Announcing: The Zen of Near Death ©2019

I'm pleased to announce the working title of my next book:

The Zen of Near Death

Afterlife Lessons for Transcending the Mess 

©2019 by Robert Kopecky
Watch for it in 202?

Is a Cultural "Anti-Christ" Bringing 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 beginning to experience the very real stress of climate change, species extinction, environmental degradation, income inequality, and the spread of unsustainable lifestyles based on exploiting the planet. For all of us – as well as for each of us – there's a need to adapt. The destruction driven by blind predatory capitalism leads to the weird conflations of "patriotism" and religion, self-defeating delusions we see in the ugly ironic examples of market-based "winners," and "christians" supporting diabolical perverts and criminals because they are leading us to "The End of Days."  

Much of this grows out of a serious flaw in our culture's perception of Darwinism, which is not about "Survival of the Fittest," but actually about Survival of What Adapts in the Most Cooperative Way. What is it that carries us through the tough times, with Love? 

It's an altogether different definition of fitness. It's a spiritual fitness, based in a spiritual context – answering our human problems with the recognition of simple, spiritual answers. It's about real, quality survival.

For example, 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 in a world of expanding consciousness, 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 shrinking world. Those attributes and characteristics that are associated with Power and domination are dying out, as those associated with Ethics and compassion are on the rise. Life on earth is always adapting – the parts that don't adapt, don't last on our biological time-table.

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 is leading 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 prevent change and "make things great again" – 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. But they won't remain here suffering while the blessed 80% 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 you know and care for, who've been compromised by fear-mongering, to 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 truest "Divine State" of spiritually unifying our global human family. 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: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

A Drop in a Day: How Ego Puts Us on The Little Spot

"We are created by our thoughts. We become what we think. Pain and suffering follow negative thoughts like the wheel follows the ox that pulls it." 

The Dhammapada, 1: 1

      It's crazy what a fussy thing it is to be a human being sometimes. Fussy, itsy-bitsy preoccupations can end up occupying an entire day, or week (or life). Small slip-ups can cascade into torrential hang-ups and unexpectedly put a lock on practically everything, even when it might all be based on nothing, really. Just look at the way we look at things, and wonder why we tend to see them in such an upside-down way…

      We're up, awake, and "fully-functioning" for what – about sixteen to eighteen hours a day? The other six or eight we're safely in dreamland. During the course of that sixteen hours of activity, everything usually goes fairly well. Usually. For the most part everything runs pretty smoothly, except for the occasional day when nothing at all seems to go right. (My wife often blames that on "Mercury going retrograde," which doesn't do anything for me, except to get me mad at Mercury–a very hot planet that I barely even know…) 

      Even then, the problems of a problem-filled day at most add up to just an hour or two of difficulties, if you're really keeping track of it. One-sixteenth of your waking day. Most of the time, the trouble spots we experience are actually very brief – singular sticky moments that pass quickly, but that for some reason we may hold on to and inflate well out of proportion. 

      It could be one cross look. One misplaced word, or phrase, or gesture. One tiny misunderstanding, or slip, or traffic cross-up, or failure to hear something right, and suddenly it's as if the world got knocked off it's axis. That minor flaw—possibly only two minutes in the whole of our otherwise smooth sixteen-hours—can  take us hostage, eat up all of our mental bandwidth, and demand ownership of the entire day. Just two minutes – out of the one-thousand-four hundred and forty-four in a day.

"The cleaner the tablecloth, the more obvious the spot." 

      …says my mentor Ray, pointing out that unnecessary obsession with the one itsy-bitsy thing that goes wrong, the one little thing that can throw our entire well-being out of whack. So what's really up with that?

      Part of the hardwiring we labor with as humans being human is our vestigial, eternally fearful Ego – the picky, judgmental part of our thinking that still likes to imagine some prehistoric predator is hiding behind every bush. Nothing is ever right for this fuss-bucket from our left brain, constantly pointing out the smallest flaws in an otherwise beautiful finish. Unless we recognize that aggravating inner voice as not being who we want to be, and consciously calling it out, it will happily take ownership of our day in two silly, uncomfortable minutes. 

      That's the simple mindfulness  required – to become aware of that fearful self-criticism (by default), and reject it! After all, who needs a scold when things are actually going quite well?

