I have written about the necessity and difficulty of Change in all of my books and also in my Jan, 2009 blog, “The How of Change” in which I quoted from “Eco Harmony Dawn Cooking: Balancing your Internal & External Environments”, which I co-wrote with my wife, Nicola Lawrence:

“The urgent question for Humanity is not so much if we need a much higher level of compassion and cooperation, but how can we get to that level? Over his twenty-five years of teaching and even before that, Andy has pointed out that while it is a great impetus to have inspiring global leaders with integrity, compassion and vision - like Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and now perhaps, Barack Obama – it is also necessary for the average person to radically change. Each of us needs to transform her or his consciousness in order to recognize appropriate leadership and support it on an on-going basis, through seeming highs and lows. Without this continuing support, the end result of any Great Leader‘s work will be more of the same - one step forward and one step back; one step to the left and one step to the right. Meanwhile, our global, human crises will continue to escalate.
There are many specific reasons for the gap between our ideals and actions, but perhaps the deepest and most universal is that we feel ourselves to be separate from each other, from our natural environment, and from our Divine Oneness… or “God” to many. We struggle to bridge the gap. Such feelings of alienation have not been as prominent in all cultures and eras as they are in ours, wherein our current embrace of Science and Capitalism accentuates separation, fragmentation and competition, rather than integration and cooperation. In short, modern society tends to exaggerate the processes which break us into competitive parts, rather than uniting us into a Whole.

We are at an unique point in human history, wherein our practical, global challenges as well as our most profound, spiritual teachings, are calling us to the same place – to unite on a common, higher human ground.

To be able to step unto that higher ground, we must expand the dimensions and parameters of what it means to be “I” and our particular collective identity, “We”, whether that is defined by political ideology, nationality, race or religion. This expansion of the sense of self is essentially a matter of spiritual transformation and consciousness. It can only come about by something radically different taking place within ourselves, not just substituting one belief of the day for another”.

In blunt, crude terms we have to look into ourselves before we shoot off our mouths. 2500 years ago, The Buddha said, “We are the result of what we have thought” and that we ought to be “a refuge unto ourselves”. Jesus (in reference to a stoning of a prostitute) said, “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone”. The crazy thing is that conventional society does not ask us to look into ourselves and take responsibility... we have no parameters or measures for that... yet you would think that the most essential ingredient of a successful Democracy would be aware, discerning voters!
Be aware that many (not all) of our leaders want us to be uninformed and to unthinkingly react to temporary, deceiving “talking points” or “photo ops”! In that way, we become more manipulable even as we see ourselves as “tech savvy”. Many people want change but there is no specific target against which we can direct our frustrations and energies.. unless in a destructive way as in the recent G20 riots or as terrorists do. We have built a technologically evolved and complex society and we need a more evolved consciousness to deal with it.

For 26 years, I taught the exploration and integration of body, energy, emotion, mind and spirit. My 2003 book Ageless Wisdom Spirituality: Investing in Human Evolution (AWS) suggested Ageless/ Perennial Wisdom was necessary to meet humanity’s global challenges. As a member of the (trans-traditional spirituality) Forge, I helped create the Call to Global Spirituality Citizenship (www.globalspiritualcitizenship.org), hoping to bring such ideas into the popular arena.

Recent occurrences started me questioning Freedom of Thought and the interface between Private and Public. Rather than getting my opinions out, should I shut my mouth because Big Brother might actually be paying attention!? The first occurrence was that several well-established, traditional, shiatsu organizations in Ontario were suddenly banned from teaching (some heavily fined) because they were not registered/ qualified under the Private Career Colleges Act 2005. They were small with no organizational muscle or “credibility”. The second was a CNBC program on Google, which revealed that Google keeps the IP addresses of all searches, which are available to the US government under the Patriot Act! Within the last few days, the US Library of Congress announced it was keeping all Tweets for “posterity” and the Privacy Commissioners of 10 countries - Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and Britain - criticized Google for “negligence in protecting user privacy”. The USA was absent in this initiative.
What if a powerful body – political, corporate, governmental etc – decides I (or any law-abiding citizen) was not just insignificant, but a “threat”? Apart from all I have published or spoken in public, Facebook, Twitter and Google now provide loads of multi-media personal information. Is there a picture of me looking drunk or “high” or with nubile women? Telephone conversations and emails are easily intercepted; life style habits are exposed through bank accounts, debit and credit cards (your “credit rating”), and through GPS tracking of cars, cell phones etc. Such investigation is not restricted to black-garbed terrorists!!

