"9 Principles" for the Occupation: Carne Ross' "The Leaderless Revolution"

Bill Moyers became disillusioned with government and quit to become one of the very few major-media journalists with a real conscience. He's always been a hero of mine; a true gift to followers of reason. His interviews with Joseph Campbell changed my life – and a lot of other peoples' too, I know, since consciousness-expanding ideas had really never made it to primetime until then.

On his excellent new PBS show, Moyers & Company, he recently interviewed the author and activist, Carne Ross, who's disillusionment with his role in misrepresenting the Iraq war run-up caused him to quit the British government, and take up more enlightened causes too. Though I have yet to read his new book, The Leaderless Revolution (Blue Rider Press), my interest was piqued by the "9 Principles of Action" they discussed during the interview.

I believe the best principles guiding the overall conduct of a movement or organization should apply to each individual on a personal level, so I'd like to explore his nine thought-provoking suggestions from that angle:

1: "Excavate Your Convictions"

I think this opener has it's foundation in two classic quotes: "A life unexamined is not worth living," Socrates, which in this case could be restated: "A motive unexamined is not worth pursuing;" and "When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you; if you do not then that will destroy you," Gospel of Thomas 70, which asks, "is this a cause that truly inspires the need in me to take action – not just an axe to grind or an ego-point to prove, but a pure conviction that I can't ignore without compromising my integrity?"

2: "Who's Got the Money, Who's Got the Gun?"

It's always helpful to surrender into the parts of my life that I'm powerless over, which are many...the Universe is pretty big, after all. Call it karma, which translates as action, so when I know I can take positive action for myself and those I care about, first I need to identify the true source of the problem with objective, nonjudgmental focus; or as I like to say: Grab the bull by the tail and face the situation, or (see #1): Find the source, and find relief. Where, within my [collective] self, does the problem actually come from?

3: "Act As If the Means Are the End"

This rephrasing of The Mahatma's "Be the change you wish to see in the world," works so well on a personal level because regardless of how impossible it seems for one person to change the world, each of our personal worlds changes profoundly when we carry honesty, compassion, and willingness faithfully and proactively into each day. I know everyday becomes a "new world" for me when I try to do that...and Gandhi was one man who did change the world. I also need to know that unified consciousness occurs within each individual (within me), or it simply doesn't occur.

4: "Ask, Don't Assume"

Many of the worst things I've ever done in my life, I gave a great deal of thought to first. I was sure that I was right about what I was doing, but then I hadn't asked everyone else that it affected. I can't presume that I know what's best for others if I'm not communicating with them directly and honestly. When I talk to everyone else involved, we can connect in those places we have in common – which is where we find all the most important stuff, after all.

5: "Addressing Those Suffering the Most"

This is a no-brainer for spiritual evolution, isn't it? No brain, all heart. How do I deal with the "least" of us, who are in fact the most of us. How do I connect to the world with my heart? Bringing my inner compassion to my outer actions is doubtless my most direct path. Though everyone has their own karma to work out, we are all the same thing really, and all of us have a birthright to share in the world's joyful abundance, not just the Rockefellers. The Gospel of Thomas 22 says (in part): "...when you make the inner like the outer, and the high like the low...then you will enter into The Kingdom."

6: "Everyone Gets to Decide"

What's the point of democracy, if not inclusion? I deserve to have my voice heard, registered, and valued, as does everyone from "top" to "bottom." A chain is strongest when all it's links have their own personal integrity intact. Technology miraculously permits this in a way never before imagined; and when I share compassionate consciousness with the whole body of humanity this way, my choices become balanced and I align with Life the way Life really wants me to – appropriately sized and equally acknowledged.

7: "Big Picture, Small Deeds"

I grow along my spiritual path by being present in this Eternal Moment, in which I'm always actually living; so "thinking from the end" in this moment is a great approach, but then taking on a huge problem all at once can cause a kind of paralysis to set in. The trick I find (and what Mr. Ross suggests here) is simply: To occupy this moment; doing just the next right thing right now – taking that next small step along the path to my destination. It's the easiest way, and often I find that when I look up, I'm already where I wanted to be (see #3), with time left to go even a little bit farther.

8: "Use Non-Violence"

There is simply no power on earth with half the heft of open-hearted acceptance and compassion. At their core, everyone really knows that there is nothing to get angry and violent about – only things that you can't accept. That innate understanding powers what The Mahatma called ahimsa, the irrefutable, overwhelming energy of simply, civilly doing what's right. Mr. Ross credits him, and points out that every evolutional advance including Suffrage, Civil Rights, and now The Occupy Movement, has had great success using this strategy of Love. We simply never fight back – that way.

