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Excuse my long absence, please. December has been a very busy month for me. I just got back from a 4 day mini-vacation in North Carolina. Did a little skiing, and saw some beautiful countryside, replete with gorgeous, snow-capped mountains, icicle-covered trees, flowing creeks, deer and cows grazing, log cabins and old farms with big rolls of hay strewn about. I got a surprise grand finale this morning, when I woke up to a luminous, red sunrise over a nearby mountain range.
As I said in a recent post (if you can call any of them recent at this point), I have a lot to say about associations and assumptions. A very large part of our lives is controlled by them, yet they are mostly groundless. This vacation was a prime example. I had so many negative assumptions before the trip, that did not turn out to be true. Of course, I formed some more false assertions during the trip.
For example, I was really nervous about being in such cold weather for four days. I have lived in Florida for over 8 years, and I have only been in snow for one day since. I thought I was going to freeze, especially after hearing that yesterday, it was predicted to be a high of 27 degrees, with the wind chill making it feel about 2 degrees. Well, I'm here to tell you that I was well-bundled in layers of clothes, and suffered very little. At one point my left ear lobe was getting quite cold, but that resolved itself. My feet were a little cold at one point. But I was out in that weather for over 2 hours straight, staring at the signs that said "FROSTBITE WARNING!" waiting for the ski lift, and I felt fine. I even enjoyed myself. My skiing wasn't great, but it was much better than I expected. I don't think I'd skied in over 20 years.
Before the trip, I was worried about our sleeping arrangements, because we were going to be staying in a house with 14 members of my wife's family. The house was supposed to sleep 8. My wife told me that we were going to be sharing a room with her aunt and uncle, and that we would have to sleep on an air mattress. She told me we could not bring our king size air mattress (we own two) and would have to buy a new full size one to fit in the room. When I got to the house, somehow, we had our own cozy room, which was not so small, with a sofa bed and a welcome space heater. It was a much better picture than my mind had painted.
For my final example (although I actually have several more) on the way out to the ski house, I had gotten off the road onto a very steep driveway to study my Google Map on my phone, because I thought I may have missed a turn. Ironically, I was trying to be safe, and not looking too much at the map while driving. As I pulled out of the driveway, I heard serious scraping from the bottom of the car. I got out a little later, and found a dent on the bottom of the car, and thought I might have put it there. I was all nervous about turning the car back in and having to pay for the damage. Because of the placement of the dent, I thought it was unlikely to be caught on inspection, but I had decided that I was going to disclose the damage. I wanted to take responsibility if I had, in fact, caused it. From some past incidents, though, I had learned that sometimes my assumptions that I had been responsible for damage were wrong. Recently, I thought I had caused a scratch on a car parked next to me in a parking lot, because I heard a noise as I was pulling into the spot. The owner came back to the car as I was writing a note to put on the windshield. When I showed him the scratch, he said it had already been there. Also, on this current ski trip, we had gone to this museum where they had all these different shaped bubble wands with bubble solution. One of my nephews and I were wildly waving a couple of wands, making bubbles, and we hit each others' wand. I saw a crack in one of the wands and said to him, "Aw, look what we did." He said, "No, that was already there."
At least 20 times on the 4 day trip, I worried about turning the car back in. Although my mind was trying to reason me out of disclosing the damage, I was resolved to do it. When I returned the vehicle, I told the gentleman at the counter that I wanted to show him some damage to the car. I showed him the dent, and told him that I was not sure that I had done it, but had not noticed it when I received the car. He looked at my rental form and said, "No. It was already on the damage report." He gave me my receipt, and I was on my merry way.
Bottom line, a lot of our associations and assumptions are flat out wrong. A plus B does not always equal C. Circumstantial evidence is almost worthless. It's very easy to paint a connection between one thing and another, because everything IS connected. Think six degrees of separation. But the causal connection between one thing or event and another isn't necessarily there, even though it may seem that way. That's why our court systems require a high degree of evidence to support a conviction or judgment. People have both selective and creative memories. Our minds create connections that don't exist, through assumption and association.
In Don Miguel Ruiz's book "The Four Agreements," he wrote of four agreements that he felt were most important in life to make with yourself. One of them was "NEVER MAKE ASSUMPTIONS." I have found this to be one of the most important life lessons. How many times do we create all kinds of negative stories in our minds that turn out to be totally false. Just a bunch of drama. My mind still creates these stories every day, but I DON'T BELIEVE THEM, ANYMORE! Thank you Don Miguel!!!!!!!!