      The other thing we can do to defuse that out-of-proportion foible is to fix it immediately. Blot out the spot right away! Instantly apologize for the dumb thing you said. Spontaneously extend forgiveness to someone who seems to have slighted you. Brush off the inconsequential objection your fussy Ego wants to stick on your forehead, and... 

"FLIP YOUR SCRIPT!"

      Instead of letting one wrong minute own your day, take ownership of the fifteen hours and fifty-nine minutes you got right! Be empowered by the fact that you're doing very well, thank you, and you won't need any more help from the self-criticism department. The fact is—you're really on a roll when it comes to living well, and as long as you remember that kindness, honesty, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and service are everybody's friends, you can ignore that little spot on the tablecloth – who cares? It just means you had a nice lunch.

      In the bright light of Love, one little spot is nothing...really.

"We are created by our thoughts. We become what we think. Happiness attaches itself like an inseparable shadow to the positive thoughts that precede it." 

The Dhammapada, 1: 2

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Taking it Easy in the Isn't-Matter-World

The ocean pours through a jar, and you might say

It swims inside the fish!

This mystery gives peace to your longing,

and makes the road home

become home.

                                                   Rumi

Yep, sometimes it’s a challenge just to take it easy.  This world does assault us. This world makes a lot of demands on us. But then, which world is it that asks so much and gives so little, and which world is it that really gives us everything (and maybe even more, if we let it)?

Any major Buddhist will tell you that the world of material attachments is an illusion, composed of a constantly changing—constantly coming and going—surface “reality.” What we think we need often turns out to be not what we thought we needed at all, and it’s all because of what we’re thinking. It’s because we’re usually making things up.

So, okay, it’s not really real…but then it is real, isn’t it? It just isn’t always too reliable, and a lot of it doesn’t come when we want it, or stay as long as we’d like.

This world is a made-up world. It’s made up of outside appearances, of important occasions, of accelerating schedules, of stuff you have to have and stuff you have to do. But all of that stuff comes and goes, and often it’s just fine when you realize that you forgot all about it, until it was too late. Oops! I missed it!...and it doesn’t even matter that I did.

That’s the world we usually think really matters—the world of matter. That’s the world that’s so alluring, so demanding, so unforgiving. The “matter-world.” The world that you usually forget about (the one you take for granted) is the one that’s always there, but always sort of underneath everything. That’s the world where everything of real importance actually comes from. It’s the (often invisible) world that doesn’t change. 

It’s the Isn’t-Matter-World.

The Isn’t-Matter-World is the world of beautiful ideas that never go away, that stick with you until maybe you bring them into the material world, if you really want them there. It’s the world of Love, which is the deepest fundamental connection and motivation we have for everything of real value that arises in this life. It’s the world of miracles (like this miracle we’re all participating in, in every single instant).

The deep river water under the ice is the real, unchanging world of Love, of Art, of wonderful ideas and miraculous synchronicities—like meeting each other, or doing something really nice for someone else. It’s a world of elemental innocence, of compassionate connectedness, and of the awesome power of true humility that flows through everything of real value and beauty.

Skate lightly on the material surface, and know the deep river water-world is running through you. Live in that world, showing up (with an open heart) for the easy-does-it demands of the ever-changing surfaces. Then, the Isn’t-Matter-World will carry you in it’s flow.

Rumi by way of Coleman Barks

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

The Spiritual Lives of Beavers and the Purpose of Life

   
     We walk around in a bit of a stupor at certain times in our lives, with a head full of crazy questions, like: who am I, really? And what am I doing with my life? We should know those answers naturally, shouldn't we? But things are always changing (including us), and life can be very demanding, and it might all become a little confusing now and then. At those times it's good to recognize that the answers we should know naturally may actually be living in plain sight, in our very nature, in our very form. Perhaps we should look to natural forms to get a handle on our elusive sense of the purpose of Life.

     As I see it, Life is three things: a matter of expression – expressing your true self, that is; an evolution – that is, growing toward some kind of connected self-realization; and naturally (and most importantly) finding, feeling, and living in Love. So let's take a look at a very natural example of all those things; let's look at beavers.

