Grounding And Bonding
(Mother) Earth is ground the world around—Universal teaching for electricians worldwide.
As a young lad, I had a next-door neighbor friend who I helped to build an underground fort with. We would tell our parents that we were “camping out” in the yard, then after they went to bed, we would hot wire a cord from the garage to a portable light with exposed connections, which we would use to illuminate the inside of our expanding cave. One time, I became the ground path, when I brushed up against the 115-volt hot lead to the lamp. I screamed, shook, and struggled to free myself from the ground circuit I had become part of, and, by good fortune, i shook free and my life was saved. Another time, as an apprentice electrician, I had opened up a junction box, and saw some sparking under a big blue wire nut (used to hold multiple conductors together under one connection point). Without thinking, I reached out for the wire nut, to tighten it. The insulation had broken down from the arcing, and I became the ground for a 277-volt lighting circuit. I was able to jerk my hand free, but other electricians, and home owners, have been much less fortunate. You have never known a more helpless feeling than being an unintentional ground, and these two near electrocution stories have stayed with me my entire life.
Electricians are required to learn the philosophy of grounding and bonding, so as to prevent safety issues from arising, or accidents from happening for any existing facility or for any new installations. Grounding and bonding techniques are utilized for the design and proper functioning of any electrical system.
“Ground” in the power-distribution grid is literally the ground that’s all around you when you are walking outside. It is the dirt, rocks, groundwater and so on. Mother Earth is the direct source for all successful grounding. Grounding is a process of connecting electrical systems, appliances, and metal enclosure to a common reference point, which is, typically, the potential of the ground that Mother Earth provides. Grounding provides a low resistance path for electricity to flow, and is part of the return path for any complete circuit.
Bonding is a process for connecting all conductive materials together who do not have a direct connection to Mother Earth, or Ground, and then connecting that connecting link to Ground. Thus, bonding between discrete components and building structures supplies the necessary conductor paths to make sure that those circuits have a consistent reference potential grid tied to Mother Earth’s ground potential.
By internationally accepted electrical standards, ground potential is set to ZERO volts, and all derived or existing voltages are referenced to that ground, or zeroed voltage.
Literally, the safety and operational integrity of any system is preserved, protected, and
SAVED BY ZERO,
or a common ground reference potential.
What is the relationship between Mother Earth as an electrical ground, and Mother Earth as a spiritual ground?
Our modern world has encouraged us to become increasingly disconnected from nature. Civilization with its need for farming and cities has overrun vast tracks of the natural world, eliminating much of our spiritual and physical support. We eat, sleep and live indoors, drive automobiles that are supported by insulating rubber tires, wear shoes that create a barrier to the Earth, work in offices with no plants or outdoor views, are subject to constant distraction and philosophical oppression and corruption from religious and political authorities, hyper-stimulated through smart phones and media obsession.. This 21st century lifestyle contributes to a lack of connection with nature, which is the manifestation of our True Ground.
Without being connected to the Earth, we become ungrounded. In at least a figurative sense, if not literally, we are constantly taking on frequencies that aren’t very supportive of our human minds and bodies; frequencies that conflict with our natural resonance. Without grounding, it becomes difficult for us to discharge the frequencies that we’ve taken on board. We can even become controlled and oppressed by those chaotic energies.
Without a common reference point, our words and concepts will be out of phase with other reference points, minimizing harmonization with others. Communication failures resulting from conflicting frames of reference creates stress and anxiety. Over time, it takes its toll on our mental and physical health too. Without a connection with the Earth, we don’t share in a healing common knowledge, negating or preventing any sense of supportive calm and well-being that happens naturally when we are earthed.
Yet, what about those other broken connections, the ones that are human in nature, that have brought great harm to us and others? What about that boss who has built up a huge anger charge, just waiting to discharge it through some unwitting recipient? Or how about that religious fundamentalist who bullies or cajoles everyone who does not believe in the same biblical story that he was inculcated with? Who hasn’t ever wanted to ground out that obnoxious narrative? We never know who is just waiting to use our life to discharge their own negative energy through, do we?
A primary law of consciousness itself is that all that we see while living in the universe of symbols and words are extensions of our own concept and image filled minds, unless through extensive meditation, or grace, we have developed a sacred capacity to observe with an unconditioned mind. Our minds are just another form of energy that utilizes the potential and kinetic energy of our brains and bodies. Because we are both an individual and a collectively conscious person, virtually all of the images and concepts that we have, all others have, whether they are consciously entertaining them with us at the same time, or not. So, the energy that our mind is sees its own energy through the action of its own perception, which may, or may not, have any ultimate standing in reality, even though all may share in a common understanding of both the symbology, and its application to a consensus world view that we now call reality.
Remember, everything that we see or experience is ENERGY, either in its potential (resting) or kinetic (action) form. In its potential form, energy is the scenery that we witness prior to naming or categorizing. In its kinetic form, it is the words and concepts that we have created to represent that which we are now witnessing, and then attempt to share with others through communication. Either way, we are that ENERGY, with an infinite capacity to do work, or to be at rest. The words, concepts, and languages that we utilize help us to build energy, store it, and then utilize it through communication in ways that are resonant with our concept of our greater good. Yet, will these ideas be appropriate for the enhancement of the greater good of our self, humanity, and Mother Earth?
