Keeping the Peace

In a national mood of potential renewal, I invite not only police to be tangibly present in our neighbourhoods as officers on the beat - but to be encouraged to learn more of what keeping the peace actually means.

For the presence and demeanour that we demonstrate communicates atmospherically. Everyone is part of keeping the peace to the degree that we share a presence of acknowledgement and respect. But like anemones - we communicate fear or threat by being drawbridged and evasive.

In focusing on the mindset of looking for trouble(makers) - the role of 'fighting crime' substitutes for keeping the peace. This role needs to be activated when appropriate and deactivated when no longer needed. A mind alert and at rest - in connected relationship founded in a genuinely felt shared purpose - NOTICES - and shares much more than the mind engaged in predatory mode.

To the mentality that only considers symptoms, my words may seem irrelevant or whimsy - but sooner or later it will be realized that fear based actions raise the level of fear. This could be called the level of distrust and a fragmentation of society into private egos - often without a real sense of community or belonging.

Of course policemen and women are to use proportionate means to uphold the law - but the way in which this is done often tends to an institutionalized lack of respect or disregard for actual members of the public they are supposed to serve.

Alas in our 'terrorized state' - and with civil unrest increasingly likely - our policemen are more and more felt as agents of the state rather than protectors of the community with powers accorded them by the state.

Law and order is a symptom of true social health - and this is not something that the police can 'do' - but a culture of trust and communication can replace a culture of blame and exclusion.

Adversarial politics results in the pursuing of selfish interests at the expense of the common good. But selfishness need not be reinforced as the truth of human beings - even if the consumer economy 'insinuates' a 'getting' mentality as fulfilment.
There is ALWAYS a deeper level than the symptoms suggest - and this is not dealt with by budgets but by the courage that can only come from valuing the presence peace above one's own private sense of self interest.

The only time that such a cultural renewal can 'take' - is when there is `an opportunity such as we are in - when a sense of inspiration and hope opens a greater sense of possibility than the old programs.

Out of the Loop

As our democracy has in so many ways become a farce with politicians spinning for position and privilege in an ever declining pretense to any real power for change, it is surprising that many are more than twice shy of getting involved?

The manipulation of perceptions is not the way to do business or politics or personal life - except as a short term deceit with long term consequences. Of course citizens use the same means to serve their own personal agendas and this is one reason why society has fragmented into alienated sections on so many levels.

There is a 'rightness of being' that can be felt and can communicate itself that is a different foundation from the self righteousness that we otherwise attempt to employ against a sense of 'wrongness of being'. In the latter is all the stuff of a world gone mad. In the former is life restored one step at a time to a sanity that the mad have by definition - forgot. It really is and feels alive - without needing hype and extra stimulation to prop it up or fuel it.

If a new movement arises - it is felt as a shift or change at a deeper level than re-branding the old with a bit of 'creative accounting' thrown into its makeup. This is a universal feeling and calls for aligning with a greater good than any of the personalities, parties or even policies involved. The willingness to work together is born out of the recognition of trust as essential to our mutual good. Despite history.
There will be those who still try to save only there own from ruin and this does undermine trust. We need to identify the mentality at work and address it honestly and not knee jerk into self righteous withdrawal from the larger process of communication that IS society.
There will be little appetite to get involved in politics from those who have been conditioned to consume and display as the expression of freedom.

It is to be seen if this political change sparks a resurgent willingness to engage in real discussion, participation and support for social and political change beyond a desire making life comfortable enough to go back to sleep again. For whatever the political activity of a citizen, most may yet be politically neutered by the indoctrination of the illusion of freedom that is fed out to 'consumers' at much deeper levels than most realize - otherwise we would not all have woken to find such a nightmare unfolding as it is appearing in terms of negative social change caused by the breakdown of the capacity to control life 'on my terms' - or indeed trust the balance such desire for power in market based models.
The sanity that underlies wisdom is nothing new - but the sense of life that is discovered by following it is indeed life felt anew.
To be wholehearted in  life is a wonderful thing - do not wait for politicians, but do be part of the health and heart of this world - and learn to discern the true and the false. They are seemingly mixed up because our minds are mixed up. Real communication opens a larger circle in which apparent differences can become workable in common purpose and a cause for a deepening appreciation of life.

