I think that we should all be free to follow what we believe.  And so this is not to offend Atheists, just to discuss the arguments that I have heard in favor of it and against the existence of a God.

When I was a child there was no mention of God in my home, except when accompanied by damn.  When my younger sister was born, I felt less loved by my mother than ever.  Somehow I knew that with my sister in the picture I would never be loved.

So, around the age of four I began sitting in front of my house hoping that someone would pass by and adopt me.  One of the many days I sat waiting for my new family I heard a voice in my head.  It was a male sounding voice, the kind of voice that makes you feel safe and secure.  This voice told me that I was not going to ever get a new family.  It told me that I was very loved, that it loved me, and that when I grew up I would understand why I was in this family and know that it was the right place for me to be.

From then on, I had many conversations with the voice.  It comforted me when I was afraid, and made me feel loved when I felt alone.  The voice did not offer a name, I did not ask for one.  Today, I believe that it was God speaking in a voice that would make a child feel safe.

When I was a teenager, I would come home from school, go up to my room, lock my door and either turn on music or the television.  One night I was locked in my room with the television on and I fell asleep, as I did every night (because I was afraid of the dark).  I was awaken by the one voice that could pull me out of a coma.  I heard my mother scream at the top of her lungs, “Denise!!!!!! Get Down Here”.  I ran down the stairs to find her half asleep and half watching the television.  I asked her why she called me, but in my mind I knew that there was no way that this half asleep woman could look like this after letting out the scream of the century.  She looked at me as though I was crazy and said, “I didn’t call you”.  As we were about to enter into this discussion over how I could have imagined her calling me loud enough to make me jump out of bed – while I was sleeping – an enormous cloud of black smoke filled the stairwell and came pouring downstairs.  I screamed for my father who was in bed upstairs and he almost fell running down,  By this time we could see nothing.

Luckily we found our way to the door and got out of the house.  My father burned his hand opening the doorknob as it was already so hot.   I ran next door and called the fire department.  After the fire department came they told us that it had been an electrical fire.  The origination point of that fire was my television.  Certainly I would been dead, unlocking my door in the dark was not easy, and there is a chance I just might not have awoken before it was too late.  My father and I could have both been dead before my mother even knew that anything was wrong – since she was downstairs.  Something supernatural happened to me that night to save my life.  That something, I call God.

Two weeks later, those same neighbors I ran to to call the fire department were all killed while they slept in an electrical fire.

Here are some arguments that I have found on the internet against the existence of any god.

“The progress of science
The progress of science bring each day a more complete explanation of phenomena that men attributed, until now, to the divinities. God is pushed back within the limits of the Universe.”

Nowthese are quotes from Einstein which address that statement:

“Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that is there.”

and another Einstein quote:

“Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world
of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Here is another argument against God:

A different proof that there is no God is:

“Life is Material, not Supernatural:  We are material, Natural Beings
All Evidence points to life being material and natural”

“A popular objection to atheists’ arguments and critiques of theism is to insist that one’s preferred god cannot be disproven – indeed, that science itself is unable to prove that God does not exist.  This position depends upon a mistaken understanding of the nature of science and how science operates. In a very real and important sense, it is possible to say that, scientifically, God does not exist – just as science is able to discount the existence of a myriad of other alleged beings.”  Austin Cline

According to the ancient religions, God is unnameable, incomprehensible,  a power that works within the universe as the universe exists within God.  According to renown Physicist David Bohm:

“Bohm believes that life and consciousness are enfolded deep in the generative order and are therefore present in varying degrees of
unfoldment in all matter, including supposedly “inanimate” matter such as electrons or plasmas. He suggests that there is a “protointelligence” in matter, so that new evolutionary developments do not emerge in a random fashion but creatively as relatively integrated wholes from implicate levels of reality. The mystical connotations of Bohm’s ideas are underlined by his remark that the implicate domain “could equally well be called Idealism, Spirit, Consciousness. The separation of the two — matter and spirit — is an abstraction. The ground is always one.” (Quoted in Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe, HarperCollins, New York, 1991, p. 271.)’

In Bohm’s view, all the separate objects, entities, structures, and events in the visible or explicate world around us are relatively autonomous, stable, and temporary “subtotalities” derived from a deeper, implicate order of unbroken wholeness. Bohm gives the analogy
of a flowing stream:

On this stream, one may see an ever-changing pattern of vortices, ripples, waves, splashes, etc., which evidently have no
independent existence as such. Rather, they are abstracted from the flowing movement, arising and vanishing in the total process of the flow. Such transitory subsistence as may be possessed by these abstracted forms implies only a relative independence or autonomy of behaviour, rather than absolutely independent existence as ultimate substances.

(David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, Boston, 1980, p. 48.)

We must learn to view everything as part of “Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement.” (Ibid., p. 11.)”

This comes from the new physics that is responsible for 30% of our current economy.  When today’s science describes what the material, natural  world is made of, it can be described as nothing less than supernatural or metaphysical.  What we see as the world around us appears to be real, but what it is made out of is consciousness.  A statue made out of clay, can be called a statue, but it is still really clay.  Regardless of what we are made into in this material world, what we are made out of is not of this material world.  So far, according to Science, what we and the entire Universe is made out of is an unending mystery.  And as much as they learn to describe what we are made out of, they cannot ever come to the original cause, why we exist.  If that force that underlies and guides the universe is what our ancestors and many of us today call God.  Then Science proves God.

Next argument:

If God exists than God must interact with our universe and there must be some physical manifestations of his interaction.

For me, the voice when I was very young, and the voice that saved me from dying in the fire were manifestation enough, but the Universe itself is the greatest physical manifestation of God’s existence, not as a “he” not “his” but the mysterious awesome force, the implicate order the unknowable, unnameable Source of the universe.

Often atheists use the Bible to argue against the existence of God.  But the Bible, or the Koran can only be used to argue against the description of God, not God itself.    In this respect, it is possible to argue because these books are ancient and must be taken on faith, not proof.  But God as the Atom, God as the Implicate Order, as Consciousness Itself or Original Cause cannot be argued.  Science is, in every day, coming to understand God in the way that our ancient ancestors once did.

To me, God is impersonal, unconditional Love, far beyond our capacity to understand but it is our drive to seek.  I don’t feel that anyone must believe in God.  However, if atheism is logical and realistic as it is supposed to be, then its arguments against God, must be sound, grounded, and able to address even the most ancient spiritual concept of God, which I have not found that it has done.  It may be capable of an eternal debate over the validity of religion, specifically or in general, but again, that is not an argument against God.

Fear originates in the belief that I am separate from you and from everything else in the world.    Being separate – I am obviously alone, therefore I have reason to fear.  We are programmed to survive.  It is the first instinct that we have.  If I believe that you are separate from me, I then have every reason to fear you, regardless of what you say.  It does not matter whether or not you, today, are intent on my harm, what matter is that you are in a position to cause me harm unless I can control you or protect myself against the possibility, however small, that someday, for some reason, you may feel the need or desire to harm me.  All of this is predicated upon the belief that this reality that I can see, touch, and hear is the ultimate reality.  When I say “I”, I believe that it is as true for me, as it is for each cell in my body.  I am the totality of the consciousness that pervades every atom in my body and so I cannot claim that each cell does not see itself as, as much of an “I”, as I see myself.  So it is easy for me to see a liver cell finding it hard to conceptualize a lung cell as sharing a common “I”.

If we understood that we are all cells in the same body, whether I am a brain cell, a heart cell or a cell in the rectum.  The body requires the use of each cell in order to survive, therefore each cell shares the same I in every way that matters – each cell shares the same “I” in every way that matters to the ultimate survival of the body.  Every cell in my body is not in a me, you, them relationship with each other cell but in an “I” relationship in the only way that really matters.  If the liver goes down, soon the pancreas will follow, then the kidneys, the lungs, the heart and the brain.  One day, we will realize that the health of our bodies and all of the diseases that seem to plague it are closely tied to our sense of separateness that would logically pervade every cell sharing the same body consciousness.

If I was taught from an early age that I am because you are, which is because they are, which is because we are One.  If we were taught to believe that the illusion is our separateness and not our connectedness – we would have not fear of the “other”.  We do not see the air, but we are taught to believe that it is there even if we cannot see it.  Ants, bees and many other insects function as one body – we may say colony but that is only our vision of their reality.  To the ant and the bee, they are only separate in function and contribution but not in being.  Therefore the one is never alone, and the whole is never unguarded.  There is no fear of each other, and together they act upon that which should be feared.  There are places in the world where it is only a matter of minutes before one bee becomes one thousand bees.  One bee may seem threatened, but with those odds, it soon becomes the threat.

The Golden Rule tells us to do unto others as we would have others do unto ourselves.  In Genesis, we are told that, yes, we are our brothers keepers.  In Leviticus 19:33-34 it is said, ³³ “And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.  ³⁴ But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” Jesus and other spiritual teachers tell us that we are to go further – that we are meant to go further.  Jesus, in Luke 10:25-28 ²⁵ “And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? ²⁶He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? ²⁷And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. ²⁸And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do and thou shalt live.” 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.  29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? “

30″ And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.   31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.   32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.   33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,  34 And went to him , and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.   36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?   37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.” To understand what God means by “neighbor” or “brother”, Jesus uses this example which, at the time, would be the equivalent of telling the story to an Israeli and instead of Samaritan – using a member of Hamas.

I consider myself to be a very spiritual person, yet, it has taken me until now to understand the full import of loving my neighbor as myself.  I have heard so many people, Christians, say to me that they live a certain lifestyle while there is such poverty in the world because, “They worked hard for what they have, they earned it.”  Or, they may say that they, “give to the poor” or to charity.  But that is not what Jesus is saying here, it does not say give what is left after you give to yourself. Or, give what is comfortable, after you give to yourself.  It is saying, think of others in the same way as you think of yourself.  Care for others as you would care for yourself, not after but in the same moment, in the same breath with the same love.  It says give to others what you would give to yourself, because you earned it for yourself and for your brother. If we all did this, then no one would be without enough.  This could be called many names, it could be said that I am talking about socialism or even worse, communism – but I am quoting the Bible, I am speaking about religion.  Yet, I am really speaking about the topic I began this with, fear.  Fear is as responsible as greed and selfishness for the mess that we are in.

We fear that we will not have enough to share, yet in truth, if we do not share we will not have enough.  No one rises up with a full belly.  No one steals when his needs are met.  The storehouse is dwindling and if the owners don’t begin to share, the peasants will take it over.  It is a story that is repeated time and time again throughout history.  We must begin to allow ourselves to open to the belief that we are not separate unless we separate ourselves.  We are all connected by the Spirit that runs through the One Body. We are One in reality, we are One in necessity, and we are One in God.  The only way that we will guarantee our own health and survival is to care for the health and survival of the entire Body of which we are all a part.  Here is another of my favorite stories that exemplifies this point.

There is a story told in Kabbalah:

“With an angel for his guide, the visitor is first ushered through the gates of Hell, which, he is surprised to find, are made of finely wrought gold. The gates, in fact, are incomparably lovely, as is the verdant land­scape that lies beyond them. All this is quite astonish­ing to the visitor, who turns to his angelic guide in disbelief. “It’s all so beautiful,” the man says. “The sight of the meadows and mountains . . . the sounds of the birds singing in the trees … the scent of thousands of flowers. . . .” And then another scent catches his atten­tion: the aroma of food being prepared.

The angel leads the visitor toward an immense ban­quet table laden with every sort of delicacy. However, something is terribly wrong. Hundreds of people are seated around the table, but they all appear to be starv­ing. Their emaciated condition is painful to see in the midst of such bounty, but even worse is the frustration and anger they are obviously experiencing. Each person at the table has a long-handled spoon chained to his wrist. The handles are so long that no one can place food in his mouth. But that does not prevent the con­demned souls from trying. For all eternity, they are struggling to feed themselves a meal that is right before them, but that might as well be a hundred miles away. Taken aback by the tragic spectacle, the visitor is now more than ready to visit Paradise, and the angel immediately complies. At once they pass through an­other set of golden gates, alike in every detail to the gates of hell. In fact, a great deal about the two locales seems to be identical, including the banquet table and the diners chained to their utensils. But the people around this table are well fed and happy, despite the fact that their circumstances are identical to those of the damned. The difference is not in the physical situa­tion, but in how they respond to it. As you might have guessed by now, instead of trying to feed themselves, each of the souls at this table feeds the one across the table.”

