"Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which happens to be the one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness." (p.296-7)
Tolle concludes "Acceptance" by reminding us that when we take responsibility for our state of consciousness that we are in fact taking responsibility for the life we are living.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
A NEW EARTH ... an exerpt to guide any today or tomorrow as we go about "doing"
Last night we melted into our cushy chocolate brown recliners with a book of choice before bedtime. The bright copper-colored cover of Eckhart Tolle's New Earth filled my field of vision. I allowed chance to lead me ... and opened to page 296, "Acceptance."
Here, I found bits of brilliance all human beings can connect with, no matter our changeable circumstances, variable climates and seasons, progressive stages of life:
"Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly."
(...for in the greater scheme of intention, life, and living...this is what has become present to me)
(...perhaps precisely in such situations it suits us to recall reference to "not my will, but Thy will be done." These words remind us that there are times when it behooves us to lend our support willingly to a wisdom superseding our own ... A WISDOM far greater, more encompassing than our own current myopia.)
(...and perhaps Tolle's earlier phrase "have to do" connotes not so much that there is something we must do, as it signals we have been given this to do ...we have it so that we may do something good with it)
Tolle proceeds to note that he had already addressed the importance of "inner acceptance
of what happens, and acceptance of what you have to do is just another aspect of it." He goes on to say that, "Performing an action in the state of acceptance means you are at peace while you do it. That peace is a subtle energy vibration which then flows into what you do. On the surface, acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it is active and creative because it brings something entirely new into this world."
Here, I found bits of brilliance all human beings can connect with, no matter our changeable circumstances, variable climates and seasons, progressive stages of life:
"Whatever you cannot enjoy doing, you can at least accept that this is what you have to do. Acceptance means: For now, this is what this situation, this moment, requires me to do, and so I do it willingly."
(...for in the greater scheme of intention, life, and living...this is what has become present to me)
(...perhaps precisely in such situations it suits us to recall reference to "not my will, but Thy will be done." These words remind us that there are times when it behooves us to lend our support willingly to a wisdom superseding our own ... A WISDOM far greater, more encompassing than our own current myopia.)
(...and perhaps Tolle's earlier phrase "have to do" connotes not so much that there is something we must do, as it signals we have been given this to do ...we have it so that we may do something good with it)
Tolle proceeds to note that he had already addressed the importance of "inner acceptance
of what happens, and acceptance of what you have to do is just another aspect of it." He goes on to say that, "Performing an action in the state of acceptance means you are at peace while you do it. That peace is a subtle energy vibration which then flows into what you do. On the surface, acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it is active and creative because it brings something entirely new into this world."
Friday, December 23, 2011
Atlas Shrugged and Orwell's 1984 become indicators of need to shift
A C-Span interview with Professor Turley re avenues of thought that lead to erosion of our privacy rights follows:
http://www.doleful.com/194697/c-span-washington-journal-jonathan-turley-issues-of-surveillance-and-privacy
My response: interesting use of terms "shrugged and yawned" Turley used(16:40) after our last night's viewing of Atlas Shrugged (April 2011 release)
... mass public apathy is a dangerous thing, a slippery slope, and has a progressive momentum (oxymoron) known as mental inertia (represented in politically correct social stands of characters in George Orwell's 1984)
... I appreciate Turley's recognition of and refererence to the current Orwellian political scene. Atlas Shrugged also is replete with thought-forms, decisions, and the local/national results thereof
... levels of impact on the general public's future capacity to recover a balance of power
... events in the plot mimic how far too many of our current government officials operate outside the perimeters imposed upon ordinary citizens AND beyond the reach of necessary checks and balances (note: congressmen/women writing and revising laws in order to benefit financially through their insider trading and arranging "land deals" ... read Peter Schwiezer's Throw Them All Out)
It behooves us to look into the hidden agendas of politicians, political party-lines, media interpretations and use of "the news" to influence viewer interpretation and distract from underlying issues, etc.
At the end of the day, it's up to each individual to consider the source of what "leaders" (currently another oxymoron) may want us to hear, may want us to think about their purported intentions, and then lift the veils around each source of media/speeches/propaganda. Best not to believe anything others tell us until we actually experience it ourselves ...it behooves human beings to begin learning early in life to tolerate ambiguity, emotional discomfort and mental uncertainty.
Otherwise, we tend to too readily take on "tribal" viewpoints and fall prey to joining in mass delusions (e.g. recent Wall Street "protest" camps), give over individual responsibility to think for ourselves (gullibly take in bylines and party lines hook, line, and sinker), forget that unless we exercise our own muscles we remain weak.
