We dont have to get sick as we get older (Guardian article)

I suggest that a rigidity of mind creates a pattern or form of limitation that becomes an identification held against the actual open and universal nature of Mind or awareness Itself.

We get set. We get stuck in the mask of our own personna. We humanly create all too easily, a stubborn lonely secret life behind a veil of unwillingness to love or relate directly. Instead we 'relate' through ritual forms of association. We become driven by externalised demands that we believe and fear we must obey to maintain a sense of validity and acceptability in the eyes of (significant to us) others. We are pervasively insecure and sense life as a fragility amidst hostility.

Death is built into the program at the outset of a separating identity - for how can we live out a private mind but that God (or the Lght of our being) is shut out?
But there is another purpose through a born existance than exploitation and mere survival. To prolong such error is hardly an extension of Life - but is a stretching out the avoidance of the inevitable - and that is not living - but a desperation of a will set against life - "I want it thus!".

We can easily see that there is a journey of self awareness in a human life - but it is cut way short of its fulfilment by being stuck in postures of irresponsibility. In a childish getting for oneself or in getting a sense of independant identity by reacting against the perceived or projected ‘parent’ or authority.

The real Life that you really and truly are - is squelched or obscured by this whole process - by which you starve yourself to death in self depriving patterns that reinforce a false or private sense of self-lack. But life is not 'given to you' alone to keep and direct for your mere private gain - (even if that is to achieve merit for selfless action). Life is a Gift - and that Gift is eternally Given - in other words Life Is. Because we humanly subscribe to a sense of life in terms of our self made definitions - we are locked into form - but to release these definitions is to regain an innocent perception. Forgiveness. From such an awakened perspective we rest in the Identity of Being and discover an innate recognition and oneness with life that is truly Inclusive - even though we also walk and talk and work and play in form based relationship.

Health in its true appreciation, has a radiant and giving sense, of freedom to be all that you truly are - and allow its expression. This is ‘spiritual’ life and has nothing inherently to do with whatever belief system(s) served to awaken and free the spirit from a false life.

So to be willing to question the unquestionable may open the door to a greater discovery than we otherwise allow in. But to perpetuate the same sense of self as if _that_ is life is to invite the suppressed and excluded energies of a locked-down-life to break one’s peace in every kind of nightmarish scenario.

But that in turn causes us to reevaluate all that we thought we knew. A true responsibility for our own mind is inevitable - whether we seem to die once - or over and over and over again in attempts to avoid the Intimacy of Being in which we fear the very judgement or exclusion by which we have ourselves 'lived'.

Our use of the mind is largely spent in ways that do not see and share and appreciate the joy and beauty and wonder of life. This is a threshhold of discovery and not an opportunity to further exploit life.

I include myself in a sense of human liability - just as I include you in a sense of Divinity - of a heart-felt awareness welling up ever anew - regardless of the dramas played out on the surface.

Eternal is not the same as everlasting time - it is before - beyond and yet pervading time. I invite you to eternal life - not as a act of will - but as an act of willingness to step off of the map of control - and serve under the direction of the Heart.

This is not about a presumed destination - but of a truly connected appreciation of 'starting place'. Thought itself has to be reevaluated - for it creates our experience whether we realize it or not. Recognising this comes only of the willingness to receive, in silence, the Movement of Life or Spirit.
All are called; few choose to listen. As yet.

Is it ever ok to call someone else a Nazi?

Incitement to hatred in a public domain might be something that can be investigated as to its intent - but to criminalise - and therefore to invite public vilification of people whose attempt to enforce their version of truth upon another-  reveals itself -  in a symbolic and frustrated attack - that has no intent other than to dump on the other and break communication in an appearance of triumph of being right - is to LOSE the opportunity to bring this very behaviour - and its associated mentality - into the light of awareness. Raising awareness may involve calling a stop to institutionalized or previously accepted  'cultures' of abuse - and law may have a place, but only if it is simply the backstop beneath a true culture of communication.