Missing the Mountains Already,
Alan
One of my mentors said, "The mind can be a good friend, but it makes a terrible master." I sometimes seem like I am speaking of the mind as an enemy, but I think it is important to note that you don't want to make an enemy of the mind. I tried that for awhile, and it was not pleasant. If you fight the mind, the mind will fight back. Be friendly about it. The mind is what makes sense out of a world that is really illusory. It's really just an ocean of energy. The mind categorizes all the different energies. It separates one color from the next. This makes for an interesting experience.
The mind makes a lot of associations. I could write a book just on associations, I think. I can't stop thinking about this subject. I'm going to introduce it now, but I think it deserves at least another full blog entry. The problem is that the mind makes a lot of meaningless and misguided associations. For example, as soon as we see a person, the mind starts creating all kinds of assumptions about the person based on the way they look, the way they are dressed, the way that they walk, etc. We can't see a person for more than a few seconds, without the mind creating 4 or 5 stories about what that person must be like. The stories are based on associations we have with other people we met who had similar characteristics. But we have no idea who this new person is, even though they have a recognizable appearance. The stories are all just fabrications of the mind. There might not be a shred of truth to them. But we continue to size people up, and create all kinds of stories and assumptions about how we expect them to act. If you allow the mind to go off on these tangents, unchecked, your life will just be a big story, a big drama.
Sometimes, you have to stop believing the mind, and be open to the possibility that people will act completely different than you expect them to from first glance. Don't judge a book by its cover. One time I was in a nightclub, and a very tall and very broad African-American guy walked in my path and stopped there. I stepped to the left to walk around him, and he moved to the left. I stepped to the right, and he moved to the right. At that point, I got a little nervous. I finally looked him in the eye, and he smiled, leaned down and gave me a big hug. A few years later, when I was studying Kabbalah, one of my teachers once said, "When you are walking in a dark alley and somebody is walking behind you, why do you assume that they are coming to harm you? Why don't you think they might be coming to love you?"
Don't be controlled by the fabrications of your mind. Choose what to think about a thing or situation, and that thing or situation is transformed instantly, at least in your personal world. Isn't that the only world that really exists from your persepective? Even if you turn out to be wrong, isn't it better to make a better-feeling assumption? Or can you let go of making any assumption, at all? If you can restrict yourself from always believing the drama of the mind, you can create your own story. When you create your own stories, the mind will eventually go along with you. When you challenge the negative associations, your mind will start offering you more pleasant ones. The mind can become a good friend.
As Franklin Delano Roosevelt wisely put it, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was telling us to stop believing the fearful fabrications of our minds. Would you rather lead a Life full of fear or one full of Love? Choose your story, and tell it to your mind.
Mindfully,
Alan ;)
So I am not called a hypocrite, I am not perfect at ANYTHING I am pitching. I have an easier time with some issues than others. Most of the stuff I have written about, I have at least had remarkable improvement. I don't know if you ever get to the end of any of this. I think that perfection is a myth. Any record can be broken. I think that there is a constant evolution. You can always do a little better. If you catch me in a moment of weakness, and I am not taking my own medicine, please remind me. Believe me, I have challenges just like everyone else. I mostly handle them differently than I used to. I find that RESTRICTION is key - restricting the conditioned complaining, whining and obsessing that the mind offers me about a challenge and CHOOSING to think differently about the situation.
For whatever reason, your body will crave all kinds of sweets, processed and junk foods that are bad for your body. If you feed those cravings all the time, you will not enjoy good health. If you RESTRICT those cravings, and choose to eat good foods instead - or at least most of the time - you are much more likely to enjoy good health.
Just like you have to feed the body good food to be healthy, you must feed the mind good thoughts for it to remain healthy. Like the body craves unhealthy foods, the mind has an odd craving for unhealthy thought patterns. The mind constantly feeds itself on obsession, fear, worry, doubt, blame, anger, etc. You can control your mind, though, by RESTRICTING it as soon as possible after it starts feeding on a negative thought pattern. You can then actively CHOOSE good thoughts to feed it. When the mind CHOOSES to feed on anger, you can challenge the mind by refusing to get angry (or by doing the best you can), and by CHOOSING the thoughts you want.
In other words, you can CHOOSE to let the mind control you. This is allowing the mind to do the CHOOSING for you. This is the default option CHOSEN by most people. The problem is that most people are not even aware that there is a CHOICE, just like I was not aware that there was a CHOICE most of my life. You can't make a CHOICE until you are aware that one exists. This is why it is very important not to become judgmental about others, after you improve. You always have to remember that you were once in the same boat. Everybody else in the world is not going to understand a concept just because you now understand it.
