November 5, 2009
My professional life has been guided by an experience that I had in about 1986. I was an undergraduate student at Iowa State University in the Leisure Studies program. I had a wonderful advisor Steve Simpson, who assisted me in refining my curriculum to focus towards outdoor recreation with an emphasis on protecting the environment.
Leisure Studies was a program of study that I stumbled upon as I was trying to figure out what I was going to do when I grew up (I was 26). I had been floating between a variety of disciplines including business, biology and hadn’t found a niche. In order to fill up a semester course schedule I took an introductory Leisure Studies course. It fit perfectly. I thought ¨what better kind of work than to help people enjoy their leisure – isn’t that why we all work so hard?¨
Steve’s emphasis and teaching methods were very effective and influential. It took us to a place where we studied people like John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Ralph Waldo Emerson and other great thinkers including, still living, Fritoj Capra (Center for Ecoliteracy). Our classes consisted of readings from all of these authors and many more, combined with Steve’s true passion “experiential education”. We did classes where we participated and lead activities like biking, rock climbing, kayaking, windsurfing, and also participated on outdoor excursions.
Even though I was very enthusiastic about outdoor recreation, I was still not clear what exactly I was supposed to do with my career. I had an idea to be a naturalist videographer, but I don’t think I had the patience for that profession. My answer to my “mission” conundrum came to me on canoe trip on the St. Croix river between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Now, as a little preparatory statement, I have discovered that many of my greatest personal discoveries occurred as a result of personal crises – times of great sorrow, struggle, or even at a juncture where I have had a choice, usually not conscious, between life or death. Those points where I was confronted with opportunities or challenges that relate to my character, or growth as a person. In many respects this relates to spiritual growth from my life experiences.
What I relate next could be easily avoided, and part of me would rather not reveal the “true story”. However, I believe it is possibly the most important fact, because if it weren’t for the circumstances to be exactly as they were, I likely would have not had the experience that I did.
One of my personal challenges in my life has been my relations to women. I have had struggles, and it likely goes all the way back to my relationship with my own mother. My woman “chooser” usually ends up getting me with women whom I, unconsciously, wanted to save. I have a sort of “hero complex”. So back to the story, in our Leisure Studies courses there was a woman whom I had a crush on. The problem was, I was married.
We were having a wonderful experience canoeing on the St. Croix to natural areas that were only accessible from the river. The day before I had my epiphany for what my “mission” was, we had taken a hike in a pine forest. It was incredible. Quiet, the tall, straight trees, and the whispering breeze as we entered, and then the silence of the forest was so memorable. I don’t know why it had such an impact on me this time, but I remember it to set the stage for the events that would follow the next morning. We finished the hike in the forest and returned to camp. We spent some time “processing” the experience and then were prepared to go to sleep in our tents. I don’t remember the details, but I remember I wanted to get into the tent with
this lady I had a crush on. But she wouldn’t let me. And the greater part of me knew that I didn’t want to anyway. It was a struggle between my lower and higher nature.
It was going to get cold that night, but I had a good sleeping bag. And maybe I was pouting, or maybe I wanted to punish myself, it could have been any number of reasons. So, I decided to sleep next to the tributary, Bear Creek, of the main branch of the St. Croix. It did get quite cold.
In fact, when I awoke at daybreak there was snow on the ground.
When I awoke, I just woke up and for some reason I had this realization about what I was supposed to do in this world – what my mission was. I don’t recall the details of thoughts, or anything. But to this day that experience marks the juncture in my life where I had a clear sense of how I could make a difference. I was supposed to work to help people experience the out-of-doors. To facilitate experiences, like we were having in this class, to where people, especially young people, could have an experience that might re-connect their spirit to the spirit abundant in the natural world. I don’t know exactly how this knowing came to me, but it is as clear today as it must have been then.
Now, this mission, this purpose, or responsibility has taken me on a very winding path in my life. Sometimes my work, or experiences have seemed to be a detour, or dead-end. But I now understand, at this point, that these experiences were part of a twenty year training program.
As is described in Appendix B with my Ecotourism Consulting International term paper, my path started with an idea to assist in developing businesses that would assist people’s in developing countries to create alternative economic strategies that would help protect the rainforests.
Here is a short summary of just a few of my more pertinent jobs and schooling which will provide a summary of this winding career path. To improve my credibility, and train me in natural resource management I got a masters degree in Forestry, with a focus on agroforestry and alternative energy systems. After that I spent five years with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, first developing the first “nature tourism” program called Texas Adventures, and then running a mail-order catalog (the TPWD Collection) within the same agency. Following that took me to back to school to become the Assistant Director of the Center for Nature and Heritage Tourism, where I learned the geographical perspective, and became knowledgeable about the Internet and geographic information systems (GIS). My PhD Dissertation is entitled “Nature Tourism in Cyberspace: An Examination of it’s Geography and Character in the
Network”.
Finally, I ended up being a professor and research scientist at Texas A&M University where my first responsibilities were to teach farmers and ranchers how to start a nature tourism business, to work with communities interested in nature tourism, to create a Internet based tourism information system (TexBox), to be the founder of a tourism and technology business out of the university (AdventGX) and finally to become an assistant to the Vice President for Research in the areas of new environmental technologies (hyperspectral sensors) and commercialization strategies.
After all of this, and my mentor and boss Dr. Ewing passing, I took another huge risk to get back to my original dream and left academia to come to South America to develop, real, on-the -ground strategies for rural sustainable revitalization and empowerment. Over the years, my perspectives have greatly expanded based on my understanding of political, economic, social, business and bureaucratic realities, while at the same time increasing my passion for the need to stimulate spiritual awakenings in people.
I have experienced vast and numerous experiences with people and places, but one truth that rises up from it all, that we have to help people, and protect the planet. I have also found that almost all people are inherently good, and they just need some help to understand how to better live and relate to each other and Gaia. The means to accomplish this is through a principle I call “people helping people” and through education.
In any case, the core of my ideas in this regard, related to rural revitalization and
empowerment, are presented in the “Vision to Transform the World”. This story, of realizing “my mission” is the final contribution to this book “I Am Sharing” – although it very likely is just the beginning of a series of books that will go into detail about the various components and requirements of rural, regional development strategies. I feel I have been honored more than any other person with my experiences in this world. And I will continue on this meandering path, with the hopes to achieve some level of success to make my contribution to helping people to be happy and to have more fun – which is why I think that we came to the beautiful
place we call Earth!
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Realization of Self Love
This is a very personal description of a great discovery about self-love and the teachings of Jesus and the ten commandments.
About twelve years ago (1997), I was recovering from divorce. It turned out to be one of the most challenging times in my life. This process literally took years. I am not sure why I drug it out so long, but that was just the process. I mostly felt myself to have been a failure as a father. Not upholding the social agreement of marriage, mostly for the sake of my son.
I struggled a great deal financially, probably a form of self punishment. I also had periods of deep sorrow- even so far as contemplating the end of my life. I never went so far to actually do anything, just going to that place of desperate resignation. The most profound of these times I actually went to the place of no feelings. Ambivalence, numbness, not caring. That I discovered is a much more desperate and dangerous place than anger or depression.
When I was at the lowest place I was in my apartment and I picked up the Bible. Now, I have never read the Bible to any great extent. I have tried a number of times, but found the language difficult to comprehend. Plus I have come to believe that much of the greatest truths to have been culled out. However, I still believe that it is filled with great wisdom and truth, it is just difficult for me to decipher what might have been added or deleted. Not the best use of my time, this is my opinion.
However, on this occasion I opened up the book at random, dropped my finger on the passage where the disciples are asking Jesus to speak on the commandments, I remember reading "and what of the ten commandments"? And Jesus's response, in my recollection "There are only two. Love God with all your being. And Love your neighbor as yourself".
Reading this caused great realizations for me, and insights on my perspectives on love of self, and also my access to the love of God. You see, I read in that passage in the Bible, having a scientific mind, a case of deductive reasoning. The bottom line, or the basic challenge of Jesus' message relates to Self love. The deduction, or the leap of reasoning comes because he did not mention three points - 1) Love God, 2) Love Yourself, and 3) Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. The second step in this reasoning is missing.