Am I pleased with the election result (UK)

I am encouraged and hopeful that such shared purpose undertaken with good will can bring diverse perspectives toward a simpler more practical and therefore more unified Britain.

The nature of truth demands the willingness to release personal gain in favour of a shared or common good. This must be demonstrated by the leaders to become credible and desirable to the nation at large. The sooner this shift becomes a social change the more clear will become the positive steps that will lead us from out of our own spin, and into a direct appreciation of the life we share in this country and the part we play in our world.

The personal characteristics that are called for in the leadership are more important than the historical policies that are associated with them. To be able to remain in communication amidst passionate differences is a truly creative endeavour - and the way in which the outcome is arrived at is as important as the outcome itself - for an honourable process of communication - listening and speaking for the sake of a greater good than one's own personal agenda - is absolutely the way to discover that rigid minds in dominance or subordination to each other are not really strong - but joined hearts in the best discernible next step - are.

The tribal identities represent the aspect of the ego sense that gets its sense of self from difference - and from exploiting difference to raise its own. This is not an enlightened or truth loving way of living - in fact it will - taken to its extreme - cost us the earth - as well as depriving us of what could be discovered instead.

The time of rational ideologies that attempt to define and impose various truths without regard for true workability is also an exhausted attempt to engineer society or indeed allow mere market force to engineer society. For both of these are of the intent to manipulate others - or indeed each other.

The real deficit that must be corrected is the deficit in trust. Growing, maintaining and extending trust is a fundamental key in the rewakening to a freely embraced responsibility and the keeping of the peace.

It is not surprising that dire circumstances set the stage for such changes - but the change itself remains in the realm of the courage and conviction of the heart. In this we all play our part.
The heart is not the superficial emotional manipulator or subverter of reason, but is the unified intelligence that discerns and guides amidst variables and apparent complexities that otherwise effectively keep us blinkered at best and blind at worst.

Good housekeeping is not rocket science and a good home is more than a house. Our belonging in life, in our country and in our locality is not merely a definable externality but a participation in real relationship.

The view of the problem - seen through the problem - is insurmountable and we tend to focus only on tiny parts at a time and either live small - or shift ceaselessly from crisis to crisis.

But the willingness to take a step in a truly shared trust will always a discover the next step - and in time, a clearer perspective of the true nature of that which remedies the true cause of diverse problems.

It is not clever politicians we need - but wise ones - and wisdom is a gift freely bestowed to any who are willing to be truly honest with themselves and each other.

There is nothing that manipulators will not twist to their own usage - but the spirit of true communication is anathema to lies for it is more than simply information or words - it is an active presence of true authority.

The media are also called to serve more than the self survival that seems to be derived from the fuelling or feeding off of conflict and drama for the attention grabbing attention and sales or ratings.

Do I expect this government to immediately get wise? No - but in their willingness to share a common purpose may well be the foundation of a resurgence of wisdom in workable governance amidst the perils of the macro-corporate economy’s unchecked dominance and the ignorance of the value of the micro economy as it has been progressively eroded and denied its natural opportunities of creative expression by a false promise of a techtopian consumerism.

Debt is a modern brand of slavery. Who or what are the Masters of the modern debt ridden world? What are the actual relationships beneath the apparently separate ‘bodies’ and institutions. What is the basis of our ignorance such that we are so easily kept ignorant? We need more than cuts and ongoing mitigation of pain for the unfortunate. We need to get real. We need to ditch the attempt to rule by deception. Not just this Government - but as a society. Why? - because reality has caught up with us - and given us a real opportunity. Is this not good news despite the pains of readjustment and rehabilitation?

Dude, Where's My Top Secret Next-Generation IPhone?

Everyone makes mistakes - but if I were making Apple's policy I would dictate that the prototype phone should not have been allowed out in public - and only booked out for job specific needs - such as to show to other related business leaders. This would not include using it out of work for personal use.I don't know the actual policy - or the level of trust and responsibility that the worker was employed to fulfil.
As for who gives a flying hoot about the rapid and currently unfolding development of an emerging mobile connectivity that is far beyond 'a phone' - well - HELLO? - or who gives a moment to a such a predicament as this hapless worker's, regardless of the interest or not in the content of the disclosures?