OK, so if you are not going to let the mind do the CHOOSING, you can take control of the mind, and make the CHOICES about what to think.
To be continued...
Choose Wisely,
Alan
I chose not to post anything on Thanksgiving Day, partly because I figured there was already quite a lot of gratitude being thrown about. For me, every day is Thanksgiving Day. I am constantly trying to be in the consciousness of gratitude. I am constantly trying to be aware of everything that I have been given in the moment. Even the moment, itself, is a precious gift. I sometimes forget to be aware, especially in moments of busy-ness, but even if the awareness comes a bit late, it's still awareness.
Remember, after 9/11, all those flags flapping off seemingly everybody's car? There were flags everywhere. Where are they now? It was a bandwagon mindset. It wore off over time. Isn't it somewhat like that with Thanksgiving Day? We get all geared up. We eat our big meal, we say our "Thankses," and the next day we're back to our former state of consciousness - expressing gratitude only occasionally. How about this year, we start a Thanksgiving Day Resolution? Who said they were exclusive to the New Year? How about staying in a state of gratitude, every day? How about looking for things to be grateful for all day, every day? It's a good technique for crowding out negative thought patterns, like worry, anger and victim mentality. Whenever an ungrateful thought comes along, why not chose to be thankful for ANYTHING YOU CAN THINK OF, instead? There is always something you can be thankful for. If you focus on that, you'll crowd out negative thinking in no time flat. There won't be any space left for it. Now, wouldn't that be something to be grateful for?
Humbly,
Alan
P.S. I wouldn't recommend you make eating turkey every day part of your resolution.
The concept of Dogma keeps entering my mind lately. I'm only now starting to really understand the concept of Dogma. According to Wikipedia, "Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma. Dogma is usually followed with what we call "blind faith."
What I really want to say is that anything anybody tells you, including me, is merely Dogma, unless - and until - you experience it personally. Many of the spiritual paths I have studied differentiate themselves from religion by the fact that you experience tangible changes in your Life by following them. Blind faith becomes unnecessary after actual experience. When an overpowering and beautiful energy opens up and radiates from your Heart center and overcomes your whole being, it's much different from somebody telling you that they have a technique to open your Heart. Before I felt that, I had a totally different concept of what it meant to "open your Heart." One of my mentors said often, "An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of theory." Theory is Dogma.
I have advocated certain practices to my readers from a dogmatic perspective. How am I to know which practice is perfect for you? I only know what has worked for me. One of my readers was inspired to start practicing another type of Yoga than I have advocated. She's loving it, and I am so excited that she pursued it after being inspired by my writing. Maybe that's her path. Maybe it's an even more powerful path than those I've studied. Who knows?
Heartily,
Alan
Dropping our personal histories and reinventing ourselves is much easier when we learn to apply self-forgiveness. As we are reinventing ourselves and shifting perspective, we tend to get HARDER on ourselves. We tend to get MORE judgmental of our past acts and omissions when we start to see them from a more evolved state of consciousness. I think that is helpful to recognize that it is only because we have grown so much, that we are able to see our past actions in such a harsh light. We should be patting ourselves on our own backs, just as we are beating ourselves up. We have grown SO far from the perspective from which we acted, that we now can't imagine how we possibly did such things.
It is best to seek forgiveness from those that we hurt in the past. By doing so, both parties are able to heal the scars caused by those interactions. The extent of the healing is conditioned upon the willingness of the forgiver to genuinely forgive, as well as the willingness of the forgiven to fully accept forgiveness. Even when the offended party refuses to forgive, I believe that self-forgiveness should be applied. We all make mistakes. We are all blinded at times by our TEMPORARY, mistaken perspectives. We should not beat ourselves up eternally for TEMPORARY states of mind. We should allow ourselves to be reinvented, even when the offended party refuses to let go. And, of course, whether or not the offended party forgives, if we can't forgive ourselves, the healing cannot be complete. For some, including myself, it is easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves. This is, in my opinion, a key factor in self-evolution.
Moving On,
Alan
The concept I want to write about today is dropping our personal history. At some point in most of our lives, it becomes vital, in my opinion. Of course, your opinion is more important. It is hard to reinvent ourselves if we are carrying the weight of all of our past mistakes with us, everywhere we go. This is a time in history where many of us will be forced to reinvent ourselves. Old ways are quickly becoming obsolete and yielding to new ways. Reinventing yourself means that you are creating a new you. That means the old you is history. I am writing about this, because it is something that has challenged me, personally. I mean dropping the ancient history that has nothing to do with what I am anymore.