Why? I assume that Jesus "assumed" that we would love ourselves. But is this the case in our world? I think mostly not. For many reasons - one is that it has become "tabu" in many ways to "Love ourselves" (e.g. narcissism, arrogance, selfishness). However, as I have since discovered, if I don't harbor Love in my heart for myself, how can I truly Love others? And I am not talking about "selfish" love. I'm talking about the Love for God and for all others. For if I truly Love Andy in the true sense of Love then I do not have to worry about selfish love. My brother-in-law many years ago (1981) confronted me on this. I think I said something him to about loving my girlfriend more than I loved myself. And he replied, "Andy how can you expect others to Love you, if you don't Love yourself?" This I have realized over the years is one of the most powerful questions a person can ask - either of themselves, or of a dear one.
This reverie from the quote from Jesus made me think why I might have arrived at the point of not Loving myself. I thought that it probably had something to do with pain - and pain being a sign of being excluded from God's Love, which to me is the greatest fear. Much greater than the fear of death. (a little digression, imagine the world of people living day to day their greatest fear as their truth!)
I thought back to my first unconscious "comprehension" of God - which would have been my parents. They were bigger than me, took care of all my needs, protected me, loved me. But did they love me when they punished me? I think I came to understand/feel that when I did "bad", I was being excluded from Love. When I felt pain, either external or internal, I began to separate myself from Love. I began to believe that I could actually do something and become un-Lovable. A ridiculous notion as I understand today, but for most of my life I believed, I felt this. As my friend Tom says "little Andy", had programmed this idea into the very core of my being. This is the idea that the church has placed on us. The idea of "original sin", or at least the way that I interpreted it. And, if I look at many people in the world, I think others believe it too.
In any case, I examined this idea of doing things, and being "out of Love". And it explained my behaviors. You see, once I was out of Love, or had excluded myself consciously, it doesn't matter. Bad in degrees is immaterial. And, because of the internal pain, the need to blot it out became more and more necessary. Thus, in my case, I turned to drugs and alcohol as a young person. However, at the time of this experience reading the Bible, in 1997, I had been 16 year sober.
I think I somehow got the idea or belief that if I felt pain, I wasn't being Loved. Of course it started with my parents, but then I think it extended to God, and of course to everyone. Because, how or why would I feel pain (which is "bad") if I was Loved?
Pain is a sign of being a "sinner" and "sinners" can't be Loved by God, right? Because we have to become an "un-sinner" for God to really Love us, right? We have to become totally clean to be accepted into the Love of God. And this only happens when you "do something", and are transformed into being "white as snow". But if I feel pain inside, then I feel that I am the same. I know that this is not the case, and this seems like a very childish way of understanding. However, I think this childish "program" was actually running in my life - it explained my behaviors.
In truth, I do not think God condemns. It is a man made construct, like so many other concepts that have imprisoned us - but these are OK, because there is a purpose to all.
I also realized at this moment that pain is not "bad". It is merely an aspect on a continuum. And, in actuality, it can be very, very good. In fact, it was deep and desperate pain that lead me to "no pain", no cares, no feeling which was the stimulus for all of these epiphanies about "Self Love". And in that moment, and in previous moments, I realized that "pain" can be exquisite. And then I wasn't sitting in judgment about my feelings, about my actions, which would result in me being excluded from God's Love, which is not possible.
Whether I consciously bought into the idea of "sin" and condemnation, I think at some level I believed that I had done things that had placed me out of God's Love. Divorce.
Abandoning my son (this was my "programmed" belief). Having a tendency to be somewhat
of a "womanizer". But this actually tied to my own condemnation of myself. It became a self fulfilling prophecy. It was like, OK, I'm already a "screw-up" (a sinner) so fuck it! And I had come to believe that I was the kind of person to do those things. So, if I believe myself to be that kind of person, how could I do anything else? But in reality all I was doing in that process was trying to find love. Love from others. Love to fill the void in me. But no other person can ever fill that void. Because that was a void created by my lack of Love for my Self.
And I think Loving my Self first is actually one of the most gracious things that I could ever do. I am God's first gift to me. To my person. This physical, spiritual and intellectual being was God's gift to me first. And from there, all other expressions arise, at least in my conscious experience.
I realized this in another way a few years ago when I heard the song by Bad Company "Feel like making Love". I realized that we are supposed to be "Love factories". But how could I generate Love if I don't have the first ingredient - Love for the being, the gift that God gave me - me, myself and I. Isn't it a tremendous lack of gratitude to not love what God gave me, first?
Through all of this thinking I realized that "Self love" was to "Love God with All My Being" - and that if I could accomplish Self Love in the most pure and profound way, then "Love Others as Your Self" would flow naturally and effortlessly. That was the "missing deduction" in Jesus's statement about there only being two commandments.
I also realized that maybe, these feelings, were God experiencing itself through me. I imagined my joys, sorrows, and the agelessness of the feelings. I imagined how my body, and my mind seem to age, but my feelings don't. I thought of the loves and deepness of those profound feelings that I had experienced in my life and felt that that truly was a God living through me. And those forces are the ones that have motivated me, truly to seek Love with all my being. To be Love in all ways that I can.
So what next? Forgiveness. Yes, but if God doesn't condemn why would I need forgiveness?
I don't really know, but for me at that (and this) moment, the forgiveness was to know that God's Love was immediately available to me - all-ways, always. It happened to me long ago when I realized my life was in the "shitter", I was a drunk and a junkie, mostly because of my dishonesty with myself. When I had this realization that dishonesty had created my twisted little life, and admitted I was lying, and committed to take a different path, and said the prayer "God help me". My life began to be totally different.
All I had to do, I guess, was to accept the Love to flow. It was there waiting. I didn't grow any new Love acceptance organs.
Oh, you may be thinking, why do I say that God doesn't judge - well for me, it's about Love. Love Loves it doesn't judge. And if God is Love then God doesn't judge. God just Loves.
So what I had to do at that moment was look at Andy, and see him for who he was, and just appreciate that he never meant to hurt anyone - on purpose. That many times he was confused, and did things that resulted in apparent "problems" but that those really don't matter to Love. That no matter what I think that I do that is bad, and no matter how bad I might feel, I am always Loved by God. Period. There is no way out of it. It is everywhere and always.
And today, I have learned more and more about my feelings and their connection to the Divine. That they are actually the "program" the "guidance system" that I was given in order to know how to avoid doing the things that were contrary to my, and others, best interest. But I didn't learn this until about 2 years ago.
About twelve years ago (1997), I was recovering from divorce. It turned out to be one of the most challenging times in my life. This process literally took years. I am not sure why I drug it out so long, but that was just the process. I mostly felt myself to have been a failure as a father. Not upholding the social agreement of marriage, mostly for the sake of my son.
I struggled a great deal financially, probably a form of self punishment. I also had periods of deep sorrow- even so far as contemplating the end of my life. I never went so far to actually do anything, just going to that place of desperate resignation. The most profound of these times I actually went to the place of no feelings. Ambivalence, numbness, not caring. That I discovered is a much more desperate and dangerous place than anger or depression.
When I was at the lowest place I was in my apartment and I picked up the Bible. Now, I have never read the Bible to any great extent. I have tried a number of times, but found the language difficult to comprehend. Plus I have come to believe that much of the greatest truths to have been culled out. However, I still believe that it is filled with great wisdom and truth, it is just difficult for me to decipher what might have been added or deleted. Not the best use of my time, this is my opinion.
However, on this occasion I opened up the book at random, dropped my finger on the passage where the disciples are asking Jesus to speak on the commandments, I remember reading "and what of the ten commandments"? And Jesus's response, in my recollection "There are only two. Love God with all your being. And Love your neighbor as yourself".
Reading this caused great realizations for me, and insights on my perspectives on love of self, and also my access to the love of God. You see, I read in that passage in the Bible, having a scientific mind, a case of deductive reasoning. The bottom line, or the basic challenge of Jesus' message relates to Self love. The deduction, or the leap of reasoning comes because he did not mention three points - 1) Love God, 2) Love Yourself, and 3) Love Your Neighbor as Yourself. The second step in this reasoning is missing.