Electricity does not exist without a difference in potential energy, or voltage, between components, and a completed or closed loop circuit to carry its energy, with a common reference potential. Spirituality and truth are also manifestations of the difference in potential energy between a person’s collective self-concept and any ground of being or ultimate truth that exists. Words are continuously being formed in our minds to bridge that gap, in our own sometimes vain attempt to measure and understand our elusive ground energy of consciousness, which may be immeasurable, yet it must become our common reference point, lest we continue to build into our human systems increasing divisive thinking, volatility and incoherence.
Like in electrical connections, reference potentials in real life human experience of consciousness itself helps to stabilize connections and provide stability and extra predictability to relationships. If all people share a common knowledge and understanding, there will be no catastrophic failures within the communications aspects of the social network.
The best spiritual reference point is also Mother Earth. If the materials of Mother Earth are remembered to be the source for all life, then whatever true potential that we have is sourced through that sacred connection. A great way to stay spiritually grounded and bonded is to remember our true source, and to remember that we are of Mother Earth, and may consciously carry that spiritual energy into all of our relationships. As the Mother loves us, so we must bring that motherly love to ALL of our relationships, This dynamic energy exchange is a form of entrainment, or resonance. We will discuss this amazing and potentially transformative quality of energy exchange in greater detail later.
Mother Earth, amongst its almost infinite potential for creating and supporting life, has an electromagnetic nature, with its magnetic north and south poles. Humans are electro-biological beings, also being made of Earth stuff, thus we are not only electromagnetically inspired, but also influenced by all of Mother Earth’s other characteristics. Through a process of shared consciousness not yet fully understood by scientists and biologists, the life force field that constitutes our being exchanges information continuously with the environment, which shows that there may be unexpected outcomes for the human race with the loss of biodiversity through our heartless, reckless expansion through the .natural world.
Our bodies have over 50 trillion biologically and electrically interconnected cells that are totally derived from our ground of being, Mother Earth. We are not only created from materials endemic to this planet, we are a minute version of Her… We are also influenced by all of the forms of life which have derived their existence from this almost infinite ground of being. Humanity has an extraordinary possibility for resonance with all of our natural world, if it would only rejoin it. When we return to our source and connect with nature, our energetic frequency begins to change, and may actually appear to oscillate with the same frequency of life force as the Earth and the rest of its life forms.
We need a real awakening, enlightenment, to change our way of thinking and seeing things. To breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it, realize you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
As the Greek philosopher Protagoras stated, over 2000 years ago, man is the measure of all things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not. Malala Yousafzai, the great young Pakistani education and human rights activist, has stated that she once asked God for one or two more inches in height, but God laughed, and made her tall as the sky so that she could no longer measure herself. Yet, continue to measure ourselves, and each other, against some known or unconscious standard we do, at our own benefit, and risk, until we find true freedom, and our spirits have finally joined with the energy behind Malala’s poetic, and profound statement of being.
There is an interesting interpretation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle which carries great relevancy to our understanding of the word. The Principle simply states that in our effort to describe or define any particle, or object, or to establish its exact location in the universe, we can never know all of the characteristics of the object of observation at one time, such as its angular momentum, direction, speed, and mass, being limited to three out of the four descriptors. Like our imperfect attempts at locating a particle in space, our words, literally, are our sincere, though incomplete, collective measurements, or representations, of reality, or our theories for how things now are, or could become in the future. We attempt to measure and locate eternally elusive phenomenon, and our words are perpetually in a state of “catch up” with an ever-unfolding new reality.
We often live a second-hand life, using the measurements, or words and concepts, provided to us by our family, culture and history. These factors provide a vast base of knowledge, or that acts as a bridge, or bonding jumper, to those possibilities that we have not yet creatively accessed on our own. Yet are they formed of the substance of reality, of unreality, or an unsustainable synthesis of both?
It is imperative that we ask some difficult questions, such as:
⦁ How do we weigh and measure our existence, and against which standard?
⦁ How do we compare and contrast, to discover for our self what a concept, or an object of reality, true value might be?
⦁ What, within ourselves, do we have that enables us to establish a valid reference point for our measurements, so that there is consistency, not only within ourselves, but across the human population we attempt to communicate with, as well?
⦁ How did you see yourself yesterday, how do you see yourself today, and how will you see yourself tomorrow, if you found that infinity is the true measure of your being?
The human race has become the measure of all things, through its use of the energy of words and language, and the tools of creative thought, intelligence, and technology. Words, and all subsequent concepts derived from stringing words together into rational orders, are our measuring devices, or containers for this energy. Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding. Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, with a past frame of reference, and we all share in the confidence that the words we use have successfully created adequately represent that which we are trying to define and communicate with others.
Many of us love to be educated and enlightened by the words and inspired messages from poets, philosophers, scientists, spirituality gurus, shamans or priests, well-meaning physicians, and therapists. If these messengers are connected with truth, then their messages, or “bonding jumpers” may become temporary verbal bridges back to our own internal source for peace and healing. Some people travel far and wide to sit in the presence of those who claim they are “ONE” with, or grounded with the Truth. Truth comes from only One Source, however, and it requires an intense desire to find it, unless, like the great herd of humanity, we wish to continue just a second-hand life experience, where we drink liberally from both the troughs of reality, and unreality.
In the Greek times, sin was an archery term, which only meant that the archer missed the bullseye while competing, and the “sin” was the distance between the bullseye, and where the arrow landed. Naming is like an archer aiming his arrow at a moving target. Though the archer may have perfect aim, the target, like time itself, is always moving, and he always just misses the mark, with his sin being the distance from the truth that his arrow has pierced. An aspect of “sin” in this explanation is our awareness becoming entrained with the movement of our thought to time itself. We will always “sin” while our thoughts remain hypnotized by the spell of time.