Matthew 13:24-43 (King James Version)

24Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:  25But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.  26But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.  27So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?  28He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?  29But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.  30Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

An open mind is an amazing thing.  One day I realized that if I needed an answer to a question, and I could not find it, I just had to leave my mind open – eventually the answer would come.  I extended this to my religious reading and an understanding of the parables of the New Testament and the Books of the Old Testament.  So, in reading the above parable of the Sower and the weeds I could not understand how it was that the Sower thought that the good crop would be picked up with the weeds.  All of the stories are told in terms of the reality that we know so that we could draw a parallel.  However, I easily remove weeds from my garden upon the first appearance because they do not appear alike.  Suddenly, during the Presidential election I saw the true meaning of weeds.  I saw people who said that they believed in God, were “good” Christians and Jews turn into hateful bigoted people.

So what is the Harvest?  Many like to think of it as the “end of days”, when in fact there is no one end of days.  There are many fields in God’s world and many have seen an end of days.  Surely there was an end of days in Germany for six million Jews.  There seems to be an end of days in Darfur.  There was an end of days in Bosnia, Rwanda, and certainly parts of Iraq.  There certainly was an end of days for the thousands killed and still dying due to the World Trade Center attack, and Hurricane Katrina.  No, the Harvest is not connected with the end of days, it is a time when we are ripe and bear fruit.  That time is not the same for everyone – It is how we each answer when we are called to show ourselves.  When Obama ran for President I saw so many people grasp at straws to find a politically correct reason to fear his being elected, but their desperation exposed their truth.  They had been living as hypocrites, going to their Churches and Temples lying to the God that demands that we love each other as ourselves, perhaps even lying to themselves.  The Harvest came to the Germans.  Those who risked their own lives to save the Jews were the good crop, and those who turned on them were the tares.

The same holds true in Rwanda, there are so many stories of people who risked their lives to protect those whose lives were threatened, and those who did nothing – harvest.  Today, as millions of people lose their jobs and their homes – while others still spend tens of thousands of dollars on accessories rather than coming to their brother’s aid are showing the fruit – or lack of fruit that they truly bear.  It is not about tithing, it is not about giving of what is extra or comfortable – it is about giving what is needed – even when it requires a sacrifice, because to sacrifice is to make sacred.

Whether our hatred surfaces, our greed, or our indifference to all other life on earth, all is coming to the surface during these testing times.  The real enemy is never the one standing in your face holding a gun – no, the real enemy is the one standing at your back holding a gun on you while he tells you that he is your friend.  There is no greater enemy to man, to the world, or to God than the hypocrite.  The Harvest is when there is no choice but to act in accordance with who we are.  It is when the circumstances are so dire as to force a response that is true to the self – and when no response is equal to a response.

I once firmly believed that the enemy was Religion.  Clearly, at a time of readily available weapons of mass destruction Religion, being divisive, and the cause of so much death and destruction over the past two thousand years had to be our greatest enemy.  This was a disheartening belief, because we cannot do anything about religion.  Then one day I was reading about what it means to be a Jew.  I read:

“How could anyone who believes in the God of the Bible treat his fellow human beings, all of whom are created in God’s image, with less than compassion?”  “To Jews, compassion is the keystone of being a mensch, and so basic a requirement of being human that the Talmud’s Rabbis were willing, at least in theory, to read an unkind person out of the Jewish Community….  From Judaism’s perspective, an unkind person is presumably a non-believer”.

All of this would be intensified for Christianity because it is upon the rock of brotherly love and compassion that Jesus built His Church.  With or without religion, even with belief in One God and One Way – there will still be hypocrites because there is a universal belief in One God, and that God demands that we love and that we understand that we are our brother’s keepers.  Yet, there are still those hypocrites who place themselves above and apart from God by choosing to pretend to live in the image of God while living in the image of the deceiver.  We can only worship and honor God, the noun, by living God, the verb.  So, for many different reasons, the Harvest is coming to, perhaps more fields at once than ever before.  In a sense, it is a time of Revelation, as it was originally depicted – a time when all that has been hidden is being revealed – a time when however hard we try to disguise ourselves – we can no longer hide.  We are in a time when there are only two paths on which to walk – the path for those who are God-ing and choose to serve all as needed, as brothers and sisters under God, and the other path, the one for those who cannot bear to serve any except themselves and those they consider their own.

The road is forked and we must walk that path of who we are.  I never really grasped the big deal made of hypocrites in the Bible before now.  Now, I realize that a hypocrite is a promised vote that cannot be counted on, a promised service that cannot be depended on, a promised hand that cannot be trusted to be there, a promised fire that will cause one to freeze, a promised meal that will cause one to starve, and a promised ally that will cause one’s defeat.  The hypocrite is the one you trust to be there and because of whom you look no further.  The enemy that you know can make you strong; the one that you don’t know will destroy you.  We don’t need to eliminate religion – we need religion to eliminate hypocrites.  In the days to come religion too, will be revealed, it will be known by its members.  A whole is the sum of its parts.  It is perhaps the decade of harvest, and what will be separated out will be the hypocrites.  What are the “Meek” who will inherit the earth?  Perhaps meek means simple – clear – transparent.  Perhaps it is the true, the transparent who will inherit the earth.

Falling in love is as easy as anything else that we fall into.  It begins as an accident, if one believes in such things as accidents.  It requires merely paying no attention to what we are doing.  We cannot plan where we fall in love, nor can we plan with whom we fall in love.  As all seemingly accidental occurrences, we are completely unaware of the process.

It is like walking through a field and tripping on something that causes us to fall.  When we land, we find that right in front of our faces is the most rare, exquisite, delicate, beautiful rose that we have ever seen.   It is a rose that seems designed by God with a fragrance that caresses our hearts in a way that nothing else ever has.  The fragrance awakens our senses to all that is beautiful in ourselves and in the world around us.

If it were a Rose – rare, beautiful and delicate, what would we do with it?  Most of us would seek the best way to nurture and maintain it.  We would search for the proper soil, the proper nutrition, the proper light and amount of water.  We would tend to it – doing whatever we can to insure that it was safe from harm.  All of this, we would do to preserve this rose.  Yet, we do not realize that love is no less precious, delicate, beautiful and no less a gift from God than a rose, and requires no less attention and care.

The soil that this love grows in is the relationship between those who are in love.  The relationship is not the love, it is the soil where the love is grown and nurtured.  So how do we care for this soil?  How do we protect it?  How do we keep it from harmful elements?  What should the soil consist of?  It should consist of trust, respect, unselfishness, forgiveness, and unconditional support.  It should be watered every day with the waters of compassion and gratitude.  And it should always be in a place where the light that forever shows it’s beauty and illuminates its value.

Love should be guarded constantly from the hazardous poisons of anger, resentment, envy, jealousy and thoughtlessness.  These are toxins that slowly steal the nutrients from this special rose and cause it to dry up, and to wither away before our very eyes.  Particularly damaging in an irreversible way are hurtful words – they burrow into the rose of love and find their way to its root, slowly eating at its anchor in the soil, cutting it off from any ability to receive nutrients.

When the majority of us are given this special rose by God, we treat it as though it were a weed, able to take care of itself.  The difference between a weed and a rose is that a weed takes for itself from all that is around it, while a rose only gives of itself and the more that it cherished, the more beautiful and fragrant it becomes, and the more joy and peace it brings into our lives.  We do not need to care for a weed because it will feed itself – absorbing the good in our hearts.  Those things that destroy a rose, nourish a weed.  We must care for those things that bring us joy – those things that rob us take care of themselves.

Perhaps we do not value love because it does not elevate our social status, it may just do the opposite.  Or it could be that we do not care for it because it does not put money into our pockets.  It certainly does not feed the ego.  It feeds the heart.  Maybe we don’t value it because it is a product of God’s love for us and not a product of the world.  It may just be that we don’t value what we don’t pay for.  When in truth, we may not pay to acquire love, but we never seem to stop paying for losing it.  God works in the opposite way from the world.  The world exacts the highest price for that which it values the most, while losing what you paid for is free.  God’s greatest gifts,  love, friendship, trust, respect, forgiveness, the air that we breathe, the food that we eat, the earth that we live on, all are given to us for free.  However, we pay a price greater than any man could measure, when we misuse, or destroy any of them.

God does not ask us to earn what we have not yet received.  God asks us to realize, appreciate and love all that we are given.  God does not punish us for destroying what we have been given either, God does not charge us for destroying or losing what we have been given, we pay through the lack of what we destroy.  We only ever suffer at our own hands.  God gives, man takes away.  Love is the greatest gift of all – it is the gift of God himself.

It is time that we begin to think – begin to awaken to our responsibility for the gifts that we are given – those gifts are the gifts that give life, and even greater than this – they give life its value.  If you are lucky enough to be given a rose of love, don’t think that it requires nothing from you.  Don’t think that the things of God work like the things of the world.  If you can get the money, you can have anything of the world.  If you can get the money, you can keep anything of the world.  There is not enough money in the world to buy what God gives us, love, life, or the air that we breathe.    Money cannot maintain the things of God.  And when we lose, through neglect, greed, selfishness, or carelessness the things of God, there is no cost in the world that can equal the price that we must pay.   What cannot be bought, cannot be replaced.  God’s gifts seem to come to us from out of nowhere, accidentally, or they are just there when we arrive.  This does not by any means give them less value because there is only one source that can create from out of nothing – out of nowhere – out of Itself – the unknowable, incomprehensible, One True Source – God.

Yesterday I read an article in People magazine about heroes.  There was one woman who found out that her neighbor had to sell his house because the medication that he needed to stay alive cost $6000.00 a month, and they could not afford to keep up the house and keep him alive, and so she held a fundraiser to raise the money to give them time in their home.  Another story was about a man who learned that one of the students in his school could not complete an assignment describing her room – because she did not have a room.  Her father had lost his job and they were living in one room of a relative’s house.  This man invited the entire family, pets and all to live with them.  The last story was about a family that because, again, of loss of employment was losing their home.  They contacted their minister who had set up a program to buy the homes of those who were losing them and allow them to pay rent to stay in their homes until they could buy them back at a greatly reduced price.

These were stories of “Heroes”, however, things will not get better until these stories are no longer heroic but become commonplace.  Most families today must work two jobs in order to survive.  If, God forbid, a life threatening illness strikes and the only medication that will keep yourself, your partner, spouse or child alive costs $6000.00 a month, then the reality is that most of us have to begin making arrangements for the funerals of our loved-ones while they are still alive because paying for the medication for most of us is not even a matter of keep the house or die.  There is no either or.  And it will get worse before it gets better.

Why is the cost of living so high?  Why would life saving medication cost $6000.00 a month?  Here is the reason:

“A new report by the consumer health organization Families USA refutes the pharmaceutical industry’s claim that high and increasing drug prices are needed to sustain research and development. The report documents that drug companies are spending more than twice as much on marketing, advertising, and administration than they do on research and development; that drug company profits, which are higher than all other industries, exceed research and development expenditures; and that drug companies provide lavish compensation packages for their top executives.

The report comes on the heels of a recent Families USA analysis that found prices rose more than twice the rate of inflation last year for the 50 most-prescribed drugs to seniors.

Among the nine pharmaceutical companies examined in the report (Merck, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmacia, Abbott Laboratories, American Home Products, Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, and Allergan), all but one (Eli Lilly) spent more than twice as much on marketing, advertising, and administration than they did on research and development, and Lilly spent more than one and one-half times as much. Six out of the nine companies made more money in net profits than they spent on research and development last year.

