Politics, Religion and I – pt 1.5

I have been kind of procrastinating on doing this second part... I am really not that interested in it.

I also realized that even though I have my issues with both parties and their apparent merger into variations of a single theme, the problem really is not the politicians, the special interests or the corporations. The simple fact is that even though they may pay lots of cash to a candidate, they cannot vote. So in the final analysis, the blame for the current state of affairs in this country truly is the population for their complete lack of involvement.

Those who do not understand, or do not want to understand, the relationship of man and the universe enjoy being victims of the world, you can only be a victim if you choose to be, it cannot be thrust upon you. It can be very comforting to pretend to be innocent victim, but we truly are neither.

The simple truth is that countries get the governments they deserve, not by being good or bad, but by what they allow to be carried out in their names.

As much as many, if not most, people want to blame those in "charge" the simple facts are that the American populace has dropped the ball and may soon find themselves without any voice in the government that originally was of, by and for the people.

If the disenfranchised majority in this country were to get off its backside and would work together as a unit, there could be a complete revolution in this country without a single drop of blood being shed. All the fighting would be in the voting booth and within six years, everything could be different.

Sadly, in this country, we are more interested in voting for our favorite American Idol candidate than political figure.

I am reminded of the story of a young student and teacher talking about the difficulties in finding God when they come to a river.

As they are crossing, the teacher grabs the head of the student and plunges it under the surface. The student starts to struggle for air and after a few moments the teacher releases his student's head.

When the student catches his breath, he looks up at the teacher with astonishment in his eyes, not understanding why his teacher would do such a thing.

The teacher looks at his student and tells him, "When you want God half as much as you wanted air, then you will find Him."

When the American people want change more than they want mind numbing excuses for entertainment, then they will get it. It takes work, but not nearly as much as many feel, first we wake up and then we start to awaken those around us.

So go out and make some noise and start waking your friends and neighbors. Become involved for if you do not, freedom and rights can be taken away from you and many might be surprised just how close we are getting to loosing it already.

Politics, Religion and I – pt 1

This blog is not really about politics, but in today's world, with religion and politics becoming more and more intertwined; I spend a lot of time discussing politics with clients, students and practitioners. I am always reminded of the following line:

When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows.

Rev. Mother Romallo
"Dune" by Frank Herbert

So lets get into it and see what we can make of things...

First of all, I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, I am what George Carlin used to refer to as a free thinker. I find out as much as I can about the issues and/or the candidates and then make my own decisions.

I will listen to the corporate media in this country for their perspective, but I am quite aware of the fact that they tend to slant their presentations and their coverage based upon their own needs, read financial. I have no doubts that the media in America has a vested interest in politics for both access and financial reasons.

The access can be many things, but one that I became aware of in 2001 was from several friends at Disney who said that the ABC News division had been made aware that if they presented stories that were not in the interest or perspective of the Bush administration, they would find access restricted. What does that mean? Two quick examples...

1. Every media outlet, supposedly, has members in the White House Press Core. While the administration would not evict a reporter from a network or outlet, they may never be called upon to ask questions during a press conference or just very late into it.
   


2. We all see those lovely interviews on Sunday morning and other times with the big players in Washington. What does a network do when they can only get 2^nd or 3^rd string interview?

I think the part of this that bothered me the most was that I have always been a firm believer in the concept of a free press and this was a slap in that ideal's face. It became even more frightening to me after September 11, 2001 and the things that happened in Washington and the media afterwards.

The Republican fall from grace

I was raised in a Southern Baptist Republican home. I was taught many things that have stayed with me until this day and in many ways find myself agreeing with many policies of "conservative" politics. Now before you freak out about this, understand that when I speak of "conservative Politics" I am referring to it as it was by Barry Goldwater, the father of conservatism.

This form of conservatism involved the concepts of self-responsibility and government staying outside of the privacy and sanctity of the home. Funny, the neo-conservatives of today would classify Goldwater as a left-leaning liberal by their current stances.

For me, the Republican Party started to fall out of favor during the Reagan/Bush administration. I became quite aware that many of my friends were getting ill with GRID, as AIDS was called at the time, and the administration did not care. The people getting this strange illness were homosexuals, drug addicts and immigrants; people the Ronald Reagan didn't count as part of his America.

I always found it a touch ironic that he later cut the funding for Alzheimer's disease and the same disease would be a substantial player in his own later life and death. There was a joke (?) that went around for a while that went something like: He forgot 100,000 Americans during his presidency and later forgot everyone else as well. A touch crass, but many people still hold strong feelings about the lack of care by the "Compassionate Conservatives" of the time.

During the Clinton Presidency, the Republican Party continued to show its true colors by spending years and millions trying to remove Clinton from office. The looked into and screamed about every appearance of impropriety. Basically they came across, to me at least, as a bunch of spoiled children that were unhappy they did not get their way.

Later, as a nation, we were told that when President Clinton wanted to do something about Osama bin Laden, that there was nothing to it and all he was trying to do was divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal that was going full force at the time, August 1998. Three years later we would find that the target had been valid.

By the time the current administration came into power, sic, I had pretty much lost all respect for the party as a whole, but I also realized that the party has been co opted by two differing factions with completely different goals, one though was more than willing to manipulate the other. These two opposing forces that seem to have united are the Religious Right and the Corporate Elite, for lack of a better name.