Yet we human archers never give up, and in our vanity, adjusts the target in our minds to indicate that we have succeeded in hitting it. If we can find consensus or agreement with others, and share in a collective understanding, or misunderstanding, we have created more collective consciousness, or a “common knowledge”. Just because it is common knowledge does NOT make it accurate knowledge, however.
We must keep this in mind, and keep our minds open to new understandings, lest we institutionalize our assessments into permanent memories that are resistant to change. Remember, our memories are often like Gods to us, always trying to convince us of their righteousness, while incessantly pulling us back into a conceptual, and often times illusory, past frame of reference.
Names are essential for communication, yet are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. When names get gathered together to represent concepts, know that the real miracle of consciousness is about to be experienced, as we become invited into the worlds of abstraction and, potentially, conscious evolution.
We all attempt to establish internal modeling for an external reality that we witness, from our own unique perspective, while remaining “bonded” to a common knowledge reference point. As long as we have a common reference point, the errors in our “archery” can be measured against the errors of others, and after dialogue, and perhaps more research, a synthesis may be developed that brings our communication into greater alignment with each other.
Ultimately, the human race will be saved by ZERO, or tge recognition of Mother Earth as the very ground of existence, and our reference point for collaboration, stability, and sustenance.
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Ultimately, healing, transformation, and enlightenment might be accessible, if we dare to consciously consider and directly address all cultural forces and their often times oppressive toxicities. We need to also ask new questions, and seek new answers to old ones.
⦁ Is that old 1962 transistor radio where you first heard a Beatles song still working?
⦁ Would you visit a thrift store to look for materials for your solar array?
⦁ Would you buy a new stereo amplifier made of old vacuum tubes?
⦁ Would you try to fly a biplane to the stars?
⦁ Can we troubleshoot and repair a complex system, be it mechanical, electrical, or human in nature?
⦁ Is there any relationship between technology advances, and the improvement, or lack of it, of the human condition?
⦁ Can we continue in our old ways of thinking and behaving, and expect any new, or more intellectually, socially, and spiritually evolved outcomes?
⦁ Would you pour new wine into old wine skins?
Technology is always improving, yet the forces of resistance and impedance, reluctance, capacitance, and friction generated heat continue to remain present in any system, be it electrical, mechanical, or human, in nature. Everything has a life cycle associated with it, starting with its birth and/or introduction into the world, and its exit through deterioration and death. As we remember from our high school physics class and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system of energy will experience entropy, unpredictability, chaos, and eventual destruction through the effects of friction and heating. It is a law, so there is no rationality to argue with it. Rationality is understanding the laws, and directing, or redirecting, our processes, including our own lives, accordingly to gain maximum benefit from that understanding.
There is a human equivalent to this 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and we see it arise in people, and in societies, that fiercely cling to the past, with all of its outdated structures of understanding. The more that dissonance arises between our intuition, understanding, and personal knowledge and the socially accepted norms and dogmas of the day, the more conflict, friction, and inflammatory responses will be experienced by everyone. Human energy systems, like parachutes, work the best when they open up. If a philosophy of continuous process improvement (evolution) has been adopted, then functioning may be stabilized, or actually improved, all the way through to the end of the engineered system’s, or human being’s, life cycle.
We are all alive today due to the self-organizing principles of life itself. In manufacturing and industrial processes, in our planet Earth and its journey through the solar system, and even in the human mind, we bear witness to the wonders and mysteries of self-organizing systems. The human brain has evolved into a capable predictive mechanism since the introduction of language as a tool for communication. Words are used for the measure of our experience, and are now our primary avenue for communication with each other. Words are forever containers for energy, and serve us well as representatives in our minds for so-called objective phenomenon. Yet the introduction of words into the conscious void of the ancient human being must have been the most transformational, apocalyptic event in human history, probably being more important than the harnessing of the power of fire and water for the creation of the conditions for safety, security, and even society itself.
The development and the evolution of human language itself has had the effect of bringing the hope for new or enhanced order to the chaos inherent within the unconscious human experience, at least through the structure of words used to represent the world that one is experiencing. We only need witness the “committee”, or the “monkey mind” operating overtime within our minds while it unsuccessfully tries to make sense, or bring order, out of the background chaos forever present in our lives. Those who are neophytes in meditation, and even some of us when troubled by current events, experience this hyperactivity and perceive it as a block to peace of mind. In truth, this internal mental chaos, when reinterpreted, becomes a gateway or portal to be passed through so as to access deeper, more peaceful and benign regions of our spiritual identify.
The nature of self-organizing systems is that once the quiescent point (also known as the Q point, set point, the functional operation level, the balance or the homeostasis point) has been altered, the system naturally seeks a return back to its native state, or “normalcy”. For our human experience, this may be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the “state” to which we are being returned back to. Typically, if we stretch a rubber band, and then release it, it returns to its original state. But, if we have stretched the rubber band too hard and too often, the rubber band loses its elasticity, and will never again return to its original state. A human being who has been stretched beyond their capacity through excessive stress, anxiety, and/or addictive behavior cycles will NOT be returning to their “normal” state, once it is recognized that the “normal” state was, in fact, an unhealthy, abnormal state of being in the first place, which in turn led to the creation of their present chaotic mindset..