The report also documents profligate spending on compensation packages for top pharmaceutical executives. The executive with the highest compensation package in the year 2000, exclusive of unexercised stock options, was William C. Steere, Jr., Pfizer’s Chairman, who made $40.2 million. The executive with the highest amount of unexercised stock options was C.A. Heimbold, Jr., Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Chairman and CEO, who held $227.9 million in unexercised stock options.

“Pharmaceutical companies charging skyrocketing drug prices like to sugar coat the pain by saying those prices are needed for research and development,” said Ron Pollack, Families USA’s executive director. “The truth is high prices are much more associated with record-breaking profits and enormous compensation for top drug company executives.”

Pollack added, “Drug companies’ commitments to research and development are dwarfed by those companies’ expenditures for marketing, advertising, and administration.”

In 2000, the pharmaceutical industry was, once again, the most profitable U.S. industry, and profit margins in the industry were nearly four times the average of Fortune 500 companies. According to the
Families USA report, three companies (Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Abbott Laboratories) received twice as much in net profits than they spent on research and development. Three other companies (Eli Lilly, Schering-Plough, and Allergan) received more money in net profits than they spent on research and development.

‘The pharmaceutical industry’s repetitious cry that research and development would be curtailed if drug prices are moderated is extraordinarily misleading,” said Pollack. “If meaningful steps are taken to ameliorate fast-growing drug prices, it is corporate profits, expenditures on marketing, and high executive compensation that are more likely to be affected, not research and development’”

We, the taxpayers, the consumers, the workforce of the country are the foundation upon which the wealthy have built, and maintained their mansions.  Things will not change until those who hoard the resources release them.  We have been reduced to a thing that is called a consumer.  Imagine that for every ten times more that the executive makes over that of the average worker, that executive rises one story above the people.  Back in 1980 when they made fifty times more than the workers the height was only five stories above us – we were still people and we still mattered as human beings.  Today they range from 30 stories above us to 1900 stories above us.  The only difference being what type of bug we look like to them, a beetle an ant or a gnat.  We have lost any resemblance to humanity in their eyes.

So, they do with us what they must in order to maintain their elevated living.  If it means laying off some and overworking others for less pay, it doesn’t matter.  If it means pricing a drug out of reach of most of the people who will need it, it doesn’t matter. If it means selling us drugs or products that are known to cause injury or fatality – who cares, it just means a few less bugs.  No one with a lingering sense of humanity can take home tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation at the expense of hundreds or thousands of families, if they considered these families human.  But they have risen too high to see, that we have not become less human, even under the labels of workers, consumers, or collateral damage – they have.  Below is information from Fair Economy.org.  It is a Washington based organization that keeps track of these things.  This is greed, not Democracy that we seem desperate to maintain.  Corporations today are no longer crops that nurture the people, build communities through jobs and the services that they bring to our towns, requiring protection to maintain their growth.  No, left to their own devices they have become weeds, which left unchecked strangle the roots of the good plants until everything else is dead.

We may talk about the needs of small business, but the greatest need of small business is a level field in which to grow, the small plumbing supply company that services the community and knows and cares for every employee is pushed out of business by Home Depot.

Small business is connected with the land on which it stands, the people that it serves, and the employees that it hires.  Small business in a part of the community in which it exists and because of that there is mutual support and respect.  Large corporations are like weeds, there is no land that it is native to, no particular field in which it must grow, no need to personally connect with the people that it employs or serves because it is impersonal.

As things continue to spiral down, many people talk about this as a cycle, one of many, and they throw out different timeframes for its completion.  That is nice.  But the truth is that this is a cycle – it is a material cycle that is coming to an end.  At the same time we are entering a spiritual cycle.  This is one where we value spiritual principals over material gain, principals like brotherhood, compassion, equality, sharing, and love.

We can’t jump on a new wheel until we either jump off of the old one, or the old one just breaks.  Over the next couple of years many, many people will be jumping onto the new.  Those who do make the change by becoming members of the family of humanity and assume a responsibility to that greater family, understanding that it is all for one and one for all, will escape the very worst of what is coming.  Clearly, the higher you are the harder you will fall.  So, everyone who is already on the ground floor has experienced the worst.  From here, we must learn to come together and help each other.  It is clearly a time to reinvent ourselves and re-create our goals to be spiritual ones, re-invent the family unit to include a greater family, and most of all – return to community, a life that once supported our ancestors through the hardest of times.  And learn, learn from where we are, know that God gave us this lesson for us to grow.  Never give up, just begin a new and better life with the rewards of love, family and friendship instead of money, power and fame.

We speak about thinking outside of the box, but what we don’t think about is that there is no amount of “Outside of the box” that is outside of God.  When we have an idea – it is God’s idea.  When we think of a new form of worship – it is God’s thought.  Regardless of what we do or what we think of – ultimately, it comes from God.  Even war was not a product of man but of God.  There are many paths to becoming one with God.  Most of these paths have nothing to do with religion, they have to do with gaining understanding, and faith.  One path is fear – through fear we learn that there is nothing to fear in God.  Through the path of loss we learn that there is nothing that can be lost because all is One in God.  Through hatred – we learn that there is nothing and no one to hate because we are all One in God.  Through war and killing we learn the value of life and living.  Through prejudice we learn acceptance.  Through betrayal we learn forgiveness.  All of these paths are paths and lessons created by God with the only intention that we find our way to the truth of what we are and what we have always been.

Once there were two villages that had established a very prosperous trade between themselves each growing the crops that the other needed.  They were wealthy villages because they had the benefit of an abundant stream of water.  Yet, with time both villages began to get greedy, charging higher and higher prices for their goods each trying to outdo the other.  After time passed and this greed escalated, crime ensued.  Each village began hating the other and refusing to sell to them.  This hurt both villages because they needed what the other had, but their pride had grown too great.

They did not notice that while they were entrenched in the battle over their egos, the stream was drying up.  Soon the crops that could be grown could barely feed the people, let alone the livestock and it seemed that all were destined to die out. After generations of only the water that could be caught from the little rain that fell was now taken by a total drought.  One night as the leader of each village slept, there appeared to each, an angel.  The angel told each of the leaders that there was a miraculous healing stream only seven miles from their villages.  Each was told to journey to the stream early because the stream only filled with water at a certain time.

Each man protested to the angel saying that there had been no water in that stream for generations it was now mo more than a barren waterbed.  The angel told the men that God had heard the prayers of the villagers and answered them by filling the waterbed with a healing stream that would not only heal the people, but would provide such nutrition to the fields that their crops and livestock would grow beyond anything ever seen before.

Early the next morning, unbeknownst to the other, each man began his journey to the stream.  As the stream came into sight, each man watched in awe as the water quickly filled the once barren bed to the brim.  Yet, the water was murky and did not look fit for crops, and in no way did it seem fit to drink.  Even worse than that, when they finally reached the stream, they were astounded to see the water already draining back into the ground through the same opening that it had entered.  Seeing the other, each man ran back to his village to gather the villagers so that they would arrive before the other and be ready to fetch all what they needed before the other village could take all of the water.

However, the peasants from both villages arrived at the same time and as the water began to fill the stream, a fight broke out over the water with the inhabitants of each village pushing, shoving and hitting the other.  By the time they noticed the water again, the last drops were already draining from the streambed.  Filled with anger and frustration, the villagers returned home with their buckets and their hopes empty.

That night, the angel returned to the dreams of the village leaders.  This time the angel told them that instead of pushing and shoving each other they should throw stones.  The angel told them that God had placed stones on their side of the stream.  The next morning as the villagers once again reached the stream as it was filling up, they looked down, each saw the stones at their feet and began to hurl them at the other villagers.  To their surprise, the stones never hit anyone but all seemed to land in the stream.

When there were no more stones to throw, the exhausted villagers noticed that the water had become so clear that they could see every stone lying on the bottom of the stream.  Even more miraculous than this, was the fact that water no longer emptied.  Just then a little boy from one of the villages cried out, “Mommy, mommy, the stones…they look like hearts”.  And just at that moment all of the villagers felt their anger, and their hatred drain from their souls.  They each drew from the stream all of the water that they needed and resumed their trading and sharing of resources with a new sense of gratitude.

Once upon a time there was a very religious community.  The members gathered everyday to worship God under the guidance of their wise spiritual teacher.  The people were truly God fearing and followed all of Gods’ Laws.  But their leader had a son whose actions troubled the group.

One day the boy, who was four years old, lost his dog.  After searching all day, he sat down in a field crying and as he cried, he noticed a leaf on the ground near his feet.  He happened to be staring at the leaf while he was crying and for the safe return of his dog.  Two days later the dog was returned healthy and happy.  The boy attributed this miracle to the leaf and ran out to the field to find it.  Once he found the leaf he began praying to the leaf every day and carrying it with him wherever he went – he even brought the leaf to bed.

The congregation became concerned by the actions of this child and spoke to his father.  The father simply replied, “It is his path”.  And the congregation went away disappointed.

Soon, the leaf became worn and dry and it crumbled.  The boy was devastated and cried to his father.  His father simply took him back to the field where he found the leaf and said, “Son, look there, that is the tree from which your leaf came, see the thousands of other leaves it also bears, if not for the tree, you would not have had your leaf.  The boy was overcome with awe at the sight of the tree full of leaves and began to worship the tree, going to it and praying everyday with love and thanksgiving for the life of his dog.

Again, the congregation became concerned by the actions of this child and spoke to his father.  The father simply replied, “It is his path”.  And the congregation went away disappointed.

A few months later the tree became diseased and had to be cut down.  And once again the child was distraught beyond consolation.  His father again led the boy to the field and said, “You see this field, this is the field from which your tree and all of these others have come, and it is the field from which your tree grew, from which your leaf grew that saved your dog.  So the boy, once again in awe of the expanse of trees and leaves produced by this field began to lie in the field on the dirt and the grass and pray every day in love and thanksgiving to the field.

Once again, the congregation became concerned by the actions of this child and spoke to his father.  Once again, father simply replied, “It is his path”.  And the congregation went away disappointed.

Shortly after this, the field was sold to a developer who dug up all the trees and covered the field with concrete and buildings.  Now the boy was beyond himself with loss and desperation, there was no more field, so there would be no more trees, no more leaves and no more miracles.  His father calmly took him out into the road and said, “Son, look around you, the earth is covered with fields of trees, with leaves – all come from the earth and the earth comes from God, the Bible says, in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and earth”.  God is the Source from which all things are born.  It is God who created the earth upon which your field grew, from which your tree grew, from which your leaf grew.  All things come from God and all things contain God in the form of His messengers.  You prayed to the angel in the leaf, who sent your message to the angel in the tree, who sent your message to the angel in the field, who sent your message to the angel in the earth – who whispered your prayer to God – and because God heard your prayer from  the leaf, your dog was returned.  So the boy said, “From now on I will honor God and His Angels by giving thanks to everything and everyone on earth, but I will send my deepest prayers to God who is the eternal Source of all.”

The boy grew up to assume his father’s role as teacher, but his congregation expanded greatly because his journey taught him to understand and therefore teach, that all paths were created by God to lead us Home.

God created the world with enough diversity that every being on it could find something or someone to believe in.  God knew that there is nothing on earth, whether it is a blade of grass, a human being, a mosquito, or a brick of gold that does not contain God.  That there is nothing that man can worship in, in which he does not worship in God.  Knowing all, God knows that all things on earth will pass, all form will give way, and everything with a beginning will also have an end.  But what has no beginning and no end is our search for union with our Source, and no end to our need to know ourselves and from where we have come.  In the same way that God created us to know and experience Himself.  So God places before us a leaf – in which He is, and then a tree – in which He is, or a statue or a book – in which He is, knowing, that so long as we seeking signs and forms of Him in the world that is wholly of Him, we will continue to seek until we find Him – who is in every atom of the Universe and within whom, the entire universe is but a tiny atom.   So when you criticize the beliefs of others as not the right belief, remember that there is no belief that is not created by God and so there is no belief, except a belief in God.  Just remember the leaf.

