the machine will stop

Entropy ensures that our technologies become ever more complex and inter-dependent. Some devices may seem simpler to use - automatic lights and wipers on our cars, for example - but, under the hood, simple mechanical switches have been replaced by complex systems in sealed boxes, with sensors connected. Machines may appear to simplify our lives, but when they go wrong we are increasingly at their mercy. Our machines are no longer fixable: instead of repairing or replacing a single faulty part, an entire subsystem is replaced, or more often the whole machine is discarded, and replaced with a new one... the old one is "obsolete" anyway! This is a tremendous waste of the dwindling resources of our planet. Meanwhile we become ever more dependent on our machines, needing sophisticated machines to fix (or replace) our sophisticated machines: for example, cars now require computer diagnostics to be repairable.

More alarmingly, our whole civilisation has become globally interdependent. We have created one vast mothering machine to succour all of us from birth through death. Our distribution networks become ever more centralised - we depend on one giant global system for almost all of our food, fuel, and other supplies. When one link in this chain fails, the effects are immediate and widespread. "Just in time" practices have eliminated inventories to streamline the system and reduce costs: this is more efficient, but also much more vulnerable to failure.

The new-paradigm design of the internet indicates how our systems of the future should be: the internet is massively distributed and massively failsafe. It was designed to survive nuclear warfare. However the other systems we depend on to keep body and soul together have not been designed following new-paradigm principles: they are old-paradigm at its worst: massively centralised and massively dependent. This makes sense to the money men in the short term (which is all they look at), but it is catastrophic for even the medium term future of the human race. One major failure, which could be caused at any time by natural disaster or manmade disaster (warfare, terrorism, mistake), and our global centralised distribution system will fail a great many of us, almost literally overnight.

We have lost our local distribution systems, and our local skills. We cannot survive a major breakdown in our mother system in the way that, say, the Soviet people survived their economic collapse - they were accustomed to looking after themselves anyway, growing their own food, helping their neighbours - but we have become completely dependent on our mother system, which has lulled us into a very false sense of security by appearing to do its job very well indeed. Why trail all afternoon around many small shops like a pack animal to get the household supplies when one deftly trundled trolley around the supermarket quickly yields a better selection at lower prices? Indeed why drive to the supermarket and why walk around it and queue at the till, when a few mouse clicks online will result in delivery of all of our requirements to the doorstep later the same day?

The mother system seems to make our lives easier, albeit in a soulless way - a supermarket visit really does make us feel like we are in a machine, part of a system, and many of us miss the friendly chat with local shop assistants of days gone by. But, having killed the alternatives off, the mother machine has made us totally dependent on it. When it fails we are in big trouble. And it will fail. The machine will stop.

everything is possible

…we are entering into a period of increasingly massive social dislocations and disorder which harbors within it countless risks, defeats, dangers, false dawns and fake defeats. But…we are all coming to the powerful and simple realization that human beings acting peacefully together in concert can do anything–and nothing can stop them.

Something is happening. Something is shifting in the relations between politics and power. We don’t know where it will lead, but the four-decade ideological consensus that has simply allowed the creation of grotesque inequality has broken down, and anything and everything is suddenly possible.

Simon Critchley via Bella Caledonia

a better world

We already have, and always have had, potential abundance at our fingertips. The scarcity that so many experience today is not the result of any fundamental lack, but rather of the maldistribution of political power and resources. What kind of abundance would we have if we didn't spend trillions of dollars on wars, guns, non-recyclable packaging, sprawling suburbs, automobile culture, consumer junk, transcontinental food, unnecessary pharmaceuticals, and every other form of waste that contributes nothing to human happiness? In one way or another, all of these things are the end products of a civilization built on separation.

The ground has already begun to shift, and that shift will accelerate as the "old normal" falls apart. It has fallen apart in many ways already, yet its afterimage lingers. The supermarkets are still full of food, the malls full of shoppers, the highways full of cars, and the ATM's full of cash. The last-ditch strategy of the financial elite, "extend and pretend", applies to our entire society. It is still possible to pretend that the world of our parents will be the world of our children, and to extend its lifestyle a few more years. But that pretense is wearing thin.

A world of justice and abundance depends on a different kind of consciousness. The shift of consciousness is from separation to oneness; from being to "interbeing"; from a discrete and separate self in an external objective universe, to an integral part that contains the whole. The new self seeks less to dominate than to co-create, less to control than to share. It knows that the whole universe is as alive and as conscious as oneself... The universe wants to freely provide what we need, rather than requiring us to wrest it from an indifferent or hostile environment.

The world isn't supposed to be this way... A more beautiful world is possible, right in front of our faces, waiting only for us to accept it.

Charles Eisenstein (adapted)

coping with transition

If you are awake to the rising energy of the new paradigm, then you are now undergoing many transformations, as you transition from the old paradigm to the new.

Your body is changing: you may experience aches and pains, especially in the neck, shoulder and back, as your divinity awakens within. You may experience deep inner sadness for no apparent reason - these feelings come from releasing your memories, energy and experiences of the past. You are leaving the old behind. You may burst into tears for no apparent reason - let the tears flow, as this helps to release the old energy from within.

At times you will feel very ungrounded, and physically disoriented, as your body lags behind your consciousness in moving into the new energy. You may feel as if you cannot put your two feet on the ground, or as if you are walking between two worlds.

Your left and right brain are coming into balance. Your tastes - your likes and dislikes - are changing. Earthly desires pull you in one direction, while your mind pulls you in another direction, and now your soul is pulling you in a third direction! So you feel torn apart, directionless, and confused. Instead of wanting more, or feeling that you lack something, you are learning to find abundance from within.