For our planet Earth, this may mean ridding itself of any or all offensive life forms that threaten its very existence, and that continues to drive it out of balance with itself. The time intervals for finding a new, or returning to an old, “set point” that indicates a healthy life is far different between an individual human life and the life of planet Earth. The Earth may take thousands, or millions, of years to return to or reach its optimal state, whereas the evanescent ones must act immediately and decisively, lest we not live long enough to witness any real healing progress.
A life out of balance means that not enough knowledge has been uncovered, or applied, to guarantee harmonious system operation. And it is of ultimate importance to realize that, in the end, the human race is not the determiner of what homeostasis is for the world, as that has been established through many billions of years of its evolution and, thus, its changing relationship with itself and the rest of the Universe. It is also of greatest importance to realize that no man, or woman, is an island in this vast universe, and that our perception of harmony and balance is inextricably intertwined with the rest of humanity. No matter how healed, balanced, or empowered we believe that we are becoming, we are eternally linked with the rest of humanity, and the universe, in our attempts to create order or balance out of our own unique versions of the collective chaos known as human knowledge. The temptation to follow the herd, or to swim with the lemming, is built right into the foundational nature of our socialized existence.
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I dare not leave this subject without the presentation of an amazing, though disquieting, theory of human population control. We have an immune system which is automatically activated to fight and neutralize any invader into our body. Our minds work on a similar level, as it attempts to fight and neutralize any offender who threatens our safety, security, or peace of mind. Our planet Earth, or Gaia, also is a vibrant, living being with almost infinite potential to bring forth new forms of life into the universe. And Gaia has its own innate power to bring balance back to itself, with unexpected consequences in store for our unwary, overpopulating human race. It is not a stretch of reason to assume that whatever consciousness Gaia may be infused with may interpret our reproductive over exuberance as indicative of the presence of an imbalance within its own energy field, and make attempts to correct it.
Our planet Earth is now engaged in balancing itself and its energies, just as it has for billions of years. Though it may not have consciousness of the same nature as humans (the mind of the immortal, and the mind of the mortal, do not have a lot in common), the self-organizing principle of this vast system includes the elimination and/or balancing of all forces that do not positively contribute to its life and further its evolution. The human race, due to overpopulation, has brought great imbalances to planet Earth. Some experts believe that we may have ten times the amount of humans on our planet than our planet can sustain in harmony. The stress being generated in the mind of man by this overabundance of human life forms may well be part of the self-protective mechanism of planet Earth itself.
Humanity has captured a piece of Universal consciousness, which includes planet Earth and its collective awareness. The respected mystic Teilhard de Chardin offered to the world in the 20th century his Noosphere concept which parallels this understanding. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French philosopher and paleontologist known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity. He is not alone in this belief and understanding, and a modern, recently deceased Buddhist master, Thich Nhat Hanh, offered many heartfelt dialogues on the unity of Mother Earth, and mankind, in consciousness itself. Yet, how might this truth reflect through the present collective ignorance and chaos created by the human experience with Mother Earth?
Our collective desire to go to war, to kill each other, to commit suicide, and/or to not generally thrive as a collective, may well be the Earth, acting through human consciousness, to bring healing to itself through the removal of damaged parts of itself, at least enough to bring balance back to the Earth. The Earth is, basically, eternal, as far as we are concerned, and is PRIMARY here, while the human race presently has little conscious presence in eternity. Our own Armageddon may well be written right into the operating system of Earth consciousness as it brings stability back to itself through all of its agents, be it earth, air, sunlight, fire, or water, and its almost infinite expression of flora and fauna.
Without harmony and peace, no homeostasis around a healthy operating point is possible.
The miracle is not to walk on water, or in the air, or on burning charcoals. The miracle is to walk on this earth. You breathe in, you become aware of the fact that you are alive. You are alive and are walking upon this beautiful planet. The greatest of all miracles is to be alive—-Thich Nhat Hanh
Insight, intelligence and discernment to sort through the vast ocean of knowledge, and ignorance, created by historians, scientists, teachers, philosophers, the media, theologians, propagandists, pseudo-intellectuals and religious fundamentalists are required tools to find the precious oysters bearing the real Pearls of wisdom.. The hubris and clay feet of many of our spiritual experts shows either their lack of success in making a consistent connection with our ground of being, or Truth, and/or our lack of understanding of what that connection and subsequent behavior might actually look like.
(Mother) Earth is ground the world around—Universal teaching for electricians worldwide.
Imagine, if you will, that there are 7.5 billion mountain peaks on our planet, each one representing one human life. And, imagine that each peak looks at the other peaks, and does not see that each peak is connected to the same Earth, and each peak would not exist without its support. Now imagine that each peak wants to try to establish a connection with the other peaks. The biggest bridge building project in history must be undertaken, to connect all of the peaks together. Now imagine that these bridges are actually the energy of words, sentences, and concepts. These bridges are our “bonding jumpers” to each other, so hopefully we bond through mutual love and compassion, and not hatred and fear, though both are possible. These bridges are equivalent to our collective consciousness, the matrix that verbally connects the entirety of humanity together. Yet what about the connection to the Earth? If the peak feels separate from its ground of support, what might bring connection back to the peak? Can each peak find its own unique ground of support? Can one postulate that the ground of our being calls out to the peaks to remember their true ground? And will the Earth send messages to the peaks, to remind them of their origin? Would one call those words that bring awareness back to our true connection with the Earth “the word of God”? These “inspired words” would be called our “grounding connections”.