If I was taken to court, could I financially withstand the army of lawyers Government or a large corporation would summon? Having lived and taught Oneness and Interconnection, “both-and” thinking, the existence of Qi or Prana life energy etc., could I “prove” the legitimacy of all this in an environment of “either-or” thinking and within which the definition of “reality” is rigid, simplistic, “quantifiable cause-and effect”? How could I prove “consciousness” much less argue there might be different levels of consciousness available to adult human beings? I would be ridiculed! Ironically, if we take a detached look at what “hard-headed reality” has created for us, the Ridiculous is not hard to find. 

If you think the above legal, nightmare scenario is far-fetched, research Monsanto’s many ruthless legal campaigns. This Vanity Fair article is one example: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805. Another is Monsanto’s persecution of Percy Schmeiser (www.percyschmeiser.com), a 79-year old farmer, around whose property Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) seeds were growing. Don’t seeds blow in the wind? Anyone seen the movie Erin Brockovich? How come no one wants GMO “Frankenfoods” and yet they constitute the majority of all we actually buy and take into our bodies? 

All this is not just conspiracy-theory paranoia, since it is verifiable. However, facts don’t necessarily impact us if we (including non-Americans) are indentified with a Belief, which in this case is mostly the American Dream. For some time, I have sensed a growing Disconnection in the USA (and in my own country, Canada) between Illusion and Reality.. and the inability to recognize innate quality. Chris Hedges’ explores this Disconnection in depth in his Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.
A few related thoughts and facts:

The last 60 years, corporate and technological power has exploded and transformed society in fundamental ways which are still not recognized by our populace or leaders. President Eisenhower warned about the rise of the “military-industrial complex” and its effect on government, while subsequent Presidents, especially Reagan and George W, openly and enthusiastically supported it. Corporations wield enormous power within society generally as well as in the depths of government and politics. Often they are “too big to fail”, even if they are blatantly corrupt. For many people, even the exploited poor, corporations are seen as synonymous with the “national well-being”. This is an unexamined and probably flawed assumption. Venerable corporations and institutions (including the Catholic Church) have collective egos as fallible and flawed as individual egos... except their impact on individuals is greatly magnified because of their sheer size and power!

A direct result of corporate monopoly has been the acceleration of the gap between rich and poor and the negative impact of “quality of life” issues, the consequences of which have been analyzed in detail in the book, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality makes Societies Stronger.

Blog space is ending. To end, I think we need a shift in the way we think and feel, which I feel can only come about because of a (spiritual) shift in consciousness. We need to recognize wisdom in individuals apart from celebrity/ marketing and how much money they have. How that can come about is a question which I hope will come into the popular arena. I have a few ideas!

February is generally regarded as the worst month in the Northern Hemisphere, since it is the middle of winter. However, here are some positives that we can celebrate:

1. The New Orleans Saints - popularly known as the “Aints” - beat the favourite Colts to win the Super Bowl! This is a feel-good story for the ages, not only because of the Saints’ 40 plus years’ history of ineptitude, but also because of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent betrayal by George W. Bush, who promised to rebuild the city and didn’t… he did very little in fact.
2. Another feel-good story I just read in the Toronto Star, Feb 6, 2010 concerns M.C. Metha. He is a 63-year old lawyer in India who has successfully battled big corporations for the last 26 years on a variety of environmental issues, including reducing pollution around iconic Indian sites like the Taj Mahal and the Ganges River. He has never earned more than Can $2,300 per annum, which is what corporate lawyers in India earn in a single consultation. Way to go, MC!
3. February is often the beginning of the new (lunar) year! A Chinese Astrology web sites states: “Hot passion meets cold steel with the arrival of the year of the Metal Tiger. This combined sign signifies both the energy to begin activity and the determination to follow it through to the end. Forget about last year’s slow plodding. Events set in motion now will pick up speed and continue until either the objective is attained or the whole endeavor crashes and burns”.
4. So what do we generally and especially in Canada, want to “set in motion”? Perhaps that our political leaders actually listen to the people (rather than shutting them down by shutting down Parliament)? That some leader comes up with a uniting and compassionate vision rather than a divisive and partisan one? That some leader actually tells us the Truth (rather than blocking access to it) and that we have the courage and intelligence to actually understand that… rather than narcissistically shouting, ”Give me what I want” regardless..? Think of a country, like Canada, as a family with a family budget. You only have so much money to spend. What are your priorities? There isn’t an open cheque book for individuals, countries or the planet! You can’t get something for nothing!
5. On a personal note, February has been great for me! We just opened our (Harmony Dawn retreat) season and our (new) clients were great! LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests) helps look after our natural environment and they were polite, sensitive and appreciative.. of our natural environment, but also of our food and hospitality. It’s a huge win-win situation! Also it’s been very sunny (albeit cold), which warms our off-grid house, pumps up our solar power, thaws the ice on our road and heats our house like a sauna… bring on the bathing suits and drinks with an umbrella!
aj