There's a human tendency to avoid cognitive dissonance, and other thoughts that disturb our too fragile peace of mind (from lack of exercise). There's also the overwhelming tendency to "project" our personal reality/beliefs onto others around us ...including those we want to trust because we elected them (and revising our past beliefs, decisions, and behaviors can feel VERY uncomfortable ...a la the blind spots that can results from "cognitive dissonance"). The common-denominator politician changes his/her "position" so often to get and then keep votes. They poli-speak to the many different projected realities of their constituents (re The Projection Principle by Weinberg and Rowe).
Bottomline: keep an open mind, stay on my individual path, study-discuss-dialogue, vote VERY carefully, ... and carry a big stick because we live in a wildly diverse animal kingdom. Think about it...
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Take Me To Truth (...undoing the ego), by Sanchez and Vieira (2007
We just began our inquiry into the "current" nature and structure of national/local news reporting. My cousin Deb asked an important question about the process, focus and function of "the news" in her email that highlighted the extraordinary generosity of Maine's Worcester Wreathe Company. Since 1992, it's owner has donated and delivered a sizable red-ribboned wreathe to each soldier buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
The email (Snope-checked BTW) questioned why this story hasn't been played forward by and through our national news programs. Tim and I have time to pay attention to lots of news programs and we monitor the stations to see the difference in their structures, process, focus. The implicit and explicit communication factors abound! We've witnessed myriad processes that clearly shape the message that results unless viewers watch critically, consciously.
Comparing and contrasting the dispensing of news among the different stations, various processes become notable: ignoring, highlighting, repeating, spinning differential interpretations, "recontextualizing" information, minimizing, juxtaposing, and encapsulating events in ways that clearly shape inferences that can be drawn by the non-discriminating the viewer/listener.
Very little objective information is presented to simple viewers/listeners during the "Six O'clock" news. To derive actual, unadulterated information, seekers of "What is happening?" have to comb through many different sources and continue to follow day by day evolution of a slowly emerging truth.
Who has time for this long and dragged out journey of discovery? Not many in these days of complex and shifting households, exhausted parents, sleep-deprived commuters, and a general public that suffers numbness from technology-induced over stimulation.
This is an invitation to those of us who do have the time! This time in our human history, this time in our national coming of age becomes our opportunity to engage in home schooling ...of an entirely different kind! Retired elders can make time throughout the day to study what's happening, how it is happening, and vision what could happen in better, more principled ways! Instead of being despondent about the national an world events (as I used to be, thus avoiding exposure to it entirely), we can vision bits of news as current perceptions/events on their way to becoming something more principle-based, more substantially good for all, more aligned with universal truths.
Retired elders have the psychological and collective resources to take this important role in society! The pivotal position is currently unfilled across our sociological life-span. We sport longevity in life experiences and an historic wealth under our belts. Psychologically, retired elders have effectively sharpened their brains daily in the marketplace and have acquired a certain metal, capacity for broader vision, a practiced wealth of perspectives, the realization that there are many different perspectives and that we can project these onto the external world both wisely ... and more often than not: erroneously.
Take Me To Truth (p. 43) reminds us that, "Fear tricks us into states of confusion, anxiety, and dread. In this book, we hope to expose and demystify fear's illusory game and provide an empowering alternative to its deluded intent. Almost all the fear we experience is unnecessary and debilitating. The only real fear we may need to listen to in this world is immediate physical threat, the type that is instinctual and gives us no time to think."
On page 42, the authors help us remember what we invariably discover from the gift of longevity: "Love can flourish only in the absence of fear because fear distorts our perception and blinds us with a cloud of confusion. Love, being opposite to fear, is an endless energy that knows only how to extend (or share) itself, and, by so doing, it increases both for the giver and the receiver. Most of us have been conditioned to know fear more than Love, because that is what our world's culture invests in."
I believe we have entered our nation's early adult stage: learning to make deeper distinctions among the purported messages supplied through our apparently preferred leaders. We are on the brink of reconsidering the matching of their stories with the results of their actions...and how those results align with our real needs. of disillusionment with and distrust of institutional leaders/processes. We've gone beyond the sixties when we expressed distrust for parental and institutional authority in general.