We feed and even become the thing we hate in our self righteousness - and unfortunately, the psychological insights that could have set us on a road to enlightenment are used for the same old mentality of god and devil, right and wrong, It is this mentality that deprives our mind of its wholeness and makes a blinkered and fearful fragmented approach to life that is not inherently necessary. There is a better way - and it is worthy of being discovered.
To attempt to use law - with the backing of the force of the State - to force people to be 'good' - or prevent them being 'bad' is just the same sort of mentality as that under the Nazi or any other tyrannical ideology - in that they who are sure they are right (because who they are fighting against are definitely wrong!) - feel fully justified in forcing their will upon others.
War is a breakdown of communication, but so is the use of communication as a mere manipulative device; a mask; a strategy of self interest at the other's expense.
As we do to our fellow man, we do to our very self. This may not seem true to a mind that uses truth to spin its own story - but it is inescapable. We know what judgement and blame brings forth. How about seeing what a true willingness to listen and learn brings forth?

Internet for all? (Martha's manifesto)

 The technological environment is changing to bring a simplified internet interactivity with the incoming tablet computers. These will start out relatively expensive - like an ipad, or smart phone device, but become cheaper as those (who may not otherwise have or want a computer), discover their ease of use and adopt them.

The arena in which the Government may be able to assist, encourage or facilitate, is related to the connectivity services and charges.

But there should be no compulsion employed in pushing Internet access onto those who do not want it.

And there are very significant reevaluation - including and beyond a true accounting - that needs to be made regarding the true cost of using computers.

To be a pusher of something that makes us overly dependent on external things that are outside our control is yet another step of losing the Soul in order to gain slavery to fear. That said - the things of this world can be used in service and cooperatively in ways that are life positive. So what is required - as always - is discernment and wisdom.

There are and will be contests to control and gain power in this as in any aspect of the world - at various levels from the corporate market place to governments and their intelligence agencies. 

We all know the mind of manipulation and the attempt to control yet because we still believe it is the way to get what we want, we remain essentially gullible and manipulatable.

The Internet has aspects that lends itself to shared resources of information as never before. 

The Internet has aspects that lends itself to surveillance and control as never before.

The development of the Internet offers a potted history of the human mind as never before.

The technology of the Internet offers a subtler language for the understanding of the mechanical aspects of our minds than we have ever had before.

Until we understand our own mind in its programmed nature - we will replicate the same essential conflicted outcomes in everything we endeavour.

I realize I am writing beyond the scope of the article - yet the presumptions of the mind will not be exposed to a true evaluation while they run unquestioned - as if they are self evident truths.

As human beings, we are tending to attempt to replicate life - to make life in OUR image. To map and construct a  world accountable to our will and understanding. As if our will and understanding must be forced onto life - as on the natural world, as onto other cultural perspectives and onto each other and upon our selves- for “its own good”!

There is a deep violence implicit in this approach - for we do not first listen and find communion with life. The endeavours and choices we take from such a starting point serve a different purpose than those we take from a self concept derived  - and essentially fear based - consciousness.

Is the inevitable outcome of I.T consumers - that we become computer chipped 'dreamers' plugged into a neural net - not unlike the humans in the pods in the first Matrix film? Fed with pseudo experiences that substitute for our Soul responsibility? Or is that - one way or another - already the case - but becoming more explicitly manifested?

What would we do if a tyrannous intent - was exposed at work in the network at a level we couldn't escape without unplugging? And which provided or enabled enough goods and services to maintain a sense of personal security. Perhaps this fear will prove groundless - but the inclusion of dissent as healthy is less and less noticeable in a collective media that makes entertainment and dumbed down propaganda out of the News of the day.

Cyberwar

Human beings maintain their sense of identity or 'live' by illusions. So clever manipulators provide them and seek to control the market. Except that it teaches an entirely false set of values that works against our health, wealth and happiness.

Real arms control would not be a matter of cold war type thaw - but a realisation and application of wisdom.

Weapons make shields and counter weapons - communication breakdown; it's always the same.

Distraction, disinformation and effective mindcontrol can take socially acceptable or illegal forms - yet the underlying motives are the same; to get for yourself - (or your group) - the specialness or self validation that feeds your privately held desire.

The information age will be our most short lived epoch - yet significant as the transition from a private mental intent presented as to be more or less acceptable or more or less demanding, (depending on the current power balances), to an awakening desire for truth - and therefore a heart-centric approach that releases the blinkers, filters and blocks which actively undermine the experience and appreciation of communion, trust and creative endeavour.