Why? I assume that Jesus "assumed" that we would love ourselves. But is this the case in our world? I think mostly not. For many reasons - one is that it has become "tabu" in many ways to "Love ourselves" (e.g. narcissism, arrogance, selfishness). However, as I have since discovered, if I don't harbor Love in my heart for myself, how can I truly Love others? And I am not talking about "selfish" love. I'm talking about the Love for God and for all others. For if I truly Love Andy in the true sense of Love then I do not have to worry about selfish love. My brother-in-law many years ago (1981) confronted me on this. I think I said something him to about loving my girlfriend more than I loved myself. And he replied, "Andy how can you expect others to Love you, if you don't Love yourself?" This I have realized over the years is one of the most powerful questions a person can ask - either of themselves, or of a dear one.
This reverie from the quote from Jesus made me think why I might have arrived at the point of not Loving myself. I thought that it probably had something to do with pain - and pain being a sign of being excluded from God's Love, which to me is the greatest fear. Much greater than the fear of death. (a little digression, imagine the world of people living day to day their greatest fear as their truth!)
I thought back to my first unconscious "comprehension" of God - which would have been my parents. They were bigger than me, took care of all my needs, protected me, loved me. But did they love me when they punished me? I think I came to understand/feel that when I did "bad", I was being excluded from Love. When I felt pain, either external or internal, I began to separate myself from Love. I began to believe that I could actually do something and become un-Lovable. A ridiculous notion as I understand today, but for most of my life I believed, I felt this. As my friend Tom says "little Andy", had programmed this idea into the very core of my being. This is the idea that the church has placed on us. The idea of "original sin", or at least the way that I interpreted it. And, if I look at many people in the world, I think others believe it too.
In any case, I examined this idea of doing things, and being "out of Love". And it explained my behaviors. You see, once I was out of Love, or had excluded myself consciously, it doesn't matter. Bad in degrees is immaterial. And, because of the internal pain, the need to blot it out became more and more necessary. Thus, in my case, I turned to drugs and alcohol as a young person. However, at the time of this experience reading the Bible, in 1997, I had been 16 year sober.
I think I somehow got the idea or belief that if I felt pain, I wasn't being Loved. Of course it started with my parents, but then I think it extended to God, and of course to everyone. Because, how or why would I feel pain (which is "bad") if I was Loved?
Pain is a sign of being a "sinner" and "sinners" can't be Loved by God, right? Because we have to become an "un-sinner" for God to really Love us, right? We have to become totally clean to be accepted into the Love of God. And this only happens when you "do something", and are transformed into being "white as snow". But if I feel pain inside, then I feel that I am the same. I know that this is not the case, and this seems like a very childish way of understanding. However, I think this childish "program" was actually running in my life - it explained my behaviors.
In truth, I do not think God condemns. It is a man made construct, like so many other concepts that have imprisoned us - but these are OK, because there is a purpose to all.
I also realized at this moment that pain is not "bad". It is merely an aspect on a continuum. And, in actuality, it can be very, very good. In fact, it was deep and desperate pain that lead me to "no pain", no cares, no feeling which was the stimulus for all of these epiphanies about "Self Love". And in that moment, and in previous moments, I realized that "pain" can be exquisite. And then I wasn't sitting in judgment about my feelings, about my actions, which would result in me being excluded from God's Love, which is not possible.
Whether I consciously bought into the idea of "sin" and condemnation, I think at some level I believed that I had done things that had placed me out of God's Love. Divorce.
Abandoning my son (this was my "programmed" belief). Having a tendency to be somewhat
of a "womanizer". But this actually tied to my own condemnation of myself. It became a self fulfilling prophecy. It was like, OK, I'm already a "screw-up" (a sinner) so fuck it! And I had come to believe that I was the kind of person to do those things. So, if I believe myself to be that kind of person, how could I do anything else? But in reality all I was doing in that process was trying to find love. Love from others. Love to fill the void in me. But no other person can ever fill that void. Because that was a void created by my lack of Love for my Self.
And I think Loving my Self first is actually one of the most gracious things that I could ever do. I am God's first gift to me. To my person. This physical, spiritual and intellectual being was God's gift to me first. And from there, all other expressions arise, at least in my conscious experience.
I realized this in another way a few years ago when I heard the song by Bad Company "Feel like making Love". I realized that we are supposed to be "Love factories". But how could I generate Love if I don't have the first ingredient - Love for the being, the gift that God gave me - me, myself and I. Isn't it a tremendous lack of gratitude to not love what God gave me, first?
Through all of this thinking I realized that "Self love" was to "Love God with All My Being" - and that if I could accomplish Self Love in the most pure and profound way, then "Love Others as Your Self" would flow naturally and effortlessly. That was the "missing deduction" in Jesus's statement about there only being two commandments.
I also realized that maybe, these feelings, were God experiencing itself through me. I imagined my joys, sorrows, and the agelessness of the feelings. I imagined how my body, and my mind seem to age, but my feelings don't. I thought of the loves and deepness of those profound feelings that I had experienced in my life and felt that that truly was a God living through me. And those forces are the ones that have motivated me, truly to seek Love with all my being. To be Love in all ways that I can.
So what next? Forgiveness. Yes, but if God doesn't condemn why would I need forgiveness?
I don't really know, but for me at that (and this) moment, the forgiveness was to know that God's Love was immediately available to me - all-ways, always. It happened to me long ago when I realized my life was in the "shitter", I was a drunk and a junkie, mostly because of my dishonesty with myself. When I had this realization that dishonesty had created my twisted little life, and admitted I was lying, and committed to take a different path, and said the prayer "God help me". My life began to be totally different.
All I had to do, I guess, was to accept the Love to flow. It was there waiting. I didn't grow any new Love acceptance organs.
Oh, you may be thinking, why do I say that God doesn't judge - well for me, it's about Love. Love Loves it doesn't judge. And if God is Love then God doesn't judge. God just Loves.
So what I had to do at that moment was look at Andy, and see him for who he was, and just appreciate that he never meant to hurt anyone - on purpose. That many times he was confused, and did things that resulted in apparent "problems" but that those really don't matter to Love. That no matter what I think that I do that is bad, and no matter how bad I might feel, I am always Loved by God. Period. There is no way out of it. It is everywhere and always.
And today, I have learned more and more about my feelings and their connection to the Divine. That they are actually the "program" the "guidance system" that I was given in order to know how to avoid doing the things that were contrary to my, and others, best interest. But I didn't learn this until about 2 years ago.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Peace Making
How YOU can make a difference and Be the Peace You Want to See in the World
Dr. Andrew Skadberg
What Can You Do – How to Get Started
I suspect you may be wondering how you may get started for transforming your way of Being. If you are wondering this, that is a good thing. I often find myself agreeing with so much of these materials for “self-help”, work on making our lives better but the question always arises “so what, now what?” All of this is excellent information, but I want to know what I can do to get started: are there certain types of activities, or practices that I can do to begin this process. In other words, what actions can I take?
There are so many wonderful programs out there. So many resources, experts, workshops, programs, courses, etc. etc. And I am very glad to see these kind of developments. However, sometimes I feel there might be so much information and options as to be overwhelming. I believe that the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple sweetheart) principle applies in so many things, and in this case especially so. So what I am providing here is one of the most simple, straightforward and powerful programs that I am aware of currently - “The Practice”. I very much believe also in not “re-inventing the wheel”. If there is something that works, use that as a starting point and then as you go along you can continually “add-value” or features to what you use for your own personal development.
The Practice – A Summary
By Desmond Donald Green -
Available for free, The Global Citizenship Passport that includes
The Practice
The Practice defines a body and process of core principles that when applied set the stage for life affirming demonstrations. The value of these core principles have all been well documented. For the most part the principles are presented with focus on their applications scripting new behavior patterns for productive living..
Gaia´s Message to Me
This was a message I shared with two friends who saw my blog "Love is the Motivator".
Here is the message I shared with them about my VERY CLEAR AND PROFOUND KNOWING as I woke up this morning. You must understand, that this realization has come as part of a long and arduous time of introspection, self seeking, prayer and hardship, but Self understanding, answers to the BIG questions, consciousness and true freedom have been just part of the fruits. Here is the first of what will be many messages along these lines.
Dear Friends,
I am still plugging away, and will be until my last breath. Today I want to share what I know to be the key, and I will be sharing this same message everywhere I go because I have known it since Gaia planted in me 23 years ago.