Over the past forty years, we thought if only we had the right leaders, we would have the right life. Still operating under the illusion that any reliable leadership can be found outside our own selves struggling to sort through challenging experience and taking the consequences as they are simply bound to come, our nation went with the apparent "savior." We still politically, as a sociological mass, actually wanted a parent! Why not, as children we experienced that activating our parents can save us from doing the work ourselves. Parents who do their kids' work (walk our own path) ultimately and erroneously communicate to offspring that they (adults) will assume responsibility for making the mistakes, the messes. But in truth, we each make mistakes and messes of our own accord. How can we not? We cannot know everything there is to know so as not to guess erroneously .
Alanis expresses this leap of understanding with elegance:
http://youtu.be/OOgpT5rEKIU
Elders have the time to pay attention in a continual and ongoing fashion to the bits and pieces of "news" abounding outside of ourselves. Elders can make time to compare and contrast, discuss and dialogue, detect and research, read-think-report free of charge (that's a pun ... "news" is rarely reported without a significant "charge" that reflects the "projection" of the particular tribe that reports the news.
In fact, we might more accurately conceptualize presentations of the six o'clock news hours, not as reporting but as news purporting. Think of the news as being purported, not reported. That shift in consciousness might help us question more persistently, more objectively, that which we hear from institutionalized "news" ... and consider politicians as playing a role, the purportors of a perception, a projection, a party line, a hook for your vote.
Hmmmmm, think about it... independently... for as long as it takes to uncover the truth lying beneath a wide array of bits and pieces scattered across a polished political surface.
The email (Snope-checked BTW) questioned why this story hasn't been played forward by and through our national news programs. Tim and I have time to pay attention to lots of news programs and we monitor the stations to see the difference in their structures, process, focus. The implicit and explicit communication factors abound! We've witnessed myriad processes that clearly shape the message that results unless viewers watch critically, consciously.
Comparing and contrasting the dispensing of news among the different stations, various processes become notable: ignoring, highlighting, repeating, spinning differential interpretations, "recontextualizing" information, minimizing, juxtaposing, and encapsulating events in ways that clearly shape inferences that can be drawn by the non-discriminating the viewer/listener.
Very little objective information is presented to simple viewers/listeners during the "Six O'clock" news. To derive actual, unadulterated information, seekers of "What is happening?" have to comb through many different sources and continue to follow day by day evolution of a slowly emerging truth.
Who has time for this long and dragged out journey of discovery? Not many in these days of complex and shifting households, exhausted parents, sleep-deprived commuters, and a general public that suffers numbness from technology-induced over stimulation.
This is an invitation to those of us who do have the time! This time in our human history, this time in our national coming of age becomes our opportunity to engage in home schooling ...of an entirely different kind! Retired elders can make time throughout the day to study what's happening, how it is happening, and vision what could happen in better, more principled ways! Instead of being despondent about the national an world events (as I used to be, thus avoiding exposure to it entirely), we can vision bits of news as current perceptions/events on their way to becoming something more principle-based, more substantially good for all, more aligned with universal truths.
Retired elders have the psychological and collective resources to take this important role in society! The pivotal position is currently unfilled across our sociological life-span. We sport longevity in life experiences and an historic wealth under our belts. Psychologically, retired elders have effectively sharpened their brains daily in the marketplace and have acquired a certain metal, capacity for broader vision, a practiced wealth of perspectives, the realization that there are many different perspectives and that we can project these onto the external world both wisely ... and more often than not: erroneously.
Take Me To Truth (p. 43) reminds us that, "Fear tricks us into states of confusion, anxiety, and dread. In this book, we hope to expose and demystify fear's illusory game and provide an empowering alternative to its deluded intent. Almost all the fear we experience is unnecessary and debilitating. The only real fear we may need to listen to in this world is immediate physical threat, the type that is instinctual and gives us no time to think."
On page 42, the authors help us remember what we invariably discover from the gift of longevity: "Love can flourish only in the absence of fear because fear distorts our perception and blinds us with a cloud of confusion. Love, being opposite to fear, is an endless energy that knows only how to extend (or share) itself, and, by so doing, it increases both for the giver and the receiver. Most of us have been conditioned to know fear more than Love, because that is what our world's culture invests in."
I believe we have entered our nation's early adult stage: learning to make deeper distinctions among the purported messages supplied through our apparently preferred leaders. We are on the brink of reconsidering the matching of their stories with the results of their actions...and how those results align with our real needs. of disillusionment with and distrust of institutional leaders/processes. We've gone beyond the sixties when we expressed distrust for parental and institutional authority in general.