Why would I suggest this? Because the abuse of our channels of communication for manipulative ends makes sickness - and that sickness will in time fruit an utter distrust and incapacity to participate in soul-less illusions that are without fulfillment.

So though the intensity level can be increased for a short term effect - it only exposes the program further.

Interrelatedness and interdependency are the way of life. The ego spin of being a power in our own right is a self illusion that costs the Earth.

The internet can be used to manipulate, control or get advantage over others - but to do so sets up the very scenario that cripples it of its innate capacity to share information.

When the mind that poisons everything it touches is found to be a mentality we engage by subscription, then not feeding it will emerge as the active wisdom. Those who choose and learn the way of 'not feeding the troll' bring forth recognisable traits of helpfulness that share selflessly as an expression of a culture held in common; a spirit of selflessness that works across a range of apparent differences.

A self hurtful mentality draws to it the experience of constraint, limitation and deprivation - the very conditions that must in time force a fundamental re-evaluation - and a change of heart.

To see the value in limiting and constraining the mentality of deception - wherever it expresses - is to begin to starve the war-mind of value and attention.

The position of strength to bring to negotiations - is an honest willingness to receive the worth and value of those you meet. A hidden agenda makes impotent - such that guile and charm and incentive have to be forcefully applied. In a word - war.

How does humanity deescalate insanity?

By taking one step at a time as an expression of sanity.

What is sanity?

Relating to the present as it is.

We need each other for competition, control or domination - but only as proxies for private agendas.

We need each other for sanity - for war kills truth in which the power of the sanctity of life is active.

The wars in the world are reflected symptoms of the war in our self.

It is time for individuals to actively disarm of a hurtful and loveless intent and accept conscious responsibility for life.

I don't mean become defenceless to the hacker or scammer - but defenceless to our own heart.

A trojan is an executable instruction that appears to be something else. Such is the nature of the deception to which we subscribe to in ignorance. It runs as a loop, but is alert to threat such that it creates distraction conflicts or even crashes the system rather than have its true source exposed. It would phish as your own thoughts and use your life for its hosting service.

Discernment, wisdom and trust extended.

Grief - 2

It is common for another to say they are sorry for our suffering even when it is not any of their doing. Offering a 'touch' to a sense of one we perceive as hurt. I welcome the touch. I feel the hurt - but I don't seek to soothe it - but rather allow it to rest in me as one with my love. And as such it isn't hurt.

One of the things that came up strong in me while in grief was how others projected their stuff onto me and then acted out their fantasy on me - with expectations that I fit their needs.

Whilst it was easy if I paused, to understand the self defence mechanism at work I none the less felt at times outraged or completely unrelated with. In the former is my unmet desire or need for love - albeit in terms I can accept and understand - and in the latter is a true insight into the surface meaninglessness of much of what passes as currency as human relationship.

We are so unseen in this life - but then are we not ourselves likewise so often too 'busy' to notice and discern each other - until suddenly we cant find each other! We deprive ourselves of love.

I don't believe love is involved in struggle - but when we calm of our preoccupation in struggle, love's nature rises of itself - as the simple truth. And eventually we accept and align with the simple truth rather than fight with reality. At least to find the next step.

But all of us together - humanly - try to 'make a self' in a world that does not and can not last - and do so in ignorance of the love that we are. Searching for our own meanings in shifting and conflicting conditions. 

When love finds its name written in our hearts - we begin to look out upon a different world - from a fresh perspective. Love’s loss - lived humanly - re opened me to love - because it is the loss that I would lose and the love that I will cleave to. 

There is much confusion in the human heart to be healed and this can only come one willing step at a time. We generally don't like living in or through the territory of raw exposure and seek to cover it with a regained sense of self. 

It took me three years or so before I freely came to a sense of willingness to move on. Until I felt it, I trusted myself to be as I was moved to be. I also lost my marriage at the same time. I knew it in my heart - but couldn't let that come out - that took many years of pain and in many ways is a kind of grief that is hard to speak of - losing a beloved one while they are alive.

I wore myself out going round and round the same thoughts, over and over. Seeking love where it was not.

I sense somewhere that that was the point - for me to live this and be changed by having lived so.