You may remember intense dreams, perhaps of conflict or of being chased or persecuted: these are a release, within our unconscious mind, of the old energy. There is a lot of unconscious work going on, and this may cause you to waken up for a break in the middle of the night. If you can't go back to sleep, get up and do something, rather than lay in bed and worry about earthly things.

You will talk to yourself more often. You will realise suddenly that you have been chattering away with yourself, as a new level of communication takes place within your being. The conversations will increase, becoming more fluid, more coherent, and more insightful. You are not going crazy - we are just moving into the new energy.

As you change, things around you will change as well. You may experience sudden changes in job or career - you should not worry about finding the "perfect" work right now, as you are in transition, and you may make several changes before you settle into work that fits your passion. Do not worry about a loss of passion - you may experience little or no desire to do anything, and that is fine: take this time to do nothing, and do not feel any guilt about doing so.

You may drift away from your family and friends. You were deeply connected to them via old karmic bonds, but now you are clearing your karmic debts, and stepping free from the karmic wheel, and so the bonds of the old relationships are severed. In time, you will re-develop these relationships where appropriate, but the new relationships will be based in the new paradigm energy, without the old karmic attachments.

You are now walking a sacred and lonely path. You may feel alone and detached from others, even when you are in their company. It is difficult to relate to others at this time: you may wish to flee from groups and crowds.

You may feel this is too much for you, and that you are not ready to take on the challenges of moving into the new energy, but these feelings will pass. Your journey may seem dark and lonely at times, but as you re-tune to your inner self, you will find overwhelming love and light within. In reality we are never truly alone.

Let go of the dying old fear-based paradigm, and turn your face towards the love-light of the new paradigm. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

adapted from deepian.com

conspirators

The world is governed by a secret power that holds us in bondage to no good end. But the conspirators are not others, they are we, you and I and everyone. A secret agenda of domination and control has existed in nearly everyone, and a world embodying that agenda has congealed around us, attracted to the dark, reptilian energies we have harbored. The good news is that these energies have nearly run their course, as the world of control breaks down and the campaign to conquer and dominate all other being founders on its own consequences. Just as Voldemort was unable to possess Harry Potter because he couldn't abide the love within him, so also is the ruling power of the world unable to abide our growing realization of our connectedness. Love, the felt experience of oneness, is spreading as the walls of separation come down. They never were sustainable. Today, even the most deluded - the power elite - are beginning to recognize that. The reign of the Illuminati is nearly over. That it seems to be reaching unprecedented heights only bespeaks the imminence of its demise, the extreme of yang giving birth to yin.

... The Illuminati, the Reptilians, are you and I... Can you not feel the obsolescence of that part of you, the part that endlessly seeks to control the world, to dominate others, to maximize egoic self-interest? Is it not increasingly evident that its efforts have created only misery? Is it not apparent that, no matter how hard you try to remedy its failure by intensifying its efforts, its ultimate failure is assured? For all of us, the time is coming for that part of ourselves to bow out, so that we can step into service, into trust, and, collectively, into the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

Charles Eisenstein

a new mind for a new world

The instability of our current time is part of a larger cycle of human evolution that will soon turn toward renewal and regeneration. For centuries, indigenous wisdom traditions have talked of an epochal shift on the horizon, of a spiritual renaissance for the earth and her living family. Now the timelines are converging and the potential for an energetic “upgrade” for humanity is here, but first we must survive and evolve through the current period of transition.

Evolution is not a gradual process but more like a “shock to the system”: radical waves of transformation after a period of dormancy. We are currently undergoing an evolutionary leap.... the instability we are now experiencing - climate change, economic meltdowns, and increasing political polarisation - is the convergence of complex systems that have reached a critical state.

What we need in order to push through to the coming spiritual renaissance is a paradigm shift in human thinking and perception, a conscious evolution in recognition of the interconnectedness of all things: a new mind for a new world.

Kingsley Dennis

open your heart

If you were asked to weigh your heart today, would it be filled with love, light, peace and unity, creating an upliftment and weighing less then a feather? Or would your heart hold chains, bondage, or be hidden behind walls, weighing it down?

When we allow our experiences to taint or harden our hearts - we weigh our hearts down.

It is only through opening our hearts, releasing our burdens, forgiving ourselves and others do we return to the innocence and joys of the inner child.

It is the lightness of a child, the awe and amazement of life and all its' beauty that shall carry the heart forward, lightening it, and carrying it higher into limitless potential.

Through an open heart, magic and miracles can be found carried on the waves of love, truth and beauty.

Many prophecies state it shall be the child that shall teach and guide us into the golden age. We have forgotten that each of us house a child within our heart … a child wishing to show you the way

Open your heart, embrace your inner child and allow your heart to weigh less then that of a feather.

Lightwhispers

evolutionary leap

When faced with a radical crisis,
when the old way of being in the world
of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature
doesn’t work any more,
when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems,
an individual human – or a species - will either die or become extinct
or rise above the limitations of their conditioning
through an evolutionary leap.
This is the state of humanity now,
and this is its challenge.

Eckhart Tolle

google-

So: the Goog takes a fun-filled swat at young upstarts The Crook and the Twit with Google+, bringing us added style, circles, sound and video.... Facebook's response of getting into bed with Microskype looks very desperate indeed, perhaps even suicidal.... watch them fall off their perch hard and fast - does anyone remember Myspace?

But what is Google+ bringing us, other than a welcome way to escape from The Crook? Is the Goog simplifying its own complex mess by integrating Buzz, Gmail, and the profiles and social networking facilities of Blogger, YouTube, and Google reader? No - not yet at any rate... Is it enhancing our real face-to-face in-the-flesh social or work lives? Nope... Is it giving us back the time that The Crook and the Twit have stolen? Nope.... Is it leading us away from inanity and superfluity? Nope.