     But why, you may ask, would we seek such advice from a beaver? I mean we all know that they’re fuzzy, have paddle-tails and build dams and all, but what does that have to do with expression, evolution, and Love? Let’s look at the natural forms of beavers and how as simple, purposeful expressions of what I like to call Divine Consciousness, they present living evidence of the Love in everything, and a lovely lesson we can learn for ourselves.

     Beavers have dense oily fur that keeps them warm on the inside no matter what. They have flaps in their ears and noses that block out water when they submerge, clear inner eyelids that serve as goggles, and even a set of inner lips that seal their mouths off when they carry cut greenery in their teeth underwater. Their teeth are self-sharpening, so they never, ever get dull their entire lives. They can chew through practically anything from the coarsest bramble to large tree trunks, and cut and arrange wood with precise dexterity and intelligence in such a way as to build dams and lodges of unequaled design efficiency for their uses. 
     Their homes are multi-roomed, vented at the ceiling, and have multiple entries – one conveniently leading directly to their storehouse of cut greenery, naturally refrigerated underwater to retain freshness. Their tails not only propel them above or beneath the water with great speed and grace, but also serve to pack mud as a building material, or to slap the water loudly as a warning to their loved ones.

     In terms of their impact on the environment and the creation of their habitats, the beaver's expression of intuitive engineering skills is second only to humans – except that beavers don’t harm the natural world in realizing them. 

     So who is smarter than who? Who has real direction and purpose? Whose form provides an unencumbered connection to the Divine, and brings balanced and beneficial contributions to our shared planet? And what might all of this have to do with Love, as opposed to being a simple accounting of natural selection? How, exactly does Love come into play for our beavers?

     It’s because Love – as survival of the most cooperatively adaptable – actually is natural selection. That’s true authentic purpose, “survival of the fittest,” in its most loving, heavenly sense. The beavers form facilitates expression, evolution, and, yes, Love – like our form does as well (or almost as well).

     Did you know that beavers mate for life (something a few of us have trouble with)? They give birth to numerous young, spread out over time, and they all live together sharing their food and warmth and companionship – at least until the kids can make it on their own (no surprise, it can be difficult to get young beavers to finally leave home too).

     Their homes not only serve to shelter and protect their families, but create ecosystems that dozens of other species thrive in, and contribute to the health of the greater, holistic environment. It’s a kind of natural stewardship of the Earth that demonstrates a purer purpose, and the metaphor of “The Garden” – where plants and animals contribute to the planet just by being, not by being able to think about it too much. Beavers don’t cut down trees to spite anybody, only people living in ignorance of their natural Divine Unity do that.

     The First Nation Americans recognized the merging of these purposeful forms of nature and Love. They called beavers the “little people.” They saw Love in the building of their homes and their families. They witnessed, with wonder and res-pect, how Love created their perfect purpose, which was simply, perfectly, to be beavers.

     The indigenous peoples of all countries around the world have never had any problem with the presence of Love in all of their surroundings – as the body of Mother Earth, as the land they love (which no one ‘owns,’ and which bears the bones of their ancestors); the air they breathe (the same air as their forefathers breathed); the water which cycles through themselves and this layer of Life on Mother Earth; and as the Sun which brings energy to the cycles of Life. They saw their purpose clearly was to be natural human beings – part of something infinitely larger than the rigid concepts of what our material lives “are supposed to be,” and more as a channelers of greater energies – more what we are meant to be.

        “The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which there is a little space, wherein the Great Spirit dwells, and this is the eye…by which He sees all things, and through which we see Him.”

                                     Black Elk

     It’s with this perspective of shared Divine Consciousness and the presence that allows us to find Love in every eternal moment, that we can receive the gift of our purpose – the expression of our innate intelligence, our potential for rea-soned and responsible stewardship of the world – and its other, very important occupants. Getting there does require effort, even if it’s just by living by those principles that we know will liberate our spirits and contribute to the welfare of all Life.

     It’s not supposed to be easy being a human being. This is where we learn some of our very hardest lessons, but the beavers show us there are easier ways to cut through the obstructions created in our inner lives – the destructive beliefs that tie us to the illusion of separateness and struggle, and remove us from the direction and purpose of our natural forms. They direct us toward an unimaginably rich and magical world where our purpose is to protect the forms of life who aren't subject to the ravages of self-centered thought. A world of expression, evolution, and Love.