All things are known in silence. A fullness that cannot be found from within the noise.

I don't say this as any kind of answer - but simply as a possible direction.

To live each day - to live this day - from even a little willingness for the heart’s blessing to abide and share.

When we neglect or forget to love, we starve ourselves of life.

speech crime (BBC News)

When is offence a matter of ego, or hurt feelings - and when is it offensive to the health and wellbeing of society as a whole?

This ought to be something that the relevant authorities concerned - starting with those involved in dispute, their employers, and if all else fails, a judge - ought to be easily able to discern.

Why not? Because a self righteous anti racist culture is setting the agenda. To fall foul of such a culture is to be vilified.

'Otherism' or scapegoatism - UNDER ANY guise or pretext - is undermining of truth - upon which we all utterly depend for sanity and integrity. It accords a negative value or lack of worth to another living soul because of taking offense.

When the offense issues from an emotional outburst arising from a heated exchange, an apology should be sought and accepted if offered - and made a basis of resumed relations. For such offence is the reaction of the hurt, hurting back - and this is hardly the act or intention of someone in their right mind.

To shift social attitudes so as to draw a line that says it is not ok to denigrate others in specific ways that before had been largely socially acceptable - is a step forward. But we cannot then attempt to use the force and the rule of law for controlling speech without nurturing the very conditions that seed hatred.

Externally applied control is a very dangerous tool, for life does not work, or align creatively and constructively, by being controlled - no matter how much force applied - nor how subtle or ingenious our lawmaking.

We need to use proportionate force to uphold and protect ourselves as a society so as to have stability enough in which to learn and grow in our humanity. For education is the dance of relationship in which conditions of trust are established in which blocks to creativity and intelligence are passed beyond and a mutual sense of worth is shared.

Life insults us daily - it does not support our personal plans. We are often frustrated, limited or opposed by every kind of circumstance. Some seem petty and others are devastating to us.

There are times to make a stand and if need be, our Spirit is our treasure, for if we let others cause us to lose our Spirit, we lose all that we are.

Those who do not live in their Spirit are mean-minded and blind to the living soul in others - having only the letter of the law.

The realignment of our society with truth is the adjustment from which all else will follow. If racism - or anythingism - is kept in the dark, suppressed but not undone - then it festers unhealed and continues to control us not only in terms of racism - but in terms of anti racism.

To ‘open a debate’ or to communicate with a purpose of healing rather than of strategic advantage, it is necessary that the notion and nature of speech or thought crime be properly discerned.

When we attack ourselves through the proxy of a scapegoat, we may get some sense of a passing satisfaction, but no one can put their hatred upon another and have it actually out of their own mind thereby! This is truth. But not the whole truth. For hatred is born of hurt, and hurt is born of a fearful sense of self and life. This is where healing can be accepted and conflict undone.

It is the currency of our notions of self and world that we trade as if real, that sets humanity up for a humiliating but ultimately humbling awakening.

To be vigilant for signs of personal attack so as to claim abuse is to feed the monster that sucks dry our Spirit. To attack attackers is surely self defeating.

Yes, we do need to constrain the self (or other) harming as part of a greater process - but that process must arise or extend from a true measure of love and wisdom - or else its just a recycling of history with all the inherent misery and woe wrapped up in a rebranded presentation.

Thanks for your attention
Brian

Grief

June 29, 2010 at 4:53 am

I lost my 16 year old first born daughter to suicide. 15 years ago.
Loss has come up sharply as a fundamental thread of what I call ‘my life’.
I grieved my daughter – but I was also grieving ‘my life’.
The heart opens in ways that the mind cannot long abide – and yet the story of the mind is not the purity of the loving.
I associate the loving with Soul.
The Soul of me opened through FEELING the love – but the mind subverted that purity by asserting its story – and grabbing my attention in ways I couldn’t altogether be free of.
I didn’t fight anything during the grief – I don’t find fighting to be a way of peace.
Our minds are so entrenched – so in the grip of a willfulness to make sense of everything so that I GET what I need.
But despite the fearfulness of that sort of survival intent, love arose within my life and undid me of my grip.

I might seem whacky – but I feel to discern the gift no matter what the appearance. At least, there is a love of truth in me that prompts and uncovers this willingness in me despite experience of unspeakable hurt.

