Life’s journey is forever like a dotted line pathway. It is the quality of our connections with each other that fills in the space between the dots. Empathy is the major vehicle for our consciousness to transcend our apparent differences, enabling humans to connect the dots in a mutually affirming manner. We find our shared meaning, which links us together on our journey in Spirit—-Elisha Scott
As human beings in social environments, we have come to expect that our leaders will lead with integrity and morality, though inevitable weaknesses will occasionally make themselves evident.. If our leader is of high enough integrity, we may even want to pattern ourselves after them, should we also aspire to any leadership roles in our own future, including taking charge of our own lives. Patterning after others who are successful is considered to be a normal and natural response, while also being an evolutionary adaptation. To survive, and prosper as a species, we became willing to adopt attitudes and perform actions that others may have succeeded with in the past, as well as remaining open to any new unfoldment in our understanding that will complement our unique role..
Yet, there are many times when we pattern ourselves after an adored member of the status quo, or the institutionalized understanding of the past, and we may be led down deceptive paths of reasoning, with resultant poor social and personal health decisions and outcomes. We may become subtly, or profoundly, traumatized through these relationships. “What would Jesus do?” can be a benign question, and may even lead the Christian oriented questioner down a more spiritually centered path, as long it does not lead to more conformity to dogma or the practicing of other systems of traumatic oppression such as the religion’s historical institutionalized misanthropy, including misogyny and racism.
Alabaster Idol and representative of European Caucasoid oppression, or the Truth?
The commentary on the common knowledge game, and the lemming effect, should have given the reader a huge window to look through to humanity’s potential for both corruption and healing within our social connections. Another facet of the most fundamental truths of our existence is the extraordinary potential for the depth of our connections to each other, and how strongly that connection influences all of us, for good, and for bad. If we learn to collectively embrace this universal fact, we would have a clue as to how to reduce the incidences of disease and distress in our world without just tattooing more medical technology upon our body and souls..
There are several American pandemics raging right now, including COVID-19, cultural divisiveness, addictions, obesity, cancer, and all traumatic influences, including MAD, or mutually assured death, the acronym for the gun lobby, 2nd Amendment zealots, and the proliferation of firearms used in the murders and suicides of our innocents. These pandemics are creating more opportunities for eruptions of drama and anxiety, which interbreeds with any potentially unhealed pain and suffering already inherent within our lives. We must become more conscious of how the unconscious actions of others, and our own unfulfilled healing response, tend to introduce more traumatic influences into our own lives. Those on the healing path will attempt to be spiritually present for others, while recognizing and transforming both individually and collectively, all internalized trauma dramas…
Love, hate, and indifference are three terms that we use to help describe the quality of our relationships with each other. To some extent, in various proportions, all of us employ these three qualities of energy exchange in our lives, depending on the person and/or the situation involved. As human beings we experience love and hatred as powerful emotions, which guide all subsequent feelings and perceptions in predefined directions. Love is an open system of friction free energy exchange and hate is more of a closed, attenuated system of energy exchange, both of which bind us to each other, in easily identifiable, though divergent manners. As we know, love is the open channel that compassion may flow through, while hatred is the closed channel that traumatizes both the receiver, and the giver, of that energy.
Indifference is a quality of attention that attempts to keep everybody and everything separate from the observer, and the emotionally detached individual is choosing to live in a closed system, or spiritual vacuum. Those practicing total indifference live in an isolated world, with little real emotional connection with anybody or anything other than their own emotions, thoughts and feelings. Indifference is often times the result of traumatic influences, and results in the emotional and spiritual oppression of others, and a repression of the personal spirit, as well. For most normal people, indifference is only applied to special situations, and is not applied to a complete life experience. Yet, the quality of indifference gives the practitioner the illusory sense of having no personal accountability to that which is being witnessed. Personal responsibility for a collectively shared error in the heart is denied, and the potential for a shared healing experience is negated.
We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to
say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’
Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those
people my heroes.
