America: Lobster in a Pot

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America: lobster in a pot

My good friend Robert Wilkinson of www.aquariuspapers.com, one of the premier astrology blogs on the internet, describes America as a lobster in a pot of boiling water. Every month the PTB turn up the water a few degrees. It sure seems that way, doesn’t it? I recently asked a friend of mine who has been in charge of several school districts special ed departments in her career as a teacher and administrator if  she had noticed any differences in parents, students and fellow teachers in recent years. She said everything is so much more negative now. The people she deals with-parents, students, other teachers, administrators-are all more unstable,  angry and negative. Their behavior is too often irrational and bizarre. You never know, she said, when people are going to flip. She says she can’t take it anymore and is leaving her position come September. Life is too short to deal with angry, self-absorbed and demanding people all day long who think they are the center of the universe.

There’s alot of rage and upset out there. The middle class has been shredded. People’s net worth has been cut in half. Many have lost everything. Over forty million Americans are on food stamps. All it would take is a little kindling and a match to create a destructive conflagration in the country that the government could use an excuse to impose martial law. With the executive order that Obama signed in March that grants him sweeping powers to do just that the stage is set. Let’s hope people remain calm and cool in a summer that promises record heat.

In Aaron Sorkin’s new TV drama, Newsroom, Jeff Daniels as the anchor goes off on a rant about why America is no longer the greatest country on earth.

“And you — sorority girl — yeah — just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.”

“We sure used to be.  We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest.”

“We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered.”

“The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one — America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”

What do you think? Is America the greatest country in the world? How do you see America?

 

 

 

The Soul: The Ultimate Connecting Point

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soul

The Connecting Point

The soul is the connecting point between our individual life and all other lives. It bridges the gap between the personality’s emphasis on exclusion and separation, and the spirit’s higher reality of inclusion and unity. While the personality focuses on our differences in order to create distance by making distinctions, the soul feels how we are subtly connected to each other and conspires to bring us together. Where the personality often breeds friction, the soul attempts to generate fusion.

The soul is the door to universal love. It draws the spiritual light down from above and distributes it to the world. It is the mediator between the Divine and the human, drawing the Divine to the human and the human to the Divine. When we finally open the door to our soul, we become a channel of unconditional love and a Divine ambassador in this world. Without us the Divine has limited means to enter the world and restore it to balance.

When we open ourselves up and allow the soul to gradually bring the light down from above, that light will slowly and surely elevate our lives. The soul enables us to understand and accept ourselves and then to understand and accept others. If we remain closed off to the soul, it seems that the Divine is unavailable and nowhere to be seen. When we successfully open ourselves to our soul, it is obvious and apparent that the Divine is everywhere.

When we develop access to our soul, we know it. It is not something that has to be proved. It is a force that guides and protects our life; a power of knowing that comes from deep inside us, a gift of inspired communica- tion and heightened creativity. It is the magnetic force of a charisma that effortlessly attracts other people to it. It is an energy that inspires trust and initiates healing. It is an unconditional love in action that permits people to feel better about themselves, to conquer their self-doubt and confusion, and to extricate themselves from long cycles of suffering.

Our soul is our savior. Everyone has a soul, just as everyone has a heart and a brain, lungs and a liver. Yet for the most part, we hardly think about it. It is inactive in most of us, consigned to the background, hidden in the shadows.

Soul Resonance

The soul cannot communicate with us until, and unless, we are internally quiet and at peace. The constant chatter and internal dialogue that occurs in the minds of most people, most of the time, prevents that higher contact from taking place, but once we are centered and at peace, the gateway is opened and the ground prepared for that higher connection to occur. As our soul connection slowly develops, we are drawn to engage in activities that resonate with our soul.

The presence of soul resonance in our lives indicates a high prob- ability of success and fulfillment in our endeavors. Soul resonance quickens the pace of our inner growth and personal evolution. While we need to find our way in the world we live in, we must also find our way within ourselves. To succeed in both tasks is rare, but need not be. Balance is the key to the future. Until we develop a strong soul connection, material success is attainable, but true fulfillment is always over the next hill. We have been educated to achieve and succeed. We must also learn to be clear, centered, and at peace. We have focused on training and develop- ing our intellect. We now need to develop our intuition.

When we establish our soul connection, the world has more to gain from what we can give it than we have to gain from what the world can give us. The world has an abundance of most things, but it has a great shortage of wisdom, understanding, love, and compassion—all qualities of higher consciousness. If more of us developed soul resonance, we would find common ground more easily, and we would overcome conflict with less difficulty.