For a long while the world was simply the footprint of where she had walked. The absence of her light and being. And I had to do whatever I felt I had to do – or leave undone.

I had to let love touch me deeper than I had ever allowed anyone or anything to touch me. Words aren’t going to say much now – I’m not going to be able to say.

We put our love outside ourself and do not recognize where it really is. But you are the love – and the giving is the way you remember. Screaming and stuff can be an act of self love – for if something doesn’t release that limits us unbearably – we need to find any way to find the flow – the being – the life.

It is here – always. I forget this a lot – but I remember it more.
My mind seems to be designed to protect me from sharing love – but I don’t regard that as the truth or nature of Mind itself – but as a sort of complex story of me that once seemed so real and now really doesn’t speak for the love and life I feel graced to share – (yet still have the temptation to usurp or lose by following my own thinking-mind instead of listening in the heart).

I am glad to feel your presence- though a shared sense of loss has touched us both.

In Peace

Brian

Reith Lectures 2010 - lecture three: What We'll Never Know

 As soon as I saw this absurd heading I was aware of the thought: "will we ever REALLY KNOW any thing?".

Within our own defined terms we 'know' things - but a genuine investigation might ask - what is the presumed I that knows? What is IS knowing? WHAT really is being known - in any event or circumstance?

No matter how ingeniously inventive a mind may be - its own reality to itself is built on presumptions that run exactly like a computer program. Unless of course we 'be still and know'. (In which case such programs can be observed along with the desires and beliefs that they are constituted of).

The mind in exercising judgements and definitions attempts to control reality - and increasingly thereby suffers an oppositional reality to which it is helplessly victim.

The mind in the presence and flow of awareness expresses an inherent movement that is the nature of the flow - and is characterized by a communioned trust. You could say this is a 'mystical' knowing - except it is universal and always already the case -  a Universal knowing that is utterly beyond all dualistic mentality - yet is utterly native to your being.

Explaining things and calling such explanation 'knowing' is utterly absurd. The absolutely interrelated nature of all things includes the act of consciousness itself. To assert a world outside of mind - and then attempt to 'know' it in order to control it for 'our own good' is to accept without question a starting point of willful self delusion.

However, the investigation into the manifest world WILL yield fruits of an awakening and startling nature - for what we presume to be 'out there' will reveal itself - or be revealed - as a profound and inescapable nature - in which what we thought to be our mind is realized to be an instrument of feedback for a greater Mind - capitalized because the truth of mind we identify with exclusively is but an extension within what can be called Mind - yet cannot itself be known - except by its effects.
And yet the DIRECT expressions of Mind - are of an order and quality whose nature constitutes all that truly Is. Much of what we take to be our mind is a superficial clutter and chatter - not unlike a static signal serving to jam or block the airwaves.

Could there be any proof to what I suggest?

Consider in honesty the following statement:
“I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what
I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on my?
self.”

Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will
TELL you of Itself.
(From A Course in Miracles)

Corporate Disaster poisons the world we share

Look carefully at the way 'creative' obfuscation is employed in all our relationships. It isn't just the corporate accounts or government budgets or the PR and manipulative deception so as to maintain the illusions that we assert to others and OURSELVES. Sanity and honesty are inextricably facets of each other. There are 'games' being played that cost the Earth - and cost the appreciation, well being and wealth of what would we would be living - in an integrated willingness of purpose and worth. Corporate selfishness NEEDS to be constrained within the community interest or its simply exploits, undermines and destroys, in the wake of blind short term interests. There's no profit in such loss. Governments and official regulatory bodies NEED to hold their service as a duty of trust and beware of inducements to cosy up to the 'rich and powerful' when those lobbies attempt to use their leverage for mean and callous ends. It isn't that bad people need to become good - but that we need to stop and reevaluate what the Good truly means. Unless we stop and start from a fresh perspective, we are always trying to force life to fit our self illusion. Our whole way of life will change from a rediscovery of what life truly is. Or of course one can insist on persisting from a basis that has never worked, is not working, and will never work. Of course it seems to work - thus the protection of the status quo by those who are in power. But the real cost is becoming increasingly more difficult to deny - and many are less willing to be controlled by loveless thinking. The emotional 'body' of the American people is feeling hurt, confused and outraged. The feeling needs to be acknowledged - but it does not need to become a basis for satisfying the urge for vengeance under the disguise of justice. Educate. Feel for the truth that can be received. We are oil addicts because we have used it to empower a way of life that exploits rather than shares. We can change our way of life, set a fresh direction, and get off the addiction, one step at a time. The risk factors at Macro level need to come right down. It isn't ok to make these kind of tradeoffs at the cost of a commonwealth that hardly appears on balance sheets. At the microlevel they need to come up. We as individuals need to dare to explore, discover and grow the ways of a true peace amidst the lessons that we experience as symptoms of ignorances past. There is nothing compulsive about ignorance apart from a desire to stay in the dark, play out the games of division and blame and shame and love the sense of our own image, judgement and opinion as if these offer safety, fulfillment or sanity.