— Fred Rogers
The word “empathy” has a secret message built into it, by doing creative interpretation. Let’s take the word apart into three components: em—path —y (ou). Empathy is now seen to be the healing path between the mirror image of me (em) and y(ou). When the concepts of ‘you’ and the “mirror image of me” are realized to be identically ONE, Me and you disappear, and our empathy becomes just the “path”.
Empathy, in both its positive and negative expressions, is a name for the mechanism for transporting emotional energy to create a form of resonance or attunement between sentient beings, and is always in play in both love and hate relationships. In positive empathy, energy flows freely in both directions, between the “giver” and the “receiver”. There is a shared sense of the “expansion” of the self. (In a radical variation of positive empathy, one may even experience shared mental images-telepathy-and spiritual healing, but those are subjects that I will not address here). In negative empathy, energy flow is uneven, and dominated by one party, potentially resulting in forms of oppression of the other, and repression of aspects of the self, by the “giver”, and, potentially, the repression of aspects of the self by the “receiver”. There is a strong sense of the “contraction” of the self by at least one party in this energy exchange.
Contemporary research into neuroscience tells us that our brains, like those of other primates, contain mirror neurons. These neurons are triggered in our own brains when someone else is sad, angry, or happy, and those mirror neurons, in coordination with other pre-cognitive and cognitive functions, helps us to feel what that other person is feeling. What they actually help us to feel is what we would experience if we were in that person’s place. If our experiences are similar enough, we can empathize in a way that promotes a connection which can be soothing to the other person. The effort to understand someone else, when made in good faith, can go a long way towards helping them feel better and even, sometimes, to change their behaviors. This can be considered to be a collaboration between the spirit of the individuals in communication. The changing of another’s behavior is not the conscious intention of empathy, though most find that through the empathetic connection each participant is taken beyond the former boundaries of their understanding of self and other..
Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it.
– Anaïs Nin
Human beings are usually quite empathetic beings. Studies are showing that all animals, especially those mammalian in nature, share in this often times sublime characteristic. It is very difficult to harm another person if we can sense the suffering that they are presently experiencing, or that we may actually be causing them. The exceptions being when one is in an extremely hateful state, or those whose indifference may arise from sociopathic or psychopathic natures. A conscious person would never abuse any person, or animal of any species (including eating it, unless there were no other choices for food), after recognizing the unity of sentience that exists in our natural world. Of course, much of mankind is unconscious, and we can’t even keep from harming each other, let alone the whole of the animal species. Mankind has “dehumanized-de-sentienced” humans and animals so as to justify cruel and destructive relationships, as well as with the natural world that supports all of us. The Judeo-Christian western religious tradition and its misunderstanding of the wholeness and unity of life, and it subsequent influence on thinkers throughout the ages has been at the forefront of this travesty for millennia.
Empathy has been found to have not just a positive or “good” aspect to it, but that empathy can also drag an unsuspecting empath into the ditch with someone who may be of low consciousness. It might be termed ‘negative empathy’, which is a state of being so sensitive to other people’s experiences that we become overwhelmed by their suffering, to the point where we begin to suffer ourselves. This has the opposite effect of the collaboration that occurs through positive empathy, instead becoming an alliance of shared mutual personal pain, which eventually results in new forms of emotional isolation. The extreme form of this empathy is the stigmata syndrome, where the empath takes on so much of the suffering energy and experience of a hated or a treasured person, that they manifest in their own bodies and minds the wounds and symptoms of the person that they have become obsessed with. Those who have read all of my works are well aware of my profound experience in 2017 with a dying friend with brain cancer, and the dangers, and spiritual growth potentials, of such an extraordinary relationship.