Electricians are required to learn the philosophy of grounding and bonding, so as to prevent safety issues from arising, or accidents from happening for any existing facility or for any new installations. Grounding and bonding techniques are utilized for the design and proper functioning of any electrical system. “Ground” in the power-distribution grid is literally the ground that’s all around you when you are walking outside. It is the dirt, rocks, groundwater and so on …Mother Earth is the direct source for all successful grounding. Grounding is a process of connecting electrical systems, appliances, and metal enclosure to a common reference point, which is, typically, the potential of the ground that Mother Earth provides. Grounding provides a low resistance path for electricity to flow, and is part of the return path for any complete circuit.
Bonding is a process for connecting all conductive materials together who do not have a direct connection to Mother Earth, or Ground, and then connecting that connecting link to Ground. Thus, bonding between discrete components and building structures supplies the necessary conductor paths to make sure that those circuits have a consistent reference potential grid tied to Mother Earth’s ground potential.
By internationally accepted electrical standards, ground potential is set to ZERO volts, and all derived or existing voltages are referenced to that ground, or zeroed voltage. Literally, the safety and operational integrity of any system is preserved, protected, and
SAVED BY ZERO,
or a common ground reference potential. What is the relationship between Mother Earth as an electrical ground, and Mother Earth as a spiritual ground?
Our modern world has encouraged us to become increasingly disconnected from nature. Civilization with its need for farming and cities has overrun vast tracks of the natural world, eliminating much of our spiritual and physical support. We eat, sleep and live indoors, drive automobiles that are supported by insulating rubber tires, wear shoes that create a barrier to the Earth, work in offices with no plants or outdoor views, are subject to constant distraction and philosophical oppression and corruption from religious and political authorities, hyper-stimulated through smart phones and media obsession.. This 21st century lifestyle contributes to a lack of connection with nature, which is the manifestation of our True Ground.
Without being connected to the Earth, we become ungrounded. In at least a figurative sense, if not literally, we are constantly taking on frequencies that aren’t very supportive of our human minds and bodies; frequencies that conflict with our natural resonance. Without grounding, it becomes difficult for us to discharge the frequencies that we’ve taken on board. We can even become controlled and oppressed by those chaotic energies.
Without a common reference point, our words and concepts will be out of phase with other reference points, minimizing harmonization with others. Communication failures resulting from conflicting frames of reference creates stress and anxiety. Over time, it takes its toll on our mental and physical health too. Without a connection with the Earth, we don’t share in a healing common knowledge, negating or preventing any sense of supportive calm and well-being that happens naturally when we are earthed.
As a young lad, I had a next-door neighbor friend who I helped to build an underground fort with. We would tell our parents that we were “camping out” in the yard, then after they went to bed, we would hot wire a cord from the garage to a portable light with exposed connections, which we would use to illuminate the inside of our expanding cave. One time, I became the ground path, when I brushed up against the 115-volt hot lead to the lamp. I screamed, shook, and struggled to free myself from the ground circuit I had become part of, and, by good fortune, i shook free and my life was saved. Another time, as an apprentice electrician, I had opened up a junction box, and saw some sparking under a big blue wire nut (used to hold multiple conductors together under one connection point). Without thinking, I reached out for the wire nut, to tighten it. The insulation had broken down from the arcing, and I became the ground for a 277-volt lighting circuit. I was able to jerk my hand free, but other electricians, and home owners, have been much less fortunate. You have never known a more helpless feeling than being an unintentional ground, and the two near electrocution stories have stayed with me my entire life.
Yet, what about those other broken connections, the ones that are human in nature, that have brought great harm to us and others? What about that boss who has built up a huge anger charge, just waiting to discharge it through some unwitting recipient? Or how about that religious fundamentalist who bullies or cajoles everyone who does not believe in the same biblical story that he was inculcated with? Who hasn’t ever wanted to ground out that obnoxious narrative? We never know who is just waiting to use our life to discharge their own negative energy through, do we?
A primary law of consciousness itself is that all that we see while living in the universe of symbols and words are extensions of our own concept and image filled minds, unless through extensive meditation, or grace, we have developed a sacred capacity to observe with an unconditioned mind. Our minds are just another form of energy that utilizes the potential and kinetic energy of our brains and bodies. Because we are both an individual and a collectively conscious person, virtually all of the images and concepts that we have, all others have, whether they are consciously entertaining them with us at the same time, or not. So, the energy that our mind is sees its own energy through the action of its own perception, which may, or may not, have any ultimate standing in reality, even though all may share in a common understanding of both the symbology, and its application to a consensus world view that we now call reality..
Remember, everything that we see or experience is ENERGY, either in its potential (resting) or kinetic (action) form. In its potential form, energy is the scenery that we witness prior to naming or categorizing. In its kinetic form, it is the words and concepts that we have created to represent that which we are now witnessing, and then attempt to share with others through communication. Either way, we are that ENERGY, with an infinite capacity to do work, or to be at rest. The words, concepts, and languages that we utilize help us to build energy, store it, and then utilize it through communication in ways that are resonant with our concept of our greater good. Yet, will these ideas be appropriate for the enhancement of the greater good of our self, humanity, and Mother Earth?
Electricity does not exist without a difference in potential energy, or voltage, between components, and a completed or closed loop circuit to carry its energy, with a common reference potential. Spirituality and truth are also manifestations of the difference in potential energy between a person’s collective self-concept and any ground of being or ultimate truth that exists. Words are continuously being formed in our minds to bridge that gap, in our own sometimes vain attempt to measure and understand our elusive ground energy of consciousness, which may be immeasurable, yet it must become our common reference point, lest we continue to build into our human systems increasing divisive thinking, volatility and incoherence..