A change in mass consciousness is never easy, but to keep going in the direction we are now headed in is infinitely worse. It is far better to struggle for an improved future than to suffer a mass calamity because of our collective inertia.

The Real Harvest of Life

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self-realization

The Buddha

Siddhartha and Septimius

Siddhartha was a young prince in ancient India who walked away from ruling a kingdom, the love of a beautiful wife, the adoration of his people, and an opulent lifestyle that fulfilled all of his material needs to pursue his goal of self-realization. He burned with an inner ferocity to find out who he really was. In the pursuit of his quest of self-realization Siddhartha lived in forests, bathed in streams, wore a loincloth, journeyed from teacher to teacher, and ate whatever the forest would yield or people would give him. When he found his answer years later, he became Buddha, the enlightened one. Based on his self-realization, Buddha realized that his purpose was to teach and share his knowledge of enlightenment.

Buddha

Due to the strength and truth of his teachings, Buddha, the enlightened one who achieved self-realization, is more famous now than he ever would have been had he remained Siddhartha, the ruler of his people. If he had chosen the path of kingship, only a few obscure scholars would still know the name of Siddhartha, and no one would have ever heard of Buddha.

How many people today remember Septimius? In his lifetime, he had everything a person could desire. It did not fulfill him, nor did his fame last. His voice echoed for a short time then died. While Buddha has been dead for over two millennia, the noble truths he brilliantly articulated about the path of self-realization still guide the lives of countless millions.

In the end, only the truth matters. Self-realization is the real harvest of life. If we haven’t found the truth of our being, what remains in our soul is the bitter darkness of our failure.

Change and Changelessness

In the material world, fashions come and go. Trends change. What was once hot becomes cold, and what was long out of taste becomes sought after again. In contrast, the truth of self-realization never changes. Somewhere, deep inside us all, we each have a hunger to find out who we really are. As human beings, we can’t escape that hunger, no matter how cold, hard, distant, or unreachable we choose to make ourselves. We might bury our truth and our need for self-realization, deny it, and even try to disown it, but no matter what we do in our attempts to escape it, it will always be with us. It is a hunger that has been programmed into us as a species, one that has existed in all generations since the beginning of time. It is our deepest need and our most defining one. Self realization is the ultimate life quest.

The Growth of the Soul

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soul growth

Dalai Lama

Forms of Service

A spiritual path that aims for soul growth can be compared to a snowflake. Like snowflakes, all paths are similar, but none are the same. There are as many ways to achieve soul growth and serve, as there are people on the planet. The Divine is an equal opportunity employer who calls us all to His service. Achieving soul growth by serving the greater good requires a change of consciousness, an open heart, an attitude adjustment, and little more. It does not require a starched collar and a dark robe. We don’t have to be ministers, priests, rabbis, nuns, monks, or imams. We don’t have to leave our jobs. To achieve soul growth we just have to consider the well-being of others around us and be helpful to them when we have the opportunity to do so.

The Negative Ego

As long as the negative ego dominates our psyche, it will obscure our true identity, block us from our path, and negate all attempts at soul growth. For however long this condition prevails, the negative ego will keep us bound entirely in selfish pursuits without any gratitude whatsoever for the sacrifices others may have made to help us achieve our goals. It will completely stymie our soul growth.  Sri Aurobindo commented on this condition when he wrote:

“The vital, (negative ego) is too selfish to have any gratitude. The more it gets, the more it demands, and it takes everything as its right and every denial of what it wants as an injustice and an offense. The unregenerate vital (negative ego) in the average human nature is not grateful for a benefit; it resents being under an obligation. So long as the benefit continues, it is effusive and says sweet things; as soon as it expects  nothing more it turns round and bites the hand that fed it. Sometimes it does that even before, when it thinks it can do it without the benefactor knowing the origin of the slander, fault finding, or abuse.”

Ignorance and apathy about who we really are discourage many people from seeking soul growth. Those among us whose world-view is largely shaped by material values and considerations often pay little attention to their non-physical needs and dismiss the all important work of soul growth. Frequently, what matters most is getting ahead in the world. Prestige, power, money, and status are what count. These are the things that are valued and prized. It’s how most of us keep score and why we compete to get ahead of each other. As long as we get what we want in the world, what does the state of our soul really matter and who really cares about soul growth?

After all, we can’t measure our internal light, compare it to others, compete for more of it, or place a monetary value on it. We can’t buy it or sell it. It isn’t a commodity. It won’t improve our bottom line. So if we can’t prove that we have more light than everybody else, then why should we bother with the whole exercise of soul growth? It’s a waste of time and energy and won’t make us richer or more famous.