Empathy, positive or negative, is one of several powerful transmission vehicles for human collective consciousness to be carried to us as individuals, as well as acting as a return vehicle for our individual experiences to be delivered back to the collective field. Collective consciousness contains the history of the knowledge that human beings have accrued over eons of time. It contains a vast matrix of dedicated/fixed pathways of responses to all manors of environmental and social interactions. This is the entirety of our species’ training which has been transmitted to, or handed down to, countless generations of human beings, through parental interactions, education, religious training, and the lifelong social and emotional training gained by our continuous interface with other members of our species . Yet, as so much of this “common knowledge” is a result of incomplete or inaccurate information, and is the accumulation of all the theories embedded in our cultural past. If we act in a “knee jerk” reaction, or unconscious manner, to any societal or environmental stimulus, our response is all too likely to be dated, and inappropriate. The Judeo/Christian religious metaphor here is that our “first born” of thought may need to be “sacrificed” so as to make way for the truth of the moment.
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
– Eric Hoffer
Perhaps our knee jerk reaction has been to hate and despise Donald Trump. There has been much written by conscious, caring people about the necessity of not hating Donald Trump, but to instead perceive him as an ill person, as a poor person, or even as a suffering person. This change of perception may open our own personal doors to compassion, sympathy, and love. It is OK to be angry with the President of the US, past and present, as long as that anger does not get institutionalized into our minds. By clinging to anger and resentments over a long period time, there is an enhanced susceptibility to them becoming transformed into hate filled memories, or personally institutionalized hatred. We witness daily the collectively institutionalized hatred within our world culture, manifesting as religious persecution, patriarchy, xenophobia, misogyny, racism, bullying, homophobia, nationalism, earth ecology destructive (including extinction of countless species) and other self-destructive energy exchanges. We really do not want to add to the suffering of others, or of ourselves, by creating new pathways of institutionalized hatred.
Constructive anger is spontaneous, arising from being an active witness of the present moment, and is always relevant, productive, wakes up the oppressed and repressed spirit, and is helpful in generating extra motivational energy for constructive engagement with a world needing change. Constructive anger gives all parties involved an opportunity to share in the perception of a wrong or an injustice, and share in a plan to right the wrongs. Hatred and its divisive energy, on the other hand, has much deliberation behind it. Hatred arises from the historical deposits of unresolved anger or repressed pain and suffering within our memories, and looks at punishment and/or the destruction of others as a primary objective. Hatred develops from the collective deposits of darkness that our culture has handed down to us over many generations, as well as also arising from our personal painful and negative memories incurred over the course of our lives. Hatred, both collectively and individually acquired, becomes entrenched as a mostly unconscious dark power broker within our minds, keeping each of us pilloried to the past, and emotionally chained to the object(s) of our hatred. We are no longer free to respond to each new moment as it unfolds, instead substituting old patterns of self-defeating and oppressive responses to others, while repressing the desire to connect with peace and love.
What can be most difficult to consider is the truth that people that habitually hate others also hate themselves. Some may try to hide from self- loathing and hatred through false narratives of their own greatness, while deriding and demeaning all unlike self. The multitude of lies and deceptive behavior, and the need to manipulate others perceptions show an absolute need to hide from the truth a diminished sense of self. This is manifested through continuously projecting out of this mind, by accusing the innocent, and the guilty, of one’s own personal shortcomings, deceptions, and criminality. This communication style is absolutely crazy making for any rational, intelligent human being, and the witness to his expression can feel like the fabric of sanity is being ripped apart right before their eyes. For those not under a hypnotic trance, this spiritual depravity is easily perceived, and felt. The unwary watcher, in an involuntary and forced relationship with this disfigured being, through negative empathy can inadvertently share in others hatred of self. This is another manifestation of the stigmata syndrome, where the entrained observer inadvertently takes on the negative energy of the person under observation, and through the mirror neuron phenomenon, or negative empathy, share in the disfigured spirit that this darkness continues to manifest.
This is an absolutely normal and natural response. Yet, as we become more conscious, it is revealed that we need no longer climb into someone’s, say a Donald Trump type, pigpen and unconsciously support them in their self- hatred and self- loathing.
We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.