Like in electrical connections, reference potentials in real life human experience of consciousness itself helps to stabilize connections and provide stability and extra predictability to relationships. If all people share a common knowledge and understanding, there will be no catastrophic failures within the communications aspects of the social network.
The best spiritual reference point is also Mother Earth. If the materials of Mother Earth are remembered to be the source for all life, then whatever true potential that we have is sourced through that sacred connection. A great way to stay spiritually grounded and bonded is to remember our true source, and to remember that we are of Mother Earth, and may consciously carry that spiritual energy into all of our relationships. As the Mother loves us, so we must bring that motherly love to ALL of our relationships, This dynamic energy exchange is a form of entrainment, or resonance. We will discuss this amazing and potentially transformative quality of energy exchange in greater detail later..
Ultimately, healing, transformation, and enlightenment might be accessible, if we dare to consciously consider and directly address all cultural forces and their often times oppressive toxicities. We need to also ask new questions, and seek new answers to old ones.
⦁ Is that old 1962 transistor radio where you first heard a Beatles song still working?
⦁ Would you visit a thrift store to look for materials for your solar array?
⦁ Would you buy a new stereo amplifier made of old vacuum tubes?
⦁ Would you try to fly a biplane to the stars?
⦁ Can we troubleshoot and repair a complex system, be it mechanical, electrical, or human in nature?
⦁ Is there any relationship between technology advances, and the improvement, or lack of it, of the human condition?
⦁ Can we continue in our old ways of thinking and behaving, and expect any new, or more intellectually, socially, and spiritually evolved outcomes?
⦁ Would you pour new wine into old wine skins?
Technology is always improving, yet the forces of resistance and impedance, reluctance, capacitance, and friction generated heat continue to remain present in any system, be it electrical, mechanical, or human, in nature. Everything has a life cycle associated with it, starting with its birth and/or introduction into the world, and its exit through deterioration and death. As we remember from our high school physics class and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, every closed system of energy will experience entropy, unpredictability, chaos, and eventual destruction through the effects of friction and heating. It is a law, so there is no rationality to argue with it. Rationality is understanding the laws, and directing, or redirecting, our processes, including our own lives, accordingly to gain maximum benefit from that understanding.
There is a human equivalent to this 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and we see it arise in people, and in societies, that fiercely cling to the past, with all of its outdated structures of understanding. The more that dissonance arises between our intuition, understanding, and personal knowledge and the socially accepted norms and dogmas of the day, the more conflict, friction, and inflammatory responses will be experienced by everyone. Human energy systems, like parachutes, work the best when they open up. If a philosophy of continuous process improvement (evolution) has been adopted, then functioning may be stabilized, or actually improved, all the way through to the end of the engineered system’s, or human being’s, life cycle.
As the Greek philosopher Protagoras stated, over 2000 years ago, man is the measure of al things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not. Malala Yousafzai, the great young Pakistani education and human rights activist, has stated that she once asked God for one or two more inches in height, but God laughed, and made her tall as the sky so that she could no longer measure herself. Yet, continue to measure ourselves, and each other, we must do, at our own benefit, and risk, until we find true freedom, and our spirits have finally joined with the energy behind Malala’s poetic, and profound statement of being.
We often live a second-hand life, using the measurements, or words and concepts, provided to us by our family, culture and history. These factors provide a vast base of knowledge, or that acts as a bridge, or bonding jumper, to those possibilities that we have not yet creatively accessed on our own. Yet are they formed of the substance of reality, of unreality, or an unsustainable synthesis of both?
It is imperative that we ask some difficult questions, such as:
⦁ How do we weigh and measure our existence, and against which standard?
⦁ How do we compare and contrast, to discover for our self what a concept, or an object of reality, true value might be?
⦁ What, within ourselves, do we have that enables us to establish a valid reference point for our measurements, so that there is consistency, not only within ourselves, but across the human population we attempt to communicate with, as well?
⦁ How did you see yourself yesterday, how do you see yourself today, and how will you see yourself tomorrow, if you found that infinity is the true measure of your being?
The human race has become the measure of all things, through its use of the energy of words and language, and the tools of creative thought, intelligence, and technology. Words, and all subsequent concepts derived from stringing words together into rational orders, are our measuring devices, or containers for this energy. Naming is the way that our consciousness weighs and measures new forms of life, ideas and experiences, in the attempt to insert the unknown and the mysterious into a present context for understanding. Naming tends to attach a dynamic process to a fixed point in time and space, with a past frame of reference, and we all share in the confidence that the words we use have successfully created adequately represent that which we are trying to define and communicate with others.
Many of us love to be educated and enlightened by the words and inspired messages from poets, philosophers, scientists, spirituality gurus, shamans or priests, well-meaning physicians, and therapists. If these messengers are connected with truth, then their messages, or “bonding jumpers” may become temporary verbal bridges back to our own internal source for peace and healing. Some people travel far and wide to sit in the presence of those who claim they are “ONE” with, or grounded with the Truth. Truth comes from only One Source, however, and it requires an intense desire to find it, unless, like the great herd of humanity, we wish to continue just a second-hand life experience, where we drink liberally from both the troughs of reality, and unreality.