What I want to see is Google-, whereby all social networking, including email, is replaced by something totally new-paradigm, non-commercial, distributed, stunningly simple, intuitive, and symbolic rather than verbal... realistically this is more likely to be provided by reawakening our natural powers of telepathy, rather than hopping on yet another technology bandwagon.... bring it on! We need it for when the lights go out....

pure nature

Intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. When a society misuses partial intelligence and ignores holistic wisdom, its people forget the benefits of a plain and natural life. Seduced by their desires, emotions, and egos, they become slaves to bodily demands, to luxuries, to power and unbalanced religion and psychological excuses. Then the reign of calamity and confusion begins. Nonetheless, some people can awaken during times of turmoil to lead others out of the mire. But how can the one liberate the many? By first liberating his own being. He does this nor by elevating himself, but by lowering himself. He lowers himself to that which is simple, modest, true; integrating it into himself, he becomes a master of simplicity, modesty, truth. Completely emancipated from his former false life, he discovers his original pure nature, which is the pure nature of the universe. Freely and spontaneously releasing his divine energy, he constantly transcends complicated situations and draws everything around him back into an integral oneness. Because he is a living divinity, when he acts, the universe acts.

Lao Tzu (reposted from openhandweb.org )

the only way out is in

Some Americans believe we can collectively triumph over the monolith we presently fear and worship. Others believe the best we can do is to find the personal strength to endure and go forward on lonely inner plains of the self.

Doing either will take inner moral, spiritual and intellectual liberation. It all depends on where you choose to fight your battle. Or if you even choose to fight it. But one thing is certain. The only way out is in.

from AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM? by Joe Bageant

R.I.P. Joe.

rebirth

For a great many people in Japan and elsewhere right now, the collapse of the old paradigm is a day to day living horror. Astounding new twists unfold at every turn, at an ever-accelerating pace... watch it closely if you must... this is the future of the old paradigm, and it's coming soon to a town near you....

And the prevailing reaction to world events is to worry about the cost of of it all, and the effect on the stock markets - to reduce everything to sums of money: the sickness now goes right to the core. Money is portrayed as pre-eminent, more important than survival of the species, more important than the ecosystem, more important than the life and suffering of billions of beings, more important indeed, than anything else. This elevation of money continues desperately in the face of clear and incontrovertible exposure of the global financial system as sheer fantasy, the biggest confidence trick in history. This is denial on a grand scale by the very desperate. The whole scenario would be richly comic if it were not so achingly tragic. With old paradigm spectacles on, the death march of the human race has become a grotesque and bungling burlesque, now verging on slapstick... and the blinkers are still on - the audience are still hoodwinked and sleepwalking en masse - there is an absolute promise of a cascading array of darker and deeper horrors to come. This madness has to stop, and it will... the whole machine is grinding inexorably to an eerie halt. Those parts that don't blow up will simply seize up.

Economically we are now on a cliff edge, with a train running towards us which will unavoidably run off the cliff taking us with us. This will be the train wreck to end all train wrecks. The vast majority of the population, including politicians and business leaders and many economists did not see this one coming, and most of them still do not see it. Nevertheless we are awaiting total economic collapse, and it cannot be long now in coming. This is not a doomster "the end is nigh" forecast based on wishful thinking. It is the only rational conclusion based on the data available.

The house price collapses around the world are still only beginning: houses are still unaffordable to most people, and becoming more so as unemployment becomes rampant, and wages stagnate, and the price of food and energy soars, and as the banksters ratchet up interest rates while ratcheting down the availability of credit. House prices will fall much further, everywhere. Commercial property prices are collapsing as business failures and consumer poverty remove much of the activity from commerce.

The big banks are already spectacularly bankrupt - so much so that our governments are insanely bankrupting our countries, just to prevent banks and house prices from collapsing.

The corrupt and usurious reserve banking system we favour globally involves bankers sucking a percentage out of all economic activity - in return for doing nothing! This system requires periodic clear-outs - this is mathematically unavoidable - if there is not a periodic destruction of debts, then the bankers end up with all of the money, and there is no productive economy left. Well, guess what - for 2 decades now, our governments have interfered with the "market" to such an extent that there has been no clear-out of debts. The bankers have indeed ended up with most of the loot, and it seems clear they will not give up until the have it all... Their greed is so monstrous that they have also foolishly gambled away all of our savings and pensions in search of ever-fatter fees and bonuses. The financial clear-out will be so massive when it finally comes, that it will bring about total collapse of the world economies.

Economic collapse brings, inevitably, political collapse. Collapse of our societies and culture will follow. We are already seeing a staggering level of corruption and incompetence in our political leaders - it seems increasingly as if they are on a mission to take us all to hell.

Add into this mix all the other doomy prospects we have - climate change, over-population, impending world shortages of energy, food, and other commodities, collapse of our eco systems, and collapse of our morals, health and the will to live, and it is not difficult to see that we are now entering the end of the end days of this "civilisation". We are way past the point of no return.

However, rather than panicking, and giving in to fear, we should embrace this spectacle with open arms, and hurry it on. Nature works in repeating cycles of birth, growth, decay, and death, and new forms always grow out of the ashes of the old. So we should see the collapse of the old paradigm as a positive clear-out of old diseased ways. It is a natural and unstoppable process. The old rubbish has to be cleared to make way for the new. This is no consolation at all for those already caught up in the twisted wreckage. But the longer the old paradigm is kept on life support, the more extensive and the more terrible the damage will be.