Our Soul Asset

There is a profound reason why we should make that effort. Our conscious connection with our soul is the most important asset we will ever have. That connection must be developed here. Soul growth cannot be developed after we die. If we throw away our opportunities for soul growth in this lifetime, we will not make the inner growth we came here to make or find a lasting fulfillment in our life. A major part of us will remain missing. A great resource that could successfully guide us through life’s many challenges will remain untapped. Our true power and creativity will never be utilized. Our potential for happiness and inner peace will not be realized. If we fail to make our soul growth in this lifetime, it may make that task much harder in future lifetimes.

Since the purpose of life is to develop our soul connection and make our soul growth, we never escape the pressure of that purpose. When we deny the most essential need of our nature, we unwittingly increase the hidden pressure of that purpose on our lives. That pressure may heighten our suffering, highlight our unhappiness, or widen our sense of alienation.

To the Divine, the most important factor in evaluating our life is the soul growth we made in our time on earth. Did we turn on our light, find out who we really are, and make our unique contribution to the world? From the Divine perspective there is no more important task than soul growth.

The Arrested Development Society

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Arrested Development

Western culture is in a state of arrested development. It is narcissistic, self-absorbed and focussed on personal sexual gratification. Arrested development  has contempt for love and committed,enduring relationships. This is not by accident. It is part of an insidious social engineering agenda. In America for the first time, there are now more single adults than married adults. The culture of arrested development has taken complete hold of this country.

Consequences of Arrested Development

There are several consequences to a lifestyle of arrested development that is focussed on  sexual gratification and  promiscuity. These include an inability to form lasting relationships; a failure to grow emotionally and mature; an increasing sense of lonlieness that when combined with desperation leads to depression. A culture that has fallen into a state of arrested development is a rehab society in which people develop all sorts of addictions and dependencies to deal with the dark hole of emptiness that constitutes their inner life. An arrested development society is full of lost souls and weak individuals who are easily programmed to feel even more isolated and alone.

In a society that has fallen into the trap of arrested development the family structure crumbles, the divorce rate soars and children become increasingly vulnerable to all sorts of negative influences and programming. When people are  focussed on sex their root chakra is wide open. When this chakra is open it creates a direct channel to the subconscious mind so that the individual can be easily programmed thru TV, movies, satellite and cell tower microwave transmissions. This programming  further instills the values of arrested development in the individual’s subconscious. Welcome to the world of the lost and lonely, where in the lyrics of the Eagles  Hotel California, “You can check-out any time you like, But you can never leave! ”

Be Wise!!

Consider Howard Stern’s radio show. What is he selling? Arrested development. How much is he getting paid for it? Somewhere in the neighborhood of  four hundred million. Wherever you look in this culture you are being bombarded with programming designed to make you part of the arrested development culture and lifestyle. Be wise and careful about what you let into your mind and into your life. The mainstream media is not your friend. It’s there to program and control you.

 

War Crimes Convictions

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War Criminals

War Crimes Criminals

Former US President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo can now add the title WAR CRIMES CRIMINAL to their resumes. The Bush Eight were tried in absentia in Malaysia and found guilty of war crimes. While this conviction is largely symbolic, it’s the first of its kind and could eventually lead to further prosecution in the World Court and other jurisdictions.

war criminal

From President to War Criminal

Bush recently canceled a trip to Switzerland. His conviction as a war criminal may have been instrumental in reaching that decision. If nothing else, the Bush Eight will now have to think long and hard about traveling outside the United States.

Naturally, this news has not been reported in the mainstream news media in America. You can read more about this startling development at http://carloz.newsvine.com/_news/2012/05/12/11673512-bush-cheney-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia

The Largest Oil Deposit in the World

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OIl Deposit

Oil Field

The Green River Formation

The largest oil deposit in the world is the Green River Formation located in parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.  The USGS estimates there are three trillion barrels of oil in the formation. The Rand Corp estimates that 30 to 60 percent of that is recoverable.  That’s anywhere from one trillion to two trillion bareels of oil that are recoverable. This amount is equal to all proven reserves in the world. That means the US has more oil than Saudi Arabia and everyone else combined. This is the equivalent of a two hundred year supply of oil.

The question is now political. Will the PTB allow this field to be developed for the benefit of the United States? The field sits in a remote and largely uninhabitable region of the country. Will the PTB finally allow America to achieve energy independence or will they attempt  to keep us dependent on foreign oil and drain money out of this country in order to destroy the middle class and short circuit an economic recovery? America has huge proven reserves of natural gas. Now we have equally huge reserves of oil. Will we be allowed to develop these reserves and achieve economic prosperity orwill the PTB find a way to sabotage that development? What do you think?

