The Selling of American Piece by Piece

There was a time when this was a nation – not of states, but of tribes. The nation had a rich history that was known well by its proud Natives. I don’t even know what the nation was called because immigrants, some armed with guns, some armed with liquor, some armed with guns, destroyed the nation. They weakened the natives, robbed them of their food supplies, their livelihood and finally their homes.

The invading immigrants built a new nation, not out of tribes but out of states. Generations found the old nation vanishing along with its inhabitants. The remaining descendents of that nation and its tribes were relegated to small pockets across the land called reservations.

The new Nation, called the United States of America, then built itself into a powerful nation, inhabited by its own generations of proud natives. Until one day, immigrants, armed some with drugs and some with investment capital came along and weakened the natives, robbed them of their food supplies, their livelihood and finally their homes. Generations are finding this nation vanishing along with its once proud inhabitants. The new Nation, called the United Investment Holdings of the World, will build itself into a powerful fund for wealthy corporations around the globe. Its inhabitants, loyalists only to their home nations will also remain proud – but will never be natives.

If you think that it couldn’t happen to us – so did the original Native Americans. Perhaps it is the revenge of the Great Spirit, or the result of greed – or maybe just a cycle returning to its beginning point. Whatever it is, this country is losing itself. My father came to this country in 1918, like thousands of other immigrants, to leave behind old roots, old nationalities and become a part of the American Dream. He and countless others came here to plant the seeds of their dreams in new soil and to build a life as an American from the land that was America. They came here to melt into the melting pot – leave their old identities behind – to speak American, to dream American and to become American. They came, not only to pledge allegiance to the flag, but to pledge allegiance to fulfilling the promise of Democracy and of the Constitution of the United States. They came to be a part of that becoming.

Americans lost sight of their nation and its meaning, they lost sight of history. They saw only the gold. To Americans, the land did not represent its original principals, its original spirit, it represented booms, and rushes. There were gold rushes, silver rushes, oil rushes, and real estate booms. Immigrants began to come from other countries, not to become Americans, but only to off of America while remaining true to their homelands. Some, found that they could remain in their own countries and export their drugs to America – living better than most Americans, off of the weakness of Americans. They began killing Americans with their drugs, while buying American and Americans with their money – all the while never even crossing the border. Their effect on this nation is no different than the effect of the immigrants who came with small pox to give to the Native Americans. Others, have come armed with capital to invest, robbing the people of their incomes, their ability to feed themselves – while keeping all of the profits safe within their own native lands.

Perhaps this is what happens when you build a dream instead of a nation. When you build on what it has to sell rather than the people who make it a nation. I once thought that what was great about this country was that it was the only country founded on dreams and ideals. I realize that what made this country beautiful – the dreams – the ideals – were never planted into the soil of the nation which is its people. The funny thing is, that we miss this country, we know that it is slipping through our fingers, but we still don’t get why. We still don’t see, that like the American Indians, back when they were Indians and not Native Americans, our identity as a nation is intrinsically connected with the land that our nation inhabits. Our identity as a nation is intrinsically connected with the businesses that it builds and the people – the Americans – that they feed.

Again, it could just be karma. The nation was built on stolen land, perhaps that destines it to having the land stolen from it. Karma is only balance. The nation has a karma – not in deed – but in intention. Balancing karma does not require the impossible; it does not require undoing what cannot be undone. We can balance karma by realizing the error of what we have done and making a commitment never to do it again. Instead, what we did was commit to becoming a nation united in strength and action rather than tribes, divided and weak. And, as a nation united, we will not do what we did to obtain our land. However, rather than dividing into tribes, we have divided into mega-corporations, competing with each other for profits, just as the tribes competed with each other for land. The corporations have enough autonomous power to have aided in the weakening of the nation – no longer united as one people, but divided by the competing interests of different corporations. A corporation has not heart, no home, no loyalty other than to itself. Its home is where its profits are. Capitalism has reached the point where corporations not only control the goods and services of the nation, but they control the flow of information. Whosoever controls the flow of information controls the nation.