If you have not already done so it is imperative to shift focus. Don't be a spectator gawping at the wreckage, wallowing in the horror of it all. Don't focus helplessly on what you cannot change. Abandon the old ways of thinking. Abandon selfishness and possessiveness. Abandon worry and fear. Turn your back on the old systems that are now defunct. Abandon the politicians - let them talk to themselves. Abandon the banksters - let them rob each other. Abandon the capitalists - let them enslave themselves. If they stubbornly persist in their savagery, then let them all wallow in their own excrement. Do not let them suck any more of your energy.

You need that energy for working on yourself, for freeing yourself from your destructive old thought patterns, for escaping from entanglement in this doomed system, for rediscovering the love inherent in you. Reconnect to your own nature, and to that of the planet. Reconnect to each other. From inner wholeness comes limitless energy for compassion and to send loving good wishes to all of those who are suffering.

You cannot fix the broken old system. Focus on what you can do. We can each do something to rebuild our communities, in whatever basic ways we can, to help each other survive the coming storms. Reconnect with family , friends, and neighbours, reaching out helping hands to each other. This is the new way, this is the way to have an effect, and to face the future with a confident smile. Foster the growth of the new green shoots, the new paradigm of love and unity.

no satisfaction

Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back! Few people are unfamiliar with the aforementioned sales slogan. As well, most of us are very familiar with the Rolling Stones lyrics... Have you ever asked yourself why we seem so transfixed with satisfaction? Eavesdrop into the average conversation, more than likely you are hearing comments of dissatisfaction. The weather is too hot or too cold, too dry or too rainy. The local hockey team is playing poorly, I hate working here, this chair is uncomfortable, so and so has been a real idiot. The litany of dissatisfaction is played endlessly as an eternal backdrop to the expression of reality. If you have a TV, turn it on; the same meme of expression will confirm the bizarre fixation with a lack of satisfaction. Why does humanity choose to function in such disharmony with its environment?

The answer, I believe, is primarily due to the construct of the ego mind as it relates to the programmed perception of reality we have been fed since birth. The ego mind takes us out of the NOW, thereby depositing us in the past or future. We fail to understand how leaving the NOW, in most cases, represents a departure from sanity. If we think of this transition as a calm sea suddenly becoming wild, we will have earned a much improved perspective. From the gnosis that each individual creates their own reality, we must find ourselves culpably adding to this insanity.
...
It is not happenstance that humanity reflects disharmony with self and environment. With dark intent, great efforts have been undertaken to carefully craft this matrix of reality. For thousands of years, humanity has suffered under the dedicated construction of a dark pseudo reality. Disharmony, fear and spiritual brevity is the call of the day. The real insult to our intelligence, or lack thereof, is found in their ability to completely convinced us, personal disharmony is our own fault. When looking to understand this enigma of darkness, we are placated by their lies suggesting this is human nature. This is not human nature my friends, this is humans fabricating darkness for personal gain. This is darkness sucking the energy from light. Human nature is light, love, acceptance and the many other GodSelf qualities we are taught to ignore. Ignorant of their true nature, our parents raised us as best they could. Unable to see truth behind the matrix of lies, our parents proliferated the darkness by teaching us to believe. Teachers educate us with knowledge they believe to be true, all the while darkness is peddled by people we trust. Our friends and lovers are drinking of the same fountain so their perception of reality assuages and confirms our belief structure. Overloading with insanity we may turn to religion for balm, instead of relief we find more lies, discontent and illusion.
...
what if...
...
we discover what human nature really is...?
...
The horizon offers humanity a rising sun... Now... we see the control structure collapse under the weight of it's own obsolescence. I believe light will prevail throughout the planet within five years. We will come to understand the true nature of what it means to be human. We will not dwell in the turbulent waters of past and future. We will choose the NOW moment in complete acceptance. We will no longer demand our world " be " a certain way. We will reflect unconditional love and unity consciousness as the underpinning of a new civilised representation of true human nature. We do not have to wait until this transition completes full initiation of a new reality, We may choose to align with this new energy now. We can search within to determine our true nature beyond the veils of ego. We can transcend the illusions fed to us by ego and society...

If you find yourself demanding your reality be better, more than likely you are allowing ego to take you into the future. Tomorrow will never be a better day until we lovingly accept what today offers us in every NOW moment. I guess we can make some sense of the statement " I can't get no satisfaction " if we look at it from the perspective of the grammatical double negative, cleverly disguising the illusion most people now accept as truth. Living peacefully in the NOW moment is a choice, why not make it yours!

by Christopher Dos Santos, extracted from his blog post "I can't get no satisfaction"

reunion

like a wave rolling toward shore, the Age of Separation rears up to its maximum height even as it hollows out in the moment before it crashes. This crash, inevitable eons ago, is upon us today.

Thus writes Charles Eisenstein in The Ascent of Humanity. He calls the old paradigm "the age of separation", and he calls the new paradigm which is replacing it "the age of reunion". This is reunion with our souls or inner selves, reunion with each other, and reunion with nature. Linear thinking and technologies are replaced by circular and regenerative approaches. Work and art merge into artistry: the creation of beauty, for the joy of doing so... and so work becomes play! Education becomes creative self discovery. Money becomes abundant and perishable. Nature becomes our teacher, rather than the object of our dominion. Science and religion fuse into holistic spiritual and ecological awareness. Eisenstein says:

The engineers of the future will design for sustainability, for dignity, and for beauty. They will, in other words, be artists, creating technologies for a world of artists on a garden earth. The conflict that all artists encounter between creating for the market and creating for the spirit will cease, when work and art, money and sustainability, come into alignment.
...
The gathering convergence of crises is bringing the Age of Separation to an end, and with it everything that we know as "civilization". Yet the end of civilization-as-we-know-it need not be a return to the past. We equate the ascent of humanity with an escalating domination of nature only because we deny the universe's inherent creative energy, sacredness, and purpose. When we recognize that nature is itself dynamic, creative, and growing, then we need no longer transcend it, but simply participate in it more fully.

already enlightened

Many of us find ourselves seriously unhappy with what this life on Earth appears to offer us. For so long we can lose ourselves in work, family, study, partying, sex, drugs, whatever, but there comes a time when we earnestly seek revelation or insight, a deeper understanding of why we are here and what we should be doing with our lives. Over 20 years ago I had a series of epiphanies, which I will describe in future posts: these led me on a great voyage of inner discovery, which is still unfolding. For now, here are extracts from another man's eloquent account of his first epiphany (from "Underneath It All" by Mark Flaherty):

In a state of stillness and receptivity, I recognized that I was in my heart: I had consciously connected to it for the first time ever in my life... I had been looking everywhere for it without success. The instant I gave up searching, the split second I stopped trying to find it, I encountered it.