We sometimes spend so much time focused on the rear view mirror, that we lose focus on what's right in front of us. We lose our opportunity to focus on the Now, as well as the future, when we allow ourselves to be mired in our past mistakes. We spend so much time remembering how we got to where we are, we are not able to focus on where we want to go. It's OK to review your past mistakes, so you don't fall prey to them again. When you become obsessed with them - churning them over and over again in your mind - you get stuck. This can be difficult to overcome, because the mind is habitual and loves to churn over and over again. In order to overcome this, I believe, you can proactively insert a new pattern for your mind to churn. When the old pattern comes up, insert the new pattern. Tell your mind where you want to go, and refuse to get stuck in the old pattern again. Keep inserting the new pattern when the old returns. I've been working on this. It ain't easy. It takes time. Maybe a lot of time. I believe that if you don't give up, you'll eventually get over the hump. I'm still climbing the hump on a few issues, but I've noticed that I am closer to the tipping point, because I catch my repetitive patterns and stop them much more quickly.
You use the rear view mirror sparingly when driving, because you are moving forward. The faster you are moving forward, the more essential it is to pay attention to what's ahead of you. If you watch the rear view mirror all the time, you won't get very far. In fact, you may end up crashing into what's ahead of you. You can't change history, but you can shift your focus from it. All you really have is Now.
Reinvented (and probably not for the last time),
Alan
Hello again. I haven't written much since I got back from my West Coast trip. I've been going through a bit of a consciousness shift. People who are on a spiritual track go through many. When your awareness shifts, you may look back at what you have written, said and done - even the day before - and it doesn't make sense anymore. In fact, from your new space of awareness, you may find that much of what you have written, said and done is "wrong." I don't mean to say that there is absolute right and wrong. I don't believe in absolute right and wrong. Right and wrong is always based on your current perspective. Even if 99% of people agree, it doesn't mean the other 1% is wrong. Remember, again, the Flat Earth theory that was accepted by virtually 100% just a few hundred years ago. People hadn't reached a perspective, yet, that allowed them to see the world as spherical. Now everyone has.
Please excuse me if I repeat the same stories or concepts sometimes, but sometimes I believe they are worth being revisited, especially if from a different angle. People will understand the concepts only if portrayed in a way that fits their current perspective, and my audience, I believe, varies tremendously in perspective. This is a good thing, because it allows us to have more variety of experiences and opinions. If everyone agreed on everything, Life might get very boring. One thing I realize more is that is important not to judge others experiences and opinions. Sometimes the simplest person will be the one who sees the big picture, because they are not lost in too many concepts. I think that some of my past writings came too much from a judgmental point of view, and from the perspective that my way was right. I apologize to anyone who felt judged. We are all pretty hard on ourselves as it is, and I understand that following some of my past prescriptions would not be an easy task for many. I will still make recommendations, which you can take or leave, if I found some growth or joy from following them.
We all go through shifts in perspective. Most of our perspectives about how time should be spent have shifted dramatically, for example. Twenty years ago, we didn't have YouTube, Facebook, blogs, text messaging or iPhones, so we didn't spend any time on them. Now many of us spend countless hours every week on these modalities. Can you even remember what you were doing with that time 10 years ago? Are you finding more joy in these things, or were you spending your time more joyfully before? Not judging. Just asking. When was the last time you went to dinner without somebody checking something on their phone? Yes, me too.
One thing I notice from my new perspective is that my writings are sometimes too long. My mind tends to ramble and wants to say everything at once. Very few people will read my entire post if it is long. I'll stop here for now.
From My Perspective,
Alan
I was watching television recently (which I rarely do, for this very reason) and came across a piece about a movie that I thought was very disturbing. I don't want to get into the subject matter of the movie. We are all aware that there are a lot of disturbing movies being made. My question is, why are people paying money to see them? Why do people enjoy seeing people being killed, raped, beaten, shot, kidnapped, etc. in movies? Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
Less disturbing, but still disturbing in my opinion, are all the movies, shows, books and articles about people mistreating each other, hating each other, talking bad about each other, etc. What is entertaining about that stuff? A lot of people rationalize that this is the way Real Life is, and they want to see, hear and read material about Real Life. Why?
The reason I bring this up is because I believe that people are mostly unaware of the immensely powerful connection between what is portrayed in the media - whether it be fact or fiction - and what pans out in Real Life. There is a very powerful bidirectional flow of energy between the media and Real Life. They constantly echo each other. People fashion Life from what they see, hear or read in the media, while the media fashion their products from Life, real or imagined. People accept that what is expressed or portrayed in the media is a suitable representation of what Life is supposed to look like, and, lo and behold, Life continues on that way.