“Freedom of the press, or, to be more precise, the benefit of freedom of the press, belongs to everyone – to the citizen as well as the publisher… The crux is not the publisher’s ‘freedom to print’; it is, rather, the citizen’s ‘right to know.’ ” Arthur Sulzburger
1990 American newspaper publisher

The mainstream Media providing the most widely available information is privately owned. It is free under the first amendment to provide whatever information it chooses, even if that information is ultimately in its own best interest. It can choose, and often does, to serve the government which it was designed to censure. There is no branch of government that is not in some way indebted to one if not many major corporations. Capitalism has circumvented the Democracy that our forefathers attempted so desperately to ensure the people. We spend so much money and energy in an attempt to protect our shores from a foreign military invasion, that we have completely lost sight of the fact that there would be no need for any nation to spend money and lives attacking us when all they have to do is buy us, business by business, loan by loan, building by building. It may be a hostile takeover – but we invented them. However we look at it, we are being killed by our own poison.

Unlike the Native Americans of the past, we understand the value of union. We are in a position to take back our nation as a people and to put the rights and the freedom of the people before those of any entity be it the government, a corporation or a religious group. No organization should not have the rights of individuals, it should not under any circumstances have rights greater than those of an individual and it should never be allowed the freedom to act in any way that is contrary to the rights of each individual as defined in the constitution. The only organization granted rights in the bill of rights is the press. Not the press as a corporation but, the press as the bringers of information to the people. We can still save our country from being no more than a piece of valuable real estate, but to do this, we must remember what it meant to be an American before it was equated with being a capitalist. Capitalism is the monster that flourished from the seeds of Democracy, just as Communism was the monster that flourished from the seeds of socialism. When what is good for the whole, becomes less important than what is good for the few, the whole is destined to deteriorate regardless of the label given to the system that caused it.

We are in a bad state. And, as the one stock that most of the world’s investments are tied into, we will not go down alone. But we can change, even if the change is a slow one. Electing Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee tells the world that we are seeking change. Electing Obama President, will place us on the path of change. But only by becoming the United People of America, only by pulling in and giving back to this country and all of its people, all of its diversity, only by reinvesting our hearts into the spirit of the Constitution, can we hope to become the change that we seek. We may have financial problems, but as Americans we are rich in spirit. We have to stop this fire sale mentality that keeps the Carpetbaggers coming in. We must value ‘made in America’ above all else. Any entity that does not give more to the people of this country than it takes for itself is the meaning of un-American. This country needs every to build itself up from within, the educational system, employment, and healthcare must be repaired. It is time for those who have gained so much from this country to give as much back. We need a government that demands it, we need a government that puts the individual above all else. The whole that sees its parts as expendable will eventually expend itself. This country is being divided up and sold off. But we can stop the sale, we can reclaim what is ours, but only through union. So long as the parts are abandoning the whole, the whole has no chance. We need to come together as a nation and worry about our own soil, stop worrying about some terrorist group attacking us, we are selling ourselves off at way below cost.

IS FREE WILL AN ILLUSION?

One of the phrases that we hear and say a great deal in metaphysical circles in “This is all an illusion”. Although it sounds good, it is not something that we are able to really incorporate into our consciousness because it is so fundamentally opposed to our experience. And though we may be temporarily soothed by the idea of it, the feeling vanishes the moment we bump into a part of that illusion, like a wall, and get a concussion on another part of the illusion – our heads. For most of us the idea that our experience is “all an illusion” is filed away somewhere with God, another idea that, for most of us, is firmly implanted in our belief system but very much disconnected from the reality of our daily lives.

If this is an illusion, why does it hurt so much or feel so real? Why can’t we just affirm it away? In a movie, which is for all intents and purposes an illusion, when one of the characters – another illusion is shot by a bullet – another illusion, the character dies – another illusion. There are two layers here. There is the layer of the actors or the soul who is assuming the role of the character – the illusion who dies. Within the movie, nothing is an illusion. When the actor – the soul – steps out of the movie, or the life in our case, it was all an illusion. A good actor will feel the pain of the character; he will feel the joy of the character which is what makes his performance believable. A good actor is very sensitive, just as a soul is. When the actor leaves the role, he has to re-enter his own life – his own role in the greater movie that is life. This reorientation often takes time. When a soul leaves a life, that soul too has to re-enter its essence, after absorbing all of the experiences of the life that it has just left. A character in a movie or in a play follows a plot, acts or reacts in a way written by someone else. So, in order to react naturally the actor must inhabit the part. We souls inhabit our personalities and so we are able to act and react according to the character that we come to play.