In that moment I experienced love for the very first time in my adult life. Immediately everything made sense... I saw the entire Universe, right there, inside my heart. It was beautiful beyond description. I saw the perfection of creation and recognized that the answer to every question I have ever had, and will ever have, was in my heart, always. My heart always knows what to do in every situation.
...
By remaining present, by bathing in the blissful state of being, all that exists is love, and love unifies everything. Love makes everything OK. There is no need to fix anything because nothing is wrong. I just needed to love it. I just had to remember love. That's all. In love there is no struggle, no conflict. Love is love is love is love. What could be simpler?

Love showed me that there was nothing to heal, that I was perfect exactly as I was. Love removed all discord, gently and effortlessly. There were no thoughts, just a direct experience of life. I saw it for what it really is. Life is eternal. I am eternal. In this space there is no linear time. The mind creates time. When thinking stops, time disappears and eternity is revealed. I was never born and can never die. With that realization, my fear of death dissolved and I felt as light as a feather.

There is no past, there is no future. Since there is no past, there is nothing to heal. I realized that every time I think of something that I believe to be in the past, I am actually re-creating it in the moment. The only thing that exists is what I am experiencing right now. The entire universe is constantly manifesting in every moment. The world literally re-creates itself every moment.

The absence of time means that there is nothing to achieve, nothing to do, nowhere to go. There is only being. I realized that as human beings we are already enlightened, and our hearts already know this. It is simply something we are either realizing (by being in the heart) or not realizing (by being in the mind) in any one moment.

I relaxed deeply as my whole body bathed in love. It soaked it up. It had been desperate for it for so long. I cannot be separate from love because I am love. "Just look for love and you will see it everywhere," the spirits told me. "In a flower. In a smile. In music. In food. The whole world is made of pure love. Your only job is to look for it and follow where life leads you. This will take you into deeper and deeper experiences of love, if you will only relax, surrender and allow it to."
...
Life is so much fun and so simple when you are in your heart. Get out of the way and life flows through you in a never-ending stream of beauty and love.

"Do not try to live life, let life live you," I heard the spirits say.

call it love

from Be Love Now by Ram Dass:

If I'm identified with my ego, the ego is frightened silly, because the ego knows that it's going to end at death. But if I merge with love, there's nothing to be afraid of. Love neutralizes fear.

Awareness and love, loving awareness, is the soul. This practice of "I am loving awareness" turns you inward toward the soul. If you dive deep enough into your soul, you will come to God. In Greek it's called agape, God love. Martin Luther King, Jr., said about this agape, this higher love: "It's an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative . . . the love of God operating in the human heart."
...
Souls love. That's what souls do. Egos don't, but souls do. Become a soul, look around, and you'll be amazed-all the beings around you are souls. Be one, see one.

When many people have this heart connection, then we will know that we are all one, we human beings all over the planet. We will be one. One love.

And don't leave out the animals, and trees, and clouds, and galaxies-it's all one. It's one energy. It comes through in individual ways, but it's one energy. You can call it energy, or you can call it love.

true love

true love, is love that is given freely and unconditionally without expecting reward in return. Love that hinges upon the other person doing everything we like or want of them is not true love, but rather based on attachment, conditions and control

Thich Nhat Hanh quoted on The Buddhist Blog

the angel on the shoulder

The ego is based on fear, but the soul is based on love.
(from Be Love Now by Ram Dass.)

We all have an inner self - a part of the soul - which observes (or "witnesses") the outer self - the ego - in action. In Christian tradition these two characters are represented as an angel on one shoulder, taking in one ear, and a devil on the other shoulder, talking in the other ear. The angel (soul) is calm and humble, while the devil (ego) is forceful and rough. It is our choice which voice we listen to. If we don't make this choice actively and with determination, then it will be made for us, as the voice of the ego is much louder and much more insistent than the voice of the soul. The devil is happy to mock the angel, drown it out, and generally take control. The devil dictates a steady stream of instructions, and tempts us with many illusions and promises, all of which turn out to be hollow and empty. Meanwhile the angel sits there quietly, unperturbed, giving advice only when asked. The angel is effortlessly more powerful than the devil, and has immeasurable comfort, peace, love, and bliss, on tap for us, whenever we want it - we just have to turn to the angel and accept its' gifts. But the angel is too humble to force itself on our attention. We have to make that choice ourselves, while ignoring the blandishments of the devil.

If you are not comfortable with the Christian personification of soul as angel, and ego as devil, then just think of it as soul and ego, true self and false self, inner self and outer self, or whatever terminology and characterisations work for you. Every philosophical or religious tradition has its own equivalents of these two characters. The gameplay is always the same. One quietly seeks to liberate us, while the other seeks to chain and enslave us. Generally we listen to the wrong one, and this is the old paradigm.