We have to wake people up to our relationship to Gaia. I suspect you really know this, but I woke up so clear TODAY that we have gotten caught up in the details, what with "global warming", pesticides, etc., etc., etc., etc. The key relationship that we must mend, to demonstrate our readiness to go through ascension, (if that is what is happening) is how we relate to our Spiritual Source.
Gaia is the primary link in our chain to Source, the One. My dear friend Desmond Green has been bringing home to me that "we are PHYSICAL SPIRIT and now just becoming conscious of it". This is consistent with all great historical messages.
But the converter of Spirit, or Star Stuff, in the form that we get this fabulous sense experience as "human-beings" is the Earth, Gaia!!!! It is the water plant, the rock factory, the aluminum factory, the air plant, the sun converter, the flower supplier, the bird and butterfly manufacturer, the light converter to physical matter that we can have deep and profound sense experiences and be conscious and "feeling" of the fact "plant"!!! Likely the first time in the history of the universe, based on my research to date. This is the half-truth that we have been sold that we are the only life in the Universe.
But at this point, being an ex-academic, we are not passing the course. We can do better. But time is really running out. That message came home emphatically in Osho´s video that I first posted in my blog Waking Up the World - Osho.
And I believe the test for us is to do our damndest in these last days to try to wake people up to this important relationship. I got the assignment 23 years ago, through Gaia´s Spirit I guess, while I was on a canoe trip in Minnesota. At that time it was my job to "try to create opportunities for people to experience the outdoors so their spirit wakes up". I have been following the path, but in not very effective strategies (at least that I can tell).
But this morning the urgency is upon me. We have to share this with our kids, and their kids, and our grandparents and our uncles and aunts. If we do our utmost we might be able to help more people go on the ride to 5D, but if even if the ascension doesn´t happen like we are dreaming of, we will have a different experience here too. Because I think inherently, if we become conscious of this one single relationship, I think our relationship with ourselves and with our God will change too.
I have come to the conclusion that if the church was really teaching the word of God, they would have been preaching about this.
I don´t mean to be ranting here, I just have been given a new assignment, after likely 50 years of floundering. Now it is time to become the clanging symbol, or the light on the hill, or whatever method it takes to plant a seed in each persons heart that I can.
We are all in this together we have to save ourSelves, and each other.
Dr. Andrew Skadberg
What Can You Do – How to Get Started
I suspect you may be wondering how you may get started for transforming your way of Being. If you are wondering this, that is a good thing. I often find myself agreeing with so much of these materials for “self-help”, work on making our lives better but the question always arises “so what, now what?” All of this is excellent information, but I want to know what I can do to get started: are there certain types of activities, or practices that I can do to begin this process. In other words, what actions can I take?
There are so many wonderful programs out there. So many resources, experts, workshops, programs, courses, etc. etc. And I am very glad to see these kind of developments. However, sometimes I feel there might be so much information and options as to be overwhelming. I believe that the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple sweetheart) principle applies in so many things, and in this case especially so. So what I am providing here is one of the most simple, straightforward and powerful programs that I am aware of currently - “The Practice”. I very much believe also in not “re-inventing the wheel”. If there is something that works, use that as a starting point and then as you go along you can continually “add-value” or features to what you use for your own personal development.
The Practice – A Summary
By Desmond Donald Green -
Available for free, The Global Citizenship Passport that includes
The Practice
The Practice defines a body and process of core principles that when applied set the stage for life affirming demonstrations. The value of these core principles have all been well documented. For the most part the principles are presented with focus on their applications scripting new behavior patterns for productive living..
Gaia´s Message to Me
This was a message I shared with two friends who saw my blog "Love is the Motivator".
Here is the message I shared with them about my VERY CLEAR AND PROFOUND KNOWING as I woke up this morning. You must understand, that this realization has come as part of a long and arduous time of introspection, self seeking, prayer and hardship, but Self understanding, answers to the BIG questions, consciousness and true freedom have been just part of the fruits. Here is the first of what will be many messages along these lines.
Dear Friends,
I am still plugging away, and will be until my last breath. Today I want to share what I know to be the key, and I will be sharing this same message everywhere I go because I have known it since Gaia planted in me 23 years ago.
We have to wake people up to our relationship to Gaia. I suspect you really know this, but I woke up so clear TODAY that we have gotten caught up in the details, what with "global warming", pesticides, etc., etc., etc., etc. The key relationship that we must mend, to demonstrate our readiness to go through ascension, (if that is what is happening) is how we relate to our Spiritual Source.
Gaia is the primary link in our chain to Source, the One. My dear friend Desmond Green has been bringing home to me that "we are PHYSICAL SPIRIT and now just becoming conscious of it". This is consistent with all great historical messages.
But the converter of Spirit, or Star Stuff, in the form that we get this fabulous sense experience as "human-beings" is the Earth, Gaia!!!! It is the water plant, the rock factory, the aluminum factory, the air plant, the sun converter, the flower supplier, the bird and butterfly manufacturer, the light converter to physical matter that we can have deep and profound sense experiences and be conscious and "feeling" of the fact "plant"!!! Likely the first time in the history of the universe, based on my research to date. This is the half-truth that we have been sold that we are the only life in the Universe.
But at this point, being an ex-academic, we are not passing the course. We can do better. But time is really running out. That message came home emphatically in Osho´s video that I first posted in my blog Waking Up the World - Osho.
And I believe the test for us is to do our damndest in these last days to try to wake people up to this important relationship. I got the assignment 23 years ago, through Gaia´s Spirit I guess, while I was on a canoe trip in Minnesota. At that time it was my job to "try to create opportunities for people to experience the outdoors so their spirit wakes up". I have been following the path, but in not very effective strategies (at least that I can tell).
But this morning the urgency is upon me. We have to share this with our kids, and their kids, and our grandparents and our uncles and aunts. If we do our utmost we might be able to help more people go on the ride to 5D, but if even if the ascension doesn´t happen like we are dreaming of, we will have a different experience here too. Because I think inherently, if we become conscious of this one single relationship, I think our relationship with ourselves and with our God will change too.
I have come to the conclusion that if the church was really teaching the word of God, they would have been preaching about this.
I don´t mean to be ranting here, I just have been given a new assignment, after likely 50 years of floundering. Now it is time to become the clanging symbol, or the light on the hill, or whatever method it takes to plant a seed in each persons heart that I can.
We are all in this together we have to save ourSelves, and each other.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Love Transcends
At this time there is nothing else that really matters. To discover your love. This is imperative if you want to feel the freedom you so seek. This is not a matter of finding love around the corner, or in someone´s arms, but to discover that it resides in your own heart, and that it always has.
This love is why you came here. To find it, experience it and share it. That is your purpose. The love is unconditional, it is un-stoppable, it is, ultimately, undeniable. But it is the most challenging quest that you will ever embark upon – especially in your world.
The game as it has been orchestrated has drawn your attention to innumerable distractions – other objectives that seem to be paramount. But this is not the case. The foundation of all activity in this cosmos is based on love. It is the prime ingredient to be assured that what you create is in alignment with the One´s design.
Discovering this can be one of the most elusive tasks that you might take on. Living as a human being on the Earth at this time in your history is leading to “the great rub”. This is the point where it becomes an either or choice for acting from a place of unconditional love, or something else. The something else(s) have increased in so many forms and so much intensity of energy as to be especially distracting.
Your world speaks of love more than any single idea. Yet your understanding of its true nature is so misunderstood. It is really the most simplest, and actually the only truth in your world. It is at the bottom, and behind all of the experiences that you are orchestrating and so distracted with the details. The experiences are all accessories to the point. And the point is love. Can´t you see that all of this creative wonder that you observe in your external perceptions is the result of love? And you will step beyond the production of material trinkets when you discover that the love power you are so yearning to express exists in the core of your being. When you discover this love you will realize that there is nothing to “own” or “possess” or to hold onto because what you so yearn for is the makeup of your actual being. It is what is holding all of the molecules of your body together. It is what is containing all of the information in your DNA and blood. The thoughts that you have are supported, contained within the love matrix, the One´s thoughts. But you are a thought filled being and have the same capacities.
But your task in this life is to discover, not the One´s love, or someone else´s love, but your love. Go to that place inside yourself and discover the spark of the love that created you. That you are to share – that is your purpose. That is the One´s purpose for you. That is why you stepped into this existence.