—-Anais Nin
According to the latest research on the human brain and its capacity to form perceptions, the brain works by “predictive coding”. It integrates new information based on the beliefs provided by old information. A typical human being moving through the world is not just passively perceiving sensory inputs through the senses, but actually assembles a model in the mind based on what is expected to be seen. This mental setup allows the perceiver to move unbothered through the world, taking in each detail without too much analysis. The brain has been found to have the capacity to over predict, at times expecting something to be there that is not. That expectation can, literally, create a self-hypnotic suggestion, and a non-existent thing can be perceived as if it was really there.
A difficult truth must be embraced:
All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is the extension of our consciousness. How we see ourselves determines the quality of our life experience, and the integrity of our connection with our “higher power”. Insight into the corrupted matrix of human consciousness and its limited understanding leads to the new pathways of consciousness where intuition and spiritual power are more readily accessed—-Elisha Scott
This fact has been verified by mystics, sages, and now, quantum theorists, so it should not be passed over like an unpopular dish at dinner time. Historically, the human race has become addicted to the religious junk food continuously being processed from the limitations of our distant past, rather than feasting at the table of the infinite Spirit of Now. The former Vice President Pence justified sharing in hatred of gays and drug users in the 1980’s and 1990’s by claiming AIDS was God’s punishment for all such people that God hated for not obeying “God’s laws”. We all suffered because of the collective narrative of hatred being shared by the victims, and their accusers.
The Real World
One can only wonder what the twisted, secret narratives that both Mike Pence, and Donald Trump entertained in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am not sure that Pence had evolved much from his hateful AIDS postures of the past. His own self-hatred, as represented by a corrupted view of the “will of God” may well be one of the primary reasons behind that administration’s incompetent, hands off approach to the disaster. Pence has entertained more than one “apocalyptic narrative” that justifies his position as a passive witness to God’s wrath punishing the wicked and the heathen, rather than him acting as an active healing participant in the salvation of the oppressed. Like Trump, he disregarded the seriousness of the pandemic, and wouldn’t consistently wear a mask to protect others from the potential of his own viral infection. They both continued to manifest their hatred of the world through their shared callous disregard for the safety of the people that they made contact with.
Trump and his administration, while in office, were guilty of many mistakes over the course of his leadership, but their response to the pandemic is enough to stir anger and distress in any saint, or sinner that I know. Trump’s actions appeared to be that of a broken, spiritless man.
- refusal to heed early warnings from abroad,
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refusal to listen to expert advice from within the US health care system,
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punishing those seeking to implement a timely strategy,
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lying to the American people about the pandemic,
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failing to provide enough tests soon enough,
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failing to produce adequate medical equipment soon enough,
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refusing to get samples of the virus necessary for work on vaccines and therapeutics,
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prioritizing contracts for companies connected to Trump or to the Kushner family,
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failure to implement enforceable social distancing and face protection rules,
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failure of federal leaders to practice safe social distancing and face protection,
And, most damning,
- failing to formulate a coordinated national response.
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failure to acknowledge a massive loss of life, and a massive amount of suffering, with no caring, conscious leader to lead the national mourning for our victims.
As their response to the “outer world” is their response to their “inner world” (remember, all that we ever see, unto eternity, is ourselves), it is obvious that they do not respect or honor much of who they are, or their neglected, but sacred, relationship with all of humanity. As we “empathized” with Trump, or even Pence, with their self- hatreds, that hatred attaches itself to neglected or disassociated fragments within ourselves, and circulates within our consciousness underneath the surface, taking on a disturbed life of its own.Many of us allowed this administration to plant seeds of their own self-destruction into our minds. We were all susceptible to some extent, depending upon the depth of our own self-awareness and personal insight. Thus, a “trickster” of hatred can be introduced into our consciousness, taking us to sometimes undesirable and uncomfortable psychological places. Yet this awareness may lead to amazing, healing insights for ourselves, so we need not judge or be harsh with ourselves. In the “seeing”, these illusory processes, or “mirages of thought” are no longer unconscious, and our freedom of perceptual choice is returned to us. We are learning and healing!