One of the most important phases of maturing is that of growth from self-centering to an understanding relationship to others. A person is not mature until he has both an ability and a willingness to see himself as one among others and to do unto those others as he would have them do to him.Sir Walter Scott

The earth is a growing field. Imagine a seed planted deep within the soil, a seed having to journey through layer after layer of packed earth, finding its way around rocks and other objects until it finally breaks through to the sun—and break through, it will. Yet what apparent insurmountable odds it faces there, deep within the soil. Still, the same soil which seems intent upon blocking its way, contains the nourishment needed for its survival on the journey.

Here, on earth is where the soul comes to learn its greatest lessons. Yet, what is the earth? Live spelled backwards is evil—and on earth what we consider evil is what the earth is made of. It is a wild, dangerous, greedy, and most of all, insatiable planet—a place where every organism large or small seeks one thing—survival. God said to all life, “Be fruitful and multiply”. To survive, each species knows that it must multiply. Microorganisms, bacteria, viruses, grass, weeds, plants, and flowers—all life on earth fights for the same limited space. The less man interferes with a species, the more instinctively and aggressively intent it is on fulfilling what we, as a species, have labeled ‘manifest destiny’. It is the basic driving instinct of all species on earth. Survival is of the fittest. Weeds, trees, and bushes all grow anywhere and everywhere when not checked. Even concrete cannot arrest their growth. Wild animals fight to maintain and then to expand their territory as they seek to expand their herds. Wars are fought on earth over lines drawn in the sand by every species and every organism on the earth. Each species survives at the expense of at least one other species. The earth is one large hungry, greedy, food chain. This doesn’t make the earth less beautiful, but it is necessary to understand the energy of the earth to understand the energy of the body with its instincts and desires —the body into which we each incarnate.
For some species, survival is for the swiftest, and for others, it is the strongest that survive. For yet other species, it is for those that who are best able to scavenge, or appear threatening—and yet, for others—to hide and appear invisible. Yet for some species, such as ants, or bees, survival is in the inborn ability to know what they have to offer their species and to offer it selflessly and without question. Insects seem to be much better prepared to survive than most species—they appear to have mastered the requirements for survival—united we stand divided we fall.

Man is neither swift, nor physically equipped to adapt to the harsh and changing climate of the earth. He has been given the mental and physical agility necessary to manipulate his environment. Man has also been gifted with the heart and the compassion to manage it with benevolence. We have been given the earth to live on, to grow on and to care for, but not, despite what we believe, to master and destroy. She is not ours.

In nineteen seventy-seven there was an object discovered in space. It was difficult to identify—a comet, an asteroid, a planet. No one was sure at first. Finally it was called a centaur, the first of many objects in its category that would be discovered. This first centaur was called Chiron. Chiron was, as all of the centaurs, half man and half horse. With each new discovery in space, some new door is opened here on earth—some new direction taken—some knowledge finally comprehended or information finally received by man. With the discovery of the centaur, Chiron, came the age of holistic medicine treating the mind, body, and the spirit as a whole—understanding that to cure a part of the whole without addressing the whole—ultimately cures nothing.

In mythology, Chiron was a master of all forms of art, of learning, of philosophy, of self-defense and of combat. Chiron turned each hero who passed through his cave into a true hero—a whole; a hero is not simply the one who can defeat the greatest or strongest foe, but the one who can recognize the greatest foe. This is often within the self. He did not simply give them techniques, he gave them appreciation, value and honor. Chiron did not only train the greatest fighters, he trained the greatest healers, musicians, scholars, physicians, and rulers. To teach these things, he had, in some way, embody them.

Chiron was an exceptional centaur according to legend. There were a few, who, like him, were healers, or philosophers; the majority of centaurs could not really be trusted for they were too susceptible to their desires when they became intoxicated. When intoxicated, they were robbers, murderers, and rapists, simply put, they were untamed animals. One day, as one of the legends goes, a group of centaurs became drunk and went on a killing spree. Chiron went out among them trying to bring peace and was accidentally wounded by Hercules, his dearest student, who mistook him for one of the wild centaurs. However, unlike the other centaurs—Chiron could not die—he was immortal, and as such, he faced an eternity of suffering. In spite of his pain, he continued to teach, he continued to love, and he continued to share his wisdom. In the end, Chiron made the ultimate sacrifice—he sacrificed his immortality to end the suffering of Prometheus who was being punished by Zeus for bringing fire to mankind. Because of Chiron’s selflessness and willingness to sacrifice his immortality to end the suffering of another, Zeus took Chiron up to the heavens and gave him his own constellation.

Since the discovery of Chiron we have all become more and more aware of our lower nature. All that we consider evil—all that we consider vile is nothing more than the natural inherent tendencies of our physical nature—our earthly nature. The earth is void of conscience. We, as spiritual beings, are the conscience of the earth—man brings that conscience from God. Conscience is not natural to our environment—not natural to our physical bodies—and not natural to the spiritually unevolved ego. The earth tests the spirit within each of us. To fulfill our destinies, we must not destroy the earth herself, but the world that man has built on the earth by his egos need to be better than its Creator. Man has built a false world and in seeking to become its master, he has become its slave.  In ancient times the donkey or “ass” was a symbol of man’s lower animal nature, just as the body of Chiron.  In the Bible, Jesus finds it necessary to enter the gates of Jerusalem riding an ass.  However, the spiritual meaning of this is somewhat different than the biblical one.  The city of Jerusalem, at the time was a representation of all that is unholy, nowhere did greed not exist.  It was in essence ruled by the lowest part of man, his greed and his desires.  Even in the Temple money was changed.  And the temples did not permit entrance to everyone who wanted to worship regardless of economic status.  It was a city where all catered to the wealthy.  This was why the disciples were astonished that Jesus said that a camel would pass through the eye of a needle easier than a rich man enter the gates of Heaven.  It seemed at the time that wealth was a gift from God because it was the wealthy who seemed to gain the closest audience with Him.  So Jesus rode into the city on the ass, showing all that his spiritual nature was superior to the animal nature – that he mastered the animal in man.

The Ancient creators of the zodiac set the Heavens into a circle with twelve divisions, each one represented by an animal that to them symbolized an aspect of God, or, perhaps the aspect of God capable of controlling the represented aspect of nature.  Jesus came in with the age of Pisces, called by ancients, the age of the fish.  Note the references to fish during the time, however, simply coming up with ideas of the meaning of these references to fish gives us nothing.  The view of fish in ancient times was that they were a species where the large always gobble up the small.  Before language, before writing, this was what was symbolized by fish. In essence, fish was the sign-language for the strong eating up the weak.  Jesus was the fisher of men, because he came to save the small fish from the mouths of the larger fish.  Has this not been the greatest underlying theme of the age of Pisces?  It was so clearly exemplified by the Catholic Church gobbling up all of the smaller Christian groups, destroying their wealth of scripture in order to create their own.  It continues with small businesses gobbled up by larger business, homes taken away to build high-rises, this is the age of the fish, in which the fisher of men appeared, not to eradicate our sins, but to lead us away from being fish.

We are not truly human until we conquer the beast and become humane. Until we do this we are no more than centaurs, no more than fish. For most of us, the intoxicant is not alcohol it is money and the wealth and power that it affords us. And, like the centaurs, once intoxicated by money, our higher selves are consumed by the lower nature, unless we are strong and able to resist the temptation to indulge ourselves in that taste for money. We are driven to consume just as every other organism on the earth—we become predators because it is natural to do so.

In the Gospel of Thomas or the Secret Sayings of Jesus, Jesus said,
Blessed is the lion that the human consumes so that the lion becomes human, Cursed is the human that the lion consumes so that the human becomes the lion. When the human eats the lion—devours the beast—it is the soul which has conquered the beast to become humane. The beast, once conquered, serves the soul and thus serves God. The things of the soul are attended to with the aid of the beast that is now lovingly serving the soul. In the twelve labors of Heracles, one of the labors was that he had to kill a lion that had, up to that point, been indestructible. Once Heracles had managed to slay the lion, he kept those parts of the lion that gave it its strength, and wore them as armor. Thus, taking the power of the beast and adding it to his own, he protected himself as he went on his quest. This is man consuming the lion. If the lion consumes the man, however, and becomes human the soul becomes enslaved by the passions and desires of the lower self—the animal self which is of the earth.

I have heard it said that man is the only animal who kills without necessity. I am not sure that this is true. I once had a cat that spent a great deal of his time outdoors. Regularly, we would find dead birds or dead mice that he proudly brought into the house, and presented to us as gifts with no intention of or desire to eat them. He carried his conquests with what appeared to be great pride. Perhaps he was showing us his skill as a hunter—who knows—but what is certain, is that he did not hunt for food—he hunted because it was natural to his species to do so. Perhaps for the cat, like for man himself, the reason for the hunt has been lost in the cans of cat food and bags of crunchy tasty nuggets that he had grown accustomed to eating. But his instincts as a predator were too deeply ingrained in the cellular memory of his body—in the genetic memory of his species since it is born of the predatory earth. My cat, like many other domesticated animals, collected the trophies of his kills because, as an animal, he was a killer. A man mounts his kills on his walls—a tribute to the animal within himself which he has not as yet conquered.

Here on earth there is no evil—there is only the earth. What we call evil is only nature. It is the opposite of spiritual but that does not make it evil. We just need to realize, without judgment, or labels, that we are not this.
Fear is the prevailing emotion on a planet where survival entails eating or being eaten, conquering or being conquered. All that we consider as sins are but the outgrowths of fear; fear of not having enough to survive; fear of not being strong enough to survive; which, ultimately, is fear of death. As we evolve spiritually our fear diminishes because it is replaced by faith. It is faith which raises us above our fears. Faith, affords us the security that we need to rest in the knowledge that there is nothing to fear in God’s universe.

Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations —Delivered October 25, 1985 by Leon Shenandoah, Tadodaho, Haudenosaunee

Listen to the words of the Creator given to the first United Nations—the Haudenosaunee—over 1,000 years ago:
The Chiefs of the Haudenosaunee shall be mentors of the people for all time. The thickness of their skins shall be seven spans which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive action, and criticism. Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will, and their minds full of a yearning for the welfare of the people. With endless patience, they shall carry out their duty.

Their firmness shall be tempered with a tenderness for their people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodging in their minds, and all their words and actions shall be marked by calm deliberation. In every nation there are wise and good people. These should be appointed Chiefs. They should be the advisors of their people and work for the good of all the people, and their power comes from the “Great Peace.”

A chief must never forget the Creator of mankind; never forget to ask the Creator for help. The Creator will guide our thoughts and strengthen us as we work to be faithful to our sacred trust and restore harmony among all peoples, all living creatures, and Mother Earth.

We were instructed to carry a love for one another and to show a great respect for all the beings of this earth. In our ways spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics. When people cease to respect and express gratitude for these many things, then all life will be destroyed, and human life on this planet will come to an end.
These are our times and responsibilities. Every human being has a sacred duty to protect the welfare of our Mother Earth, from whom all life comes.
In order to do this we must recognize the enemy—the one within us. We must begin with ourselves. We must live in harmony with the Natural World and recognize that excessive exploitation can only lead to our own destruction.

We cannot trade the welfare of our future generations for profit now. We must abide by the Natural Law or be victims of its ultimate reality. We must stand together, the four sacred colors of humans, as the one family we are, in the interest of peace.

We must abolish nuclear and conventional weapons of war. When warriors are leaders, then you will have war. We must raise leaders of peace.

We must unite the religions of the world as the spiritual force strong enough to prevail in peace. It is no longer good enough to cry, “Peace.”

We must act peace, live peace, and march in peace in alliance with the people of the world. We are the spiritual energy that is thousands times stronger than nuclear energy. Our energy in the combined will of all people with the spirit of the Natural World, to be of one body, one heart and one mind for peace.

We propose, as a resolution for peace, that October 24th be designated as a Day of Peace, and a world cease-fire take place in honor of our children and the Seventh Generation to come.