Looking back over the first decade of the new millennium, the event most people remember is 9/11 and the fall of the Twin Towers.  People were shocked and shaken; George W. Bush launched his “War on Terrorism” with which Obama is now saddled; time has slowly dulled the pain and shock.

What are the real consequences and lessons of 9/11?  Thomas Walkom recently wrote an article in the Toronto Star entitled, “Who won the decade? The Terrorists”.  He argues that the West has taken a leap backward because of our own fears and anxieties - civil liberties and social movements have been rolled back; torture has become acceptable; surveillance of citizens is increasingly more intrusive; the Liberals are divided and indecisive, fearing to be called soft or unpatriotic, and so are leaving the field more and more to the extreme Right.

Way back in 2004, I pointed out in my book, “Ageless Wisdom Spirituality: Investing in Human Evolution”, that the American invasion of Iraq was wrong-headed, largely trumped up by the Bush-Cheney administration (google:  project for the new American century) and doomed to failure.  Now in 2010, we know that many more Americans have died in Iraq than died in 9/11, not to mention tens of thousands more injured; Iraq and its population have been devastated and have become a recruiting ground for terrorists; the war has been a huge drain on the American Treasury; Afghanistan has been neglected and now festers, while Al-Qaeda has become stronger as a rallying point for extremists.  Al-Qaeda cannot be defeated by armies because it is an idea, which is spread and enabled by the internet.  Another terrorist attack in the USA will succeed sooner or later because all it takes is one person with relatively crude devices - or even just a computer.

In Ageless Wisdom Spirituality, I pointed out that our greatest strength is actually internal.  We need all our bravery, clarity, common sense and compassion to meet our collective global challenges: the health of the planet, the poverty gap (which I think is linked with terrorism) and the indiscriminate implementation of science and technology.   9/11 was a tragedy but the loss of life and property was relatively small considering what other countries around the world experience.  The terrorists are winning because they have plunged us into Fear and distracted us from our really important challenges.  Americans are living in the past.  They keep on spending more than they earn and borrowing the difference from China, which is now poised to challenge the USA both economically and military; they cling to Old Oil, while the more forward-looking countries are already positioning themselves to lead the next wave, which will be “greener” and based on more alternative energy solutions; they refuse to look outside of their own borders for new ideas and inspiration or even feedback.

And what of Canada? Since 9/11, Canadian leaders have voluntarily (or been pressured behind closed doors) fallen in line with American policies.  Under Harper’s minority government, this process has accelerated with Canada having fallen off the international stage and become not much more than a neglected, American state, toeing the Presidential line.  Harper is operating more like an American president (especially Bush) with the PMO’s office holding ever more “secrets”, controlling talking points and bullying anyone who opposes or contradicts it, including career diplomats like Richard Colvin. Probably the next big bi-lateral issue to surface (or be pushed through in secret) is one which I have mentioned before in my blogs: the idea of Canada being included in a North American defensive “perimeter”, which will be manned mostly by the American army.  Of course, in exchange for all this “security”, they will expect more control of our water and natural resources and whatever else they find useful.  If we are going to hand over our defence to the USA, why is our defence spending increasing?  The whole point of a stronger army is to deter bullies, including the Americans!

Apart from the obvious issues of the erosion of Canadian democracy and independence, does it make even strategic and economic sense to bind ourselves ever more tightly to the sinking American Empire?

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