The human race has been on a long dark journey, in slavery to our own delusions. The ego or devil is not real. It is our creation. We have built it up through recurring patterns of thought. We have learned to mock and shun the very idea of spirituality, of divinity, of inner light. We have created a dark and dismal false self and allowed it to rule us. Now we simply have to turn our attention to the angel on the other shoulder, quietly sitting there, radiating light, love, peace, comfort, bliss, and harmony. This is the the true self, the soul, the inner self, our saving grace.

If we make just a little effort to give more attention to this angelic observer, we can easily free ourselves from the illusory chains of the devilish ego. As Ram Dass puts it:

as meditation deepens, you identify less and less with the ego and begin to touch and enter more deeply into the space of love. You begin to experience love toward more and more people and find love in the experiences that come into your field of awareness... As you keep giving up the habits that hold you back from loving, the ego's fear of letting go dissolves in the love. From the ego's vantage point you surrender into love. From the soul's vantage point you are coming home, the boundaries of separation are fading, and the two are becoming one. As you begin to enter into Oneness and to become love, instead of perceiving from your ego, you're perceiving from your soul. You are shifting your identification from ego to soul. You don't kill your ego, you kill your identification with your ego. As you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You're not thinking about loving; you're just being love, radiating like the sun.

Your awareness has then moved from the old paradigm to the new paradigm. Fear has been replaced by love.

revolution

The events in Egypt are beyond breathtaking, that a people so long oppressed have by themselves risen up to cast off their oppressors. Surging through the streets in uncountable thousands, burning police stations to the ground, convincing army troops of their commonality, spontaneously organizing themselves to protect property, direct traffic, and deal with emergencies, smoking out Mubarak’s attempt to capitalize on the inevitable looting and violence, they are revealing to the world a new national template: self-organization. A template we know operates in biology and ecology but have never before seen realized on such a scale among human beings.

Because above all, beyond struggling to get rid of Mubarak and free themselves from their addiction to American money and armaments, the Egyptian people have glimpsed the possibility that they can do all this without falling back on traditional political parties. Even as an idea, even as an ideal, this is the most extraordinary aspect of what is taking place. A movement born out of youth and led by youth, without recourse to professional leaders, the Egyptian revolution presents us with the possibility of living in an entirely new way, of circumventing a 6000-year-old model in which “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
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It’s not surprising that, filled with emotion, the demonstrators wrap themselves in the national flag. Oh, the flag, the flag! In Tunisia and Egypt and every other country, this piece of cloth held up as a symbol of national identity, conflating who we are with an abstraction for which we must be prepared to lay down our lives. But sooner or later this too will fall by the wayside.

Sooner or later, without feeling in danger of losing our national identities, customs, and languages, we will understand that our allegiance belongs to something larger than those symbols which separate us, symbols co-opted by warring nation-states for perpetuation of the status quo. Sooner or later, without the paranoid fantasy of one world government, a new flag—the image of a luminous globe floating in black space—will be raised over the planet. And we will perhaps begin, at long last and as best we can, to organize our lives around our common humanity.

What the Egyptian Revolution Means by Michael Brownstein

the band plays on

Like the Titanic, the momentum of technological society is so huge that even if we reversed the engines and steered hard right now, the short-term and mid-term course of events would not change much. We are on a collision course with nature that can no longer be averted. Yet not only have we done little to brake or steer away from the looming iceberg, we have maintained an oblivious policy of "full speed ahead!" In the United States, Republican policy has been essentially, "What iceberg?" while the Democrats try to change course by a few degrees—but not so quickly as to spill the drinks on the first class deck. The "practical" proposals and workable compromises on the table are woefully inadequate. One party repudiates the Kyoto Treaty and the other endorses it, but few acknowledge that even that is far too little, far too late. Outside the United States, "developing" countries such as India and China, abetted by Western institutions, stoke the Titanic's furnaces with their headlong industrialization using the old linear model of extraction, processing, consumption, and waste.
And meanwhile, on deck the party continues, as it will continue to continue even after the first crunch reverberates through the ship, even as the icy torrent consumes compartment after compartment. On the top deck the band will play on even as the ship lists and rolls, maintaining a desperate and deadly illusion of normalcy.

Charles Eisenstein, from The Ascent of Humanity

a man in a burning house

If all that stuff were true—about the ecological destruction, the genocide, the starving children, and the whole litany of impending crises—then wouldn't everyone be in an uproar about it? The normalcy of the routines surrounding me here in America tells me, "It couldn't be that bad." That little voice echoes throughout the culture. Every advertising flyer, every celebrity news item, every product catalog, every hyped-up sports event, carries the subtext, "You can afford to care about this." A man in a burning house wouldn't care about these things; that our culture does care about them, almost exclusively, implies that our house is not burning down. The forests are not dying. The deserts are not spreading. The atmosphere is not heating. Children are not starving. Torturers are not going free. Whole ethnicities are not being exterminated. These crimes against humanity and crimes against nature couldn't really be happening. Probably they have been exaggerated; in any event, they are happening somewhere else. Our society will figure out solutions before the calamities of the Third World affect me. See, no one else is worried, are they? Life hums on as usual.