Suppose you and I have had an argument. If you have beaten me instead of my beating you, then are you necessarily right and am I necessarily wrong? If I have beaten you instead of your beating me, then am I necessarily right and are you necessarily wrong? Is one of us right and the other wrong? Are both of us right or are both of us wrong? If you and I don’t know the answer, then other people are bound to be even more in the dark. Whom shall we get to decide what is right? Shall we get someone who agrees with you to decide? But if he already agrees with you, how can he decide fairly? Shall we get someone who agrees with me? But if he already agrees with me, how can he decide? Shall we get someone who disagrees with both of us?… But waiting for one shifting voice [to decide for] another is the same as waiting for none of them. Harmonize them all with the Heavenly Equality, leave them to their endless changes, and so live out your years. What do I mean by harmonizing them with the Heavenly Equality? Right is not right; so is not so. If right were really right, it would differ so clearly from not right that there would be no need for argument. If so were really so, it would differ so clearly from not so that there would be no need for argument. Forget the years; forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!

Taoism. Chuang Tzu 2

Around the age of nine, I found my need to find the “right” path to God overwhelming most other things in my life.  So while attending a Yiddish school on Saturdays, I reserved Sundays to attend as many different churches and Sunday schools that I could get to and also gain entrance.  It seems now to have been a young age for such a quest, but at the time, the world in which I lived seemed so chaotic and unjust, that finding the way to God felt to me to be the only journey that could in anyway offer me peace.  My Jewish upbringing taught me to question and so, of all the churches that I attended, my shortest stay was in the Catholic Church where, because of my insistent questioning, I was asked to leave and not return.  I think that my Jewish experience, on a whole was the most enriching in my life, yet, at the same time, the words that I learned were spoken by the Christ resonated profoundly in my heart.  As I went from church to church, somehow I found it difficult to feel that I had found the home that I was seeking.

Yet, even when I ran out of churches to attend, Jesus stayed with me insisting that I find a way to accept Him into my life.  Part of my problem was I felt that to embrace Jesus was to betray my Jewish heritage, which I so deeply valued.  The other problem that I had was that it seemed a contradiction to say in one statement that we were all children of God and then in another that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God.  I spent many hours in silence asking God to help me find a way to make peace with this contradiction.  Other times I just wished that he would go away and leave me alone.  I debated the concept of Christ for hours on end with my Christian friends but never mention it to my Jewish ones.  Inside I had no peace.  My intense questioning and debate caused one Catholic Priest to actually come to my door and ask me to stay away from the Catholic friends that I had who were members of his church.  It was not my intention to cause them to question their faith, only to seek a way for them to convince me.

Then there finally came a time when my life was so consuming that I did find a way to push the entire question away from my conscious attention.  I did this for some years, although during the whole time I heard myself time and time again quoting something that Jesus had said.  And then one day, I simply felt the Christ consciousness within my soul, without explanation, without intellectual understanding, and contrary to popular belief, without invitation.  From that moment on, not only did I have a new vision and understanding of the Christ, but of God and the Universe.  My level of comprehension was lifted above the world of form and shape to a world of essence and consciousness.  I began writing things that I thought were my own words to only later find out that they were in fact his.  What was even more profound was that these words of his, were spoken by Krishna, and the Buddha before him – I was expanding.  I started to rise above the judgments and classifications that were once in my mind to a place of wholeness and acceptance which had no real words to explain.  And this was only the first step on my journey.

Each scripture is written by the same hand.  Each one is speaking in a different symbolic language.  Each different scripture resonates for the souls who vibrate to that language.  We each vibrate to different symbols, and God, in all His Wisdom, comes in the shape and speaks in the symbols understood by all.  Still, as I read through the scriptures and the mythology of various peoples, the characters may seem different but they are basically the same.  The exact description of their experiences may differ, but the underlying message is the same.

So, when someone begins to speak in the language of their religion, and I feel the urge to correct them and explain the “right” way – I push myself past that impulse and find that regardless of what the differences are in our spiritual convictions, we can always meet in the common area, called Love.  It is my belief that God would not have created us with such diversity if it was His intention that we look, think, live, or believe in exactly the same way.  I also don’t believe that He meant for us to be repelled by our differences or to see them as conflicting differences of better or worse, but simply enhancing differences, each offering a new shade of beauty – a different level of experience.  Just as we have seven major charkas, each one vibrating to a different color, between each of the seven are many smaller ones in varying shades of the colors that they lie between.  Throughout our many lives, each one of the charkas is dominant in our experience of ourselves and of our lives, until we finally reach the crown chakra.

Just like different sizes of shoes, each size fits different feet, but no one fits “better” feet than the other.  They are just different.  Each is a joyous expression of God.  And He experiences Himself through us and through our experiences.  The more varied we are the more varied His joy.

Like everyone in the world today, I have been seeking an answer to why we have arrived at this difficult place in history.  The most simplistic reason is that we really are not able to share this planet – we have not learned the true meaning of being a neighbor, and so we have not learned the meaning of brotherhood, because if we had, than sharing would come naturally. If we knew the meaning of brotherhood, no one would WANT to have more than anyone else – not more things, or more land, or more food, friends more status or a more sacred knowledge of God.  We would want, to have enough, and to be sure that our brothers had enough.  It was Cain who questioned being his brother’s keeper and we all know how that worked out for him. Jesus was not the first to mention the idea of brotherhood, and He taught it 2000 years ago.  The Initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries between 1500 and 1425 BCE were called adelphoi, which means brothers, a Philadelphian was someone who practiced “Brotherly Love”, which is where the name of the city comes from.  The So why is it that we have since traveled to the moon, but not journeyed one step closer to true brotherly love.  Certainly, we know how to say it better now than before and we create stories and books showing the joys of brotherhood, but the concept is as much science fiction as the movies showing the year 2520 with desolate nuked out cities run by mutant robots chasing the five humans left who haven’t killed each other – or is the latter more realistic?

“Do unto others as you would have other do unto you”, why is it that the simple things are the most difficult to grasp?  We can communicate over distances thousands of miles in a matter of seconds, but we can’t “Do unto others as we would have other do unto us”.  I know in my heart that God doesn’t make mistakes, so the fact that it is easier to wrap our legs around our necks and act like a pretzel than it is to love our brothers like ourselves must be a sign along the path.  There must be a real message there for us.  Have our brains grown at the expense of our hearts?  Or did we have to master the easy stuff first, like colonizing Mars before we could be ready to tackle the difficult tasks, like learning to share a planet that we have lived on together for tens of thousands of years.

I believe that thirty percent of the people in the capitalist countries hope that there is a God, and thirty percent fear that there might be a God, and another thirty percent hope that there is a God but that either He is too busy to look at what they are doing, or that He has left much more room to maneuver in His Commandments than meets the eye.  This leaves ten percent who truly believe in their hearts that there is a God.  However even of that ten percent who believe that, there is a God, five percent believe that in the end we will find that He did not give us Ten Commandments but the Ten Suggestions.

If everything in the Bible was meant to be taken literally, few of us alive today would make it through the 613 commandments without passing directly to the down elevator.  It is difficult to believe that after thousands of years of floods, plagues and pestilence, God finally grew so frustrated with man that He decided that the only way to secure mankind’s entrance into Heaven was to beget a son, send him to live a life of the highest form of unconditional love for all, and then have him publically tortured and killed.  I believe with all of my heart that God Almighty, All knowing, All seeing, creator of Heaven and earth could find another way.  And I believe that the other Way is through the experience of our lives on earth.  We have been given Teachers, Jesus being one of them, but not the first, nor the last to show us the Way. In Isaiah 13:15-16 the way to Heaven is stated clearly:

15He that walketh righteously,

and speaketh uprightly;

he that despiseth the gain of oppressions,

that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes,

that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood,

and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

16He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.

Then later in Isaiah: 56:1, the 613 commandments are summed up further this way:

1Thus said Jehovah:

`Keep ye judgment,

and do righteousness,

For near [is] My salvation to come,

And My righteousness to be revealed.

The Way is again made clear by Jesus in Matthew:

19 matt16Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17″Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”
18″Which ones?” the man inquired.
19Jesus replied, ” ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’[4] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[5] “
20″All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
26Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

This is really one of the foundations for my belief in reincarnation.  It seems I have believed in it as early as I could imagine anything, but it really began to make sense when it dawned on me that God is always looking and that fact doesn’t seem to have any impact on most people.  I mean – we can justify our actions to ourselves, and we can allow ourselves an ‘E” for effort, but it seems to me that in actuality God does not really ask much of us considering what we receive.  And I don’t think that He is really all that vague on His Commandments, but being a Loving God, I do believe that what He does give us is time, and He gives that to of us in the form of reincarnation.  After all, God knows that we can’t make the leap from colonizing Mars ALL the way to “Loving our neighbors” in one lifetime.  It takes many lifetimes, with frequent rest periods in between to stretch that far from human to humane.  Each incarnating class doesn’t have a really high number of graduates at a time, but we all do, in our own time, make that final leap off of the wheel of incarnation.

One thing that is very clear, from Osiris, to Horus, Dionysius to Jesus, and from the Buddha, to Krishna is that the first and most difficult step is non-attachment to the material.  God tells us not to make idols out of gold and silver, but we forget that we are also told not to make gold and silver into idols.  We must begin that journey of separation from our very closest traveling companion, the ego.  We have a lot of history with our egos and they have served us well.  What makes it even more difficult is that at no other time in history has the climate been so perfect for an ego.  All the toys – all the battles – and all those big, big, guns.  It was a great deal easier to make a clean brake a few centuries ago when we were too busy needing each other to give the ego that much room to move and groove.  Now, it seems so hard to hurt the egos we love, the egos, which aid in serving us the world on a silver platter.

The spark of God lives within all of us.  The journey towards that spark is one that every living being on the planet shares, and, with or without knowing it, we need each other to complete that journey.  Life, what is really life, is God.  That life which is within each of us also connects us one to the other.  It guides all of us, loves all of us and creates the one common thread that unites each living being to each other and to the Source of Life itself.   For just as we each have a body with many parts, but just one soul, all of creation is also one Body with just One Soul, and that soul is God.

35And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee.  Leviticus 25:35 (King James Version)

7If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:  8But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.  9Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee.   10Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

11For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land  Deuteronomy 15:7 (King James Version)

Psalm 15

A psalm of David.

1 LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy mountain?

2 Those whose walk is blameless,
who do what is righteous,
who speak the truth from their hearts;

3 who have no slander on their tongues,
who do their neighbors no wrong,
who cast no slur on others;

4 who despise those whose ways are vile
but honor whoever fears the LORD;
who keep their oaths even when it hurts;

5 who lend money to the poor without interest
and do not accept bribes against the innocent.
Whoever does these things
will never be shaken.

“Look at yourself, Look at what you are and measure it against what you imagine you are and what your conscience tells you, you must be. Be shocked, America! Be stunned, be overwhelmed by what you see, and feel at the center of your being the purifying fire of remorse.”  Frederick Douglass

This is a small world.  And perhaps it is the shrinking of the world that will ultimately bring us the era of peace that has been prophesied; it is, after all, this small world which has brought us to the entrance of war.

“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today?”

Frederick Douglass

You see, this shrinking world, has dragged the poor, the slaves, and the under privileged into the ‘grand illuminated temple of  ‘liberty’, a temple into which they may only enter carrying a tray of food to serve, a broom to sweep, a new brick to lay, or through the medium of television.   While the wealthy are spared constant images of poverty flashing into their homes over the airwaves -the poor are not afforded the same courtesy.  The wealthy have claimed ownership of the world’s resources.  Lush fruit trees grow in the back yards of the poor but they may only labor in the fields collecting the harvest, they may not eat of it.  The poor go hungry and children die of starvation even in the wealthiest country in the world.

The ability to communicate and to see what goes on in every country affords the oppressed a view of lives which they would not have otherwise known, and it is through those images of wealth that the poor are faced with the clear reflection of their own poverty.  The world is overburdened by mans inequity and mans psyche is overburdened with pain.  People see that there are opportunities they do not share, and yet, those opportunities are advertised as basic human rights.  They see that all they need to advance in life is a good education, but they will almost never be afforded that education.