An actor becomes the character, so convincingly. that we are able to anticipate what he will do or say next because we believe him. We may know that the actor is acting and that the words have been written by someone else, the cues given by someone else, yet we feel and experience what the characters are going through. Although the choices that each character is making have been predetermined by the writer, we know that those are the choices that this character would make. Even when the character surprises us, if the actor did his job and writer did his, we can review the movie and see how this unexpected action could have been predicted. This is free will. These characters are predictable because we understand how they are motivated. Yet, does our ability to predict their choices deny the freedom of their choices? No, they are free to choose. What is predetermined is the point from which they view the world at the time that God or the Universe places the choice on their path. How often do we say, “I did that based on what I knew then”, or “If I only knew then what I know now”, or, “The person I am today would never have done that”.

Imagine being in a room, facing a wall and from your position, you can see the wall in front of you and from your peripheral vision you can make out the walls on each side, right and left of your position. But from where you stand, there is no door. Now, the position that you are in places you on a wheel, like a clock gear, that will slowly turn you around. However, right now you only see walls. You are facing twelve o’clock. There is a door at the six o’clock position, but you won’t see it for six hours. Now a voice enters the room and says, “You are free to go”. Is it an illusion that you are free to go? No, there is a door. But from where you stand, there is none. In a story, the character has free will and, we can anticipate that characters actions. We have free will, and our choices are predetermined. They are predetermined because our visibility of available options is really limited to one, at the time that the Universe presents the choice. There may be ten puzzle pieces lined up before us to choose from, yet, the experiences, the beliefs, the impressions of the world that we have accumulated up to that moment sees only one perfect fit. Because there is only one, it is the one that our soul has chosen to best experience the lessons we need to learn.
We have to remember that we come here to learn and to grow. In order to do this, we have to set up a lesson plan.

Our lessons do not only come from where the choice leads us on our path, but also from which choice we make, and how we arrived at that choice. We are here to expand our view, and to learn to see from our hearts. Most actors take roles for a purpose. Many take roles which allow them to stretch, to grow. Free will is not an illusion, but in a way, the choices we make are. They are the lessons; they are the set-up for our growth. They create the plot within which the actor acts. As we learn from each choice, our view expands; our abilities grow until we are in tune with our hearts. When we are in tune with our hearts – we are in tune with our souls. When the soul has mastered the personality, its view is no longer limited. It then sees through the eyes of the creator of the path. The dreamer has mastered the dream, so it is no longer a dream; the actor now writes his part, so he is no longer limited by the existing plot. Illusion vanished and all that is left is one Will in tune with All-That-Is. To enlighten is to light the path so one may see the way. It really has never been a question of whether or not we have free will, the question is, how much we really see of what our free will is acting upon. This is where growth lies.

CHANGING OUR BELIEFS

There is no point in searching for happiness unless we believe we can be happy. We may find many things, but we only keep what we believe to be ours by rights.

We all have underlying beliefs which form the foundation of our lives. These beliefs determine the way that we respond to the world. We believe that we have a certain place in the world. We believe that we have certain entitlements or lack thereof. We believe that the world will respond to us in a certain way and that there are things that we can and cannot achieve. Some of these beliefs are conscious, some are not. Many of them only become apparent to us when they hurt us.

Tana, my oldest daughter, and I had been fighting about her lack of attention to school. She had no understanding of the consequences of her actions. I was up against a brick wall and could not break through. One day we went out to lunch with a friend, and when I left the table to go to the Ladies Room Tana and my friend were talking about her failing in school. When I returned to the table I overheard my friend asking Tana what would happen if she really failed, what would she do? Her response was, “My mommy will fix it…she always does”.

I felt as though someone had hit me over the head with a sledgehammer. I did this, were the first words that I heard in my head. I have ruined my daughter’s life. This belief of hers covertly affects each decision that is made. It’s not a thought, something that one weighs when life is happening; it has a quiet, unfelt weight. It is just there, but it is the determining factor. Sadly, I passed this one on to her.

When I was a child I was expected to be perfect. I was expected to bring home A’s from school, no fanfare, no reward, just expected. I began noticing that when my friends brought home A’s they were rewarded by their parents for their hard work, I simply heard, “So, what else would we expect of you.” So in fourth grade I decided to fail, you know, start from the bottom so maybe I would receive some appreciation for my hard work. How could I believe myself to be worthy of love? I was taught that it was conditional, and the conditions were always somewhere beyond my best efforts. So, in fourth grade I proudly walked into my house with a Big Red “D”. My mother immediately made an appointment with the Principal. She insisted that my fourth grade teacher was prejudiced and gave me the grade because of it. After all, I had never in my life brought home less than an A.