Personally I would forgive anyone who repents of an act made in error - but that doesn't mean I would continue to support a mentality that is liable to error. Mistakes are great - if humiliating - ways to learn how better to live. Blame and shame is a refusal to learn anything except a righteous disregard for a greater perspective than one's own.

Industrial consumerism has encouraged a mentality of identifying with or against products and brands that is a mere vanity and the manipulation of such consumers is a way of milking the herd, and the competition to be in a position of what is effectively mind control - is fiercely contested.

However, even through such a seemingly chaotic process - the new technology unfolds and extends for better and for worse - changing the way we live and - I believe - the way we perceive the world.

It is not in Apple's interest generally to have such leaks and Apple - does - push the development of technology even if it may not maintain dominance once the market develops.

"Do Liberal Democrat policies represent change?"

The nature of the changes that I feel are and will increasingly be called forth are not yet within the vision of any political movement, but there are steps that begin to open to that change just as there are steps that continue to act as if the past is still the present.
Policies are a starting point and some of the Lib Dem policies have merit - as have some of other parties policies.
What I would hope for from the Lib Dems is a willingness to bring some fresh air in the way in which politicians conduct business and the way in which they relate to the public - and to the media.
Whatever party is elected will have to engage an extremely difficult job and the best way to deal with it is not to bluff and bluster with spin and reviews and reports and targets and statistical outcomes that mean sweet nothing and delay and obstruct the functionality of many services from running well.
The best way is to engage in real and constructive communication with the spectrum of social and political perspectives and having assessed what steps are possible and positive - to take them without apology or fanfare and do so with a positive demeanour because they are steps we can actually take together.

The new ideas that can offer intelligent response to our many levelled crisis have to find channels of expression and begin to register as a real movement that aligns with life and not merely private gain at common cost. This is not currently feasible in the Labour or Conservative camps because they are locked into C20th politics which is largely an ineffectual front on a relatively powerless job in so many respects. Who and what really call the shots? Where is themoney and the power - and where is the voice that can speak without its master telling it what to say?

The loosening of our minds and the widening of our possibilities has to find a way to happen for creative change that isn't just change for its own sake or to make a mark,
There needs to be a sense that politics is possible for all kinds of approaches and ways of living together on this Earth - so that people across the spectrum engage in political and social change in common intent and endeavour.

I feel the Lib Dem vote is a vote for their desire to serve the trust that will be given them as best as they may- and to break the stranglhold of the two party system that has a diminishing credibility.

Will the Lib Dems live up to any of my hopes? Not if we have unrealistic expectations from a consumer-like dependency. It isn't the politicians who lead change - but Individuals working in society.
It may be that any party taking office is essentially told what it can and cant do amidst extreme constraint.
Lib Dems may be less likely to pretend they are actually in power and more willing to open conversations that we are not engaging and which must begin to engage.

They have my vote - and I reject the notion of being told to vote to keep the 'other lot' out.The Berlin Wall could never come down. But it did.

Volcano Cloud over Europe

Of course there are all sorts of immediate practical difficulties associated with this event, but I would encourage some comment that acknowledged the greater picture of our usually taken for granted dependencies on both man made and natural infrastructure. Not from a place of scaremongering or blame-dealing or news-selling but simply to take an occasion to acknowledge a proportional sense of humility and an appreciation of a  commonwealth which we all tend to neglect in a human busy ness.

Amidst such times of change - we need occasion to pause and consider a bigger picture than our immediate perceptions and reactions, for wisdom tends to proceed from an acknowledged humility.

There is a quiet, in the sky, and a quiet in our minds perhaps as well. This may be a disquiet relative to our sense of being in control - but is a condition in which life can touch us - just as when we are snowed in.

It also occurs to me that the actual dangers of jets flying may be litigational and of a mind that is increasingly risk averse. I don't mean that real danger should be disregarded - but that there is these days  increasingly a shutdown of function around degrees of danger that once would have been negotiated or reacted to in more flexible ways. In short, I say that we cripple our capacity to function due to worshipping false gods. At some point there must be a reclaiming of living life from the edicts of the mind that purports to save it.