Now, the technological advances that have turned an entire planet into a neighborhood where to wealthy unknowingly parade their wealth before their neighbors who have nothing.  Every revolution on the planet has been seeded by this.  I have heard many people who had grown up poor, before the world became so small, say that they did not feel poor or feel badly about being poor because everyone else was in the same position. It is when the poor must endure not only their suffering but the constant exposure to those who are greedy and wasteful that the poor, feeling a loss of value, rebel against those who hoard the wealth.  Without a sense of self-worth, without a sense of value, man finds little left to live for and often is vulnerable or unconsciously seeks out a cause to die for that in some way will give value to their having lived.

We live in a world of uncomfortable neighbors who, were it not for technology, would not be so forced into acknowledging the circumstance of the other. Along with creating animosity that had not existed before, between nations and people who really would not have known each other in such intimate terms, it has also created a way to kill each other with a minimum of effort and a maximum of emotional detachment.  Yet, there is something else, something much more important that the shrinking world has made manifest.  It has forced mankind to come face to face with its own hypocrisy.  This hypocrisy is no less evident in a country whose Declaration of Independence states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

This country can state this in its declaration of independence while at the same time supporting slavery and the annihilation of its native peoples.   In an industrialized and technologically advanced world it is necessary to have a workforce that is at least minimally educated.  Because of this necessity, those who once suffered oppression without the education which would awaken their awareness of being oppressed, are now informed of the inequity in which they exist.

The ignorance which once shielded the division of classes is being technologically erased and so society can no longer sustain the division.  We live in the information age, the age of knowledge and knowledge breeds discontent.  What you know can hurt everyone.  Without ignorance, the hypocrisy of inequality is exposed.  Without knowledge, those with vision can only dream, but, with knowledge, those with vision can and do change the world.  Ignorance veils the truth, but once exposed, the truth does set us free.

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . . anywhere in the world.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

It is an inevitable truth that whatever we use to selfishly build ourselves up, will one day be used to tear us down.  At whatever moment we make the choice to use any of God’s gifts to advance one over another, we have secured the weapon of our own demise.  What goes around comes around, what is sent out will return.   The technology that the few have used to covet the resources of the earth that belong to all, is that same technology that is exposing this misuse and forcing mankind to look at what we are, as Frederick Douglass said, and measure it against what we imagine ourselves to be.

Technology has made secrets more difficult to keep and it will slowly but surely make abuses more difficult to profit from.  Those who we have elected to govern us have used our trust to place themselves in positions that transform them from representatives of the people to representatives of only themselves.  Ours has declined into a government that represents the interests of those who govern and not those who are governed. If our representatives in congress voted for the people to have the same health insurance and pensions that they themselves enjoy, we would have a government of the people, by the people and for the people.  At present, in the United States, we have a government of those in power, by those in power and for those in power.   In the coming lean years, it will be advisable to remember the next paragraph of the Declaration of Independence which states:

“That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security-Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.”

It is foolish to underestimate history.  We study history so that we do not repeat it.  And yet, repeating it is all that we ever do – new set same play.  When will we come to the understanding that we own nothing, we are entitled to nothing above that which every other human being on the planet is entitled.  We are permitted the use of the earth’s resources so long as we understand and accept the responsibility of that use. When resources are limited they must be equally shared.  History has shown us over thousands of years of wars, revolutions, and natural disasters that what we do not share will inevitably be taken away.

When AIDS was used to judge the lifestyles of homosexuals, it was loosed upon those who judged.  We are waiting for Judgment Day, unable to see that it has been here for many years.  The world looks more and more like a comic in the New Yorker magazine depicting Big fat pigs with cigars stepping on little ant sized people.  Those who are the guiltiest of the injustices greed are distorting religion, particularly Christianity to justify their actions.  Greed today, calls itself Capitalism, but it is what it is regardless of what we choose to name it.  It is the worship of mammon, and we can’t dress it up to be anything else, God sees what it does to the little people and calls it what it is.  How can anyone call themselves Christians and not live as Jesus Christ lived?  During his 40 days in the wilderness he was given a test.  It is a test we are all given, particularly in the country. He could have had mansions and servants traveling the world in luxury but that was not the wealth that he chose, who could choose that wealth today and call themselves a Christian, maybe a Christian wanabe in some lifetime, but not a Christian.  The basic tenet upon which almost every religion is built is that we are to love our brothers as ourselves, do unto other as we would have others do unto us. I have to believe that only by losing everything will those who hoard everything ever learn.  That they do not see what they are doing because if they saw, they might change only to save what they have and not learn the lesson of giving.

“And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.” .”  Isaiah 6:9-10

Many individuals on earth who share the dream of One World are joining together to reach out and aid those who are still in the dark.  We are learning that our survival is intricately connected with the survival of everyone else on the planet because they are our neighbors, we are no longer a world-we are a neighborhood.  One person cannot have a net worth of several billion dollars, while millions of children around the world starve to death.  The world is now a neighborhood and those children are our neighbors’ children.  If we do not protect our neighbors’ children, eventually it will be our children who need protecting, and we will be alone.

“A certain heathen came to Shammai and said to him, “Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” Thereupon he repulsed him with the rod which was in his hand. When he went to Hillel, he said to him, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; all the rest of it is commentary; go and learn.”  Judaism. Talmud, Shabbat 31a

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”  Albert Einstein

“Intolerance breeds injustice. Injustice invariably leads to rebellion and retaliation, and these will lead to escalation on the part of both making reconciliation almost impossible. It would appear that during times of stress, despair and frustration, people become increasingly irrational, and they do things which they never think they are capable of. And so we see hideous brutality perpetrated by the most gentle people.“

“Once started religious strife has a tendency to go on and on, to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility.” Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, addressing the World Evangelical Fellowship on 2001-MAY-4. _4(excerpts)

We live in a country that was founded on the desire for religious freedom. We have carried through, for this reason, the separation of church and state. The Pilgrims who landed on Plymouth Rock came here from the same type of environment that exists in Africa and the Middle East today.

“The separation of church and state is a legal and political principle derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . .” The phrase “separation of church and state”, which does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, where Jefferson spoke of the combined effect of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. It has since been quoted in several opinions handed down by the United States Supreme Court.”…

“Early immigrants to the American colonies were there motivated largely by the desire to worship freely in their own fashion, particularly after the English Civil War, but also religious wars and disputes in France and Germany.^[2] They included a large number of nonconformists such as the Puritans and the Pilgrims, as well as Catholics (in Baltimore). Despite a common background, the groups’ views on broader religious toleration were mixed. While some notable examples such as Roger Williams of Rhode Island and William Penn ensured the protection of religious minorities within their colonies, others such as the Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony had established churches. The Dutch colony of New Netherland had also established the Dutch Reformed Church and outlawed all other worship, although enforcement by the Dutch West India Company in the last years of the colony was sparse. Part of the reason for establishment was financial: the established Church was responsible for poor relief, and dissenting churches would therefore have a significant advantage.” – Wikipedia

Without an understanding of history and what this means, we cannot understand what is happening in Iraq. In actuality, we went to Iraq to defeat Saddam Hussein, operation Iraqi freedom was supposed to free the Iraqis from the oppressive rulership of Saddam. We won that war in 2003. The problem is that we did not, and do not understand the region and what happens to a region when Church equals State. Winning the war was easy what we are unable to win is the peace. Why is it that we cannot with the peace for the Iraqi people?

Imagine that instead of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, as political parties, we had Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Imagine too, that the Christians, are further divided between Roman Catholics and the various groups of Protestants. In this scenario our government is run by the Roman Catholic group of Christians. They declare Catholicism as the ruling religion of the country, banning the practice of any other religions. Now, Texas is predominately Baptist. Texas is an important region because of its oil fields. New York City, which is largely Jewish, is also important because of its financial institutions. The country is under oppressive Catholic rule, many who rebel against being forced to worship in Catholic Churches are being massacred. Now a third party, let’s imagine it is China with an economic stake in the stability of our country, and with no religious leanings, enters our country to free us from the oppressive Catholic rule and manages to defeat the strong-hold of the Catholic government. With the mighty Catholic military disbanded, the other Christian groups, begin to fight for power amongst themselves. At the same time, the Jews and Muslims begin to gather strength in their own states to gain religious control over our country for the sake of their own religions and our country becomes divided into religious territories.

In the midst of all this turmoil created by the dismantling of the strong Catholic Military, China decides to back a Muslim government. Backed by the Chinese military, the Muslim government begins to enter each state and take control. Jews, Baptist, and even Catholics rise up to prevent this from happening – China calls these religious groups, “insurgents” that must be put down. The only way is to cleanse the regions of each group, city by city. Feeling that if our country is taken over by the Chinese backed Muslims it will be the greatest offense against God, Jews, Christians, and Catholics come from all over the world to join in the fight against the Muslim government, seen by many as a puppet regime of the Chinese trying to control the worship of God in the US. The biggest battles are being waged in Texas, where the Baptist, many of them devout Christian Fundamentalists, refuse to allow the rich resources of their state to go to the benefit of the Chinese backed Muslim government. However, violent fighting among all of the religions ensues nationwide as each religion attempts to build a stronghold in a particular state. Money, guns, and ammunition are being smuggled into the country by Protestants, Jews and even Catholics from around the world to support the fight of their particular religion. All of the religious groups are united in their animosity towards China because each group sees that the only peace that China can bring to our country, will cost each religion their faith in God. This scenario is imaginary – only because of the First Amendment to The Constitution.

We have had four hundred years of desire and practice in the separation of church and state. We have had four hundred years of living side by side with so many religions that we forget the world before. We think of ourselves as a nation and its people, not of a religious faith and the affront to God of any other faith existing in the same territory.

The “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia was the Orthodox Christian Serbians “cleansing” the country of Muslims. The conflicts in Israel are not Arab vs. Israeli, they stem from the fact that Israel was established as and needs to remain a Jewish State. If the Palestinians, mostly Muslim and Christian were granted the same rights under the law as Jews, which would of course include full voting rights, Israel would soon cease to be a Jewish State, in effect, it would cease to be Israel. In India, the religious and political battle over rulership of the country was between the Hindus and the Muslims, it was only resolved by the formation of the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan”.

Religion has no borders. Shiite Muslims will fight from all over the world with and for the Shiite Muslims in Iraq, Sunni’s will fight from all over the world with and for the Sunni Muslims in Iraq. The people of the United States are here because they have chosen to live or remain after birth in a country where one is first an American Citizen and then a Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian or Jew. Because of the separation of church and state that we enjoy, loyalty to the country does not require loyalty to a particular form of worship. This is our Democracy. It is the Democracy, envisioned by our Constitution, which can only survive in a nation where there is an explicit separation of Church and State. Today there are 56 religious based “conflicts” including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Thailand, Uganda, Chechnya, the Philippines, Kurdistan, Nigeria, Sudan, the Middle East and Kosovo. The Problem with our intervention in any religious conflict, the problem with any outside intervention in any religious conflict is that whatever group we back, we are backing a religion. In removing one religion from power and replacing it with the only alternative, another religion, we simply buy a temporary cease fire. Soon enough the worshipers of the defeated faith, feeling repressed, afraid, and more determined than ever to fight in the name of God, will gather support from the unlimited well of followers devoted to their faith, and God and rise up, and continue the battle. It is not a battle that is won or lost on earth but in Heaven. It is not a battle for a place on earth but for a place in Heaven. If they lose their place on land by fighting and sacrificing their lives in the name of God, they guarantee their place in Heaven.

We have won the war in Iraq that we set out to win. We cannot win the peace, because we are fighting a battle over borders, and they are fighting a battle over love, honor and devotion to God. Where Church, Temple, Mosque, or Ashram, equals State, we can only make things worse.

If there is any lesson that we should learn from this, it is that what prevents us from becoming them, what prevents the United States from becoming Iraq, Serbia, or any of the other nations embroiled in religious wars, is the First Amendment. Those who would like to see it abolished, or even relaxed should pay close attention to what is happening in Africa, Asia and the middle east because the First Amendment is all that separates us from them.