I don’t understand how she did it, considering the fact that I really earned that “D”, but she did. It was changed to an A. This created a foundation belief. If I wanted acknowledgement, I had better give it to myself. There was no prize out there for me. These moments that impress us deeply are difficult to change. It was my “D” and she took it away. Whenever I had a favorite toy, or doll, my father would take it away from me and give it to a poor child, because I could get another one. But I couldn’t get another on that was my favorite. When I was young I was a pack rat. I collected everything and kept my collections in my closet. My grandmother went into my closet one day and decided to clean out the “garbage”. She threw away all of my collections. I would hoard every penny of my allowance and every penny that I could find and save it all in a kitty bank. One day, I walked into my room and it sat broken in half and empty on my dresser. No one took responsibility for taking the money or for breaking the bank until almost six months later; when finally my mother admitted to it. I was being taught from the youngest age, that attachment caused suffering. This was a foundation belief. I sabotaged everything, I could not let myself fail, but I could not let myself succeed either. Whatever I had I lost. After each loss I committed to doing things differently the next time, but I couldn’t, my beliefs created the program that my subconscious ran. And I just worked the program.

The key to understanding our subconscious programming is that we can’t just affirm it away, we can’t just understand it away. A program is not designed by the conscious mind, and so it cannot be upgraded by it. Our programs are designed by our emotional mind through repeated emotional feedback. The more painful the experience that designed the program, the more safeguards, firewalls, and passwords are installed to prevent us from tampering with it. In order to change a belief based program, we must act consciously contrary to our instinct. We must do this enough to impress upon our subconscious mind that the new way is a more state of the art security system. Only through acting as if, and realizing the results of the new way, can we change a response or a behavior that has been set up as a defense mechanism. In other words, “Fake till you make it”. We cannot just reject a prior belief. Of course, we can, it just won’t make any difference in our lives, because we can’t change the program that will automatically act on that belief. If someone has a quality that you see attracts to them what you want, act like in those ways that you see working. Eventually, those actions will provide enough feedback to your subconscious to be accepted as the new way.

My soul, my heart – could not accept love that was earned, love that was conditional. But my subconscious believed that the only way to be loved was to earn it. So, if I believed that someone loved me for something that I did, or the way that I looked or carried myself – eventually I resent that person and acted in a way that would make them leave me. If someone came along who just seemed to love me for who I was, I distanced myself from that person like the plague because according to my program, my belief, if I didn’t earn love I would lose it. So I set up a lose, lose situation – and as crazy as it sounds, my subconscious did it for my own good.

There are the beliefs that we can list, and those we just live. The ones that we live have deep roots. My grandmother believed that you have no one but yourself to depend upon. She believed that if you don’t hold on tightly to everything it will disappear. Every decision that she made emanated from those beliefs. Everything that we face in our lives is filtered through the lens of our beliefs. If you know the beliefs of a person you can easily predict how they will hand any situation.

We can change our clothes, we can change our minds, but changing our beliefs is something altogether different. A belief has a deep root. We can’t just pull it out without replanting, without acting as if we hold a different belief.

When I was a child people would occasionally compliment the way I looked or some talent that I had like painting. When that happened I could feel the fury building up inside of my mother. I could feel her jealousy in my soul. I would pay. So my belief was that if I stand out, if I am publicly outstanding in any area, I will pay. So I crave the light and at the same time I shun it. This is so deeply rooted that I can’t change it despite my understanding of its cause. What I can do is act as if I did not believe that I would suffer. So, I decided to give a lecture to a woman’s group. I wasn’t punished, I did not suffer and it felt so wonderful to share that I began upgrading my old belief through this action and replacing it with the new belief that this is a good thing. It is not easy and takes a lot of work, Rome was not built in a day and cannot be rebuilt in a day, but it can be rebuilt.

The distance between a familiar set of beliefs and one that is new and unfamiliar feels infinite. Crossing that space between fully believing one thing and believing something else feels the same as stepping off of a cliff. Act as if you are not afraid when you are shaking with fear. Hold your head high as if you own the room, when you feel like you should be sweeping it. It is not easy, but the results are worth it. Look, you can’t visualize that you no longer smoke until the desire abates. You can’t visualize yourself hating potato chips until you do. You have to stop smoking – to become a non-smoker. You have to stop eating the potato chips, to stop craving them. You must replace a program with an opposite program to neutralize it and allow the new program to run instead.

When we are born we have a personality. This personality has been formed out of all of our past life experiences, good and bad it is filled with programs developed as a result of the past. Our natural talents come from lives of hard work and practice, our automatic fear are programmed to protect us from past life experiences. The programs are activated by certain stimuli, and reinforced in childhood. We enter each life to utilize the gifts and understanding that have been programmed and to reprogram the areas where we are stuck in spiritually self-destructive programming. When we change our beliefs we are entering a strange new country. In time though, that country become home. In order to make the transition it helps to realize that we can always go back to what we once believed. We have choice.