For more information on the Green River Formation go here:

http://www.dailymarkets.com/economy/2012/05/12/200-year-supply-of-oil-in-green-river-formation/

 

 

Finding Your True Life Purpose

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The Five Common Features of a True Life Purpose

All manifestations of a true life purpose have five common features.

  1. A true life purpose is the result of Self-realization, of becoming who we were always meant to be. The foundation of Self-realization is the merger of the conscious, rational mind with the soul.
  2.  A true life purpose is a form of unconditional love.
  3.  A true life purpose serves and uplifts other people.
  4.  A true life purpose creates acceptance among people and fosters group consciousness.
  5. A true life purpose encourages creativity and allows freedom to flourish.

true life purpose

How Great Things Begin

Anyone who has the privilege of pursuing his true life purpose realizes that when he fulfills his life purpose, he also fulfills himself. Great things, even vast things, start in small ways with small actions that hardly register at the time. The beginning is often undetected until the true life purpose gathers momentum and attracts attention. The Roman Empire began over six hundred years before the birth of Christ with a small band of people in the Italian peninsula searching for a new home on a group of hills. That tiny blip on the screen of history became a great Empire that was to last a thousand years. Christ began with a few followers in Judea, Buddha with a small band of disciples in India. Two millennia later, each of these great spiritual masters has a religion named after them and more than a billion followers.

Service and the Higher Light

The lives of Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi, and the others demonstrate an important spiritual principle. If we move in the direction of serving a greater good than our own self-interest, the higher light of the spirit will support and protect our work. Our efforts to serve others will open the door to draw down a larger measure of Divine light. When we find our true life purpose we do not work alone. We have the support of  spirit world. We don’t have to free a country like Gandhi, found a religion like Christ and Mohammed, or discover the path to enlightenment as Buddha did. We only have to free ourselves from the chains within our psyche that bind us to our negative ego and desire nature. That is the first step in discovering a true life purpose.

Whenever one of us discovers his true self and activates his true lie purpose, another inner light goes on in the world. The more spiritual light that is present in the world, the less that evil can live here. Our lives all count. We are all important. We each have a unique contribution to make that will allow the world to be a better place. Our identity and true life purpose are not only important for our own personal well-being, they are also important for the well- being of the world.

Soul Power

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Mother Teresa with Princess Diana

Building the Link to the Soul

Since life  is always a struggle of one sort or another it is imperative to build the link to our soul. We must fight against the stupidity, intolerance, prejudice, and hatred that are so entrenched in the world. We must also fight the negative qualities that are firmly entrenched within our own nature and constantly seeking to undermine us. Our greatest ally in the battles of life is the hidden power of our soul. When we overcome our negative ego and its urge to exert control over all that it can, we are unstoppable. When we have built the link to our soul, we stand in the true light of our being.

Moses, Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa all had the very real advantage of that soul link. They knew who they were; they knew what their true purpose was, and they had the support of a higher power in fulfilling that purpose. In their work and in their lives they demonstrated what can be accomplished when we find our real self,  discover our true purpose, and stand firmly in the light of the soul.

No one individual can lead the world out of its present morass. The world is too large, the problems we face too complex. But together we can stand up, and joined by a clear and loving purpose, we can heal ourselves and help the world move forward to a better future for all.

Gandhi and Self-discipline

The story of Mahatma Gandhi and his campaign to free India from the yoke of British colonialism is a case in the development of soul power. When Gandhi returned to India from his sojourn in South Africa, he traveled by train around the Indian subcontinent and witnessed firsthand the great suffering caused by the widespread poverty of the Indian people. His initial plan was to help India overcome her impoverishment. As he moved forward to implement constructive economic change he soon realized that British rule was a main impediment to the economic aspirations of the Indian people. In time, his campaign for economic freedom became a movement for political freedom from British rule. Freeing India from the yoke of British rule became his life purpose. In order to reach that goal, Gandhi realized that he had to conquer his shadow and find his center so that the light of his soul might shine through. Self-discipline was among the important qualities that Gandhi cultivated in himself to reach his goal of soul linkage.

In the long years of the struggle for Indian independence, Gandhi never wavered in his determination to reach his goal and stand firmly in his soul. He maintained his poise, rarely lost his self-control, and disciplined himself not to react to challenging events in a negative manner. Instead he would respond as positively and forthrightly as he could. He never sacrificed his commitment to the truth, compromised his principles or went against the intuition that sprang from his soul. The final result of Gandhi’s quest was inspiring and miraculous. He defeated a great empire peacefully, without violence. His only weapons were the truth in his soul and the strength of his character.