Environmental Consciousness

Current mentalities on the environment are subtly at the source of the problem. Of course one can focus on one facet of a multidimensional issue and identify a fearful or adverse outcome or enemy and righteously align ourselves against it - but see how dumb so much of this becomes and how easily it is reduced to 'good' and 'evil' polarities not based on reality but on currently prevailing perceptions.
There is a fundamental waking up that is called for - and the nature of this waking is to the nature and politics of our own mind-set.

To be human has been defined and asserted as a private mentality in an independent organism that can then possess and exploit its own life and its own world.Writ small, this was largely held in check so as not to damage or undermine too widely - but now it is writ large in the corporate and consumer mentality that has no real relationship - no basis for love or joy - beyond the short term selfish 'getting' at long term expense - and at the expense of others - of our and other cultures - of our natural world in companionship and of our natural world as life support system.

The desire to see the deceiver/evildoer external to our own mind is a scapegoat mechanism that has to be relinquished if we are to be honest.

Only by recognizing the pattern within our own mind can we allow a change of heart to change our mind. Such change is freely and willingly embraced for though fear may initiate a sense of alarm - it need not blind us such that we merely react mechanically in selfish ignorance again - and yet again.
The resources that are available to a shared will - and a shared responsibility that grows from the ground up - are inconceivable to the mentality of separate and competing interests.
But without the awakening of a true responsibility for our use of our own minds - we cannot but continue to be deceived, manipulated and mechanically driven into the further density of a self destroying and loveless delusion.

Good Housekeeping in a Good Home, marries the practical expression of loving relationships.

Perhaps it starts with ceasing to deny or hide from the desecration of the home we share - both at mind level and world level - and sweeping out the crap that actively undermines trust and communication.

Fear is always used to distract and manipulate attention. But wisdom is resting in the heart and feeling an issue from a larger perspective than what fear would offer as your 'protector'.

Mitigating symptoms may be a part of a process - but intelligence needs to awaken to the real causes. They do not require science or intellectual prowess - but simple and profound honesty - in a context of what has been called humility.

For all the blight that humankind seem to bring to earth it is well to remember that we can also be the very beholding of the glory of the living universe. We can feel and know true inspiration and be moved to share and live on an awakened basis - despite the histories of habits that have yet to be replaced with a more heartfelt and conscious valuing of life.

The good news is that - though we can sell our soul and thus lose appreciation of the depth and interrelatedness of all things - it remains held for us on trust - until we change our mind and turnabout.

There is much talk about cooperating with nature rather than fighting it. Learning from it rather than enslaving it. This is a simple matter to anyone who isn't blinded by their own thinking.

Mind control isn't really the work of the media, governments or corporations - but is an estrangement from our own nature that sets images and meanings and definitions of self and reality - above the actual living relationship that is always present - where awareness rises to meet the world as it truly is, rather than as we would have it be.

If inspiration and insight and guidance were truly desired - they would be simply available - and effective.

What do we really want?

This question isn't addressed to an intellectual level but to our heart. This is the most fundamental act of which we are capable; to listen within and discover the desire that is truly moving in our heart. Until we are willing to truly reevaluate everything from the ground up - we run on and within old and false desires that are not sane, but are false promise based on false premise.
Be creative in your relationships with everything. Be present in your own life. Don't let fear blind you  - no matter how subtly it presents itself as you.
When Spring comes the seeds that lived invisible in the dark come forth. But the thawing of the heart is the season of your own willingness.