You have been clear on this idea for longer than you could ever imagine, before you came into this form. But the veil, the curtain had to be heavy in order for us to discover some new characteristics of this thing that we share in all points and waves across infinity.
You have been a wonderful agent in this life, investigating distractions, diversions, untruths of how love might express itself – “I will love you if”, “share your love if you get paid”, “looking for love in all the wrong places”. My what an adventure you have created.
But the time has come for you to get down to business. Enter your own heart and find the spark, that WE put there. Yes, you were a designer of this system too. You were the architect, as was Eye. But you had primary input. You had the experiences in the realms of love across the cosmos and instructed us in the design of this new adventure space called “Earth” and the universe. But you have been pulled from the core of its knowing – this is evidenced by the state of your world. You have forgotten your truth birth mother, Gaia, and you abuse those around you with the distractions of what you think are obligations you believe are a result of love – obligations that have been placed on you in the game that you are playing.
If you would have been informed as a baby about the task of finding your own divine spark to then share this with the world, you would have found a very different experience. But we had a purpose for it to play out in this exact way. But now, now my dear comrades, associates, partners, MY BEING, the time is quickly approaching for the quickening. I am sure you feel it. Don´t you feel kind of crazy? Do you feel time passing quickly? That is the true quickening. It is love beckoning. And the only place you will find peace of mind, is discovering your true nature and that that power to transform the entire cosmos in the “twinkle of an eye” resides at the center of your being.
Now how you experience or find this spark can be as varied as you see yourselves as beings. There are some pointers. One possibility is to find another soul who vibrates, or resonates on an energetic level and begin to immerse yourself into an investigation of this love. Invite that other person to find their love. Invite yourself to examine what it is that makes you tick – what inspires, how do you really feel about the people in your life that you love. This is not about the “stories” and dramas and traumas that are playing out in yours or their lives, but the core of the connection to them. This may require some effort to get past the surface experience which you are lost in on a day to day basis. This requires a sense of deep meditation, but not necessarily in the image you have been given, such in a sitting lotus posture. You can examine your heart in all moments. While you walk, while you lay, as you gaze into a child´s eyes. As you look in the mirror at yourself. As you write, or listen to a song. The sources, or access points, to the love in your own heart are as innumerable as the moments in your day. But, you must dedicate your conscious attention to them. You must reflect on them.
Many of you find yourselves pulled away in the stream of external life. But this is not the external world´s fault. This is an expression of where you are in yourself. If you are struggling and finding yourself overwhelmed, in any area of your life, it is love´s invitation to take a look. It is you that is saying – is this what you want? Love is so close and inviting you to examine what you want to create. It is inviting you go to your love and have it show you the way to your own joy, your own “master plan” – which you designed and imprinted, with love, into the core of your very makeup. Physically it is easiest to find this if you work with your heart area. That is where this expression is most powerfully emanating moment to moment as your heart beats and cascades the essence of your love through your blood throughout your body. There is a cosmic, and eternal energy pulse with our Divine signature that the entire cosmos is waiting for you to find, key into, and then express the results as this program turns on and takes over your existence. When this event occurs there will be no turning back, and you will begin to reveal to yourself the true nature of your cosmic being. Showing yourself, via your own unique love quotient, the path that you had laid down for yourself eons ago, in fact in many respects back to the moment your soul was conceived in the beginning from my Divine Love blueprint.
This experience will reveal to you just how spectacular you are, and thusly, as only the love model allows, you will begin to see the divinity of all that exists. All of this was created for this knowing, but the fact could not be fully appreciated until there was a thorough and complete forgetting. As you likely have discovered in your human form, we often take for granted that which is given to us without effort. Thus, this is not a unique experience to humanity on Earth, and this is specifically why we decided to create this world – and it has been the most phenomenal success!!!!
You, my dear ones, have ventured into the depths of new experiences that were not imagined before this. And the cosmic consciousness will be able to process and include each and every experience into the collective. And now your rewards for your dedicated service is to be granted, but there is one last effort that you must do. Find your heart. Find your Love. Experience it. Go to it. Embrace it. Allow it to embrace you. It is all-ready, you must know, but bring this experience into your conscious mind. FEEL IT – do whatever you must to experience this truth of who and what you are, because if you don´t, you will continue with the same results you are experiencing.
I emplore you to give this your utmost consideration and dedication. Because you will be astounded to find out that this thing, that you have been yearning and searching for, you have been dancing and singing for, you have been suffering and crying for, is embedded into the fabric of your being down to the most minute level. It is who you are, and nothing less. It is your DNA, it is your bodily parts, it is the functions, it is the Being that you are, and it is closer than anything else. But your consciousness must entertain it. You must open a doorway to it, because if you don´t you will remain locked in the prison of your perceptions, your beliefs, your thoughts and your habits. Those, dear one, are not you. None of those things – and you will be overjoyed to discover the truth of what is being shared with you.
This process, will have its way with you no matter what. The difference will be, do you want to experience it now, in this body where you believe you reside, in this stage of your life. Do you want to share the most astoundingly beautiful gifts with all those you “believed” that you “love and cherish”? Do you want to experience this? This is your most important assignment. This is why you agreed to come to this sphere of existence. This is why you were made, and why you made yourself. And, the time has come to find this truth within your being and Share it.
Be happy. Because you are so beautiful. Drop all beliefs about your experiences, ideas you have been given, and give yourself a chance to experience the pure essence of the love that you are truly made of. All of these things that you are afraid to face about yourself is what you have contributed to the cosmic database of experiences. It is very important. But there is no meaning in it any longer, as the time has come for the great reckoning, beckoning, love inviting you home to yourself. Because, in the end this is what you have been looking for. You are your own answer. Your own destination. Your own love source, that once found will be shared with every other being across creation – and it will be there forever, for that is the nature of how love works. It is pure, kind, gracious, patient, powerful and any other positive attributes that you might use. But more importantly, it is yours. You have never been without it. There was no need to fear. But to appreciate what has been going on, or how great this thing is, you had to know what it would be like for the “possibility” for love not to be cascading in infinite abundance over your soul and being. You had to experience this, for the ONE. It has been necessary for this, and you have done GOOD!
This love is why you came here. To find it, experience it and share it. That is your purpose. The love is unconditional, it is un-stoppable, it is, ultimately, undeniable. But it is the most challenging quest that you will ever embark upon – especially in your world.
The game as it has been orchestrated has drawn your attention to innumerable distractions – other objectives that seem to be paramount. But this is not the case. The foundation of all activity in this cosmos is based on love. It is the prime ingredient to be assured that what you create is in alignment with the One´s design.
Discovering this can be one of the most elusive tasks that you might take on. Living as a human being on the Earth at this time in your history is leading to “the great rub”. This is the point where it becomes an either or choice for acting from a place of unconditional love, or something else. The something else(s) have increased in so many forms and so much intensity of energy as to be especially distracting.
Your world speaks of love more than any single idea. Yet your understanding of its true nature is so misunderstood. It is really the most simplest, and actually the only truth in your world. It is at the bottom, and behind all of the experiences that you are orchestrating and so distracted with the details. The experiences are all accessories to the point. And the point is love. Can´t you see that all of this creative wonder that you observe in your external perceptions is the result of love? And you will step beyond the production of material trinkets when you discover that the love power you are so yearning to express exists in the core of your being. When you discover this love you will realize that there is nothing to “own” or “possess” or to hold onto because what you so yearn for is the makeup of your actual being. It is what is holding all of the molecules of your body together. It is what is containing all of the information in your DNA and blood. The thoughts that you have are supported, contained within the love matrix, the One´s thoughts. But you are a thought filled being and have the same capacities.
But your task in this life is to discover, not the One´s love, or someone else´s love, but your love. Go to that place inside yourself and discover the spark of the love that created you. That you are to share – that is your purpose. That is the One´s purpose for you. That is why you stepped into this existence.
You have been clear on this idea for longer than you could ever imagine, before you came into this form. But the veil, the curtain had to be heavy in order for us to discover some new characteristics of this thing that we share in all points and waves across infinity.
You have been a wonderful agent in this life, investigating distractions, diversions, untruths of how love might express itself – “I will love you if”, “share your love if you get paid”, “looking for love in all the wrong places”. My what an adventure you have created.