]]> http://oceanofconsciousnes.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/how-we-won-the-war-in-iraq-and-can-not-win-the-peace/feed/ 4 Denise http://oceanofconsciousnes.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/love-must-hurt-the-suffering-of-mother-teresa/ http://oceanofconsciousnes.wordpress.com/2008/07/30/love-must-hurt-the-suffering-of-mother-teresa/#comments Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:43:19 +0000 Denise Gibel-Molini http://oceanofconsciousnes.wordpress.com/?p=101 ]]>

It is not enough for us to say: ‘I love God,’ but I also have to love my neighbor. St. John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is not true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.” – Mother Teresa

I am familiar with love and with pain; and when I have felt pain, while loving, the pain was never caused by the act of loving, it was caused by the actions of the ones I loved. To me, it is like a hose – the faucet is turned on, the hose fills up and the water pours out. And so the process is like this, one’s being is filled with love – so filled that it must be released out towards another being, towards God, or even towards nature itself. Still, it is a filling up of the heart and soul with love and so long as that love is being released, the vessel is being constantly filled. Being filled with love leaves no room for pain. I recall a story that Wayne Dyer told about a woman with a disabled daughter, totally bedridden for many years, and for all of those years the mother lovingly stayed by her side, changing her diaper, feeding her, loving her. She did this without it hurting, other than perhaps the empathy that she felt for her daughter. After being moved by the enormous suffering of Mother Teresa I went back over the things that she had said, and I cannot imagine an instance where love hurts.

The act of giving does not hurt either. Again, giving is a gesture from the heart. What does hurt is when we do not give from our hearts but we give because we feel we must. In doing this, we are not giving in essence we are taking from ourselves. Another quote from Mother Teresa which stood out to me was this:

“I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.”

I was never much on placing importance on the death of Jesus, but I was deeply inspired by his life. I don’t believe that the value of a life should be overshadowed by the manner of death. After all, no matter how you cut it, living takes a lot more work than dying, and living an exemplary life, at any time, trumps an exemplary death. I read a bumper sticker the other day that really brought the point home, it said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you are car.” In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus’ followers asked him, basically, how to get to Heaven, a question he never seemed to answer to the satisfaction of the questioner.

[6]. His disciples asked and said to him: “Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray, how shall we give alms, what rules concerning eating shall we follow?” Jesus says: “Tell no lie, and whatever you hate, do not do: for all these things are manifest to the face of heaven; nothing hidden will fail to be revealed and nothing disguised will fail before long to be made public!”

When I was young, I was given the impression that I was not really capable of amounting to anything in the world. So, when I became successful in my own business I bought many very expensive things, jewelry, art – things that said I had made it. These were my trophies that I told myself I would never let go of, they proved my ability to succeed. But as my life would have it, my health caused me to leave my business and it reached a point in my life that to keep a roof over the heads of my children, I would have to sell my trophies. They were the only proof that I had left. While I was struggling with this I read a book on the Kabala and it said that we should gather everything that we believe that we can live without in order to give it away, but then, after we have gathered everything that we feel we can manage without we should then double it and give it away. The essence of it was that only the ego attaches to things, only the ego benefits from things, and not the soul. This allowed me to ‘give’ those things for the good of my family without pain, because I knew that in doing so I was purging my ego. My husband, feeling badly for the sacrifice that I had made promised to replace all that I had given, but I did not want them back, giving it opened my heart and freed my ego, I felt gratitude and joy.

Using the parable of the seeds as an example, the things that we do so that God will know our love for Him, are the seeds that fall by the wayside. They are a lie, the heart is not in the action itself. For Mother Teresa to see a leper and feel to herself that she wouldn’t touch him for a thousand pounds, says that in the depth of her heart she does not see Jesus in that leper. The act of curing that leper is an act of doing what you should do, like fasting or going to church, but it is not heartfelt and so the heart derives no joy from the act, in fact, it causes pain because of the feeling of uselessness of the sacrifice. To sacrifice is to make sacred, but only the heart can make sacred.

In Mother Teresa’s youth she was filled with an ecstatic love for Jesus and for the work that he did in his life. She was filled with the spirit of Christianity, but the church robbed her of that. The church robbed her of the loving Jesus, the joyous Jesus, the Jesus free of ego attachments and laws, filled only with the desire to Love, teach and heal his brothers. The church forced her to believe that only through suffering could she find the love of Jesus, only through suffering would she feel the love of Jesus, and worst of all, that only through teaching the value of suffering to others could she save their souls for Jesus. The teachings of the church were in direct contradiction to the yearnings of her heart, and because she believed the church to be the appointed messenger of God, she deafened her heart to its cries, and dedicated herself to the work, but without the spirit in the work, without the love in the work, she was empty and alone, not seeing God and not feeling his Love. She loved Jesus, but she could not feel his love because she was indoctrinated only towards his suffering. There are many Saints who are marked by their “Dark Night Of The Soul”, but each one emerged with a greater sense of mysticism and spirituality and a far lesser sense of righteousness of religious doctrine.

She gave her life to the God that she loved, but she was denied the fullness of His love in her heart, not by God but by the church that taught not the beauty and joy of love, but only the vows of suffering. I feel that it is a crime for her suffering to be used by atheists as proof that there is no God, but I believe equally that it is a crime for the church to use her suffering as an example of the natural path of a true Christian.

“Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?” — Sai Baba

Jesus said, “Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all.” I sought the truth and I was disturbed because the Truth conflicted with my own beliefs.  Yet when I was disturbed I became awed by the power of the Truth and so I did marvel.  And when I marveled, I accepted, and when I accepted, I attained power over my life.

In the beginning man observed nature, and communicated meaning through the qualities of the animals.  So transformation might be represented by a butterfly which transformed from a caterpillar, or a frog which is transformed from a tad pole.

Then came letters with each letter having a meaning and in expanding and combining the different letters based not on their sounds but on their meanings, words were put together.  In the Semitic languages there is a spiritual meaning for each letter and so in the combining of letters you have not a single word, but a symbol which represents a meaning that must be understood in its context.  This is the reason why the Torah, or the Old Testament is studied on a daily basis, the belief being that like creation which is ongoing, so too does the torah grow in meaning as we read it.

In Aramaic, the word Alaha (Allah) can be translated to mean, sacred unity, oneness, the All, the ultimate power, or the one that is many. Spirit, is translated in the bible from a word that means, breath, wind or air.  Worship is translated from a word that means surrender.  Truth in the bible is translated from a word that means, that which liberates, that which opens, that which acts in keeping with Universal harmony.  And Forgive is translated from a word that means, to let go, to set free, and to omit.  In Aramaic, the word used for blood is also used for wine, sap, juice and essence it comes from the same root word as Adam.  The word for fruit also means offspring and the word for vine also means blood lineage.

The phrase translated to “Son of Man” in Aramaic means, human being, so for Jesus to refer to himself as the Son of Man is merely referring to himself as a human being, it was a common substitute for “I”.  In the Beautitudes where it is said, “They shall be called the children of God”, another translation of the same words would be, “They shall be called channels for Unity”.  Most importantly, the word that Jesus used in Aramaic for “sin”, implies a correctable error, something temporarily lost.  So a better translation of someone who was the forgiver of sins, was someone who helped those who cling to their errors, find the way to freedom in Unity.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Science entered into the realm of the metaphysical, or the realm of spirit.  Physical means that which can be observed by our senses.  Metaphysical is that which cannot.  Science has now, with Quantum Physics, entered into the metaphysical world.  The physical world according to the new science is the manifestation of the metaphysical world, what many mystics have been saying since the beginning of time.  The metaphysical world, the quantum world is a world that appears to be chaotic; the first problem was that light seemed to be at once particles and then at other times waves.  In the physical world nothing can be a particle and a wave.  Then when they began to measure particles, they found that they could not measure both the distance and speed travelled because they seemed to arrived at whatever the destination at the moment that they departed, or to be at two places in the same moment.  This quantum world is also so sensitive, that whatever we do to measure it affects the outcome of the measurement.  So we are not observers of the experiments, we are part of the experiments.  As strange as it is, the real world, the world that is no more than potential and probabilities manifests a world of humans, trees, skies, oceans, rivers, streams, mountains, buildings, sidewalks and all that we see, hear, feel, taste, and touch.God spoke the world into being:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

We do not live in the world; we live in the Words that describe the world.  God spoke the world into being; existence is a word that only has meaning in contrast to the word nonexistence.  The world does not exist in itself; it exists to us because we have a name for it and so a description of what it is supposed to be.  The words existence and nonexistence in themselves impart no meaning.  The metaphysical world, the spiritual world – does not exist in words, it exists in meanings.  All things come into being through the Word, without the Word nothing exists.  The Word is the manifestation of the Universe.  The Word is considered masculine, and so it would be because it is action.  God has no name, God has no image.  This is because God is without beginning and without end and without description.  A name has a beginning, an end and a description.  A name defines a thing – it tells us what it is, or who it is.  God is without definition or limitation. We are each the Word made flesh.  We have a name, which has a number and that number has a vibration.  Nothing exists outside of the Word. Nothing exists without a word.  The first thing that God instructed Adam to do was to do was to name everything in the world.  What did he do?  He spoke everything into manifestation.  Whatever has no words to describe it cannot exist for us.  There is nothing more important in our universe than the Word.  And each word has a number and that is what the universe sees.  We each have a name and a number and it’s vibration is written in God’s book.

Ancient Priests used words to heal understanding that the sounds of certain words had an effect on certain parts of the body.  The Magicians and Sorcerers of ancient times used words to manifest.  Prayer, and Mantras are words used to evoke whatever outcome is being sought.  Rulers and Politicians have historically used words to win over the populace.  Advertising is based on the use of catchy words and phrases.  The US President today uses these catchy words in his war campaign.  “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, for example.  Words can make people, even whole nations act in ways that they normally would not.  Words can convince, enchant, heal and destroy.
If we can believe that the power of the mind can manifest things or experiences in the outer world, imagine what that power, given sound and released could accomplish.  There is no greater tool known to man than the word.

The physical body is a vehicle for the self.  “I”, that which I know as myself can neither be seen, nor touched.  Anything that can damage my body cannot damage my spirit.  Yet, that which can damage my spirit can destroy my life.  Words, are the weapons or the salve that reaches into what cannot be seen, reaches into our hearts and souls.

When I was a small child I was deeply aware of the impact of words.  Hurtful words seemed to enter into my solar plexus like a knife twisting and spreading throughout my being long before they seemed to enter my mind.  It was as if by the time I heard the words – the damage was already done.  In my home, words were the weapon of choice.  I watched as each family member was stabbed and brutalized by words spoken in anger by another.  What astonished me the most, was after the anger came the apologies, or the, “I didn’t really mean it”.  The person who spoke the words actually believed that they could be retrieved.  A bullet can be retrieved, a knife can be retrieved, a spoken or written word can never be retrieved, and its damage can never be undone.  No amount of apologies or forgiveness can ever undo the poison of a word misspoken.  There is no antidote.   Can you find the organ of self-worth and heal it?  Can you find the organ of self-confidence and heal it?  Parents should use each word spoken to or in the presence of children with the utmost care.  Whatever you call your child he will call himself for the rest of his life.

Children are suggestible; they work within the description of themselves that they take from their environments.  The words that we mean and words that we don’t have no discernable difference to a child.  The subconscious mind cannot differentiate between what was meant as truth and what was meant to make a point, or to hurt. To an adult who has been raised with a less than positive description of himself or herself all negative words have meaning.  I remember as a child hearing a neighbor compliment a drawing that I had made.  I remember my mother responding, “Yes, she has talent, but…”.  I don’t remember what came after the “but”, all I remember is that I expect the “but” every time I do something well and it is noticed.  I expect to be exposed as a fraud.

