I just read a list of books that have been banned in public schools from AARP. Here are a few of the more amazing ones

• All Quiet on the Western Front - too political
• Doctor Zhivago - too political
• Jaws - too much sex
• On the Origin of Species - too irreligious
• The Harry Potter Series - too irreligious
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Socially Offensive
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Socially Offensive
• Gone With the Wind - Socially Offensive
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Socially Offensive

The House passed the Senate version of the Health Care Bill

Heart Chakra

…and already the debate of politicos and pundits has started. Too many taxes… no public option… blah, blah, blah.  Their seems to be no end to the stream of babble and opinion emanating from the mouths of people who have probably not actually read the contents of the bill and, lacking a crystal ball, certainly have nothing but speculation about what this bill will do in the long term.

Yet, none of the debate touches on the real significance of the bill…

In esoteric traditions, the opening of the heart chakra is a critical event in human beings. The Holy Spirit (pneuma) enters into the heart (kardia) of mankind in the gospel of John as one close to home example. So, what prevents that from happening? It takes more than just an intellectual "accepting Jesus as savior." One clue is seen in the temptation of Christ. Satan offered Jesus (the human aspect) dominion over the earth, but Christ (the spiritual aspect) refused it. Jesus Christ (human/divine) then went on the preach his message of love and brotherhood…. the awakening of the heart chakra.

The message for modern man is that we must open our own heart chakras. In fact, none of the world's major religions promote the idea that money, power, and greed is the desired goal for men. Allowing 128 people a day to die because they cannot get health insurance is a heartless activity. Throwing people out of their homes is a heartless activity… particularly when those same people have helped to bail out the banking industry. Increasing fear and greed through rhetoric designed to preserve power and money is a force of the lower chakras, not the spiritual chakras.

The real significance of the passing of the healthcare reform bill, whatever its merits or deficiencies, is that it showed that America has a glimmer of heart chakra energy. For a moment we were able to overcome the temptations of power, greed, fear, and the like and open our hearts to the idea that reducing pain, suffering, and premature death was what really mattered.

Several posts have discussed the idea by J. Krishnamurti that what is needed is a shift in conscious

"The crisis is a crisis in consciousness… a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions… and considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, and so on, man is still as he was. He is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive,  competitive, and he has built a society along these lines."

John Mumford

In the tradition of twelve step programs the first step is recognizing that America has a problem and that it seems to be powerless to do something about it. What is the problem? In a nutshell, American is going broke. In general, nobody wants to hear that bad news, but the fact is that the infrastructure of America is falling apart — literally. Bridges need repair and school systems are closing their doors, just to mention two of the symptoms. The dilemma we face as a democracy was noted in 1770 by Alexander Fraser Tytler who said:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury…. the result [is] that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Conservatives always bring up entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. However, that is not the real problem. In his book Broke, John Mumford says that the powerful elite in our primary economic institutions — business, organized religion, education, and government — have abandoned many of the values that contributed to the greatness of America for compromised ideals that are far more self serving. The people in power like banks, Congress, the military industrial complex, etc. are far more interested in what they can do to benefit themselves in the short term than what should be done to keep America strong.

Unfortunately, the conservative media, knowingly or unknowingly become the mouthpiece for these elite and keep you distracted from the real problem. So, your first step is to become conscious of the real nature of the problem. As Deep Throat said in the Watergate scandal, "Follow the money." Look to see who is actually getting richer and its not difficult to see that since Reagan, who is unfortunately elevated to near God-like status, the powerful elite in this country have gotten richer and richer at everyone else's expense, including yours. The beauty of the system they have created is that the society keeps you basically sedated and preoccupied into a state of complacency… that is, until something goes wrong like a major medical problem or a job loss.

The first step, then is to raise consciousness of the nature of the problem.