Over the past forty years, we thought if only we had the right leaders, we would have the right life. Still operating under the illusion that any reliable leadership can be found outside our own selves struggling to sort through challenging experience and taking the consequences as they are simply bound to come, our nation went with the apparent "savior." We still politically, as a sociological mass, actually wanted a parent! Why not, as children we experienced that activating our parents can save us from doing the work ourselves. Parents who do their kids' work (walk our own path) ultimately and erroneously communicate to offspring that they (adults) will assume responsibility for making the mistakes, the messes. But in truth, we each make mistakes and messes of our own accord. How can we not? We cannot know everything there is to know so as not to guess erroneously .
Alanis expresses this leap of understanding with elegance:
http://youtu.be/OOgpT5rEKIU
Elders have the time to pay attention in a continual and ongoing fashion to the bits and pieces of "news" abounding outside of ourselves. Elders can make time to compare and contrast, discuss and dialogue, detect and research, read-think-report free of charge (that's a pun ... "news" is rarely reported without a significant "charge" that reflects the "projection" of the particular tribe that reports the news.
In fact, we might more accurately conceptualize presentations of the six o'clock news hours, not as reporting but as news purporting. Think of the news as being purported, not reported. That shift in consciousness might help us question more persistently, more objectively, that which we hear from institutionalized "news" ... and consider politicians as playing a role, the purportors of a perception, a projection, a party line, a hook for your vote.
Hmmmmm, think about it... independently... for as long as it takes to uncover the truth lying beneath a wide array of bits and pieces scattered across a polished political surface.
Retired Responsibilities to Rewire What We Find Around Us
I took time to respond to my dear cousin Deb this morning. She sent me a picture of Arlington Cemetery dotted with gorgeous Christmas Wreaths all donated by a very generous gentleman from the Worcester Wreathe Company of Maine, with no mention by news stations in the New York area. She asked why the news neglects good news like this piece.
Tim and I have been asking variations on this "news reports" topics for several weeks now, so I shared our noticing with Deb. I wrote
" ... since with Tim who "studies" the news reports of national and world events, I've noticed that most station news reports reveal symptoms of "attention deficit disorder,"
Tim and I have been asking variations on this "news reports" topics for several weeks now, so I shared our noticing with Deb. I wrote
" ... since with Tim who "studies" the news reports of national and world events, I've noticed that most station news reports reveal symptoms of "attention deficit disorder,"
- perseverating re sensational pieces (e.g. the battered and bruised Herman Kane and his wife Gloria) whether reports are true or not (and drumming it relentlessly into viewers consciousness until people begin to believe what they see and hear repeatedly)
- suddenly dropping updates on news that every one's been following religiously (Baby Lisa from Kansas City)
- blindly ignoring news/updates re issues pivotal to our collective well being (government overspending, Obama's misuse of our money harnessed from taxes which he gave to "green" campaign supporters knowing these ventures were going belly up (and had insured provisions in advance to protect and pay off the company holders)
- and speaking of "holders," how do most news stations fail to piece together Eric Holder's series of actions taken against states who try to uphold law-breaking illegal immigrants crossing our borders from Mexico (again costing those of us who have worked hard to provide tax money that supports entire generations of illegal aliens)
- Hmmmm, I think I will blog this on my "Respectfully Rewired" site ... and add to it as I notice more examples
- Bottom line: we who have the time to pay attention to what goes on around us need to use the power of our words and vision to lift peoples' expectation of news reporters to a higher level of thought and operation. They need a mass spiritual treatment program for whenever they display symptoms of sociological ADD!
- Will you and your Tillson Ladies of The Morning Prayer Circle join me in my high watch to raise the consciousness and integrity levels of our nation's political leaders (including those from all three branches), news stations and news reporters, the working and non-working general public who listen to the ADD-laden reports without requiring better than "that?"
- Knowing you will ... and claiming the power inherent (but too often left unactivated) in our thoughts, words, and actions ...I am glad we have this work to do at this stage of our lives."
And I put this noticing out on the global kitchen table ...what are we willing to notice and nurture into greater integrity in the world within us and around us????
Friday, December 2, 2011
Revisiting 2011's affirmation ... today, and each day (to perceive even deeper meaning )
Visit the site of origin: www.campaignforconsciousness.com
2011 Affirmation...
We believe in a universe that celebrates the extraordinary! Consciously, we
2011 Affirmation...
We believe in a universe that celebrates the extraordinary! Consciously, we
attune to the good around us, among us and within us. We see beauty, hear harmony,
and speak gratitude.