Trump still is a pathetic, and, at times, a deplorable human being, as are some of his ardent supporters, yet we can all be spiritually reduced a notch or two by supporting this devil and his tribe by sharing in their hatred of themselves.. We will no longer “waste our hate” on Trump, or anybody else for that matter, realizing that they (the image of the other created in our own minds) has become a projection of a newly formed aspect of our own unconscious collectively shared negative self-image. “You” can never be real in any ultimate sense, since the “you” or the Donald Trump, exists as only a conceptual image in our minds. The mental pugilist blows that we direct at Donald and his friends ends up being directed predominantly against ourselves, because we are fighting the creations within our own minds, and the collective mind that we share with others, rather than actually exchanging energy with the objects of our objections, which is the only place where objective change may occur.
Donald Trump, like far too many national leaders, retained an advantage by being a one-way transmitter of negative energy to the world. They rarely place themselves in a vulnerable position where they can be a genuine receiver of the abhorrent behaviorial energy that they emit, and is continuously attempting to reflect back to them. We all have witnessed deplorable confrontations with reporters, who can only serve as surrogates for us, as a concerned public. So, we must still write our letters to our congressmen, stage our protests (when safe), and hold community meetings to speak our truth and maintain our own sanity.
The only way to permanently remove spiritual eyesores from our vision is to heal our inner sight, realizing that profound changes in our own consciousness eventually impacts our world, remembering that “all that we will ever see unto eternity, is ourselves”. Because we also remember that our minds are inextricably intertwined with the collective consciousness of the world, we will continue to have ample opportunities to bring healing to the world, and to our sense of self which is in relationship to the collective.
We remain wary of the theological theories and dogma surrounding Jesus and Christianity. In their misunderstanding, Jesus negatively empathized with THE WORLD, and took on the sins of the world, in the ultimate act of the stigmata syndrome. Love and Truth does not accept any scapegoating! This folderoll is an unfortunate leftover from from the Old Testament Jewish tradition. The dogma of his crucifixion was that his sacrifice to God was to save us from our sins. Apply grains of salt liberally here, ok? There is no God in heaven or on earth that would EVER use this dysfunctional philosophical vehicle to bring redemption and “salvation” to the human race. If Jesus truly believed that by sacrificing himself, the world would be saved, Jesus was much more unevolved than history would leave us to believe that he truly was. The only sacrifice acceptable on our own unique way to our personal resurrection and transcendence is letting go of our false sense of self. People, and civilization, hates negative feedback, and punishes liberally the innocent, to discourage further review. Sadly, he was victimized by the evil projections of others, as are all true prophets…
If you believe that bringing harm to others is a wonderful pastime, suffering continuously is acceptable, and death is the only hope for release, and for heaven, that you have, you might want to reexamine that mindset.
Our “salvation” is only worked out within the individual minds and hearts of true seekers of Truth and Love, and can never be delivered through the efforts of someone else, no matter how historically exalted of a position that individual occupies in the religious pantheons. We must sacrifice our own misunderstandings of who we mistakenly thought that we were, and who and what we thought the rest of creation is, allowing for the new universal truth to resurrect our understanding of self and other. Failure to do so will make us more vulnerable to unconsciousness, where the process of negative empathy, and in the extreme, collective suffering and the stigmata syndrome, may expose us to spiritual chaos, and potentially death. We do not need to self-crucify, to remain connected with the rest of the human race, and to bring healing to the world.
The world will always be reminding us how far we are, collectively, from healing. We do our best to remain engaged with the world, while not allowing the world to overrun our morals, ethics, and spiritual intentions. And we need not spiritually die because of the “sins” of the world, whether it is toxic capitalism, toxic masculinity (and patriarchy), toxic politics, or toxic religion. We always retain freedom of choice, and must exercise and accept personal responsibility for those choices, in all of our lives. If our choices bring harm to ourselves or to each other, we are free to choose again. We make amends wherever possible after any error in our presentation, which keeps our empathy channels fully opened.