What I would like to suggest is that until the vicious cycle of media and Life feeding each other garbage is replaced with representations of Life as we really want it to be, Life will remain just as it is. Although we can't control the products the media put out, we can refuse to consume them. We can make choices about what kind of stories and imagery we want to allow into our minds, knowing that our minds will fashion our ideas about Life from whatever imagery and information our minds take in, from whatever source.
I am not suggesting that we completely insulate ourselves from reality, and run away from all of the trouble in the world. There are problems in the world that we need to fix through global cooperation. Watching a documentary for the purpose of becoming informed, or reading a news article to understand what is going on in less-advantaged parts of the world is not what we need to guard our minds against. What we need to guard our minds against is the glorification of violence and hatred. This stuff has no entertainment value. You have to ask yourself, what part of you wants to go to a movie to be scared, or to see people kill each other for fun or money. This kind of imagery is all too common, today. When you spend your money and time consuming such imagery, you are feeding it.
I would highly recommend that people monitor what kind of information they are getting from the media. When you watch a television show, ask yourself what value you are really getting from spending your precious time watching that show. When I see television shows depicting scenarios that I wouldn't want played out in Life, I change the channel, or turn the TV off. Frankly, I watch very little TV, because I don't think there is much worthwhile to watch. I also don't go to the movies as much as I used to, because I don't enjoy what is portrayed in most of them. I used to love watching movies about organized crime and war, and now I ask myself why I ever sat through them? Why do we enjoy seeing characters being dropped into rivers in cement shoes by guys named Vinnie and Rocco, or soldiers getting their legs blown off by land mines? We don't really understand how deeply this type of imagery affects our Consciousness. And then our Consciousness takes the imagery and concepts fed to it, and creates Real Life from it.
This past Saturday, I went to a park in the Everglades and biked 15 miles through the River of Grass. I saw so many beautiful birds. Blue Herons, Cranes, Hawks, Egrets, Aninghas, Blue Jays and more. I saw many fish. I even saw an alligator. That was some beautiful imagery. Nature is beautiful. If only people would spend more time in Nature, and less time shopping and watching television, we would have more beautiful lives. This morning, an egret flew right by my windshield over the hood of my car, before it landed on a nearby sidewalk, as I waited for a traffic light. It, literally, passed an inch or two over my hood. It was such an amazing sight. I don't think it was any coincidence. I've noticed that when I focus on Nature with gratitude, Nature answers by bringing me beautiful visions.
Take control of your mind. Fill it with the imagery you want to have in it. Refuse to contaminate it with all the poison that is out there. Sometimes it seems so inviting, but it's effects are lingering. Make your life a beautiful life. Make it a beautiful story to tell to your children and grandchildren, so that they will learn to fashion beautiful lives.
Naturally,
Alan
I just arrived back from a trip to Las Vegas, San Francisco and Yosemite National Park. I want to share this poem that I wrote on the plane ride home about my experience at Yosemite, which is one of the most amazing places I've ever been. I couldn't stop taking pictures.
Yosemity
The rain makes streams in the forest
Water running over rocks
And sliding over trunks of dead trees
And into little pools in the holes in the ground
Creating that sound that fills me with calmness
And gently transmutes all of my negativity into Love
Just meditating upon that sound brings such joy and peace
And for that I truly love the rain
The rain also feeds the river flow
Cleansing everything it passes
Making a melodious rushing sound
Showing it's art in the white water rapids, the whirpools, and in
countless little stirrings and churnings, here and there
Though your eyes are wide open, you can not catch them all
So relax and catch those that you can
The Sequoias will never die
They are more real than reality
Because they live in complete Truth
Their looming presence touches the forest with a beaming hue
Unmatched by any flower upon which I have cast my grateful eyes
A luminous, radiating orange-red that permeates the air around them
Invigorating my body beyond head to toe, with the slightest inhalation
It is so delicious, that I cannot help taking the deepest breaths of my life
Praying that some of that Grace will leave the forest with me
For I will leave, despite my Heart's protestations
Have I lived here before?