Through the years of struggle Gandhi had deliberately forged a very deep soul connection. He possessed inner peace, strength, and great clarity, qualities that helped him to understand who he was and what he was about. He clearly had a mission that required great strength and courage on the one hand, and little ego on the other. These attributes were amplified by the unconditional love that flowed through him. His love for all people, combined with his deep soul connection, created an opening in his energy system that magnetically pulled Divine love down from above, and distributed that energy to everyone within his sphere of influence. Wherever Gandhi went, whether to a prison or a podium, Divine love went with him. He had direct access to a higher authority and Divine support for his mission. That is what happens when you live in alignment with your soul. With that support, Gandhi fulfilled his mission.

Turning the Other Cheek

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gandhi non-violence turn the other cheek

Gandhi

When to Turn the Other Cheek and When Not To

Sometimes, when we are confronted with negativity in a personal context, the best course of action is non-action or non-violence. Rather than getting drawn into a situation where the goal of our opponent is to taunt us into doing something foolish that will be used against us later, the wisest choice we can make is to not react in any way. If we don’t permit ourselves to be drawn into a toxic embrace we can’t be showered with toxic energy. Since no blow has been struck, we’re under no obligation to defend ourselves. If we can maintain our self-control and not let our ego react as our adversary hopes it will, we will escape the danger he hopes to bring our way. In this kind of situation it is best to do as Christ advised and turn the other cheek. Keep cool. Do not react. Move on.

Gandhi and Non Violence

There are also times when we cannot afford to turn the other cheek, practice non-violence  and walk away but instead must take a stand and actively resist evil. Sometimes, the right way is to stand and fight against an encroaching darkness in order to create a lasting peace and a freedom that endures. During World War Two, for example, many in India wanted Nazi Germany to win the war. Those who supported this position did so because they felt that if the Nazis won the war, the British would be forced out of India. While this may have been true, what they failed to realize was that if the Nazis replaced the British in India things would get worse for the Indian people, not better. Others wanted to apply Gandhi’s philosophy on non-violence to opposing a potential Nazi invasion, even though Gandhi himself had said that ahimsa, or non-violence, would not work against the Nazis because they were an immoral political force with no conscience.

Aurobindo

Like Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo, an Indian spiritual teacher of wide vision, also saw the folly in either supporting a Nazi invasion or opposing it with non-violence. Aurobindo, moreover, perceived the Second World War as part of an ongoing cosmic struggle of good versus evil in the world. Nazi Germany had to be opposed and defeated or the world would be shrouded in darkness and the flame of freedom extinguished everywhere. With the outbreak of hostilities he was certain that the fate of the world hung in the balance. In keeping with his vision, Aurobindo raised money for the British war effort and called on his fellow Indians to actively fight the Nazis, not with non-violence but with armed force.

Aurobindo’s strong and vocal support for the British was most remarkable considering that as a young man he had been a firebrand and a political radical, extolling the use violence to secure India’s independence from British rule. However, instead of securing India’s freedom he had been captured by the British and tried for sedition. If he had been convicted of the charges brought against him he would have been executed, but he was acquitted instead. His acquittal marked his renunciation of violence and the beginning of his spiritual path.

Although Aurobindo had been devoted to peace for two decades before the war began, he knew that non-violence as a defensive strategy would insure a potential Nazi conquest of India rather than defeat it. Faced with a ruthless foe, he resolved to stand and fight the tide of evil that was determined to overwhelm the world. Peace at any price was simply too high a price to pay for a peace that would be intolerable.

The Munich Pact

This truth was never more evident than in the early days of the war. In September 1938, Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, attempted to appease Hitler and forestall further conflict by conceding the Sudetenland to him. The Sudetenland was a region of disputed territory in Czechoslovakia that contained a large German speaking population. Hitler was delighted to accept Chamberlain’s concession, which the parties formalized in a treaty of non-aggression, known as the Munich Pact. Chamberlain then made a famous speech proclaiming “peace in our time.” Unfortunately, that peace lasted only a short time. In March of 1939 Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and then rolled over the rest of Europe. In Britain, Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement brought down his government and returned Winston Churchill to power.

For many years before the war began, Churchill, like Aurobindo, had seen the threat of Nazi Germany for what it was. Both men took unpopular positions far in advance of their fellow countrymen. They both knew it was folly to appease an evil that sought the destruction of freedom and liberty.