While what Donald Trump is, in truth, remains impossible to ascertain, his negative, self-defeating behavior will likely continue to be troubling to all thoughtful, moral, ethical, caring beings. Is he the Devil? Is he a rattlesnake, just waiting to bite all of us, and inject us with deadly venom? Or is he an angel, and we just don’t have the perceptual tools to see it? Well, I am sure that he is not wholly just one of these assessments. Trump probably carries a fair amount of all of these qualities, though unevenly weighted toward the darker sides. The point is for the rest of us to maintain a keen curiosity about our world, and all of the people in it, including Trump, and continue to be conscious, and aware, of our tendency to overreact to each assault on our spiritual and political sensibilities.
We all must cultivate a better spiritual presentation for ourselves than did this President. To hate Trump is to negatively empathize with him, and subject ourselves to his divisive energy. We must save our empathy and energy for those who truly can benefit from it. Donald Trump does NOT want to change, he wants everybody else to change to conform to his disfigured understanding as to how life should be. Yet, most mindful people have certain aspects of our own lives that we would like to change, to enhance our own self image and self worth. These are things that we can work on successfully. Those others who also want to change, while still suffering under the disfiguring conditions of our civilization, want and deserve our empathy and compassion.
Wasting energy on a man who is wasting himself is not a productive endeavor. I am not advocating indifference towards the President or to his supporters, but instead more like taking the posture of a detached witness to him, his continuing shenanigans and his minions, while responding in emotionally intelligent manners that do not bring harm to ourselves or to others. We can cultivate the thought and feeling of wanting better for the man than he wants for himself, remembering that Trump is indeed sick, and suffering under the conditions of his own spiritual disease.
Donald Trump created the conditions for his own disrepute and destruction. This is why Donald Trump is now dying, for he has lost love and self-respect for everyone but his own limited tribe of understanding. Roger Stone, the sleazy political operative and personal confidant of Trump, has publicly stated, as far as political advertising is concerned, that “hate is a more powerful motivating force than love”. We can see that Trump enlists and employs that energy to mobilize his base. We need not follow him and his supporters into the darkest of ditches. Trump steers his consciousness towards chaos and division, while we steer our own towards unity and understanding.
Donald Trump, like all self-haters, just wants to watch his world burn. We need not burn with him.
It is little wonder why any of us found ourselves becoming repulsed by this man, and some even hating this demon. Yes, negative empathy, in sharing Donald Trump’s hatred of himself, while not sharing the objects of his hatred, has brought to us many lessons about ourselves, and how we might see the whole of life more clearly. We have cleared the film off of our glasses, but Donald Trump remains blinded by his hubris and self-hatred. We have healed the parts of ourselves that would create hatred and havoc as a response to this damaged, corrupted human being. We can hope and pray for this disfigured man to see the light of love and reason, yet none of us are holding our breaths until it happens.
There is as much to learn from a spiritually disfigured human being as Donald Trump, as there is from exalted figures from our spiritual heritage and history. Trump is part of our present existence. Trump remains an emanation of our universal consciousness. Yet, the thought of Trump brings few to a state of bliss or contentment. By the seeing of Trump as he is, we can see the blocks to our access to that which exists BEYOND such a distorted image, which just might be universal love and truth. In the seeing, we may transcend that which is seen, and soar to new heights of understanding and experience. Some of us may even experience the same realms as those pointed to by Jesus, the Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, or other revered saints and sages.
A long term friend of mine, who is also a long term friend of the Dalai Lama has said that my understanding is contrary to the teachings of this Buddhist monk, but I will not let that deter me. Had the Dalai Lama been raised under the same conditions of life as I had, and vice versa, our spiritual theories and realities would have been significantly different from our present positions. There are millions of opinions as to how to best live life, and even my friend’s take on the Dalai Lama is only an opinion. Today I choose to not allow other people’s opinions to support my tendency to be repressive of my true nature, and I instead opt to be more fully present for my truest sense of self in this moment.