     Beavers show us how to live in a world we might call Heaven. 

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct on this page or online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for them it at your local bookstore!

Love as an Energetic Field of Co-Creation A Gaia Link

As we learn more about the true nature of our reality and the presence of a unifying field of being – the Zero Point Field, the Akashic Field, The Planck Field – it can go by many names; but here in my monthly column at Gaia.com, I explore why we should call it what it really is: 
The Field of Love.

A "How to Survive Life (and Death)" Review

Here is a review from Foreword Reviews of my book, "How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide to Happiness in This World and Beyond." It's a fun book about a not-so-fun topic, based on the true accounts (and advice) learned by surviving three "Near Death Experiences." Enjoy, and blessings!



 It's available here, and everywhere (you can ask your local bookshop for it, too!)

What's "Hot" in Our Media Will Make a Hell of a Life

"Stay calm. Share your bananas."

Koko, the sign-language gorilla (RIP)

Sometimes it can be pretty tough to stay positive these days, and though it seems we're going through a rough patch, maybe it's because of the kinds of messages that are directed at us. More to the point, maybe it's the messenger. This time, contrary to the old saying, perhaps we should "kill the messenger," since the messenger seems to be the true source of a lot of our troubles.

A painful example of this is the way our media covers natural catastrophes, like hurricanes, brushfires, airline crashes, and homicides; or they way they now build up normal weather events as if they were the end of the world; or the way certain events are portrayed as acts of "terrorism," when similar events aren't. What if, instead of constantly imposing scenarios of doom, our media public servants calmly and rationally supplied us with an informed strategy for getting through it together, and for rallying our resources to help the hardest hit? What a different world it could be. Why is our media so relentlessly irresponsible?

It's great to have all these cool inputs, this instant digital access to everything, but remember, to commercial media content providers, it's cool instant access right into your head (and the heads of our children). Our convenient, indispensable smartphones, tablets, and flat screens are very powerful psychic inseminators, loaded to put deliberately designed anxiety-laden attitudes and beliefs into your mind, often at barely noticeable, even subconscious levels. Amongst these are constant messages designed to make you feel agitated, ineffective, worried, and separated. (And I know I've got plenty to worry about without their help…)

I've worked in media for many years, and can tell you from experience that there really are little groups of people in media center offices making decisions directed towards making people feel personally 'less-than,' and sort of powerless on a mass-cultural level. These folks knowingly suppress anything that celebrates real extra-ordinary human potential, unless it can be turned to promote commercial goals. The true power of the spirituality they sometimes appeal to is ultimately passed over, and the power of materialism and consciousness of need put in its place. It's unconsciousness, stylishly clothed in the materialistic solution they provide, the answer to the problem they actually are creating. The goal is to make you feel insecure, envious, a bit desperate, and politically apathetic. When you succumb to those emotions, you're more ready to accept their solutions, and surrender your real spiritual potential.

It is the most disheartening part, too, that there really are people doing this to us on purpose – but fear not! Love always does triumph over evil, and it will for us, too.

First, there's an easy way to recognize the dark strategy that's pouring out of our screens and speakers. Just ask yourself three simple questions: Is this message inspiring Fear? Is Is this message propagating anxiety? Does this message have a commercial goal based on the first two questions? If the answer is yes, media pundits refer to the topic as being "hot."  A "hot" fashion, a "hot" item, a "hot" personality. (Thanks, Mr. McLuhan) Notice how it suggests, in a way, something that you have to catch up to; something that you need to have or need to know or need to see. Or that there's something to fear – something coming to get you, or coming to take away what you have. Even if it's something that's "really cool," often the bottom line is that it's something you need to be complete, and so to ameliorate the anxiety they've been creating in you; but what's media "hot" is spiritually not.

These are age-old methods of controlling people through fear. We say, "a darkness fell over the land," in the Fairy Tales, and we just can't afford this kind of selfish, unconscionable silliness anymore. Rise up, you armies of light!