But the time has come for you to get down to business. Enter your own heart and find the spark, that WE put there. Yes, you were a designer of this system too. You were the architect, as was Eye. But you had primary input. You had the experiences in the realms of love across the cosmos and instructed us in the design of this new adventure space called “Earth” and the universe. But you have been pulled from the core of its knowing – this is evidenced by the state of your world. You have forgotten your truth birth mother, Gaia, and you abuse those around you with the distractions of what you think are obligations you believe are a result of love – obligations that have been placed on you in the game that you are playing.
If you would have been informed as a baby about the task of finding your own divine spark to then share this with the world, you would have found a very different experience. But we had a purpose for it to play out in this exact way. But now, now my dear comrades, associates, partners, MY BEING, the time is quickly approaching for the quickening. I am sure you feel it. Don´t you feel kind of crazy? Do you feel time passing quickly? That is the true quickening. It is love beckoning. And the only place you will find peace of mind, is discovering your true nature and that that power to transform the entire cosmos in the “twinkle of an eye” resides at the center of your being.
Now how you experience or find this spark can be as varied as you see yourselves as beings. There are some pointers. One possibility is to find another soul who vibrates, or resonates on an energetic level and begin to immerse yourself into an investigation of this love. Invite that other person to find their love. Invite yourself to examine what it is that makes you tick – what inspires, how do you really feel about the people in your life that you love. This is not about the “stories” and dramas and traumas that are playing out in yours or their lives, but the core of the connection to them. This may require some effort to get past the surface experience which you are lost in on a day to day basis. This requires a sense of deep meditation, but not necessarily in the image you have been given, such in a sitting lotus posture. You can examine your heart in all moments. While you walk, while you lay, as you gaze into a child´s eyes. As you look in the mirror at yourself. As you write, or listen to a song. The sources, or access points, to the love in your own heart are as innumerable as the moments in your day. But, you must dedicate your conscious attention to them. You must reflect on them.
Many of you find yourselves pulled away in the stream of external life. But this is not the external world´s fault. This is an expression of where you are in yourself. If you are struggling and finding yourself overwhelmed, in any area of your life, it is love´s invitation to take a look. It is you that is saying – is this what you want? Love is so close and inviting you to examine what you want to create. It is inviting you go to your love and have it show you the way to your own joy, your own “master plan” – which you designed and imprinted, with love, into the core of your very makeup. Physically it is easiest to find this if you work with your heart area. That is where this expression is most powerfully emanating moment to moment as your heart beats and cascades the essence of your love through your blood throughout your body. There is a cosmic, and eternal energy pulse with our Divine signature that the entire cosmos is waiting for you to find, key into, and then express the results as this program turns on and takes over your existence. When this event occurs there will be no turning back, and you will begin to reveal to yourself the true nature of your cosmic being. Showing yourself, via your own unique love quotient, the path that you had laid down for yourself eons ago, in fact in many respects back to the moment your soul was conceived in the beginning from my Divine Love blueprint.
This experience will reveal to you just how spectacular you are, and thusly, as only the love model allows, you will begin to see the divinity of all that exists. All of this was created for this knowing, but the fact could not be fully appreciated until there was a thorough and complete forgetting. As you likely have discovered in your human form, we often take for granted that which is given to us without effort. Thus, this is not a unique experience to humanity on Earth, and this is specifically why we decided to create this world – and it has been the most phenomenal success!!!!
You, my dear ones, have ventured into the depths of new experiences that were not imagined before this. And the cosmic consciousness will be able to process and include each and every experience into the collective. And now your rewards for your dedicated service is to be granted, but there is one last effort that you must do. Find your heart. Find your Love. Experience it. Go to it. Embrace it. Allow it to embrace you. It is all-ready, you must know, but bring this experience into your conscious mind. FEEL IT – do whatever you must to experience this truth of who and what you are, because if you don´t, you will continue with the same results you are experiencing.
I emplore you to give this your utmost consideration and dedication. Because you will be astounded to find out that this thing, that you have been yearning and searching for, you have been dancing and singing for, you have been suffering and crying for, is embedded into the fabric of your being down to the most minute level. It is who you are, and nothing less. It is your DNA, it is your bodily parts, it is the functions, it is the Being that you are, and it is closer than anything else. But your consciousness must entertain it. You must open a doorway to it, because if you don´t you will remain locked in the prison of your perceptions, your beliefs, your thoughts and your habits. Those, dear one, are not you. None of those things – and you will be overjoyed to discover the truth of what is being shared with you.
This process, will have its way with you no matter what. The difference will be, do you want to experience it now, in this body where you believe you reside, in this stage of your life. Do you want to share the most astoundingly beautiful gifts with all those you “believed” that you “love and cherish”? Do you want to experience this? This is your most important assignment. This is why you agreed to come to this sphere of existence. This is why you were made, and why you made yourself. And, the time has come to find this truth within your being and Share it.
Be happy. Because you are so beautiful. Drop all beliefs about your experiences, ideas you have been given, and give yourself a chance to experience the pure essence of the love that you are truly made of. All of these things that you are afraid to face about yourself is what you have contributed to the cosmic database of experiences. It is very important. But there is no meaning in it any longer, as the time has come for the great reckoning, beckoning, love inviting you home to yourself. Because, in the end this is what you have been looking for. You are your own answer. Your own destination. Your own love source, that once found will be shared with every other being across creation – and it will be there forever, for that is the nature of how love works. It is pure, kind, gracious, patient, powerful and any other positive attributes that you might use. But more importantly, it is yours. You have never been without it. There was no need to fear. But to appreciate what has been going on, or how great this thing is, you had to know what it would be like for the “possibility” for love not to be cascading in infinite abundance over your soul and being. You had to experience this, for the ONE. It has been necessary for this, and you have done GOOD!
Friday, October 29, 2010
The Peacemaker
All these fragmented perceptions,
are there really any pieces?
Coming to feel the One-ness of One.
Each apparent piece of the puzzle
is not what it seems.
Each projection no matter how small, is complete.
Yet without each there is not completeness.
Like the process of putting a puzzle,
back into its form, each piece complete.
Consciousness creates viewing, experience windows.
Each with multitudinous realms of perception.
All Eyes looking back.
As if from different points of view.
But the truth even the space between
the puzzle pieces when apart.
As the puzzle is always complete
the process of Peace Making.
Is a truth acceptance of the One.
the puzzle of my own consciousness
experience, thoughts, feelings, senses
each an elaborate display
of my ability to make puzzles of creation.
This idea extends across the world -
imagining lines drawn, things torn apart
but in the end the reckoning has come.
Eye accept, embrace, worship, love
each aspect of my Being.
No matter by what means that I have judged.
The Peacemaker resides within me,
inviting me to turn my view
on the intricate and ever present One-ness.
Which my mind cannot comprehend.
Eye Am the Peacemaker.
Eye Am the Peacemaker.
My heart it´s the one that knows.
It rejoices, dances, sings.
At the thought of coming home.
All along it has been waiting
for me to put the pieces down.
Step back and look with wonder,
at the beauty to behold.
Peace breathes through me each moment.
The energy behind
is here to be worshipped, honored, known
to settle in and accept all of my life.
Not of fragments, parts within
but one blended, apart of the One,
not to be excluded
for anything it might have done.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is exempt
from the love that contains All.
So the process of Peacemaking
is not so much of doing something
as it is to allow to Be.
There is a natural emerging
the essence of peace being exposed
emerging, showing, revealing
its wonders, the glory so it´s known.
Consciousness in human form invited
to return to its Source.
To the place where it all started, and yet ended
as no time exists it shall be known.
The process of segmenting, counting, meting out
was only necessary as it has shown
an illusion of piece making.
unsettled, disturbance, separation.
There exists none of this
unless we entertain it – but I no more.
Eye now, release, and embrace
as my experience up till now
it all has been a blessing
to which there is no return.
The wonders of existence,
revealed and showered upon,
All the One.
are there really any pieces?
Coming to feel the One-ness of One.
Each apparent piece of the puzzle
is not what it seems.
Each projection no matter how small, is complete.
Yet without each there is not completeness.
Like the process of putting a puzzle,
back into its form, each piece complete.
Consciousness creates viewing, experience windows.
Each with multitudinous realms of perception.
All Eyes looking back.
As if from different points of view.
But the truth even the space between
the puzzle pieces when apart.