The Religious Right has a morality that is based upon its belief structure and the only aspect of it that gets to me is their attempts to encode these beliefs into the law of the land. I support the privilege to live as one chooses, but forcing others to abide by it is just wrong. Sadly, these people tend to believe that morality is about rules and regulations; if this is the case, then lawyers are the most moral individuals out there.

The other group that has seized power in today's Republican Party is the Corporations and "Special Interests." Now I have no problem with business making its voice heard, but it has been a serious mistake to allow Corporate culture all the rights and privileges of the citizenry with none of the responsibilities or moral ethics required of individuals. Corporations only do the right thing when it is profitable to them; this has been mandated by the Supreme Court in some of their decisions.

I think that the Religious Right is in for a rude awakening when they awaken to the fact that they have been used as a voting block and the "Business" side does not share their morality and will dump them as soon as they become a burden or less than profitable.

To be continued...

Miscellaneous Thoughts for Today...

I recently took a "normal" job, whatever that may actually be, I think of it as a place that pays me on a regular basis for some function that they have need of. I am still in training on the job and am feeling pretty good about it, but the one part of it that is going to take a while to get used to is getting up so early.

As an independent contractor, I could get up whenever I wanted, usually around 7 and take my time getting myself together. With the hours that I am doing during training and likely to continue doing on a regular basis, I could sleep as late as 6, but that leaves me little time for the more important aspects of my morning, meditation.

That's actually what this entry is going to be about I think.


I really enjoy the time I get to meditate and have really enjoyed sharing that time with my roomie, but that is a touch difficult since the roomie doesn't have to get up and I would never ask her to.

Lately, my meditations have been very interesting, not so much for what has been happening, but for what has not.

I tend to start my meditations with a creation of some sacred space and then do a breath channeling through my chakras. It helps me to relax and to place myself into an alternate state of mind.

One of the things that I have noticed about myself is that I get to a certain point and because of previous experiences, I try to "force" myself into a certain state. I'm not real sure how to describe it, but I get to a point where I feel as if I am leaving the body through the crown chakra and from there I can go anywhere.

I guess the part that has been interesting to me has been the recent experiences where I get to the threshold of "stepping out" and basically get stuck. I have found that meditation is a lot like my life in that it works best when I just let it happen and don't attempt to force things.

When I just relax and let my meditation happen, I get deeper than when I do otherwise. I know this is a pretty "duh" statement for many people and to be honest, it is for me as well. But we all sometimes get so far from where we started that it is sometimes helpful to remember those early lessons and see what other interesting and new insights we can glean from them.

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The image above is one that I use to remind me of the images and colors of the chakras. The base or root chakra is associated with the color red and so forth through the colors and chakras till you reach the third eye which is purple. The crown merges all the colors together for a brilliant white.

Beyond those basics of chakra work, the image also incorporates the traditional lotus designs as well as the Sanskrit characters for more advanced students. I am trying to find an old graphic editing program I had that will allow me to slow the rate of the animation changes.

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I recently had a discussion with someone and the ideas of meditation vs prayer came up. Those who know me know that I don't use the term "prayer" very often. The reason is that when I was young, prayer always seemed like a negotiation with God for what we felt was some blessing that we deserved.

Now days I usually phrase it more along the lines of "prayer is when I talk to God or my Higher Power, meditation is when I shut up and listen for the response."

After years of study of teachers and saints from religions spanning time and this planet, I can tell you that the teachers all tell us that the answers are not outside of ourselves, but within. This is because we are all small sparks of the Creator and can not be separated from that Source.

As the "Course in Miracles" puts so eloquently, God does not judge the minutia of our day-to-day lives but only that which is deserving of judgment, the mistake that we fell into of believing that we were separate from Him and could fall. Everything else is just that delusion playing itself out.

The law of Karma and Newton's Second Law of Motion state, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. All these "sins" we worry so much about are nothing because they only exist in a state of illusion, they are not real. Only that which is real matters and you would be amazed at how much is not real. Like that book titled, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: it's all small stuff," when we put things into perspective we can let go of that load we carry around in the name of guilt.

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OK, I will quit rattling about and go get some sleep. I have a busy day at work and I have more than enough here for you to think about.

Goodnight.

A few little prayers...

A few weeks ago, a friend was telling me about their morning practice and routine of prayers and meditation. I was specifically interested in the prayers that were invoked and thought I would share them with you. My personal favorite is the modified prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (the 2^nd and 3^rd paragraphs).

Father, Mother, Creator, Source, Spirit, God,
I offer myself to You -
To build with me and to do with me as You will.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
That I may better do Your will.
Take away my difficulties,
That victory over them may bear witness
To those I would help
Of Your Power, Your Love and
Your Way of Life.
May I do Your will always.

God,
Make ,me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O, God,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in surrendering that we are awakened
Into Presence.

God,
Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage
To change the things I can,
And the wisdom
to know the difference.

May they bring you as much joy as my friend and I.

How to catch wild pigs...

A friend sent me this, I won't claim to agree with it all, but it definitely is thought provoking...

There was a chemistry professor in a large college who had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting Communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new Communist regime.

While telling his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question: 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?' The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke.

'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.

'When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four s of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

'Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are trapped. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.'

The young man then told the professor that this is exactly what he sees happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, subsidized housing, school programs, medicine, drugs, etc. We continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

We should always remember two truths: There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. If you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of freedom in America, you might want to send this on to your friends.

If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably delete this email.

God help us when the gate slams shut!

What do you think?