In the Greek times, sin was an archery term, which only meant that the archer missed the bullseye while competing, and the “sin” was the distance between the bullseye, and where the arrow landed. Naming is like an archer aiming his arrow at a moving target. Though the archer may have perfect aim, the target, like time itself, is always moving, and he always just misses the mark, with his sin being the distance from the truth that his arrow has pierced. An aspect of “sin” in this explanation is our awareness becoming entrained with the movement of our thought to time itself. We will always “sin” while our thoughts remain hypnotized by the spell of time.
Yet we human archers never give up, and in our vanity, adjusts the target in our minds to indicate that we have succeeded in hitting it. If we can find consensus or agreement with others, and share in a collective understanding, or misunderstanding, we have created more collective consciousness, or a “common knowledge”. Just because it is common knowledge does NOT make it accurate knowledge, however.
We must keep this in mind, and keep our minds open to new understandings, lest we institutionalize our assessments into permanent memories that are resistant to change. Remember, our memories are often like Gods to us, always trying to convince us of their righteousness, while incessantly pulling us back into a conceptual, and often times illusory, past frame of reference.
Names are essential for communication, yet are never comprehensive and inclusive enough to completely reveal the true natures of what they were created for in our minds to represent in the first place. When names get gathered together to represent concepts, know that the real miracle of consciousness is about to be experienced, as we become invited into the worlds of abstraction and, potentially, conscious evolution.
Names, and our interpretations of them, change over the years, as we strive for more accurate understandings of ourselves, and of our worlds.
We all attempt to establish internal modeling for an external reality that we witness, from our own unique perspective, while remaining “bonded” to a common knowledge reference point. As long as we have a common reference point, the errors in our “archery” can be measured against the errors of others, and after dialogue, and perhaps more research, a synthesis may be developed that brings our communication into greater alignment with each other.
We are all alive today due to the self-organizing principles of life itself. In manufacturing and industrial processes, in our planet Earth and its journey through the solar system, and even in the human mind, we bear witness to the wonders and mysteries of self-organizing systems. The human brain has evolved into a capable predictive mechanism since the introduction of language as a tool for communication. Words are used for the measure of our experience, and are now our primary avenue for communication with each other. Words are forever containers for energy, and serve us well as representatives in our minds for so-called objective phenomenon. Yet the introduction of words into the conscious void of the ancient human being must have been the most transformational, apocalyptic event in human history, probably being more important than the harnessing of the power of fire and water for the creation of the conditions for safety, security, and even society itself.
The development and the evolution of human language itself has had the effect of bringing the hope for new or enhanced order to the chaos inherent within the unconscious human experience, at least through the structure of words used to represent the world that one is experiencing. We only need witness the “committee”, or the “monkey mind” operating overtime within our minds while it unsuccessfully tries to make sense, or bring order, out of the background chaos forever present in our lives. Those who are neophytes in meditation, and even some of us when troubled by current events, experience this hyperactivity and perceive it as a block to peace of mind. In truth, this internal mental chaos, when reinterpreted, becomes a gateway or portal to be passed through so as to access deeper, more peaceful and benign regions of our spiritual identify.
There is an interesting interpretation of the Pauli Exclusion Principle which carries great relevancy to our understanding of the word. The Principle simply states that in our effort to describe or define any particle, or object, or to establish its exact location in the universe, we can never know all of the characteristics of the object of observation at one time, such as its angular momentum, direction, speed, and mass, being limited to three out of the four descriptors. Like our imperfect attempts at locating a particle in space, our words, literally, are our sincere, though incomplete, collective measurements, or representations, of reality, or our theories for how things now are, or could become in the future. We attempt to measure and locate eternally elusive phenomenon, and our words are perpetually in a state of “catch up” with an ever-unfolding new reality.
The nature of self-organizing systems is that once the quiescent point (also known as the Q point, set point, the functional operation level, the balance or the homeostasis point) has been altered, the system naturally seeks a return back to its native state, or “normalcy”. For our human experience, this may be both a blessing and a curse, depending on the “state” to which we are being returned back to. Typically, if we stretch a rubber band, and then release it, it returns to its original state. But, if we have stretched the rubber band too hard and too often, the rubber band loses its elasticity, and will never again return to its original state. A human being who has been stretched beyond their capacity through excessive stress, anxiety, and/or addictive behavior cycles will NOT be returning to their “normal” state, once it is recognized that the “normal” state was, in fact, an unhealthy, abnormal state of being in the first place, which in turn led to the creation of their present chaotic mindset..
For our planet Earth, this may mean ridding itself of any or all offensive life forms that threaten its very existence, and that continues to drive it out of balance with itself. The time intervals for finding a new, or returning to an old, “set point” that indicates a healthy life is far different between an individual human life and the life of planet Earth. The Earth may take thousands, or millions, of years to return to or reach its optimal state, whereas the evanescent ones must act immediately and decisively, lest we not live long enough to witness any real healing progress.
A life out of balance means that not enough knowledge has been uncovered, or applied, to guarantee harmonious system operation. And it is of ultimate importance to realize that, in the end, the human race is not the determiner of what homeostasis is for the world, as that has been established through many billions of years of its evolution and, thus, its changing relationship with itself and the rest of the Universe. It is also of greatest importance to realize that no man, or woman, is an island in this vast universe, and that our perception of harmony and balance is inextricably intertwined with the rest of humanity. No matter how healed, balanced, or empowered we believe that we are becoming, we are eternally linked with the rest of humanity, and the universe, in our attempts to create order or balance out of our own unique versions of the collective chaos known as human knowledge. The temptation to follow the herd, or to swim with the lemming, is built right into the foundational nature of our socialized existence.