I've experienced standing my ground with an open-heart in the face of an aggressor, and miraculously had the aggressor apologize to me minutes later – once, the fellow even broke down in tears while apologizing, and I hadn't done anything except smile and say it's okay... On the other hand, I was once beaten "to death" by skinheads when (because) I punched one of them back. That, as it turned out, was okay too, but it's the painful opposite lesson best avoided...

9: "Kill the King"

Being part of the thin layer of life on this planet, I am a part of everyone and everything, and so at my Ego's worst, I am the King; while at my humblest I am every commoner, and find my true power there. "Water finds it's power by seeking it's lowest point" (...which is a zen thing, I think). This one fits too:

"Fortunate is the lion eaten by a human, for lion becomes human. Unfortunate is the human eaten by a lion, for human becomes lion." The Gospel of Thomas 7

I'm not really special. I'm just like you or anyone else here, trying my best to learn what I need to learn and simply live well, or to live well simply. It's only the damaged part of me that insists that I'm entitled to live in self-indulgence; after all when we use our healthiest eyes to see, the emperor is quite completely naked. I have to lovingly point out to my "Entitled Ego" that most altruistic invention of my Inner Revolution – the guillotine, because it's certain that I have to change that one percent of myself...or else. Sometimes, I just need to take my head off, and allow my guiding voice to come from my heart.

Thank you Mr. Ross, for your thoughtful suggestions – your book looks like an excellent addition.

Check out Bill Moyers interview with Carne Ross:

"How To Survive Life (and Death)," is available from Conari Press, or at all major booksellers––but ask for it from your local bookshop.

Tales: The Real Rapture

"...our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world...as in being able to remake ourselves."

Mahatma Gandhi

We're a little like moss on a rock here on earth -a simple colony of life. In the same way that any collective life form experiences stress when the conditions for it's survival begin to change, our world is experiencing some stress. For all of us, as well as each of us, there's a need to adapt.

There's a flaw in our culture's perception of Darwinism. It's not about "Survival of the Fittest." It's about "Survival of What Adapts in the Most Cooperative Way" (see Dr. Bruce Lipton). What carries us through the tough times, with Love. It's an altogether different definition of fitness. It's a spiritual fitness.

The biggest, meanest guy may clobber everyone who disagrees with him, take all the food, and force himself on the prettiest women; but his karma (created by ego and fear) and the failure to evolve spiritually, will cause his destruction (sex specificity intended) – a genetic dead end. The richest guy may have the most secure, most isolated fortress, the largest vault of canned food, and the most guns and ammo; but his isolation and fearfulness will lead to spiritual atrophy, and the inward collapse of his world. Those attributes and characteristics that are associated with Power are dying out, as those associated with Ethics are on the rise. Life on earth is always adapting; the parts that don't, don't last.

Hard times stress the colony, challenging it, forcing it to change; and now we see the shape that change is taking. It's like breaking up bad pottery, and soaking it until it softens and becomes the clay that forms the basis of real life, in order to start over. People are coming together to re-configure their world on that basis – what's actually real and important in life; inspired by a sudden common awareness of what the management of Earth's abundance actually entails, and what the real consequences of continued unconscious exploitation will lead to.

A new cooperation – an evolution –  is exploding into reality, based on the spiritual unification of humankind, facilitated by the internet, manifested in an expanding sense of a global community, called to action by the impending catastrophe of climate change. The explosion in clean energy, expanding cooperatives, reuse and recycling, uncontested environmentalism; the elections of Obama, of women, of representatives of diverse religion and ethnic backgrounds; and the impetus for universal health care, local food production, the accelerating growth of animal rights awareness, vegan and vegetarianism, social support systems of all kinds – as well as the public momentum to institute these ethical concepts by means of regulation and legislation (a result of the rise of destructive fascism in the world), is the shape of the change.

Extremists and fundamentalists – religious, financial, racist and militaristic fascists – are dividing themselves off from the majority of peace-loving, compassionate humans, and defining their differences in preparation to be shed from the whole. They actually constitute just a small part of the world's total population. The rise of climate-denying, pro-corporate, racism and fascism actually marks the end of their world. It will be a little messy, but it's happening.

 Do everything you can to help it along. If you open your heart, you'll intuitively know what that is. You'll know how to behave, how to shop, how to contribute, how to vote. You already do.