We all have different reactions to the words that we hear as a child.  Some children who hear that they will never amount to anything or that they are not good enough to succeed react to these words as a challenge – or a means to receive the needed approval or love and so they reach amazing heights.  Some react by never trying to be more than is expected of them based upon the things that they heard.  Many grow up to become leaders; they go on to inspire generations that follow.  These people reach higher and higher, they amass more and more searching for that achievement that will fill the whole left by those words spoken years before.  Nothing built from the material world, or gained in the material world can ever heal a spiritual wound, a wound caused by words.  It is only through finding the spiritual meaning that we can extract the poison.  As in the Bible story of Joseph, we must reach to understand God’s reason for words spoken by others.  Emotional pain and suffering are not human constructs.  They are built into our egos for the purpose of moving us to achieve the goals that we have set in each incarnation.  Pain bores like a drill deep into our center and the path that is drilled deepens the meaning of the lessons as we learn them.  Those who have hurt us with careless words have been ignorant of the power within those words.  They only understand pain as being caused by a physical act.   It is for us to understand that the people who hurt us with their words are the ones chosen to deliver that which we must learn from, and often – that which we must use to teach or lead others.

Most relationships are not destroyed by the actions of those involved, but by the words of those involved.  When two people enter into a relationship they are placing their hearts, their hopes and their trust in one who has entered into their lives holding a mirror through which they see themselves in their most beautiful and flawless state.  The “other” holds up a mirror in which they see themselves through love.  Only once before were they so vulnerable and that was when they came into the world.  As soon as they begin to disagree, they feel threatened.  Each fearing that the other, who carried the mirror of their goodness, and their beauty, will take it away.  Feeling threatened they lash out with words that are spoken in anger, meant to intimidate, threaten or hurt the other into staying in the same place, not changing, not growing and, not putting down the mirror.  The words start flying, the mirror starts cracking, the trust begins to wither, and although there are apologies, and despite attempts to retrieve the words spoken – the bond is weakened.  The words cannot be retracted.  And if they continue, the bond, worn away by the acidic action of the words, becomes permanently destroyed.  The word is mightier than the sword.

So often a person dies of an illness that could have been overcome, had the doctor not declared  an approaching death.   A researcher noticed that people who were mentally challenged had a much lower mortality rate from a certain type of Cancer than did others.  Surprisingly, what they found was that it had nothing to do with genetics, there was no special anti-body attributed to the mentally challenged.  It was as simple as the fact that they did not recognize, or understand Cancer as a death sentence.  Because the word “Cancer” was meaningless to them, and could not be explained, the emotional contribution, which is obviously great, to the deterioration of the body was not there.  It had no more impact on their spiritual, or emotional bodies than if someone had sad that they had a large do-di-da.  If we take responsibility for nothing else in our lives, we must take responsibility for the words that we place in the hearts, minds and bodies of others.  We must fill them with loving truth.  Use them wisely.  Seek their meaning.  Words are the greatest power given to us.

In order to offer more, I have redirected further posts to:

To be responsible is not simply to accept burdens, more than anything else it is to accept power. We are the actors in the play that is our lives – we are at all times spiritually responsible for our actions in that play. However, until that spiritual responsibility becomes emotional and material within our lives we will be destined to enact the same play over and over again with nothing changing but the period wardrobe and props.

When I was a child my father taught me how to play Gin Rummy. We would play for hours and most of the time that we played I would win. One day I was feeling very full of myself as a great card shark and I decided to play for money. My father tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted. I bet my entire allowance and in about five minutes my father won. Now the game was over and he had won and I believed that he should give me my money back. My father refused. I cried, I begged, I sulked, I even tried to borrow the exact amount, but he absolutely refused. I could not believe that my father could actually love me and not give me back my money. I decided that he did not really love me. I believed that if he loved me he would give me anything that I wanted. This was what I really felt. It took a long time for me to understand that my fathers’ love had nothing to do with my responsibility for my own actions.

After many months, perhaps even years, I finally understood what he had given to me. I could never again act in any way or say any words that I was not prepared to be responsible for the outcome of. I realized that my father would never make idol threats, if I wanted to do something that I should not, he would tell me the punishment that I would receive if I did it. He was no longer attached to my choice, and when I ultimately did what I wanted to do anyway, he was not attached to the punishment. I am now grateful for this lesson. The one good thing about this lesson is that it is never too late to learn, and never too late to teach to your children. It only takes one time, which was all it took for me. I may have pushed the envelope many times after that, but the difference was that I was responsible and prepared for whatever the outcome. I was in my power.

I suppose that when our belief in reincarnation was taken away from us, so too was the possibility of ever really being right – so we went for the next best thing which was appearing to be right. Of course if we could do neither, we had to place the responsibility for our being wrong on someone else – blame – so that we could escape whatever repercussions we envisioned. The concept of reincarnation has always felt right to me. I always knew that God was Love, and it just made sense to me that placing us in the darkness and giving us only one chance to find the right light – without a manual was not a loving act. To me, it was like taking your child and putting her out at night having this discourse:

Parent: Go find it and you can’t come home until you do – and if you don’t you will be lost forever.

Child: Find what?

Parent: Figure it out.

Child: Which direction do I go?

Parent: Look in the Book.

Child: Which Book – there are so many?

Parent: Figure it out!

Then having the parent close the door on the child. So, reincarnation made sense to me. As someone who has practiced Astrology for many years, I have looked to the chart for past life content. But a chart may be easily verified in this life, but when referring to past lives it is really theoretical. However, since I started doing past life regressions, I find that the chart does give very accurate information as to the issues we need to take responsibility for in our lives that we have failed to do the same in past lives. I see people repeating the same theme over and over again. In the sixteenth century the theme may have been “Romeo and Juliet”, while in the twentieth century it may have been “West Side Story”. Over and over again I see people making the same ultimate choices, life after life, suffering the same consequences only with a slightly different story line. My father put the responsibility for my actions in my lap. I am still growing into that lesson, it is still a work in progress, but at least there is progress. I thought that my choices were pre-determined. I now realize that they are not pre-determined but they are hardwired into my make-up, because they are the choices that keep my ego where it is the most comfortable – on familiar ground. I love the saying, “Better the hell you know than the hell you don’t”. That is straight from the ego’s mouth. When we take responsibility, full responsibility – “The buck stops here” kind of responsibility, we will very likely end up in unfamiliar territory. I know how to function in a bad relationship, but do I really know how to function in a good one? Even happy is scary if happy is unknown. I always go left, maybe I should go right. I always wait, maybe I should act. I always go for the one who needs love, maybe I should go for the one who has it.

We choose the lessons we will learn. We have to accept responsibility for the choices we made before we came here as well as the choices that we make while we are here. We did not choose to suffer; we chose to learn we chose the areas of growth we would work on in this lifetime. This was how we determined our moment of birth<!–[if supportFields]> XE “birth” < ![endif]–>; we chose that moment so the energies of the planets would create the right atmosphere for the growth we came in to achieve.

Taking responsibility automatically puts us in the present. It puts us in a situation in which we have choices to make. As soon as we acknowledge that we have choices, we will realize that we have power. Finding someone or something to blame for our situation relieves us of the responsibility of changing it. It also prevents it from changing. Even if we blame ourselves, we tend to blame something that we label as an inadequacy rather than our own action or inaction, which we can do something about. I will not permit my children to say, “I can’t”, they have to say, “I won’t”, “I can’t” is a great deal more comfortable than, “I won’t”, “I won’t” implies responsibility.

Some people prefer to be miserable; they prefer to be victims. These people are constantly seeking and rejecting answers. Everything that goes wrong in their lives is the responsibility of someone or something other than themselves, and no amount of facts will convince them otherwise. This is a pattern built up over lifetimes.

The wrong people find them; they don’t find the wrong people. They remember the harsh things said to them but not what they might have said to provoke harsh words from others. If they are ever wrong, it is because they were provoked, tricked, or in some way forced to do whatever they were being held responsible for doing wrong.

If there is any good in their lives they find someone to compare it with who has it better. They do not compromise, because if it is all or nothing there is a much better chance of getting nothing. These same people tend to be luckier than most, they tend to be taken care of although they don’t notice it. These people probably live the most tortured lives because they have to keep validating the external source of their misery. The catch is that when we are not responsible we are not in our power, we hand over our power to those people or circumstances that we consider to be responsible. We are not blocked from having a wonderful life, we miss the chances life presents to do so because we are so deeply engrossed in our need to elude responsibility. “I won’t call her because she hasn’t called me”, “I won’t show love because it is never appreciated”, “I won’t try because I always lose”. Even when we blame ourselves, we say, “I am not tall enough, smart enough, attractive enough, strong enough…” We blame an attribute or lack of an attribute; we don’t take responsibility for an action or lack of action, a choice made or refusal to make a choice. We do not take responsibility, as beings.

This is all perception. If you perceive yourself as not responsible, as helpless then the positive side is that you are off of the hook, you didn’t make a mistake, fail, etc., the negative side is you are helpless, a victim of an unsafe world.

Lets look at an example, say that you have a good job, you have never been late, and have never been sick. One day you walk into the office and the boss’s lover is sitting at your desk and you’re out of a job. Well that is a classic case of victimization if ever one existed right? Perhaps, it really depends on ones perspective. This could be an example of how nothing you do works out, so it is a good reason to go get drunk, or lock yourself in your room. You can add this to the list of wrongs done to you. Or you could tell yourself that you’re lucky that you got away from a losing situation. Perhaps you might perceive it as a sign from the Universe to go on your own, or that it is just a sign to move on.

Most people are afraid of responsibility because they fear being responsible for the outcome of our actions. However, taking responsibility for the outcome is unrealistic. When we take responsible for a child or a valuable piece of jewelry or anything left in our keeping this is in a moment. It is not something that we do twenty-four hours a day. However when we accept responsibility for our actions we are taking responsibility for everything except the outcome and we are taking that responsibility in every moment that we are alive. It is being responsible for each thought, each movement and each word that we say. We cannot control the outcome of anything. I may drink and drive and have an accident or not. I am responsible for having been drinking. I am neither responsible for the fact that I had an accident nor am I responsible if I did not have one. To be responsible is to be present and aware in each action that we take in each thought that we have. This is to be in each now of our lives.

There is a part of our brain that works automatically. It regulates our body, it breathes, it pumps blood to our organs it does not take our presence or our awareness in order to function.

When we are toddlers and we begin to walk we are present. Each step is an effort it takes mindfulness. After we walk long enough it becomes automatic. I watched my son focus and strain while he tries to put his socks on. Eventually he didn’t even notice that he was doing it, because it became automatic. Even when we drive to a certain destination enough times it too becomes automatic, as though the car just knows where to turn.

How often do we bump into a piece of furniture and say, “excuse me”? When our living, becomes automatic we cannot be responsible, we are sleep walking. We are not present. Many times the loss of passion in our relationships and even the loss of growth in our relationships emerges simply out of our having sent the functioning of the relationship to automatic. Where once we experienced each word and movement of our lover and were present within the relationship now the relationship becomes automatic. The relationship becomes part of our unseen unfelt automatic world. So we cannot find where we went wrong because we were not really there. We need to relegate the functioning of our bodies to the automatic brain and the functioning of our lives to our active selves.

When we meditate we are taught to focus on our breathing because that connects us with the present. That connection is the key. When we are connected with our present, with our actions we can then assume responsibility for our lives. When we are truly responsible we are again empowered and in control. It may take work and time to disengage our lives from automatic. It will certainly take walking through our own fears. Yet once this is done we are finally connected with our lives, our loves, our souls and our God. When we are awake we can hear sounds that the sleeping cannot hear and feel things that the numb cannot feel.

When we are awake and responsible nothing gets past us or slips through the cracks. When we say something it has value because it is not just an automatic response. When we are awake we awaken those around us, merely by our presence. Our lives do not just happen; we don’t wonder where the day went. We are aware that we have lived it. Each moment is fuller because we are aware of all the wonders within it. In a relationship we feel all the things that we felt in the beginning because each moment is a beginning when we are alive. Life becomes awe inspiring because we are in it. We feel empowered in the knowledge that we are responsible for how we have lived our lives.