I note test flights have been conducted to assess damage and I would appreciate further news of this - and acknowledgement of the UNDERLYING MENTALITIES that govern our perceptions and reactions.

Though it is a new and rare occurrence, there is nothing we can do to stop this condition from continuing on and off - any more that we can CONTROL the El Nino current etc.

If we were more honest about our actual state - would we live differently? Perhaps less frantically and more harmoniously?

Why can't we trust what we see? (BBC article comment)

I would like to add that the interpretations that give us the experience we call perception and the belief in what we remember, are a fundamental aspect of what we accept and share as reality, and base our entire life on. The conditioned mind makes stories of the past and sees reenactments.

Just how much of what we accept as reality is distorted and coloured by mental construct may be much more staggering. This is not news - but few WANT to look at the workings of their own mind - because they are so sure they already know!

Why should I WANT to share this? Because the innocence of the life that can be discovered in a fresh or healed perception is shackled and denied by the presently selecting interpretations of the past.

Is this too deep to understand or is there a running desire NOT to understand?

I don't wonder that human consciousness is in many ways in denial and acts as self seeking defence mechanisms. The experience of hurt and hate and loss is a terrible one. But I do share a willingness to find a better way and have come to recognise that experience and reality are quite different, though to be still of thought can allow a directness of reality to register, prior to the mechanisms of interpretation.

Curiously, this quality of consciousness 'knows its next step' and I am quite sure that some aspect of such intuition also plays a large part of Police work, though there isn't an accepted theoretical framework for 'gut feeling' hunch or intuition. (I accept that we can falsely call our personal bias by such names if our desire for a specific outcome gets in the way of listening).

Global crisis invites Intimate response

What should we do about the increasingly serious warnings over global warming?



Chicken Licken will leads us to Foxy Loxy. Who uses fear and confusion to personal gain.
Don't lose your head, be calm instead.
We really do not understand or control life, Or indeed the planet as much as we think we do - and we do have a deep seated predisposition to guilt as an fundamental aspect of our self image or concept.

Presence of mind, a clear, compassionate and proportionate sense of current needs, a refusal to be ruled by fear no matter how it makes its presentation - these are the marks of wisdom.
Note that this issue has dominated attention as the overriding environmental issue but is not expressing a sense of love for our world and each other but a fearfully justified mandate to self righteousness amidst a sense of guilt and 'punishment'.

What I do want us to ‘do’, is awaken from the arrogance and delusions of our self-image based thinking and allow a tangible heartfelt relationship with our selves, each other and our world. Writ small our selfish delusion wastes our life of its capacity to wonder at, appreciate and share life - but writ large our selfish ignorance is systematically undermining our life support systems. The 'sin' of it is not to be scapegoated and attacked but to be recognized as a mentality that we all share. I do not advocate blame - but awakened responsibility.

We live incredibly wastefully and destructively - generally in ignorance - because we are given to serve private self interest as if it truly serves our desire and need.

I feel we are amidst most fundamental change in which we do not have an option to remain as we were.
This change is occurring at the most fundamental level and we experience it often in part as loss of control, breakdown of function and order, division and confusion on may levels.
The fear around change can be deepseated and induce regression into a seige-like posture in attempt to regain the illusion of control.
Yet the oppportunity of change is to open a fresh curiosity and willingness - not to seek private self advantage - but to be restored to a greater participation in life. To discover a basis for trust despite all the evidence that would seem to dictate otherwise.

There is no war between heart and mind - when the mind serves the heart.
When the mind thinks it can act independently it uses everything for itself and denies or becomes 'unconscious' of the heart - of the relationships of the whole. Yet the heart is always presently with you - unrecognised and usurped by a false emotional spin that tells a story you thought you needed to hear.

To take the spin of the mind for reality is to be deluded - even if billions seem to do the self same thing.
Humanity needs to check in. I'd say is being called in.
We are not and never have been, independent of life, of our planet or of each other. It is time to accept a function within life that is truly relational. The presentations we spin to ourselves and each other serve a desire to be special. This puts us at war with our truth, each other and our world and makes us alone and makes us a stranger to ouselves.