Right, Left, Democrat, Republican

The Tea Party folks are generally frustrated with a government that takes money from them to redistribute it. They fail to notice that the redistribution goes to big corporations and wealthy individuals and not to the poor. The Coffee Party are generally frustrated by the fact that the Tea Party Folks and all the other folks can't seem to carry out a civil discourse. Meanwhile, the number of hate groups is on the rise.

Did you ever think that everything is going perfectly according to plan? Think about it. The people in Congress, the White House, and the Board Rooms are pretty smart people, and they have a lot of power at their disposal. So, why is it that bills that favor corporations and wealthy individuals seem to pass and bills that favor average Americans seem to get bogged down in procedural mish mash? Is it because the strategy is working?

The illusion of political dialogue

That strategy is to get people entertaining themselves by talking and talking and talking about things until they a blue (or red) in the face while Congress keeps siphoning money out of their pockets and into the pockets of what has clearly become the American ruling class. This will continue until ordinary people have a shift in consciousness and begin to see things as they are and not as Fox News or MSNBC paint them.

What's interesting to note is that nobody in power is interested in the decentralization of power. The Republicans want power centralized in the "free market" and the Democrats want power more centralized in government.

Every once in a while something like the We Are The World 25 effort comes about that makes it clear that the solution is not to try to change a government by political argument. Instead, the solution is for people to overcome their differences in discourse, realize that centralization of power is the challenge, and actually do something.

Power of the people

Really, the people do, in fact, have a lot of power when they work together. If you don't like the government don't get stuck in Democrats versus Republican, work with both to vote out the incumbent no matter what their party affiliation is. If you don't like wall street, take your 401K money out of the stock market, get a self directed IRA, and invest in a smaller local business. If you are upset about the carbon footprint of coal power plants or the danger of nuclear power plants, then invest your money in solar power for your home or a BloomBox. The only reason that power has become so centralized is that by and large people buy into the vision that corporations and government paints for them about how they should live.

Decentralize as much as possible. Have your own water purification systems, have your own power systems, buy your food from local organic farmers. Deprive centralized power of your economic support.

There's a rather interesting take on this from a more biblical viewpoint. The story of the Tower of Babel is the metaphor for the ultimate in centralized government wanting to take the efforts of all people and create a monument to men instead of God. God was not too keen on that and decentralized things by having people speak in languages so that they couldn't understand each other. How about the story of Satan tempting Christ by offering him dominion over the whole world? It got me thinking about the number of times in history a ruling class centralized authority, killed the dissenters, and solidified their hold on the remaining people only to be subsequently decentralized. The Soviet Union is the last spectacular example of that.

It reminds me of the movie War Games.

The only winning move is not to play.

We are the world,

We are the children.

We are the ones who make a brighter day

So let's start giving

We can't go on, pretending day by day that someone somehow will soon make a change.

What you think and what you say is entertainment for yourself and others. What you do makes the world better for yourself and others.

Please take a moment to go to www.world25.org and contribute to Haiti relief. DO IT NOW! There is still massive suffering there. One way the shift in consciousness occurs is to abandon your own cherished opinions and give to others with no expectation of anything in return.

Who says the glaciers are melting?

I have come to the conclusion that the Indianapolis Colts are a really lousy football team because they lost Super Bowl XLIV by over 10 points, particular since most people thought they would win. It really doesn't matter what they did for the whole football season. It doesn't matter that they had a 12-4 season in 2008, or a 13-3 season in 2007, or that they were the first NFL team to have five 12+ seasons, or that they won the Super Bowl in 2007. The only thing that matters is what they did in Super Bowl XLIV.

You may be wondering how I arrived at such stellar reasoning. Well, I've been watching politicians and commentators (particularly on Fox News) discussing the 2010 snow storms in Washington DC and how they are proof that there is no such thing as global warming. It's just common sense that we couldn't have global warming and also have one of the worst snow storms on record. The problem is that common sense is often really really stupid. The long term data is not disputed and it is that temperatures are rising. The last decade was the hottest on record, and the decade before that was hotter than all the previous decades. Plus there is photographic evidence of glacial retreat all over the world and of hugh chunks of ice disappearing in Greenland, the Artic, and the Antartic.