Together, we release any collective habits of finding the negative. As we value and
support the good in each moment, waste and neglect are obsolete. We co-create a world
where our talents, ideas, and mindful intentions move forward swiftly, engineering
excellence.
Everywhere we look, merit is revealed. No good goes unnoticed. Paying it forward, we
speak up when we see great good shared. We give our time, energy and attention to that
which we want to expand. As we affirm this realization, its activity multiplies. We
acknowledge, we admire and we inspire.
www.campaignforconsciousness.com
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
A" Thanksgiving" practice of spiritual "Tithing"
It's the eve of Thanksgiving. I sit at the island in this marvelous kitchen with a most marvelous man who stands across from me as he reads. I am very blessed ... and he, being as marvelous as he is, knows the blessing is mutual. We are educating each other from our individual stores of gathered experience. We do this daily, nightly, during our free time together... and I will speak for myself about the benefits to me.
Last night we finished a study of The Pacific ... the HBO mini-series (2010), produced by Hanks and Spielberg. I am amazed at how much I didn't know about the causes, losses, and gains painfully accrued during this particular front (or any front for that matter) in World War ll. In fact, I knew nothing really about the personal sacrifices (psychologcal trauma, exhaustion, chronic and pervasive sleeplessness, unrequited thirst and hunger, unpredictable and mercilessly prolonged danger, gashes, explosions, concussions, rotting bodies, putrid water, maggots, unbearable heat and frigid conditions) made by those who were drafted or enlisted into service ... representing the rest of us who got to stay safe in our homeland.
If I didn't know better about the psychological and social destructiveness of shame, I would feel ashamed.
Instead, I choose the road offered through the thinking of Campaign for Consciousness ... I choose to notice and expose the extraordinary! Honoring the extraordinary sacrifices revealed in The Pacific, in a concrete and earthy way, I decided to tithe to those who sacrifice for me and mine, right here and now. I committed to tithe monthly to our current wounded warriors and the families they come home to after giving their all for all of us (www.woundedwarriorproject.org).
Tithing is the spiritual practice of giving from our time, talent, or treasure to individuals/groups who nourish us, take care of us, feed us, work for good on our behalf. I can celebrate my "Thanksgiving" now monthly...and remind myself that I am doing something that honors those who made and make amazing sacrifices on my behalf, in place of me.
It's good to know where our blind spots have been on the way to becoming a more progressively educated person -wherever our blind spots have appeared overtime. It's good to rewire ourselves regularly, to engage in the renewal process of rewirement. We need each other to keep ourselves growing greater integrity. Alone, we can think we know whatever we need to know. In close and persistent communion with others, our blind spots cannot help but show up. To live is to keep an open mind, to keep learning, to become more fully ourselves than we were yesterday.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Last night we finished a study of The Pacific ... the HBO mini-series (2010), produced by Hanks and Spielberg. I am amazed at how much I didn't know about the causes, losses, and gains painfully accrued during this particular front (or any front for that matter) in World War ll. In fact, I knew nothing really about the personal sacrifices (psychologcal trauma, exhaustion, chronic and pervasive sleeplessness, unrequited thirst and hunger, unpredictable and mercilessly prolonged danger, gashes, explosions, concussions, rotting bodies, putrid water, maggots, unbearable heat and frigid conditions) made by those who were drafted or enlisted into service ... representing the rest of us who got to stay safe in our homeland.
If I didn't know better about the psychological and social destructiveness of shame, I would feel ashamed.
Instead, I choose the road offered through the thinking of Campaign for Consciousness ... I choose to notice and expose the extraordinary! Honoring the extraordinary sacrifices revealed in The Pacific, in a concrete and earthy way, I decided to tithe to those who sacrifice for me and mine, right here and now. I committed to tithe monthly to our current wounded warriors and the families they come home to after giving their all for all of us (www.woundedwarriorproject.org).
Tithing is the spiritual practice of giving from our time, talent, or treasure to individuals/groups who nourish us, take care of us, feed us, work for good on our behalf. I can celebrate my "Thanksgiving" now monthly...and remind myself that I am doing something that honors those who made and make amazing sacrifices on my behalf, in place of me.
It's good to know where our blind spots have been on the way to becoming a more progressively educated person -wherever our blind spots have appeared overtime. It's good to rewire ourselves regularly, to engage in the renewal process of rewirement. We need each other to keep ourselves growing greater integrity. Alone, we can think we know whatever we need to know. In close and persistent communion with others, our blind spots cannot help but show up. To live is to keep an open mind, to keep learning, to become more fully ourselves than we were yesterday.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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