The mind that believes we must do as fear says or be damned becomes quick to damn others and it is not easy to remain at peace when others demand your guilt. But there is no peace in guilt.
There is a crisis of transformation - but it is not something we can appreciate from the perspective of a loveless mentality. Nor is a crusade a means to share in the goodness of life.

Reality is not determined by consensus - but revealed in the intimacy of being.
There are times when more  thinking is not the way forward - and there is no way back.
There are resources of our being that can be called upon - not in magical or wishful thought - but in conscious trust. - to discover the next step, to be guided in the truth that our thinking does not make.

I'll add that the thinking written here is of meanings clothed in thought. If any of the meanings resonate - then thought has been used to lead beyond thinking - to a recognition that is yours. The willingness to receive is in us all - but often blocked, because we think we already know.

Comments on UK NHS

 Sketches of comment added to a post calling for a more vocational culture to our National Health service.

The system of 'health service delivery' has been quantified and rendered into pseudo market terms. The processing of 'customers' often involves an impersonal lack of courtesy. The increasing reliance on ever expanding (costly) hi tech health management solutions - along with never ending retraining can lose all sense of proportion when basic nursing care human dignity is subordinated to mechanical functions. Love, to be itself, must be practically embodied. It doesn't have to be 'called' love - but it does have to be tangible care and not 'provision of care services'. There is so much in our current setup that works against the willingness of those who feel a vocational calling - in NHS as in the country as a whole. I consider it a spiritual vacuum - not in terms of religion per se - but in terms of a culture of inspiration, trust and cooperation. Relationships of trust cannot be mechanized In terms of incentives and real communication does not occur where there is lack of trust and of each other's worth. The NHS needs a spirit of renewal, a re evaluation in truth - and the economic aspects will then also find their due proportion. But this can only be part of a similar movement culturally as individuals speak and act in integrity with truth. Thats what renewal is - not a rebranding with ideas painted on and targets to indicate progress - but the green shoots that grow from those who have readjusted from outmoded or false mentalities and are daring to act from a fresh perspective.
It is a most wonderful thing that when any one of us needs help - help is given.
But we must be vigilant not lose the heart that inspires and underlies this willingness.

Labels: cultural renewal, NHS

posted by Brian Steere at 10:02 PM

A fresh perspective is called for

Posted by me to How far should the NHS support homeopathy? 

 

No more or less than any other health care service if it is found to be effective in practice.

A great deal of scientifically provable medical intervention is provably dangerous - often to society as a whole and not just the patient. It is also based on a model of invasive interventions to deal with the removal or suppression of symptoms and does not have a true or positive regard for health. Within such a culture the use of homeopathy is less effective because it is not the same order of intervention as a manually applied chemical force. It idealy promotes a response of the life energetic of the 'patient' such that the movement of health restores the psycho-physical organism to be aligned with life-expression rather than with siege of complex layers of psycho-emotional logjam.
It is my sense that the 'complex layers of psycho-emotional logjam' is of a wilful ignorance - an ego defence mechanism.
We (generally) do not accept responsibility for our thought and instead seek to indulge and exploit our self, world, each other - as if that were sane. This has a real cost as it undermines health of mind, body, culture and environment - and the ingenuity of man is set on finding ways to mask, mitigate and lubricate the continued suffering arising from living against the grain of our essential nature.
The NHS could be renamed the NSS - because it increasingly focuses on managing sickness. I write here to suggest that fresh approaches must begin with a discovery and appreciation of health - as a positive tangible spirit - with similarly tangible fruits. Perhaps one of the most beautiful of which is restored trust. You cant tell this to a thief and be believed. But breakdown of trust is the breakdown of the integrity of communication. This applies at all levels. The arrogance that would make of life a mechanism to require manual control by man - for his own selfish agendas - is delusional. How far this goes before the bubble bursts is anyone's guess.
Suppressing life force is not a long term proposition - no matter how well it is presented as protection and rationality. The NHS needs a framework of thought that allows a practical love - to be given its rightful authority.