Charles Eisenstein, from his The Ascent of Humanity

collapse

The old paradigm is based on control. But our old paradigm "civilisation" has no control over its destiny. As Adam Sacks writes, in "The Natural Laws of Collapse":

That birds fly and pigs don't is a consequence of laws of nature governing physics and biology. Nothing that transpires on physical planet Earth is any different: the laws of nature are inviolate. Always.
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Collapse of civilisations, including ours, is inevitable and always has been. Hidden in plain sight, we have not grasped what will sooner or later become obvious: Civilisational collapse is not up to any of us, no matter what we do. As when faced with an unstoppable Hurricane Katrina, which is only obeying the laws of nature, the best we can do is to be prepared.
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As civilisations grow larger the ability to change seems to dwindle, and we witness all civilisations in history going through their birth, vigour, then death.
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Social complexity is very expensive, and the more a civilisation grows the less you get back per unit of input (also called "diminishing returns"). Sooner or later every civilisation busts its budget, cannot afford its armies or its bureaucracies, is unable to suppress increasing dissatisfaction among the masses who must be at least nominally pacified (think bread and circuses), exhausts its resources, suffers from its environmental travesties (the most salient of which is destruction of trees and soil), runs out of food, and is eventually supplanted by simpler more sustainable groups (if there are any around) or just disperses (if there's any place left to disperse to).
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The civilisational life cycle, as described above, is a law of nature. The collapse is therefore predictable. It has nothing to do with our specific Euro-American now-gone-global deplorable civilisation -- it has to do with any civilisation that gets to a certain size, necessitating hierarchy and class
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And that's where we are now. The determining factor is size (relative to resources). All else is simply the stories we tell ourselves. Therefore:

We can write to politicians, we can riot in the streets, we can write learned tomes, we can cavort through the vast wasteland of talk radio, we can make impassioned documentaries, we can bring down Monsanto, we can put up solar panels and drink organic yak's milk. None of that will change the outcome one bit (as tragic as that may be now that humans have become a global force) -- because civilisation is on a course prescribed by laws of nature which have no regard whatsoever for human wishful thinking.

Resistance is futile. Any energy expended on trying to rescue this "civilisation" is energy wasted - this applies both to physical resources, and to human resources, i.e. our thoughts, words, and actions. We can go down with the sinking ship, or we can get into the lifeboats. The lifeboats are the new paradigm, based on unity rather than hierarchy and class. We cannot stop the old ship from sinking. We can only prepare for change.

no comment

Following the minimalist example of Leo Babauta, I have removed the comment facility from this blog. I have been considering this move for a while, and I was provoked into action by a very abusive comment received. In this blog I am expressing what I see and understand of our current predicament. I write from inspiration, and I am not looking for argument or intellectual analysis, let alone abuse. I am grateful to those who have left thoughtful or appreciative comments on this blog in the past - it has been good to realise that some people are reading and enjoying my writing. However, I do not wish to act as moderator of comments. Going forward, if you wish to comment, please do so via your own blog, or on social networking services.

go your own way

This weekend my horoscope said "mind your own business"! A simple but stark message... it seems that I have been poking my nose into the affairs of others, and it is doing neither me nor them any good. I don't agree with what they are saying and doing, and they don't understand or care about what I am saying and doing. A previous horoscope said "go your own way" and it is the same message, essentially.

I see people all around me stuck in the meme of the old paradigm. They are worrying about money, about their possessions, having problems with complex technology, they never seem to have enough time to do everything they "need" to do. They are concerned about the "recession", austerity cuts, climate change. They are pointing fingers at others - it is the governments fault, it is the bankers' fault - somebody else is to blame. I have been there myself - I spent a long time getting angry, upset, and depressed, watching our "civilisation" being taken apart by greedy incompetents, and even worse, watching our planet suffer terrible abuses by our hands. I came to hate mankind and everything we have come to be. I blamed our leaders for leading us into hell. I blamed the sleepwalking masses who follow them for staying asleep. I ranted at my friends and family "wake up wake up".

Then I realised: I am not responsible for them. I am not responsible for their actions. Just as they are not responsible for me. There should be no pointing of fingers, no blame. Each one of us is responsible for our own actions. We can change only ourselves. We have (or should have) no control over others. We are responsible only for ourselves. We can change ourselves, and we have to change ourselves. Nobody else can change us against our will. Change comes from within. And when we change ourselves in a positive direction, the world then changes with us, because we become a positive influence on others.

And so I have to go my own way. I have to change myself, and I am working on so doing. I can give my opinions to others, but I should not be concerned about whether or not they understand me or pay attention. That is their business. My business is to align myself with the rising energies of the new paradigm, and to detach myself from the falling energies of the old paradigm. The old fear-based controlling ways, that spawned our blame culture, are heading into an abyss. Everyone who remains attached to the old paradigm will be dragged down with it. The sooner we set ourselves free from it the better for each of us. There is nothing to be gained there, only further loss. And the chains that bind us to the old ways are an illusion - in reality there is nothing stopping us from walking away, other than our old fixed attitudes and habits.

Meanwhile the new paradigm of light and love offers unprecedented hope, comfort, and joy. What is there to dislike about love, caring, and sharing?

And so, for now, I am going to mind my own business! I am going to go my own way. I am focusing on self transformation, on transitioning from the old paradigm to the new. We have to get there individually, because we are surrounded by discord, argument, and strife, which will only bring us down or hold us back if we get involved in it. I am setting an example. You may follow as you please, or do your own thing!

For now we must focus on ourselves. But, once the new paradigm is in the ascendency, our hands will be joined in harmony.

out of sync

The new paradigm is all about sharing and co-operation, while the old paradigm is all about selfishness and solitary separation. So, all we have to do is start focusing on giving to each other, instead of taking from each other, right? If only it was that simple....

Most of the population of the world are still locked in to the old fear-based paradigm of selfishness and material desire. In effect they are lost souls, at least for now. Those of us who have found our souls, and have learned how to let some of our natural inherent love flow out to others, are thoroughly outnumbered. We are surrounded by old paradigm thinking and behaviours. If I radiate pure selfless spiritual love to lost souls they may enjoy the feeling, but they will misinterpret what is happening. They may feel the love and think I am making romantic or sexual overtures! Or they may associate my radiance with the false charisma of salesmen, and think I am trying to con something out of them. Or they may just ignore the love, and focus on my unconventional appearance and unusual behaviour, and deduce that I am dangerous and probably insane. Most will in some way or another misinterpret selfless love as something selfish. They are accustomed to understanding the world in a selfish way, and they project their habitual ways of thinking on to others when attempting to understand them.