Let's turn the old-school tables on our systemic perpetrators, and use a cool acronym to point out the anti-spiritual agenda:  PAGGLES! That's right – the good ol' Seven Deadly Sins! Pride, Anger, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Sloth. Notice how these topics serve as the themes for a good deal of what is called "entertainment" or "news" in our popular media. When you pick some media to pay attention to, ask yourself, "Is this PAGGLES?" If it is, rise up, and rise above it! As soon as you become aware of it, laugh…and TURN IT OFF. Start talking to your neighbors about what's real. Join associations of like-minded people. Support spiritually supportive cooperatives and political movements; and don't trust that media provider again! Go ahead and kill that messenger!

So what's the solution? The people (maybe you know some) who are responsible for this media, and may even believe in it, need extra Love and compassion to help them return to the human race – which isn't really a race at all, as they might believe, but a cooperative. The corporate media has even twisted the real message of Charles Darwin's "Evolution of the Species" to supply a basic miseducation. Darwin didn't discover "survival of the fittest," he discovered survival of the most adaptively cooperative. Current research conclusively demonstrates that two of the careers that attract the most 'psychopaths' are CEOs and media creators.  It will take a lot of real warmth, a lot of Love to overcome a twisted pathology that's so materially rewarded; but we have to try, or the world will continue to head in an unnecessarily destructive direction.

That low, slow, painful vibration of what's media "hot" isn't even warm by the principles of our rapidly evolving spiritual collective, based in compassion, sanity, and unity. Real warmth comes with a high hum – the vibration of Love, free from false fears and dark, selfish motives. The sun on everyone's face, and Love in everyone's heart.

You can re-define "success" as seeking Love and Light, unity, responsibility, peace, and happiness; protecting Life; being of service; experiencing the vibration of expanding consciousness without worry or regret that you don't measure up in some way. You don't have to pay attention to those media messages at all – just be truly present in each moment of your life. Follow your intuitive intelligence, and pay attention to what's really important! Live well. Recognize the Eternal in everyone. That's being successful.

"It is always the false that makes you suffer...Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy; truth liberates."

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Read about this and much more in the new 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!

The Real Rapture: Holiday Protests, Compassionate Consciousness, and Spiritual Evolution

We're a lot like moss on a rock, our humanity here on Earth – a simple, opportunistic colony of life, clinging to something alive that gives us Life. In the same way that any collective life form experiences stress when conditions for it's survival begin to change, our world is changing, and we're experiencing the stress. For all of us looking for solutions, wondering what to do, the answers are in front of us already in the simple intuitive need to adapt consciously – in that rapidly rising awareness that's showing us the way. The simple, clear truth of things.

Our corporate culture has wrongly modeled itself on misconstrued Darwinism. It's not about "Survival of the Fittest," it's about survival of what adapts in the most cooperative way. The triumph of which ideas benefit the most people all the time, without putting the whole at risk. So we really require only the simplest reliable human mechanisms to carry us through these tough times, mechanisms like Love, compassion, and cooperation. Like the shared vision of what's actually possible here on Earth that so many of us, all around the world, can plainly see.

It's an altogether different definition of success. A different definition of "fitness." A success based on the shared success of the human species. A fitness comprised of spiritual consciousness – the very kind that we can feel coalescing around and within us, right now.

The qualities and dogma associated with "Power," "Economics," and "Science" are dangerously anachronistic in the face of what's humanly possible, and what's humanly impossible. We simply can't successfully allow our present systems of commerce, governance, and resource management to continue on their present course, or to continue to deny the physical changes affecting our planet, and expect anything but catastrophe. Our reality is clearly changing.

For example: Aspects of Capitalism work very well to achieve certain goals, but the bottom line is that it's a mechanism that now serves money (and those most interested in it), not humanity or sane governance. Old Science is in denial of New Science, and strongly resembles a Flat Earth Society, of sorts. Our political system is too nearly completely compromised by corrupt capitalists to be effective for the vast majority of people.

All of us, red and blue, know these truths. It's an awareness born of our human spiritual evolution, of our progression. So our institutions of Power are losing their power. They all resemble pyramid schemes, slash and burn, where the earliest in and out thumb their noses at all the rest. Today there are ethical, spiritually conscious barbarians at their gates, and of course – they are us.

Something has happened…is happening. Human Beings are percolating together, re-configuring our world on the basis of what's real and necessary for life. Conscious humans are inspired by an awareness of what managing Earth's abundance actually entails; and understanding what science is really telling them – all with a profound [and beautiful] kind of non-violent presence, that suddenly seems most practical. It's the inheritance of Gandhi's ahimsa. It is a rebirth of the human spirit, the awakenings of Heaven on Earth.