The Good news about the economy

Here is the good news:

We are being brought to a willingness and opportunity for a fresh perspective that will genuinely express spiritual and cultural renewal.

This is an individual shift that becomes a social movement because it is the individual that actually connects, discerns and communicates, and yet find that others are likewise becoming receptive to the same relevant insights.

To give the focus to what is wrong is disempowering. It is helpful to use the experience of fear, conflict, confusion and loss as am alarm to listen more deeply - with a greater honesty than our superficial strategies would allow.

True spiritual discernment has nothing to do with promoting personal belief systems or manipulating the world or others into the likeness of any kind of god - spiritual or material. It is simply the willingness to listen in the silence of our being - even amidst the chatter or drama of the world - with the trust and desire to let truth be revealed.

Ingenious thinking is not the way to truth but can be clearly seen in our times as a deception. And truth is not ever an object of our thought - nor can it be used as a shield or weapon in the play of human conflict.

The real culprit is not the shadowy super rich or their bankers - nor the politicians who operate within the confines dictated to them by the 'economics' that are espoused and shared as if meaningful and desirable.

We cannot 'think or spin our way out' of the conditions we have generated for ourselves but we can uncover a fresh appreciation of truth - of reality. And then we will see from a different perspective and live from a new basis - even amidst the seeming mess and chaos of human relationships.

To uncover or be restored to wholeness of being is not a goal - but is both a starting place and a way of traveling. To live 'outside' the heart results in greed for self in a disconnected sense of specialness. It despoils and exploits without knowing what it does for it sees its own 'needs' above all else - including truth. It is NOT a sound or sane basis for good housekeeping or a loving home.

It IS up to us individually to decide what is of value and to honour and align with it accordingly. If we give value to what cannot actually fulfill us we simply become possessed by our so called possessions.

We are afraid of our Spirit because we believe it calls for sacrifice, but in truth it is illusions that are released. Maintaining deceptions is an enormous burden and strain - that we are accustomed to as a slave to heavy chains.

To take a fresh look in an honesty of spirit is not in any way the same as to rebrand or redistribute presentations of realty so as to extend or maintain the status quo.

We feel fear, there is confusion, we seem to have lost, and yet face more loss - with a mounting tide of crises of which we have a diminishing capacity to respond to. The underlying models and mentalities that we have grown and relied on are part of the cause of the problems we face.

Is there not a better way of looking at this?
Do I want to find it?

Brave New World

I believe we need to re-evaluate much more than cutting costs and releasing an overbearing state. I believe we need to discover a saner basis for living together on this planet. Workability is not mere expediency - it is the hallmark of wisdom. To invite and support processes of trust and communication  - in a society that has eroded its own foundations - is a good start.

I envision a process of change and cultural renewal is underway that can not be the continuation of the politics of the last century. Economic constraints will be a constraining factor - but desire and joy for life must be the motive force. I believe this will become more obvious as it is seen that the old approaches simply can no longer work.

Everyone presumes that structure is fixed - but when the spirit goes out of structure it becomes a force against new life instead of serving it. Renewal is necessary - but it has to come out of a process of our own lives and cant just force 'good ideas' upon life.

There is much about our mentality writ large on western society - that is mean minded, self seeking and destructive or at least self undermining. Blaming others is a mechanism to let everyone else remain unchanged - but what we need is a true process of education.

Political changes can express and yet also nurture an organic process of change. There is a need for a deeper level of self honesty and responsibility than many may want. A true accounting must start from a better place than the distorted models that are not at all serving us well.
Nick Clegg has set a tone - now respond by joining - by engaging - not with the cynical politics of mere opinion or managed despair - but with desire to discover what our times are bringing forth.

Change can be creatively or gracefully cooperated with - or it can be like seismic shifts that undermine even our fundamental structural securities. Because of the debt funded spin bubble - we are still like the cartoon character who has run off the cliff - but has yet to look down.

I am optimistic because of the nature of the human spirit- not because I believe human selfishness has somehow disappeared. Fear is NOT the basis upon which to make decisions - especially concerning potentially fearful outcomes.