There is also clear correlation between the temperatures and carbon dioxide levels over the past 300,000 years obtained through ice core samples. So, the only question is whether the carbon dioxide we are generating by burning fossil fuels is contributing to the current round of temperature increases. Again, the data shows a marked increase in temperature corresponding to the industrial revolution. But maybe mankind really isn't the cause.

Well, here are the risk choices. If we believe mankind is not the cause and do nothing, but then it turns out mankind is the cause, then the oceans rise and cities like New York, Washington DC, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Tokyo are under water. On the other hand, if we believe mankind is the cause and do something to stop it, but then it turns out nothing happens you've just put some people to work cleaning up the atmosphere. This is a pretty easy choice.

Of course, none of that matters because there's snow in the winter in Washington DC… and the Indianapolis Colts are a lousy football team.

God, I am tired of stupid or questionably motivated people having a platform to open their mouths.

The paradox is that as much as we might want change, that change does not come about in the world. The players change but the game remains the same.

What exactly does it mean to step outside the box in order to make a better world? How can you really effect change in your life that makes your world better. This is a extremely personal matter. What does a better world really mean to you personally? What will really result in a meaningfully positive change in your life? Two of the world’s most prominent religions point to an answer.

more>>>

What can you do?

Nothing. I want to re-quote Krishnamurti…

"The crisis is a crisis in consciousness… a crisis that cannot anymore accept the old norms, the old patterns, the ancient traditions… and considering what the world is now, with all the misery, conflict, destructive brutality, aggression, and so on, man is still as he was. He is still brutal, violent, aggressive, acquisitive,  competitive, and he has built a society along these lines.

What we are trying in these discussions and talks here is to see if we cannot radically bring about a transformation of the mind… not accepting things as they are, but to understand it, go into it, to examine it… give your heart and your mind to everything you have to find out [about] a way of living differently… but that depends on you and not somebody else… to understand is to transform what is."

This doesn't mean that they need to change their consciousness. It means you need to change your consciousness. The simple fact is that the President, the Supreme Court, the Congress, and all the talk show hosts don't care a single thing about you. They are not even aware that you exist. You are only an abstract member of an abstract thing called the citizens. If you play the game of political rhetoric with others… even your friends… nothing much will happen. Really! When people are confronted with "truths" that don't fit their emotional beliefs, they simply shut down. All this is not in the realm of logic and attempts to put it there will be entertaining, perhaps, but results are achieved at a different level.

Look at the big picture, not the minutia, and ask yourself, "When has it been different?" Can you think of one example in history of an enlightened culture? Can you think of any examples in history where one group of people did not take advantage of another group of people? Democracy, socialism, Marxism, communism, fascism, capitalism, Catholicism, Judaism, and all the other isms have ultimately produced an elite class. That seems to be hard wired into human beings. In fact, human beings have a real tendency to kill the people that give them an alternative… like Jesus and Ghandi.

What you CAN do!

Step outside the box. In the box efforts will only produce variations on the same things you're already seeing. That will not produce the change in consciousness that Krishnamurti is talking about. Distinguish actual change from mental or emotional entertainment. It's fun to watch Sean Hannity or Keith Olberman and get upset at the bad guys. It doesn't make for change. Change yourself and make the world that you want for yourself. Become a living example of the world that you want to create and teach by your example. Reflect on your own mind and see what keeps you stuck where you are. Use the principles of the Law of Attraction to produce real results. Use Egyptian Healing Rods to cause actual shifts in your Energy. Use simple things that can dramatically change your entire life instead of continuously running around in circles.

That can lead to the changes in the world that you want. The secret is that as long as you circulate in the world as it is you won't see what the actions are that can actually change the world. You Enjoy A Better World by changing your basic perception.