In an irreversible way, a kind of "Rapture" is actually taking place now amongst those awakened to this consciousness in the world. Many people are having hard times, falling through the same cracks in The Wall Street of 'Rome' that allow spiritual evolution to enter; the fractures in the falseness of materialistic consumerism, and science in denial. As patriotic humans, this consciousness inspires a profound dis-identification with the corrupt media, political, scientific, and legal structures that clearly only serve a small, pathologically ego-driven minority.

Lifting us up is a new evolutionary cooperation – a reality based on the spiritual unification of humankind, facilitated by instantaneous global communication. A tsunami of racial and sexual tolerance, and of unity and community. An understanding of our new scientific realities, including the urgent need for clean technology, and free, clean power; the impetus for universal human rights; the reuse and recycling movement, and invigorated environmentalism; local food production; greater animal awareness; social support systems of all kinds – and the public momentum to institute these ethical concepts by means of a truer form of democracy. It is arising everywhere.

And it's all based on a simple spiritual mechanism we haven't seen enough of for a while, humility. The kind that engenders real sanity and responsibility. The Christ Spirit that has returned isn't the iconic bearded redhead with all the answers – it's this spirit of ethics, cooperation, compassion, and humility that is the answer. It's the profoundly practical spirit of Love – for ourselves, each other, and our blessed Mother Earth.

The real extremists, ironically called conservative, and the self-entitled religious, financial, and militaristic radicals, are dividing themselves off from the whole. Those who suffer the delusion of superiority and entitlement, who think they can will the world (even the weather) to be what they want, are being "Left Behind" in a spiritual morass – drunk on piety, greed, and destructive self-will. They don't have to stay back while the blessed ascend to Heaven, they are living in a fearful hell already. That's why they're grasping, arming-up; why they're consolidating. They actually constitute a very small part of the world's total population. They, too can be "saved," through what I like to call Compassionate Consciousness– the realization that we all share, and are responsibly for adding to, the Consciousness of the Planet Earth.

All the scary storms and politics and economics we're witnessing are actually bringing us together, cementing the understanding of our changing world, connecting us to each other in the most important ways. They're terrible times, yes, but they're breaking through the stupor of fearful apartness that so many people experience in their lives. They bring us to our true purpose, which is to love and help one another; and to appropriately manage the changing resources of the Earth, which are still and always boundless. In this way, Life is getting better, as it's getting worse!

In each of our lives, we've all experienced a little Heaven at one time or another. That's because Heaven is here. Heaven is here already, has always been here, and has always been meant to be here, right now.

The personal role we can all play is to reject willful ego, and recognize it in one another as the single most destructive disease of humanity – a spiritual disease that threatens to kill Mother Earth as we know her (…and would you, red or blue, allow someone to kill your mother?).

The balance is returning – as it will and must, and if you intuitively want to be part of it, what really matters is showing up for the change (like supporting the protesters), and embracing it! Personally become part of the solution. What's important is what each and every one of us keeps in their heart, as long as it's the intention and power of Compassionate Consciousness.

"For so [humanity] moves towards the infinity of the Truth by the ex-perience of its variety; so [consciousness] helps to build, change, destroy what [has been] built, and prepares a new construction, in a word, to progress, grow, enlarge in self-knowledge and world-knowledge, and their works."

Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle

(This is a special holiday blog, revisited and updated)

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Flocks, Schools, and Spiritual Evolution (It's a Revolution)

Have you ever looked up in the sky and seen a flock of birds in flight, undulating as though they were a single living organism? Separate yet solid. Shifting fluidly, like  living expressions inside of a dynamically divine Lava Lamp.

There's something fascinating going on there that we all recognize from way down in our subliminal cellars clear up to our archetypal attics – a cooperative organization and movement, issuing from an invisible intelligence. Science has its explanations for these orders and arrangements of the natural world, but their explanations are always an effort to frame the miraculous and justify a sense of understanding and control over something that's far more beautiful to witness than it could ever be to explain.