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I dare not leave this subject without the presentation of an amazing, though disquieting, theory of human population control. We have an immune system which is automatically activated to fight and neutralize any invader into our body. Our minds work on a similar level, as it attempts to fight and neutralize any offender who threatens our safety, security, or peace of mind. Our planet Earth, or Gaia, also is a vibrant, living being with almost infinite potential to bring forth new forms of life into the universe. And Gaia has its own innate power to bring balance back to itself, with unexpected consequences in store for our unwary, overpopulating human race. It is not a stretch of reason to assume that whatever consciousness Gaia may be infused with may interpret our reproductive over exuberance as indicative of the presence of an imbalance within its own energy field, and make attempts to correct it.
Our planet Earth is now engaged in balancing itself and its energies, just as it has for billions of years. Though it may not have consciousness of the same nature as humans (the mind of the immortal, and the mind of the mortal, do not have a lot in common), the self-organizing principle of this vast system includes the elimination and/or balancing of all forces that do not positively contribute to its life and further its evolution. The human race, due to overpopulation, has brought great imbalances to planet Earth. Some experts believe that we may have ten times the amount of humans on our planet than our planet can sustain in harmony. The stress being generated in the mind of man by this overabundance of human life forms may well be part of the self-protective mechanism of planet Earth itself.
Humanity has captured a piece of Universal consciousness, which includes planet Earth and its collective awareness. The respected mystic Teilhard de Chardin offered to the world in the 20th century his Noosphere concept which parallels this understanding. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French philosopher and paleontologist known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity. He is not alone in this belief and understanding, and a modern, recently deceased Buddhist master, Thich Nhat Hanh, offered many heartfelt dialogues on the unity of Mother Earth, and mankind, in consciousness itself. Yet, how might this truth reflect through the present collective ignorance and chaos created by the human experience with Mother Earth?
Our collective desire to go to war, to kill each other, to commit suicide, and/or to not generally thrive as a collective, may well be the Earth, acting through human consciousness, to bring healing to itself through the removal of damaged parts of itself, at least enough to bring balance back to the Earth. The Earth is, basically, eternal, as far as we are concerned, and is PRIMARY here, while the human race presently has little conscious presence in eternity. Our own Armageddon may well be written right into the operating system of Earth consciousness as it brings stability back to itself through all of its agents, be it earth, air, sunlight, fire, or water, and its almost infinite expression of flora and fauna.
Without harmony and peace, no homeostasis around a healthy operating point is possible.
The miracle is not to walk on water, or in the air, or on burning charcoals. The miracle is to walk on this earth. You breathe in, you become aware of the fact that you are alive. You are alive and are walking upon this beautiful planet. The greatest of all miracles is to be alive—-Thich Nhat Hanh
Insight, intelligence and discernment to sort through the vast ocean of knowledge, and ignorance, created by historians, scientists, teachers, philosophers, the media, theologians, propagandists, pseudo-intellectuals and religious fundamentalists are required tools to find the precious oysters bearing the real Pearls of wisdom.. The hubris and clay feet of many of our spiritual experts shows either their lack of success in making a consistent connection with our ground of being, or Truth, and/or our lack of understanding of what that connection and subsequent behavior might actually look like.
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(Mother) Earth is ground the world around—Universal teaching for electricians worldwide.
Mother Earth, amongst its almost infinite potential for creating and supporting life, has an electromagnetic nature, with its magnetic north and south poles. Humans are electro-biological beings, also being made of Earth stuff, thus we are not only electromagnetically inspired, but also influenced by all of Mother Earth’s other characteristics. Through a process of shared consciousness not yet fully understood by scientists and biologists, the life force field that constitutes our being exchanges information continuously with the environment, which shows that there may be unexpected outcomes for the human race with the loss of biodiversity through our heartless, reckless expansion through the .natural world.
Our bodies have over 50 trillion biologically and electrically interconnected cells that are totally derived from our ground of being, Mother Earth. We are not only created from materials endemic to this planet, we are a minute version of Her… We are also influenced by all of the forms of life which have derived their existence from this almost infinite ground of being. Humanity has an extraordinary possibility for resonance with all of our natural world, if it would only rejoin it. When we return to our source and connect with nature, our energetic frequency begins to change, and may actually appear to oscillate with the same frequency of life force as the Earth and the rest of its life forms.
We need a real awakening, enlightenment, to change our way of thinking and seeing things. To breathe in and be aware of your body and look deeply into it, realize you are the Earth and your consciousness is also the consciousness of the Earth.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Imagine, if you will, that there are 7.5 billion mountain peaks on our planet, each one representing one human life. And, imagine that each peak looks at the other peaks, and does not see that each peak is connected to the same Earth, and each peak would not exist without its support. Now imagine that each peak wants to try to establish a connection with the other peaks. The biggest bridge building project in history must be undertaken, to connect all of the peaks together. Now imagine that these bridges are actually the energy of words, sentences, and concepts. These bridges are our “bonding jumpers” to each other, so hopefully we bond through mutual love and compassion, and not hatred and fear, though both are possible. These bridges are equivalent to our collective consciousness, the matrix that verbally connects the entirety of humanity together. Yet what about the connection to the Earth? If the peak feels separate from its ground of support, what might bring connection back to the peak? Can each peak find its own unique ground of support? Can one postulate that the ground of our being calls out to the peaks to remember their true ground? And will the Earth send messages to the peaks, to remind them of their origin? Would one call those words that bring awareness back to our true connection with the Earth “the word of God”? These “inspired words” would be called our “grounding connections”.
