Here's That Christmas Pig You Asked For!

Merry Merry! from the airbrushed Paper Moon days...these days though, we keep it vegetarian!

Tales: Too Much, Not Enough?

We are all subject to the increasing speed with which "material consciousness" floods into our life plane. It can be confusing, disorienting. How can anyone expect to know so much new information so quickly? Depending upon the media that creates this flood for guidance in the face of it all is like asking for a drink of water from a tsunami. The intent is to submerge you, to convince you that all this buffeting you is your connection to life; and that you are not keeping up with the pace required to stay afloat on this sea of information and access to material success. You are supposed to feel like you've fallen behind. That way, you'll have to buy stuff to catch up. More technology. The latest fashion. Political propaganda. Controlling the media message is an occult art - and there are some very effective artists around these days...

Of course it's probably true that this week there are a couple new programs on the market that have rendered your expertise obsolete. There are always people younger than you somewhere out there, hungry for your job, who know these new programs already. That's possibly all true. But would it surprise you to know that life in our Western Culture has always felt this way? (It's starting to feel like that in The East too- our gift to the world)

Merchants in ancient Rome suffered from increased "global" competition. At the time of the Industrial Revolution, thousands and thousands of craftsmen and laborers lost their life's work. So how does that knowledge help you in the face of impending disaster? Here the simple, positive, life-affirming solution; the strategy for dealing with this onslaught:

Stop paying attention to it! Put away your checkbook! It's only a disaster in the path of that tidal wave of "material consciousness." In the surrounding, underlying, enfolding, energizing sea of "Spiritual Consciousness" that all Life exists in, it's only Change - the most predictable, and inevitable part of Life. If you simply just switch the consciousness that you live in, from "Material" to "Spiritual," then you will immediately become aware that good things come with Change. Just turn off the TV and talk radio, close up the online news site, focus on yourself for a moment, and feel Life surging through you. Experience the joy of Love that provides a real energizing direction in your life any time you choose to pay attention to it! Don't worry about not knowing all the latest programs, and your intuitive spiritual intelligence will direct you to whatever you need to get by with ease. Gracefully. It's a completely different type of success than having a lot of apps on your I-Pad, or a job working for a soulless corporation. More profound. More lasting.

But could it really be that easy? Of course not - it requires a sort of vigilance. You have to live by the highest principles you can possibly muster. You have to try your best not to do anything you know to be wrong in your heart. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a little hard work at times, but the payoff is huge.

Aim high. Show up. Be kind. Be generous with your time and resources. Help others. Everything will begin to work in your Life in a way that "keeping up with the I-Joneses" could never allow. You'll find your real connection and purpose. And once you're living that way, you won't have to be trying to get somewhere else. You can "make the road home be home."

Check out this wonderful little talk about why we need to believe in each other by Viktor Frankl, the author of "Man's Search for Meaning." When you aim high, you have to take into account the speed of the wind, and the rotation of the Earth, but even if you're a little off, you'll land much closer to where you want to be.

"Why do you wash the outside of the cup?

Do you not understand that

the one who made the outside

also made the inside?"

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 89

"Clay is molded to form a cup

yet only the space within

allows the cup to hold water."

The Tao te Ching, 11

"Toto Mes Heroes"

I recently found this illo promo from '94 picturing all my heroes. I have a lot more heroes now including women of course, but these are still good. Notice no Yeshua, Buddha, Lao Tzu... Back then, you couldn't find a picture of Heinz Edelmann...I've added one in memorium. Click on the key below for legibility.

Tales: A Look at Looking

Let's start by looking at a bunch of quotes...

The great Tao flows everywhere

It fills everything to the left

and to the right

All things owe their existence to it

and it cannot deny any one of them

Tao te Ching, 34

"I am the light that shines on everyone

I am the All.

The All came forth from me

and the All came into me.

Split the wood and I am there.

Turn over the stone,

and you will find me."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 77

"I am ever present to those who have realized me

in every creature. Seeing all life as my manifestation,

they are never separated from me. They worship me

in the hearts of all, and all their actions proceed from me.

Wherever they live, they abide in me."

The Bhagavad Gita, 6:30-31

"To God belongs the East and the West;

and wherever you turn,

there is the face of God."

The Qu'ran, Surah 2

Surfaces create a great many of this world's problems, with the suggestions that they are the most important and compelling part of life, being the most visible, and what we interact with the most; none of which is true. You can neither tell a book by it's cover, nor the content of a person's heart from the clothes they wear. It's impossible for our eyes to see into the whirring masses of sub-atomic particles all dancing inside our supposedly "solid" world. There is an exponential relationship of the outside to the inside of everything.

When we are confronted by surfaces: appearances, behaviors, "final results," we can't compare our insides to those outsides, but only what we don't know of the insides of each. By what we can identify with.

This occupation by spirit is as mysterious as it is miraculous, and it is the most important, the most evident, interactive, and compelling whether we can see past the surface or not. We can see that dance plainly, if we allow ourselves to. So pay as little attention to the surface as possible. Practice seeing the spirit arising as often as you can manage.

All of these quotes from all of these wisdom sources are saying the same thing, aren't they? We display our ignorance by relying on some visible affirmation, when we know that every surface changes, that the mystery within alone remains Eternal. And everything we witness with our minds, and our eyes, and our hearts is actually the proof of our shared composition, the substance of our source and ineffable connection. The "Face of God."

It's just a matter of perception. Of allowing yourself to look past the surface by looking with a vision that's free of judgment and comparison, and so fully engaged by compassion. Here, a couple more quotes, that say the same thing:

"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Albert Einstein

"The disciples asked him:

'When will the Kingdom come?'

Yeshua answered:

It will not come by watching for it...

The Kingdom...is spread out over the whole earth,

and people do not have eyes to see it."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 113