If our lives are not working the way that we want them to, there is something in our beliefs about our living, not in our lives, that is not working. When we try to change, we cannot maintain it because it is contrary to what we believe. We are not able to commit unless it is to something that we believe. We may change our direction, but if we are going left and still believe that we should be going right we will never see the value in having made the change.

One of the obstacles that we face in changing our beliefs is our need to be right. We need to realize that whatever it was that we once believed was completely appropriate for our lives at the time that we developed that belief. That belief gave us a sense of safety on ground that we walked at the time. Now however, things have changed and the facts that those beliefs were based upon are no longer applicable. Accordingly our beliefs must evolve.

It is not that what we have believed up until now was wrong, and therefore the way that we lived was wrong. It is that what we believed worked in the environment in which they were developed and now those beliefs must evolve to accommodate the here and now.

We can change our beliefs without damaging our sense of self by understanding that all beliefs have a reason for being. We don’t just believe something because we are stupid. We believe things because in order for us to have the experiences that we are meant to grow from the Universe has programmed our personalities to react to the stimuli of our family environment by forming these beliefs.

Using Astrological examples, if a Pisces steps on your foot he/she will apologize profusely for not seeing it. The preprogrammed belief being, if it goes wrong it is my fault. A Taurus who steps on your foot will tell you to watch where you put your foot. Thus believing that if you were not in the way you would not have been stepped on, your problem. If it were a Scorpio you might be accused of trying to trip them. They are obviously programmed with trust issues! Through our beliefs we make sense of the environment in which we must not only survive but thrive. Yet since we are here to evolve it only makes sense that our beliefs evolve in the same manner.

These are very difficult times that we are experiencing now. Nothing is as it was. It is as though everything looks as it did, the form is there but nothing has the same substance. This is a transitional period. We are forming a new reality and therefore the old one is losing its power. We are being forced to seek within ourselves and find the truth. It is what we cannot touch that has the greatest strength, consistency and dependability.

Whatever we can touch, will fade and pass away. Nothing will ever be the way it was. Nothing will ever work the way that it did. Yet if we allow ourselves to grow do the work to change our beliefs, our programming, we will find a strength and sense of self-empowerment that we never believed possible. Life is now miraculous; we are living in the possible all we need is to believe in the fact that nothing asked of us by the Source, the Universe is for anything but our good. Imagine the truth as a three-hundred-sixty degree circle, with every degree being a degree of the truth. We enter our incarnations at zero degrees of truth. That zero degree of truth is the foundation of our first beliefs, it is what our first program is built upon. It is TRUTH. Only, when we reach ten degrees, we see a greater truth and must reprogram our beliefs to accommodate the larger vision of truth that is now available for us to see if we are willing. At no point, were we wrong. The only way to be wrong is to have ten degrees of the truth visible and insist on seeing only the first one. We all see the truth, but it is only when we reach the three-hundred-and-sixtieth degree, that we know the whole truth. If we do not allow that there is always more truth to see, and that seeing it does not make the current truth less true, we will prevent ourselves from the greater experiences, the greater joys that lie in the greater truth.

Our beliefs need to be in alignment not only with our lives as they are but as we want them to be. We must believe in who we are, in who we are here to become, and in the process of that becoming. It is through the building of positive beliefs that we create a positive life. Our beliefs are where we begin when we build faith. And faith is the cornerstone of our successes. The doors to our future are opened by the faith built upon our beliefs. It is through our beliefs that we have the vision to see those doors and through our faith that we have the power to open them.

It is our beliefs that empower our obstacles. I have a friend who was afraid to go back to school even though she knew that she had an opportunity and that it would help her achieve her goals. Yet she was afraid because she believed that she was learning disabled. After speaking about it for a while she acknowledged to me that when she was a child there was such disruption in her home that it was very difficult for her to focus on schoolwork. There were so many emotional disturbances during her childhood that school took a back seat and so she did not do well. Today she is not in her parent’s home anymore. She is not a helpless child anymore, but still the belief that she is somehow unable to learn is still standing in the way of her progress. This is a belief that is built upon a prior view of the truth, but not connected with the current visible truth.
Our beliefs build the mountains that are in our way or they bring us the faith to move those mountains.

“… verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” (Mark 11:23)