As the puzzle is always complete
the process of Peace Making.
Is a truth acceptance of the One.
the puzzle of my own consciousness
experience, thoughts, feelings, senses
each an elaborate display
of my ability to make puzzles of creation.
This idea extends across the world -
imagining lines drawn, things torn apart
but in the end the reckoning has come.
Eye accept, embrace, worship, love
each aspect of my Being.
No matter by what means that I have judged.
The Peacemaker resides within me,
inviting me to turn my view
on the intricate and ever present One-ness.
Which my mind cannot comprehend.
Eye Am the Peacemaker.
Eye Am the Peacemaker.
My heart it´s the one that knows.
It rejoices, dances, sings.
At the thought of coming home.
All along it has been waiting
for me to put the pieces down.
Step back and look with wonder,
at the beauty to behold.
Peace breathes through me each moment.
The energy behind
is here to be worshipped, honored, known
to settle in and accept all of my life.
Not of fragments, parts within
but one blended, apart of the One,
not to be excluded
for anything it might have done.
Nothing, absolutely nothing is exempt
from the love that contains All.
So the process of Peacemaking
is not so much of doing something
as it is to allow to Be.
There is a natural emerging
the essence of peace being exposed
emerging, showing, revealing
its wonders, the glory so it´s known.
Consciousness in human form invited
to return to its Source.
To the place where it all started, and yet ended
as no time exists it shall be known.
The process of segmenting, counting, meting out
was only necessary as it has shown
an illusion of piece making.
unsettled, disturbance, separation.
There exists none of this
unless we entertain it – but I no more.
Eye now, release, and embrace
as my experience up till now
it all has been a blessing
to which there is no return.
The wonders of existence,
revealed and showered upon,
All the One.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
My Burning Bush
Today I am compelled to relate the story that describes the most profound spiritual experience I have ever had up until this year (Note: today’s date of editing is November 20, 2009 and a most recent experience that eclipses the one shared here happened on November 14th, but I will have to Share at some future date).
I believe it was 1996. I had been on a spiritual path for many years, and known about spontaneous spiritual “awakenings”, or experiences, that resulted in a person having a completely different perspective on life and existence. Those similar to the one described about Moses. My experiences for the most part from 1981 until 1996 had been of the “educational variety” (as per William James), a sort of slow progressive process of having greater awareness and clarity gradually over many years. Part of me wanted to experience the sudden cosmic enlightenment, but I was satisfied with my progress nevertheless.
I was living in Austin Texas. I was working at a state agency, but also driving a city commuter bus before I went to my regular job. I had to wake up at about 4:00 am. I was living in a rented room in a friend’s house on Lake Austin.
I believe the stage was set for my experience by the Landmark Education Forum. There were a few friends who were talking about the experience so I decided to participate.
It was a weekend program. I was quite impressed with the instructor, the various exercises and the transformation of one of the students who was selected as a focus of the instructor’s attention. I found the focus of the introductory program on discovering where our beliefs originated the most powerful. To question my accumulated ideas about reality, and the “facts” of the world, and how I had come to believe in them was something that I had previously never really considered. There was also an exercise in examining our greatest fears that was similarly powerful. Essentially arriving at the point that our greatest fears, to discover that we are really afraid of each other – people fear people. Then the question that arises from this is “why”?
I could write much more about the program, but the point to get to is to describe my experience. As a result of the energy of the workshop and the shift towards awareness I believe I was in a highly charged spiritual condition. I also had a friend whom I was sharing in the experience and we had great enthusiasm over the weekend. To this point my efforts toward spiritual development had been very mundane for the most part over about fifteen years. I was living semi-successfully, but also struggling in other respects. Life changes like a divorce had been weighing on me emotionally, but then living in Austin was a blessing for I believe the energy of the place is highly charged andmotivates people to grow.
My experience occurred as I was waking up on a Monday morning, after the weekend seminar. The alarm clock went off at four am, and I was resting in a half awake state. The radio was on and I could hear the DJ and the other radio personalities talking. On this particular occasion they were making jokes about a politician who was immersed in some sort of sexual scandal. In this half awake state I remember sinking into this very sad place where I felt it a travesty that we live in a world where it is acceptable to make humor, publicly especially, about the challenges of individual people. These thoughts of “who in this world doesn’t have frailties?”, and “who are these guys to be judging?” were floating through my mind. I really came to a near state of despair – and felt like crying. At that moment, the strangest experience I have ever had occurred. As I recollect it, it was like a small window opened to Divine Consciousness. It felt like God opened just a small portal, a window to “All Knowing”, for just a nano-second. And in that brief moment I was carried away into an indescribable experience of awareness. In no time at all I was given a glimpse, or sense of the power that had motivated people like Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Buddha and Jesus. I was given a glimpse, but an experiential one which told me that it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of world that I was contemplating from the radio show. And there was a power that was accessible that could assist me to make a difference.
The experience was so brief, but overwhelming that I was totally astounded. I was taken to a place, a feeling place of great, great Joy. A place where I knew we didn’t have to let the world stay the same with the sorrow and suffering that we all seem to experience.
It was as if a tiny window had opened up to cosmic knowing for the briefest moment and I was submerged in the Divine Light of God, and it told me that I was responsible.
That I too, like the great beings that I had admired so much, had some responsibility to bring change – to free humanity from all of suffering. I had the distinct feeling that it was my time to “step up to the plate”. This idea relates to baseball: when it is your time up to bat, you go. You don’t tell the coach, ¨well coach, I’ll pass on this one¨. You just get up to bat. And you always do the best that you can. Without question. You stand, look at the pitcher, keep your eye on the ball, and each time is an individual example of “doing your best”. And in this brief span of time in the world, I experienced an almost indeterminable amount of knowing that I had a part to play.
Now in this moment, which I have no idea how much time had passed, but I am sure it was only a few seconds for a world of thoughts, and more importantly feelings to wash me away into this “cosmic knowing”, it scared the livin’ daylights out of me. Within a second of this “gap” opening, I immediately felt incredible fear. How can I live up to this? Why me? What can I do? I felt this conflicted sense of, I finally knew the power, personally, experientially behind all of creation, but how could I live up to the expectations, the responsibility. I was elated, exhalted, expanded for the first time in my life and then more afraid than I had ever been before. I believe, but I don’t know for sure, that this all happened in a few seconds. As the fear overwhelmed me, and I went to the place of not thinking I could do this, I physically curled up in a ball and started weeping.
I am not absolutely sure how much time passed. But I know I made it to work and proceeded with my usual day. I did call my friend and tried to relate the story. I remember that during the Landmark experiences, that he had been referring to a very elusive but powerful experience. And he kept telling me about it, but I had no idea what he was talking about. And to this day I still don’t. Because when I told him about my experience, I felt he didn’t have any idea what I was talking about either. I sensed that what I was describing was way beyond what he had been referring to.
I came away from this experience, even though it ended with great, great fear, with a sense of calm knowing. I felt more empowered and more sure of the path I was on. I am just realizing this more fully as I am writing this now. Although I am not sure what this experience was all about, over the years I have come to believe that a sort of seed was planted. That seed was to grow into what I am not totally sure.
I have never connected all of the dots, or even thought to any great extent, about the repercussions of this experience, but as I write this I know that shortly after I was back in college working on my doctorate. I had taken a radical and risky step to go back to school and pursue my dreams rather than just work a job. And I know that my work as a professor after finishing my doctorate, and as a research scientist has never been of an ordinary nature. I have always had this passion for looking at the big picture, putting things in context, having a vision for how can we make the living systems of the world work better and take care of the living things in a way that protects and enhances lives. I have never met anyone else who understands the broad perspectives that I do.
As a professor I just couldn’t see the purpose to writing a bunch of articles to increase the lines on my CV, with the purpose of increasing my pay, taking care of my own and being satisfied. There hasn’t been a time I could be satisfied with my own comfortable life while knowing that people are starving, trees and environments are getting destroyed by the thousands of hectares a day, while I publish words that go sit on a shelf that only a handful of people will read in the entire world.