Love is not a lab rat. Therefore it either doesn't exist or - is illusion. (sic)
Consumers are lab rats, and are just as manipulatable in terms of the 'industry' of sickness as of any other 'service'. We are in relationship - and need to live from and within relationship. This is not a contract or pre targeted - it is a dance in which life reveals itself whole.

Meanwhile, use whatever common sense works. until something better replaces it. The idiocy of 'new ideas' ignorantly applied is as wasteful as old ideas kept past their sell by date.

Before acting, pause and feel a sense of sanity in which wisdom can arise

Before acting, pause and feel a sense of sanity in which wisdom can arise

A comment I posted on Independent website article : China 'set to produce more legal highs'

When are we going to become honest about the nature of our human consciousness - and educate ourselves past the knee jerk attempts to self righteously make evils that we can then present ourselves in opposition to?
If there are evils, they need to be understood at their root and not scapegoated and thus only superficially remedied while deeper ills grow in the dark.
Where are those who can speak with authority about the nature of the human beliefs and motives that are involved in using externally applied chemistry of any kind to enhance or prop up or lubricate an otherwise grey or lacklustre life? We are generally addicted to technology in communications and transport and tools of one kind or another but taboo the exploring and experiencing of perception and experience using externals.
If it is true that millions take these 'recreational' drugs and generally feel ok to use them or decide to stop using them if they find it becomes a negative - then their sense of a Government that is at all in touch with their world is undermined. Underneath all of our societal ills is that we tend to hypocrisy. The young may still have a sense that there is a lot more to life than is 'allowed' - but the general media and advertising propaganda promotes selfish-getting or becoming self-agrandized. The insecurities that politicians, corporations, marketeers and our own self illusion seeks to manipulate could be equated with a sense of a hole in our lives that we have to fill or cover over. Its a deeply charged and difficult arena to navigate through, but the alternative to conscious living is a life driven by external forces that have their counterpart in a sense of lack kept hidden within.
Meanwhile we expect our young to play the roles we assign them in a culture we have co-created. Drug use in a 'subculture' of reaction is not an answer, though it can be a stepping stone for some. But it is a symptom.
The scientific mind is often blinkered in specialisms - along with a dehumanized mental perspective - but one doesn't have to look to far to see that this isn't about young or old ravers or drugtakers. It is about us.

Underneath the blame game

My (very slightly edited) comment to the page: Did the over-45s ruin life for the rest of us?



I find it much more enlightening to see the history of ideas in  - as it were - a collective mind. The recycling of the same old mentalities in rebranded forms is hidden by the personalisation of the blame game and the drama of a conflict of wills that that always fuels.

We (over 45s) thought we'd broken free and then we found we'd played the same old game in a new set of clothes - or else we believe our own self illusions and share the subtler chains of a more isidious imprisonment. The 'system' has thus evolved a most sophisticated capacity to assimilate and marketize and monopolize - even though it does so under the banner of free markets and democracy - and for the benefit of the very few who seek and wield power in worldly terms.

Human life IS experienced AS limitation - but there is a dimension of transcendence that is not part of the game of controlling reality. As long as we play the blame game, we put responsibility for life outside our own heart's domain and are cut off from our truth.

Whoever the status quo is upheld by - IS always resistant to change. But change is the NATURE of manifest life. Truth cannot change - and attempts to maintain self-illusion play out the same old story in any age. Cultural renewal is a result of a current alignment with truth.

Market collapse brings a period of 'adjustment'. This one is in a managed slow motion spin - where the perceptions of reality are being consciously managed as if they were reality itself. The 'me' generation wasn't entirely narcissistic and self deluded. Life does leak through in all sorts of ways - but Life is always the spirit embodied, and not the form mimicked.

Blessings on the young - for their journeys of discovery by which they wake up from accepting the version of reality that their society is addicted to - and protects accordingly. Let the dead bury the dead - attend the call of the living!

The materialism of the scientific mind does not care for even the material world - except where Life leaks through. But to objectify and market manage reality for private gain undermines our very means of support and subsistence.

Fear is the last guide we need to use if we are to act from true wisdom. As a movement for change of heart grows - then I feel it will find acceptance in all ages, one step at a time.