The conscious people, the people who have already embraced healing and transformation, are co-writing with me a new story for mankind. Together, with my spiritual brothers and sisters, we are co-creating the new religion, the new world order, the new blueprint for humanity and its eternal evolution through this universe. Together we are overcoming millennia of oppression and repression of the human, and the animal spirit. Together, we are defending and honoring our sacred Mother Earth, the true creator and sustainer of life on this planet.
We must remain spiritually vigilant as we continue to be a conscious presence engaging with a world still dominated by toxic masculinity, toxic politics, toxic capitalism, and toxic religion. We must be able to access our anger, not hatred, as we address the injustices wrought upon the human soul through the ignorance and toxicity of others. Love will be our guardian as we make the difficult confrontations with those who do not respect, or honor, the wholeness of life on our Mother Earth that we all share together in love and in truth.
If we lose love and self-respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
—Maya Angelou
In case it was not directly observed, what I have presented here is a meditation on love, hatred, indifference, anger, and the process of forgiveness. Mindfulness allows for us to see what is immediately before us, and choose between the knowns of the past, and the unknown present. Forgiveness is an openness to the mystery of the present. Forgiveness, however, does not forget or excuse the offender from his misdeeds, especially while the offender continues abhorrent behavior. Forgiveness releases the practitioner from the damages of incurring negative perceptions of others. We still must act consciously and decisively against all forces which continue to imperil our lives, our family’s lives, and the life of our planet. We must continue to be willing to speak truth to power, whether the power is in the White House, or in our own hearts.
Love unifies, while hate fragments and traumatizes. As human beings, we must be conscious enough to choose the best way to present ourselves to the world, and to ourselves, as we face the challenges of the insanity within our world. Our world is in greatest need of hearts that are expanding through mutual positive empathy, rather than contracting through negative empathy, or indifference. We did not create the world as it is now, we cannot control it, nor can we cure it. But we can evolve, and, collectively, we can address the disease of the spirit that is dominating our world civilization, and which continues to bring devastation to our world, and to all of the life upon it.
Each of us are beings with infinite potential. Yet, each of us must break free from the conditioning of our personal past, and our cultural past. There are four pillars supporting higher consciousness, which are (1) via negative- through negating what is not real, seeing what might be real, (2) via positiva-through constantly affirming the goodness inherent in life, reading the writings of mystical poets and saints, and being a grateful participant of life, we may experience Grace, (3) via transformativa- through re-creating or re-birthing ourselves through educational means and/or mystical connection, and bringing forth a new person, or our new understanding of our self, into the world, in the image and likeness of a more universal consciousness, and (4) via creativa- developing and/or expressing our innate ability to co-create with the Universe, by expressing ourselves through art, music, writing, or other means. We must access the deepest of desires to transcend the boundaries of self, and to reimagine our existence.
Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
– Matthew 9:17 (NIV)
We must travel new paths of consciousness, letting go of all controls that keep us tethered to the past, with its incomplete perceptions and understandings. In the end, there is no teacher who will effect our salvation, for it is a personal journey, where we must accept responsibility for the totality of our lives, and make all necessary adjustments in course that will take us to our spiritual goals. We can actually rebirth ourselves, into a new understanding that the Universe has birthed itself in an infinitude of forms through the portal of Mother Earth, and each of us is “one verse” of the song of creation.
As we see the totality of the movement of thought as time, and its nature of keeping us tethered to a past, or to a future that is always an extension of this past, we can free ourselves from those illusory controls. We can live more of a life based on the ever unfolding now, or present moment, thus unleashing vast reservoirs of intuition and spiritual power. As we look upon all of life, we finally gain the insight that ALL is the extension of the “I am” that we are. All that we will ever see, unto eternity, is, thus, our SELF. for “I am” is distributed throughout all of creation. Everything that we see is our brothers and sisters in Spirit, and, in Truth, and all are extensions of the “I” that “I am”. Our collective error in understanding is believing that “You” has any reality in ultimate Truth, for “you cannot be real”. “You” is forever just an image of thought, created by the collective, or by the individual, mind of man, while believing that he is a separate, isolated being in a lonely universe.