I feel mysteriously at home, in the home of the Great Sequoias, though
this body has never known this place
I have been in their midst and have been transformed by their godliness
I have been healed by their Love
And I love them truly
I am grateful for the friendship of these Eternal giants
There is Green Life emanating everywhere
Even from long dead trunks and lifeless rocks
Be it moss or lichens
Or forms existing beyond the breadth of my ignorance
I recognize this as a very pure Love form
With little distinction
Blending the symmetrical and asymmetrical attributes of art
And bleeding into the Dream through many portals of perception
I could certainly Love this Dream more
I could discover more Love or create some where I perceived none
I could leave the Lie and go to the forest
Sit amongst the Great Sequoias and cry for joy
I could stay there or decide to leave again
I could listen to the subtle trickle of the water dancing across the
rock face and into the puddle
And consent to leave my worry there
Right in that hole
So that the next time I decide to leave my home in the Lie
and visit my home in the Truth
I wouldn't be quite so burdened
Or shall I carry the portable Truth with me like a lantern I light
with the Love of the forest
And let the Lie dissolve away?Enchanted,
Alan
Last month, an annual beach clean-up was held along the entire coast of California. It was held over a single day, and over 1 million pounds of trash was collected. It was estimated that 40% of the trash was comprised of cigarette butts. That's about 400,000 pounds of cigarette butts.
I bring this up not to beat up cigarette smokers, but to illustrate the power of the "One Small Step" concept. Each person that discarded his or her cigarette butt thought that it was such a small thing, that it would not make a difference. After reading the tally above, we can say that the cigarette butts certainly made a difference. It wasn't the individual act that made the difference. It was the fact that so many people, individually, decided to do the same, small act. All those individual consciousnesses doing something small, created a large, collective impact.
So many people decide not to do something that would be BENEFICIAL to the world, because they think their small act won't make a dent in the global scheme of things. That could not be further from the truth. Every action has an impact. Every cause has an effect. Often our actions have unseen consequences, and affect others in ways that we may never become aware of.
Next time you think that your small, positive action will not make an impact, do it anyway. Remember the cigarette butts. You don't know how connected we are. It is totally concealed from us. Your decision to take action could somehow impact 10 other people who were on the fence to take action, too. Your small action could be the grain of sand that tips the scale to create a massive, global change for the better.
Changing The World One Small Step At A Time,
Alan
The healing process begins instantaneously. The moment you cut your skin, your body begins to clot the blood and close the cut. The moment you stop eating a food that is unhealthy for you, your body starts repairing the damage and returning to good health. The body's ability to heal, however, is limited. If it gets overwhelmed by too big a healing task, or too many healing tasks at once, it may not make it. So it is with the Earth.
The Earth is just a big body. It has natural ways of healing and cleansing itself. If you cut down half the trees in a forest and then left the forest alone for a few years, you'd come back to find a lot of stuff that grew in the area where the cutting took place. If you dumped some stuff in a river, and then left it alone for twenty years, you would probably not detect much of what you had dumped twenty years earlier in the water. If you continually cut the trees without ever stopping, or you never stop dumping in the water, then it's another story. The forest or river becomes overwhelmed.
And so, we are at where we are at with the Earth. Where we are at is a result of our collective will. When we, collectively, decide to focus our intentions on preserving and renewing the Earth's ecosystems, the healing process will begin, automatically. If we, collectively, decide to continue cutting down, paving and destroying, we will eventually be left with a planet that will be uninhabitable by human beings. If there were no humans here, and we just got out of Nature's way, trust me that things would heal pretty quickly. The healing process begins instantaneously.
While we may not be able to make a global impact on the way we, collectively, treat the Earth in our day-to-day dealings, we can at least make a small impact. People watch what other people do, and sometimes change their habits when they see another's behavior that they believe is more appropriate. Yesterday, I picked up some stuff that had fallen on the floor near the cash register of a store where I was checking out, and the woman in front of me asked her young daughter, "Why didn't you pick that stuff up, like that man did?" Everything that people see you do has an impact. Even if they don't change, it at least affects their perspective. If they see a few other people acting the same way, afterwards, then they may change.
Why not try monitoring some of your behavior regarding your connection to the Earth?
- Can you choose a product that has less packaging, and, thus, less waste?
- Can you spend a little more on an organic product, knowing that pesticides were not sprayed?
- Can you put that plastic bottle in the trunk of your car and take it home to be recycled, instead of throwing it in a trash can?
- Can you eat a little less meat, knowing that factory farming causes a host of problems for the environment?
- Can you turn off the lights when you leave a room, knowing that most of our energy is currently produced by burning environmentally harmful substances?
I could go on and list hundreds of things you could do. There are so many that will become obvious to you if you just pay attention to what you are doing. Everything you do, personally, that impacts the Earth, will have an effect, even if it's tiny. Your individual will, eventually merges with the collective will. As individuals change, other people begin to change with them. As our collective will changes, big changes occur rapidly. Five years ago, who was on Facebook? Did it even exist? Now we almost all are on Facebook, daily.