In a manner of speaking, a kind of biblical "Rapture" is actually taking place now amongst those who are awakening to this new consciousness, many of whom are experiencing hard times, and finding themselves and their neighbors falling through the same cracks in the system that allow spiritual evolution to enter. These are fractures in the false world of materialistic consumerism, and a dis-identification with a media that's destructive by corporate design. The Christ Spirit that's returning isn't the bearded redhead in the paintings, it's the spirit of Ethics, Cooperation, Compassion, and Love.

Those who want it all, who think they have it all, who are trying to get as much as they can, and will do anything not to lose it; who want to keep things like they are, who suffer the delusion of their superiority and entitlement, who think they can will the truth to be what they want, are fast being "Left Behind" in their spiritual morass – a private hell of their own making. They won't remain here suffering while the blessed ascend to Heaven, they'll simply become redundant. Their hateful opinions will hold no sway. Their methods of fear-mongering will become ineffective. 

 Your biggest job may be to help those backsliders you know and care for catch up to the change – by generously applying Love and compassion.

Heaven will return on Earth as we stop poisoning it (because we must), restore natural balance, use free energy, distribute the earth's resources equitably, and evolve into our divine state of spiritual unification. The balance is returning as it must, and if you're part of that change, you needn't worry about the hard times. What truly matters is what each and every one of us keeps in their heart, just be sure it's Love.

"Our present world is conditioned by our present mode of consciousness; only when that consciousness passes from its present dualistic mode...will the new creation appear, which is the external reality of which our world is a mirror."

Bede Griffiths

Read about this and much more in the latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor, from Llewellyn Worldwide; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond. Both are available everywhere – but ask for them at your local bookstore!

Well Well, Another Metaphor...

"Don't they know who I think I am?"

Koko

A group of people stand looking down into a dry well. They complain about their thirst, about their withering gardens. One man, driven by desperation, at last steps up and climbs down into the well. He begins to dig, at first resenting the work, but then finding an easy rhythm and satisfaction in the effort, until finally he removes that last obstructing bucket of dirt, and breaks through to the great aquafer that flows underneath and through everything. That infuses and enlivens everything. The well begins to fill again with cool water, and bending over, still digging to assure the steady flow of this renewed life, he sees his own reflection in the source. He is this. What he thought he was, who he thought he was is only a reflection of this source.

And when he climbs back out of the well and meets with the various responses of the others-- the heartfelt thanks, the casual acknowledgements, the proud dismissals; he carries with him that source reflection, only vertically now, so that wherever he goes he's looking into that. He sees his own reflection in the the faces of everyone that speaks to him. Their eyes are his eyes. Their fears and foibles and joys and realizations are his own.

"Thou art That"

Chandogya Upanishad, 6.12-14

So our very own form can provide us with the entry to that new, relaxed, and naturally productive way of seeing the world. Infused and enlivened by that flow. We are all the same thing. We all think the same thoughts and feel the same feelings. And where we used to entertain those cruelties that defined us – the harsh comparisons, snap judgments and righteous justifications, there now lives an easy sense of compassion – the door to source. This sweet and sustaining flow of source that is available to everyone is absolutely free, and totally liberating. It just takes a bit of humility, of "digging" – the honest self-examination that allows us to truly see ourselves. To learn who we really are meant to be, as opposed to who we think we're supposed to be; how did those psychic obstructions to source and purpose get put in place, and how do we remove them?

The most critical facillitating aspect behind discovering this freedom, the metaphor of "going down into the well" (in the prophet Yeshua's story), is finding your inner place of silence where you can gain the calm perspective on who you really are. Your own personal well, where the deepest obstructions between you and your source are hidden.

"In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness."

Mahatma Gandhi

By finding the silence within ourselves, we can individually defuse the demanding inner voice that provides life's running commentary, and then perhaps we can collectively turn off the delusional egoic "reality" that drives our species in ruinous directions. By becoming aware of it, we can strip away the obsessive "story of our life, our country, our people," etc. -the delusional view of life that the Hindu call maya. Christians misinterpret it as sin (in the original greek of the canons: amartia, meaning "to miss the mark"). Buddhists call it selfish craving.

That silence resides in The Tao, The Brahman, The Kingdom of Heaven, in Emptiness, in Source Energy; and in us - within and without us. In that silence, in the absence of anything personal, that power lives. Then we find it's all personal. And we are all that person.

"The Kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you."

Logion 3, The Gospel of Thomas

The book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is now available everywhere, but ask for it it at your local bookstore!