today, the day after watching Social Network, I went in search of fact checking the accuracy of the movie.  It seems Zuckerberg was portrayed more asocial and more insensitive that he actually was.  That’s the good news.  The bad, very bad, news is that he did, in fact, steal the idea from two classmates and paid 65 million in restitution.

We should be very careful who we hold up as role models for the young.  In a world where Ivan Boesky is king and greed is good… Mark Zuckerberg is royalty. It’s not a world I want to inhabit.  Nor is it one in which we, as a nation, can survive in much longer.  It’s gotten us where we are at the moment… and the moment is tenuous.

There is nothing wrong with success or money if how you achieve either one of those is respectful of yourself and others.

In such a world, the Ivan Boeskys and Mark Zuckerbergs would be pariahs.

 

What do the following have in common? 1) A doctor dedicated to healing through alternative therapies; 2) a renowned artist sitting in Fairfield, Ohio meditating 6 hours a day for world peace; 3) a right wing Republican concerned primarily with defense of Israel, and 4) a former General Manager of a BMW dealership with little time for politics?

Answer:  They’re all friends of mine.

I like to think of myself as a reluctant optimist.   And a realist.  My optimism is hard earned. I didn’t use to be this way. In fact, I used to spot every dark cloud on the horizon before it was even formed.  But I spent a lot of years, and tears, learning that pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  We get what we focus upon and so, reluctantly, I exchanged fearing the worst for anticipating the best.

As for being a realist…. well…that’s a little more difficult to explain.  The reality I see is unique to me.  So it is with each of us.  Which is why, two people can witness the same auto accident and recall it differently. It’s all a matter of perspective and what preconceived ideas we bring to each moment.

At the moment, the reality I see is one in which human evolution is at a critical fork in the road. One fork leads to a breakdown… the other to a breakthrough. If we take the fork leading to breakdown, we will encounter increased indebtedness, increased violence and decreased personal freedom ending in slavery to someone or something.  If we take the fork leading to a breakthrough, we will learn to honor and conserve our resources, choose peace as way of life, and comprehend, once and for all, the correlation between personal freedom and personal responsibility.

I see both realities as “potential” because I am that realist I mentioned earlier.  The reluctant optimist in me knows (with almost certainty) that we will choose wisely.

Now, back to my friends. They are decidedly different in their views of the world. Yet I value and honor each of them because it’s only in the allowing of differences that we stand the greatest chance of choosing the correct fork in this road. I also proceed upon the premise that on any given day, at any given moment, any one of them is capable of teaching me “something I do not know… the knowing of which will change everything.”  It’s a great quote. It belongs to Werner Erhard, founder of EST and The Forum, late 20^th century transformation models and self-awareness programs.

Like each of us, Erhard was a work in progress.  Before he was Werner Erhard, awareness guru, he was John Paul Rosenberg, a used car salesman in Philadelphia.  At some point, he reached a fork in the road and chose wisely.

May we do the same.

 

I think it’s natural to root for the underdog.  At some time I suppose we all do. So it’s not surprising that there has accumulated an international groundswell in support of Palestinian statehood.  After all, Israel has been economically, politically, technologically, and militarily the stronger of the two opponents for…well…forever, it seems.

But action without thought is reckless.  When we begin to actually think about the underdog, it starts to look strangely more like a rabid coyote than some cuddly domestic hound.

The latest example was the distribution of candy in Gaza in “celebration” of the savage massacre of five members of the Fogel family by Palestinian terrorists.  But this is just the latest.  Relentless rocket bombardment of Southern Israel, Palestinian children strapped with bombs and sent off by their mother’s to be martyrs, the targeting of innocent Israeli civilians while they ate, commuted or just got on with their lives.  Where is recognition for the restraint exhibited by Israel time and time again where no other country would have tolerated such assaults and tragedy without retaliation?

It’s important to remember just who the aggressor is in this drama because there is a plan and a timetable underway by members of the United Nations to recognize a state of Palestine that will include Gaza and east Jerusalem.  That’s the plan.  The timetable is September 2011.  And it seems our President is on board as well.

If you think action without thought is reckless, you “ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The United States is currently engaged in three wars within Muslim countries.  There are countless uprisings and revolutions in the Arab world taking place.  Much of what we see is violent or portends violence.

It is foolhardy and dangerous to think that at such a time Palestinians, granted statehood under terms that rob Israel of a portion of its capital and return to the Arabs land that was fairly gained by Israel when it was attacked in 1967 by the Arab world, will result in anything other than emboldening the Palestinians to recommit to their charter. That charter, which has never been amended, calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

It is imperative that we, as human beings, do our best to bring dignity and the necessities of life to every living being on the planet.  It is not, however, imperative that we act without thinking and thereby reward barbarity and inhumanity.

Let’s demand that the Palestinians first eschew violence as a negotiating tool before we pass out the candy.

 

Looking recently at Madison Wisconsin and today London, it seems that violence… the preferred method of change in the Arab world… has finally infected the West as well.

Not to our credit, I might add.

One of the great tragedies of human history is that we have always confused e-volution with revolution.  Re-volution, especially violent re-volution, has always been just that: a return trip around a failed and worn out path strewn with the casualties of war.

Is it conceivable we will allow ourselves to be led like lambs to slaughter down that road yet again?  To watch the youth in England today destroying everything in their path, its an easy leap to conclude the answer is “Yes.”

I don’t blame them.  I blame us.

They’re young.  They learned from us.  As too many of us in positions of responsibility remained silent, those with an agenda crept into our schools, universities and, more insidiously, into our children’s minds.  The young want what they want and they want it now… and if they can’t have it… well… they’re being encouraged by those with a hidden agenda to believe that violence is an acceptable expression of their discontent.

Our children grew up in a world where media violence, instant gratification, material acquisition, power for its own sake, and government subsidies were and remain the norm.   By example, we have taught them poorly.  And while we were neglecting our responsibility to the future, others were all too ready and willing to embrace it.

Now, if we allowed it to reach this point, it must be we who puts an end to it.

How?

By rapidly and visibly changing the way we do things.

By assuming responsibility for our every thought, word and deed.

By reprioritizing our time and our expression of what we value.

By acting like competent, capable adults able to make hard choices so the young have something, and someone, to emulate.

We’re running out of time.  Let’s not waste a moment.  Decide what you value.  Speak of it often.  Live it with certainty.

Before the momentum of violence becomes irreversible, join in the e-volution.  It’s a higher road that leads to a grander view.

Oh, and did I mention?… peace.