Are you ready for the Earth to heal? Are you ready to drink clean, pure water again? Are you ready to breathe clean air again? Are you ready to eat food that serves your body and feeds good health? Are you ready to herald in a new, Green Era where we take the Earth into consideration in everything we do, instead of looking at everything purely in terms of dollars and cents? I am ready! It's already happening. What little changes can you make right now to help the healing process? Can you just pay a little more attention to your behavior and how it impacts your environment?
Let The Healing Begin!
Alan
As children, new to the world, we are so free. We are like beautiful, hot air balloons, flying freely through bright, blue skies. It's easy to be happy. It's so easy to smile and laugh. It's easy to be lighthearted. Then people start handing us sandbags. These sandbags are mostly made up of the dos, don'ts, shoulds, shouldn'ts and have-tos that we learn to bear. They tell us, "Here. Take these sandbags. You have to carry them in your basket." We take on more and more sandbags, until our basket is so full, we are pulled down to the ground. Most of us continue to take on more sandbags throughout the courses of our lives. We never get flying, again. In fact, we stop believing that we are supposed to fly. We look around at everyone we know, and almost no one is flying. They are all weighed down by the sandbags they accepted.
If this sounds familiar, please don't blame the people who gave you the sandbags. They didn't mean any harm. They thought they were helping. They were just passing on what they learned in the course of their own lives. You, however, have an opportunity to take a different tack.
You witness that some people ARE still flying. They mostly think and act differently than the others. They may have been lucky enough to find a good teacher who taught them how to start removing the sandbags, and to stop taking new sandbags on. They may have just been very fortunate to have independently developed the qualities of observation, discernment and courage, and were able to forge their own beliefs and ideas and roll with them, and discarded the sandbags of their own accord.
I am not advocating running away from your responsibilities. Sometimes you have to land your balloon to help another, or to complete a task that has to be completed. You may find it necessary to retain a few of the sandbags. I'm recommending that you take an inventory of your sandbags, and notice how many of them are unnecessary. How much are you weighed down, unnecessarily, by things that you learned from others that are not necessarily true, and not necessarily serving you? How many things were you taught about who you are, that are not necessarily true? How many limited beliefs about yourself and others are you carrying with you? How many prejudicial ideas are you carrying about others, that might not necessarily be true? How many ideas are you carrying about the world and everything in it, that may not be serving you or the world?
If you find yourself grounded by the heaviness of your sandbags, you can systematically pick them up, observe them, and discard the ones that don't serve you. If you do so, you will eventually see that your basket is lifting off the ground again. One day you will be flying so high above the clouds, you won't want to come down too much. Other people will call to you to come down. When you come down, they will immediately start handing you sandbags, again. They don't know any better. They don't remember how to fly, and they are afraid to let go of their sandbags, so they can't reach you up there. Come down, when need be. Try to help them remove their sandbags. If it's too scary for them, and they won't let the sandbags go, don't let them keep you grounded. There are too many others who need your help to fly. You'll eventually find someone else who will remove their sandbags, and you'll fly off together into the wild, blue yonder. The feeling of regaining your freedom can only be matched, again, by helping someone else regain hers or his.
Happy Flying,
Alan
Many of us ( including me, at times) react to the negativity in the world with more negativity. When we hear about acts of violence, we hate the hater who perpetrated it. When we hear about people that are starving, we become sad and resigned. When we hear about the global recession, we become frightened and feel helpless.
What if you could put your feelings in cans, and send them to a situation to heal it. If you witnessed a sad situation, and you wanted to heal it, would you send cans of Sadness? No, you would send cans of Joy. If you wanted to diffuse a Scary and Uncertain situation, would you send cans of Fear and Uncertainty? No, you would send cans of Courage and Certainty.
We can't can our Consciousness, but it is just as effective. Since we are all connected to everything, our Consciousness instantaneously goes to wherever it is focused. Our economy is an example, as it is largely controlled by how people feel about it. That's why Consumer Confidence is a powerful measure of where the economy is headed. Consumer Confidence is just a measure of Consumer Consciousness. A quick downturn in Consumer Confidence can quickly sink the economy. One person's fear affects another, and so on, until the wave of fear overcomes almost everyone.
You can't help anyone, unless you are coming from a more positive perspective. You'll never lift up a sad person by frowning at them. A genuine smile and a happy hug, however, may uplift them. You can't help a poor person by becoming poor, or by feeling guilty about being abundant. From your abundance, you can teach them how to be abundant.
Stop fanning the flames of negativity with more of the same. Be a Light in the darkness. Put your Happiness, Courage, Certainty and Love in cans, and distribute them graciously.