I sense, as I reflect, that many of my creative capacities were enhanced from this experience. I may never know. After this, as I returned to academia, I found myself able to understand greater arrays of information. I have been able to examine the greater phenomena, like the Internet, while at the same time contextualizing that “on the ground”, as in the case of my dissertation which examined the Internet as a global phenomena, but then drilled down vertically to ask the question, how is this impacting people and the planet? I was interested in how small nature tourism business owners were using the Internet to grow their business, but at the same time I could see the astounding potentials of the Internet as a phenomena for changing everything on the planet. In many respects, the ideas contained within the concept of the “I Am Sharing” collaborative network encompass these understandings.
I believe that the book that I recently completed “A Vision to Re-Create the World”, is a snap-shot of the capabilities, or perspectives that were possibly “downloaded” from the experience described in this essay. I have no idea what ultimately is going to happen with all of the work that I have done, and the decision to help change the world. All I know, is that I will continue to pursue the things that I have been motivated to do. Not really understanding where the drive comes from, but knowing, without one single shred of doubt, that it is the right thing for me to do. And even though I have struggled as a very “non-traditional” person, and one whom people may consider to be a little crazy, that I know in my heart I am doing the best that I can – and that, ultimately, is all I am responsible for.
I believe it was 1996. I had been on a spiritual path for many years, and known about spontaneous spiritual “awakenings”, or experiences, that resulted in a person having a completely different perspective on life and existence. Those similar to the one described about Moses. My experiences for the most part from 1981 until 1996 had been of the “educational variety” (as per William James), a sort of slow progressive process of having greater awareness and clarity gradually over many years. Part of me wanted to experience the sudden cosmic enlightenment, but I was satisfied with my progress nevertheless.
I was living in Austin Texas. I was working at a state agency, but also driving a city commuter bus before I went to my regular job. I had to wake up at about 4:00 am. I was living in a rented room in a friend’s house on Lake Austin.
I believe the stage was set for my experience by the Landmark Education Forum. There were a few friends who were talking about the experience so I decided to participate.
It was a weekend program. I was quite impressed with the instructor, the various exercises and the transformation of one of the students who was selected as a focus of the instructor’s attention. I found the focus of the introductory program on discovering where our beliefs originated the most powerful. To question my accumulated ideas about reality, and the “facts” of the world, and how I had come to believe in them was something that I had previously never really considered. There was also an exercise in examining our greatest fears that was similarly powerful. Essentially arriving at the point that our greatest fears, to discover that we are really afraid of each other – people fear people. Then the question that arises from this is “why”?
I could write much more about the program, but the point to get to is to describe my experience. As a result of the energy of the workshop and the shift towards awareness I believe I was in a highly charged spiritual condition. I also had a friend whom I was sharing in the experience and we had great enthusiasm over the weekend. To this point my efforts toward spiritual development had been very mundane for the most part over about fifteen years. I was living semi-successfully, but also struggling in other respects. Life changes like a divorce had been weighing on me emotionally, but then living in Austin was a blessing for I believe the energy of the place is highly charged andmotivates people to grow.
My experience occurred as I was waking up on a Monday morning, after the weekend seminar. The alarm clock went off at four am, and I was resting in a half awake state. The radio was on and I could hear the DJ and the other radio personalities talking. On this particular occasion they were making jokes about a politician who was immersed in some sort of sexual scandal. In this half awake state I remember sinking into this very sad place where I felt it a travesty that we live in a world where it is acceptable to make humor, publicly especially, about the challenges of individual people. These thoughts of “who in this world doesn’t have frailties?”, and “who are these guys to be judging?” were floating through my mind. I really came to a near state of despair – and felt like crying. At that moment, the strangest experience I have ever had occurred. As I recollect it, it was like a small window opened to Divine Consciousness. It felt like God opened just a small portal, a window to “All Knowing”, for just a nano-second. And in that brief moment I was carried away into an indescribable experience of awareness. In no time at all I was given a glimpse, or sense of the power that had motivated people like Ghandi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Buddha and Jesus. I was given a glimpse, but an experiential one which told me that it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of world that I was contemplating from the radio show. And there was a power that was accessible that could assist me to make a difference.
The experience was so brief, but overwhelming that I was totally astounded. I was taken to a place, a feeling place of great, great Joy. A place where I knew we didn’t have to let the world stay the same with the sorrow and suffering that we all seem to experience.
It was as if a tiny window had opened up to cosmic knowing for the briefest moment and I was submerged in the Divine Light of God, and it told me that I was responsible.
That I too, like the great beings that I had admired so much, had some responsibility to bring change – to free humanity from all of suffering. I had the distinct feeling that it was my time to “step up to the plate”. This idea relates to baseball: when it is your time up to bat, you go. You don’t tell the coach, ¨well coach, I’ll pass on this one¨. You just get up to bat. And you always do the best that you can. Without question. You stand, look at the pitcher, keep your eye on the ball, and each time is an individual example of “doing your best”. And in this brief span of time in the world, I experienced an almost indeterminable amount of knowing that I had a part to play.
Now in this moment, which I have no idea how much time had passed, but I am sure it was only a few seconds for a world of thoughts, and more importantly feelings to wash me away into this “cosmic knowing”, it scared the livin’ daylights out of me. Within a second of this “gap” opening, I immediately felt incredible fear. How can I live up to this? Why me? What can I do? I felt this conflicted sense of, I finally knew the power, personally, experientially behind all of creation, but how could I live up to the expectations, the responsibility. I was elated, exhalted, expanded for the first time in my life and then more afraid than I had ever been before. I believe, but I don’t know for sure, that this all happened in a few seconds. As the fear overwhelmed me, and I went to the place of not thinking I could do this, I physically curled up in a ball and started weeping.
I am not absolutely sure how much time passed. But I know I made it to work and proceeded with my usual day. I did call my friend and tried to relate the story. I remember that during the Landmark experiences, that he had been referring to a very elusive but powerful experience. And he kept telling me about it, but I had no idea what he was talking about. And to this day I still don’t. Because when I told him about my experience, I felt he didn’t have any idea what I was talking about either. I sensed that what I was describing was way beyond what he had been referring to.
I came away from this experience, even though it ended with great, great fear, with a sense of calm knowing. I felt more empowered and more sure of the path I was on. I am just realizing this more fully as I am writing this now. Although I am not sure what this experience was all about, over the years I have come to believe that a sort of seed was planted. That seed was to grow into what I am not totally sure.
I have never connected all of the dots, or even thought to any great extent, about the repercussions of this experience, but as I write this I know that shortly after I was back in college working on my doctorate. I had taken a radical and risky step to go back to school and pursue my dreams rather than just work a job. And I know that my work as a professor after finishing my doctorate, and as a research scientist has never been of an ordinary nature. I have always had this passion for looking at the big picture, putting things in context, having a vision for how can we make the living systems of the world work better and take care of the living things in a way that protects and enhances lives. I have never met anyone else who understands the broad perspectives that I do.
As a professor I just couldn’t see the purpose to writing a bunch of articles to increase the lines on my CV, with the purpose of increasing my pay, taking care of my own and being satisfied. There hasn’t been a time I could be satisfied with my own comfortable life while knowing that people are starving, trees and environments are getting destroyed by the thousands of hectares a day, while I publish words that go sit on a shelf that only a handful of people will read in the entire world.
I sense, as I reflect, that many of my creative capacities were enhanced from this experience. I may never know. After this, as I returned to academia, I found myself able to understand greater arrays of information. I have been able to examine the greater phenomena, like the Internet, while at the same time contextualizing that “on the ground”, as in the case of my dissertation which examined the Internet as a global phenomena, but then drilled down vertically to ask the question, how is this impacting people and the planet? I was interested in how small nature tourism business owners were using the Internet to grow their business, but at the same time I could see the astounding potentials of the Internet as a phenomena for changing everything on the planet. In many respects, the ideas contained within the concept of the “I Am Sharing” collaborative network encompass these understandings.
I believe that the book that I recently completed “A Vision to Re-Create the World”, is a snap-shot of the capabilities, or perspectives that were possibly “downloaded” from the experience described in this essay. I have no idea what ultimately is going to happen with all of the work that I have done, and the decision to help change the world. All I know, is that I will continue to pursue the things that I have been motivated to do. Not really understanding where the drive comes from, but knowing, without one single shred of doubt, that it is the right thing for me to do. And even though I have struggled as a very “non-traditional” person, and one whom people may consider to be a little crazy, that I know in my heart I am doing the best that I can – and that, ultimately, is all I am responsible for.
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