The further along the path of Truth and Love that we travel, the more that we understand that, all we will ever see, unto eternity, is extensions of our Self. How we see our Self today determines the quality of Love and Truth that we manifest in our lives. How we see our Self today determines how much spiritual power can be brought to our damaged planet, which is now dependent upon us. How we see our Self today determines how much, as awakening beings, we are able to bring healing to our shared, damaged human consciousness. There is no power in Heaven or on Earth greater than “I am”. Yet our world suffers, because of the collective belief that we are not of this world, not of each other, or not of this Universe. The unconscious people of the world continue to bring harm to Mother Earth, and to all of her inhabitants, in the name of their own religions, their own disfigured political and economic principles, and their own ignorance. We all suffer accordingly.
I realize that I am an insignificant voice. I am yet another voice calling out from the wilderness of human misunderstanding, trying to locate lost fellow travelers, and aid whoever I may make contact with, in whatever humble way that I can, in our shared journey towards healing. We will heal together, or die alone. I am one of millions of spiritual “Johnny Appleseed’s”, spreading the seeds of our potential for transcendence on the rocky grounds of human consciousness on our planet Earth. I will not live to see the good that may arise from my work, and the greater works of others, and that is OK.
“The finger pointing at the moon, can never be the moon”.
—The Buddha
Were the reader to ever have a similar apocalyptic spiritual experience as I did, on July 21, 1987, the reader would see, as I now see, how pathetic and inadequate can be our words. Words are limited containers for infinite energy, and though they point to a shared reality, they will forever fall short in their intention for communicating what lies deep within the heart. While living in a verbal consciousness, the word remains the way the human world is measured. And the word, because of its inherent limitations, continues to create imbalances within the mind of man. Mankind, with its religions and its political science, continues with its pride and hubris, and clings to its knowledge like it was truth itself, forgetting that our words and thoughts will forever only be theories chasing after the truth that is continuously being updated by the present moment. The universe laughs with us, when we see that all of our words are but simple pointers, to that which exists within each of us, yet also exists far above and beyond the limited and limiting boundaries of human consciousness.
The sun shines, and the artist interprets its light upon the beautiful landscape, and paints a classic piece of art. The wolf howls in the lonely, cold, snow-covered wilderness, and, miraculously, another wolf a great distance away howls back at him, reassuring both that each other is still there, waiting to bridge the distance and make a meaningful connection. The bird sings alone in the forest, yet, a hiker stops for a moment, listens, and her heart begins to sing and her spirit soars with the bird. The divorced and lonely man sings in the shower, and the travelling salesman at his door hears him, and is so impressed by the man’s voice that he encourages him to try out for a local band. An isolated man stumbles upon the miracle of silence within his being, and a resultant bridge of words many years later connects this sacred silence to his latest writings, creating poetry and healing balms for all who are receptive.
“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost center in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW,
Rather consists of opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”
—–Robert Browning
As I look at my life’s history, I bear witness to Love and its healing Mystery. The greatest insights that I have ever had continue to arise through the sacred silence within my being. Words are formed to become the bridge from that silence, to the conscious mind, in its attempt to bring balance back to which the verbal universe has brought imbalance to. Yet those words, though sacred to me, are only pointers to the potential for others. Yet, to continue to point I must.
Hatred, indifference, positive or negative empathy, love, healing, or mutual destruction are parts of our infinite potentiality.. The choice is ours to make for our own unique life experience, when we have become more healed and conscious There is a Silence within each of us attempting to inform our consciousness as to how to best exercise our free will. What is our choice today?
The Silence continues to reach out to the turbulence within our world.
My world will never be the same.
How about yours?
Writer’s note: Writing in my blog is like singing in the shower. Few people ever hear if I am off key, especially when I go for the high notes. I encourage all readers to continue their own writings, and do not let the off-key “high notes” discourage you. Our creations are precious, and sacred, when wrapped with loving intention. Like all writings, and speeches from others, please salt this one to personal taste.