Happily,
Alan :)
In the body, all we really are is just a perspective of the Creator. The vast majority of us are a very limited perspective. We are limited by the filters that we each carry, which I have discussed in a prior writing. Perhaps the greatest of all filters is our body consciousness. We are limited by the filters of our five senses, as well as our hunger, thirst, fatigue and body weaknesses.
Anything that we digest through the five senses and body consciousness is very limited and illusory information. For example, I have always had a distaste for cheese. My best friend is one of the biggest cheese lovers on the planet. If we went to a cheese store together, he would be roaming around, wide-eyed, while I would be holding my nostrils closed, desiring to leave as soon as possible. The scents of the different cheeses are the same sensory input for each of us, but that input is digested and processed differently by each of us, due to our individual body consciousness. His senses love cheese, while mine detest it.
One way to expand our perspective is to step outside of ourselves; to step into someone else's shoes. When we attempt to see things through someone else's eyes, especially when the other's perspective is opposed to our own, we are expanding our perspective. For instance, when we are arguing with someone, we mostly see things only from our own standpoint. I am right, and s/he is wrong. This type of thinking is totally tied to our individual filters and body consciousness. The other person has a different way of filtering the same information, so, from her or his perspective, s/he is right, and I am wrong. Everybody has a justification for what they say, do and think. S/he may determine later, through discernment, that her or his perspective was wrong, but discernment is a filter or set of filters (or perhaps the temporary removal of a filter or set of filters) that was not being applied in the first instance. So, s/he may apologize for a prior action on the grounds that s/he was under the influence of a limited perspective which s/he is now able to see through.
When we have the intent to see things through the other's perspective, we have temporarily expanded our own, limited perspective, at least, to the limited perspectives of two. As we exercise this ability regularly, we become more compassionate, and our perspective expands. We can more easily and quickly expand our perspective in any given situation, to incorporate the perspectives of ALL the players in a situation. When we are able to do so, we are closer to the perspective of the Creator, who sees things through ALL eyes, and we are more likely to reach a conclusion that serves ALL perspectives in a situation, versus our own selfish agenda. We will find, in the long run, that Life is more satisfying when ALL perspectives are taken into account, because ALL will be happier. We may think that we will be happier if we get our way all of the time, but this is an illusion. If we have all we want, but everyone around us suffers from deficiencies, we will be around a bunch of unhappy people, and it will affect us.
We may have enough to eat, but it bothers us when we hear about all of the starving people around the world. We may be free, but it bothers us to hear about children and others who are sold or kidnapped into forced labor. We may have health insurance, but it bothers us to hear about all the people that cannot afford needed care. Although our illusory filters may paint us as disconnected from other people by geography, we instinctively know that they are a part of us. We cannot be truly free until ALL of us are free. What affects any part affects the whole. There is no way around it. Expand your limited perspective, please, for the good of all.
Changing The World, One Perspective At A Time,
Alan
You could not be more loved! The Love that loves you is complete. It is Eternal and Infinite. It could never be fully expressed in the physical, and, therefore, could never be fully comprehended by the human mind.
In your darkest hour, know that you are loved completely and unconditionally, without judgment, no matter how many mistakes you've made, no matter who you've hurt or what you've done. A Perfect You lies deep inside; so deep that hardly anyone is really in touch with it. That part of you is the Love and the Loved, all at once. It is immovable and remains untarnished at all times, even at your lowest of lows. How do I know this? Some of this I have learned, and some just comes through intuition. You don't have to believe it. Everyone has his/her own Truth. Hopefully, your Truth is serving you, and creating a better world.
If you want to access the part of you that is perfect more readily, BE it. In the toughest moment, Be the Love you would want to experience as the other party. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's what all the Masters came to teach. It's so simple that it gets lost in its simplicity, and has to be taught again and again, through story after story, through scripture after scripture. It's so simple, that it gets twisted every which way, until it no longer looks anything like it really is.
Your neighbor IS yourself. There is only one True Self. That same spark of Light exists in everybody. If you go as deep inside "any-ONE" as you can, you will eventually arrive at the same point; that same spark of Light. The whole Universe sprang forth from it. There is only an illusion that everything is separate. The UNI-verse is one complete whole, and you contain the spark of completeness from which it came.
If we lived by this assertion, there would be no wars; no one would starve, because no one would stand for it; no one would die for lack of resources to pay for medical care, and there would be no childish debate about it; no one would pollute his environment, because it was cheaper in the short term than the alternative. No one would do these things, because they would realize that anything that is done to a part, is done to the whole.ONE LOVE,
Alan