So we cannot simply give to others indiscriminately. If we do so we will inspire false hopes in others, or be taken advantage of in some way or other, or shunned. We may incite anger or violence against us.

So, what to do? We have to learn to discriminate very accurately. Being loving and giving should be our natural default position. But we must be very alert for signs of being misunderstood, or manipulated by others with less lofty aims and ideals. And when we encounter such negative responses, we must either withdraw, for our own protection, back into the separation which is anathema to us, or we must challenge the misconceptions and misdeeds of others. There is a time to be loving and a time to be stern and strong. The paradox is, that to be loving in a loveless society, we must develop very thick skins, and we must frequently adopt behaviours very similar to those we are trying to move on from.

While seeking to encourage community, we must be prepared to withdraw into hermetic isolation. While promoting peace, we must be prepared to stand firm and defend ourselves against vicious attacks.

This is a temporary phase. The tide is turning our way. As time moves on we will be less outnumbered, and the new paradigm ways will become better understood by the many who are currently sleepwalking. Then we will be able to love more freely, and to live with each other in peace.

A Gandhi said: "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win".

Malfunction Terminal

You are on a long distance train, the Snowball Express, making your way to your home town of Prosperity, in Redemption Valley. You have to change to a local train at Malfunction City.

The Snowball Express is a fast smooth modern train, with electric doors, automated announcement system, comfortable seating, and a restaurant car with bar. The train is full, and most of your fellow passengers are asleep, or inebriated, or both. You are awake and watching out of the window - your watch indicates you should be at Malfunction already, so you know the Snowball Express is running late. Your connection with the local train is going to be tight. You decide to get your luggage and head for the door, so as to be first off the train. The Snowball Express slows down to a crawl as it pulls into Malfunction Terminal - you can see the Redemption Local across the platform - there is still time to make the connection. The train stops. The door remains closed. You press the override switch to open the door. There is no response. You pick up your baggage and head through to the next carriage - that door opens. Now there is a barrier in your way, with many electronic turnstiles in which you have to insert your ticket. You fumble feverishly in your pockets and find your ticket. You can see the guard of the Redemption Local closing the carriage doors - it is an old style train with manual doors.... You find your ticket and insert it in a turnstile - the turnstile spits it out. You notice there is a red "no entry" indicator on the gate. You search along the row of gates for one with a green indicator, and there is one, which takes your ticket and lets you through.... you run to the train and clamber on, just as the guard is raising his whistle to blow it...

Several of your fellow passengers on the Snowball Express intended to catch this same train to Redemption. Few made the connection. There is a later train to Delusionville, and another to Miracle City, but that was the last train to Redemption Valley. Some of these people are still asleep on the Snowball Express. Some did not even realise they had to change trains at Malfunction. Others are awake and looking out of the windows - they realised the train had stopped and they were wondering if it was time to get off the train. But there was no announcement, so they cannot have arrived yet... and, hey, as they look out of the window now, they see that the train is moving forward again. No problem - they can go back to sleep... Actually, the announcement system is broken, and they are seeing an optical illusion - it is the other train that is moving, in the opposite direction!

A few people did realise they had reached Malfunction, and headed for the doors. Some waited patiently for the doors to open, and missed the connection. Others had doors that worked, but they had too much baggage, and struggled with the turnstiles, and missed the connection. Others were so frustrated and angry at the lack of announcements, the broken doors, and the broken turnstiles, that they lost their focus and failed to find their way through in time.

The lucky few, who made it onto the last train to Redemption Valley, now find themselves on a rattly old train, with hard seats and no air-conditioning. But the journey is not far - this is a local train. A friendly guard comes along, checking that everyone is OK. He promises to let you know when your stop is approaching. Just as you are feeling tired and hungry, a cheerful lady appears with a trolley offering coffee, tea, and snacks. It is a bit warm, so you open a window, letting in sweet fresh country air.... you are almost home, and you can relax now, as the rest of the journey will be easy.

This little tale is a metaphor, for the transition from the old paradigm to the new paradigm. Our train is already stopped at Malfunction City. Most of us are fast asleep. Others sense the hiatus, but feel sure that the train will continue on its way shortly. Only a few realise that they have to change train, and only some of these actually manage to make it past the obstacles they encounter at Malfunction Terminal.

This is a time to be free of unnecessary baggage, to travel light. This is a time to be alert, with a clear intellect. This is a time to be flexible and ready to change direction at moment's notice.

Those who sincerely wish to reach Redemption Valley, and who make appropriate efforts, will get there. The new paradigm is very easy, once you are in it. The difficulties are created by the old paradigm. We have all been born and raised in the old paradigm ways, and we have to make determined and consistent efforts to change our patterns of thought and behaviour. Most of us are surrounded by people who are thinking, talking, and behaving in these old ways, and their influence will pull us back into our old habits, unless we are constantly vigilant. It is too easy to take assurance from those around us, forgetting that they are sleepwalking. They trust the old paradigm systems even as these systems are in terminal breakdown, and they trust the old paradigm figures of authority even as they are clearly revealed as crooks and shysters. Do not fall into such a trap.

There is only a short window of opportunity to make the transition from the old paradigm to the new paradigm. This window is closing. Many tried to change too soon, and become dispirited at the obstacles in their way. The automatic doors of the Snowball Express would not let them off early, on the grounds that they might injure themselves. But now that train is stationary and some of the doors are open - don't become dispirited when faced with the broken turnstiles, and don't try to take too much baggage with you. With intelligence and determination it is possible to change to the new paradigm now. Soon it will be too late.