Beneath it all though, lies that unifying intuitive understanding of our basic natural relationship to the Earth; an ever-evolving expression, being eternally expressed. We, like those birds, are doing it too. That's the reason why, even in the face of our impending catastrophe, we have so much hope–because we can always have faith in the fact that our forms are constantly rediscovering and rearranging the Self into a timeless, working whole. (Ours is the only design that isn't intelligent). But bringing the promise of that faith into reality, requires that we follow those natural, intuitive impulses of our own group.

Quantum coherence and emergent self-organization aren't confined to particles or waves, or to anthills either. Nor are they unrelated to 'magic,' or the miraculous – they're just more finely drawn evidence of it. We are all psychically connected at a profound level–at least the level of survival. That comes as no shock, does it? We're sharing enough consciousness for to all of us to know that truth. Our being 'entangled' in non-ordinary ways, sharing a 'non-local' source, and joined by an "acausal connecting principle" is obvious in our contracting reality – blossoming into global consciousness through our simultaneous personal realizations. A collective déjà vu of growing intensity. We have had to change this way before.

Those entrancing performances of flocking birds and schooling fish illustrate our own emergent human properties–not just as strategies for survival, but for our physical and spiritual evolution as well. The energy that animates those collective expressions of divine purpose – to move beautifully and harmoniously as one – insists that we now embrace our collective intelligence, and change course.

Occupation movements; the impulse to maintain internet neutrality; personal participation in the power grid; rapidly deepening ecological awareness across the generations are all examples of this movement, which, out of the mainstream, finds its  identity in a kind of modern shamanic mythology that seeks to reconnect us to Mother Earth. In our mainstream culture, it's expressed as the profoundly progressive consciousness that elected the first African-American president, or that embraces the full rights of all sexual orientations. It's a recognition of humanity – grounded in altruism, activism, spiritual evolution, and personal responsibility.

Who leads this flock of birds? Where does the order to form this expression come from? The order to behave sensibly, as birds should; to cohere to the greater energies at play in the Universe, and within each and every individual? Simply put, it's beyond us, and between us. Recognizing it within oneself, and allowing ourselves to belong to the horizontal hierarchy that this undeniable impulse organizes itself within, brings us into balance with our emergent global consciousness, and gives us our true direction. 

"There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of [flying in the noisy flock, and] being the noise...Close both eyes to see with the other eye...Open your hands, if you want to be held...Sit down in this circle."

Rumi

These emergent qualities we share are finding a rising media voice too – from the comforting spirituality of Oprah, the late Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer; to the (more 'serious') science-based ideas of Ray Kurzweil or Bruce Lipton; to the 'in-your-face' progressive moxie of Russell Brand and Daniel Pinchbeck. All of these voices represent our intuitively shifting dynamic, which is totally at odds with the destructive financial elite – stuck in it's cultural amber – that's leading us in a top-down line to global disaster.

What are our means to directly access and join this collective shift? Well, we each carry those means in our willingness to participate with humility and honesty; in the Love alive in our hearts.

Nowhere have I found a guide for following this calling, in a totally practical way, expressed as wonderfully as in the brilliant Ervin Laszlo's "Ten Commandments of a Timely Vision" (from Quantum Shift in the Global Brain, Inner Traditions, 2008). It's a beautifully usable template, which (with apologies to Mr. Laszlo) I'll try to synopsize for the sake of brevity:

1. Live in ways that enable others to live, without detracting from their chances.

2. Live in ways that respect the [absolute] right to life and economic and cultural development of all people.

3. Live in ways that safeguard the intrinsic right to life and a supportive environment.

4. Pursue happiness, freedom, and fulfillment in harmony with nature, and with consideration for others.

5. Require that your government relates to all peoples peacefully, and in a spirit of healthy cooperation.

6. Require your enterprises to accept responsibility for their effect on markets and environments, free from exploitative intentions.

7. Require (or create) the public media to provide reliable information crucial to informed decision-making.

8. Help those less privileged to live a life of dignity.

9. Encourage young and open-minded people to evolve spiritually.

10. Work with like-minded people to to preserve, restore, and maintain the balance of your neighborhood, country, and global biosphere.

Here then is the path–drawn-out–towards the great shift we all know we must take; the practically involuntary course we are already taking towards our survival and spiritual evolution. It's nothing short of the conscious suppression of the destructive values of materialism, and the recognition of all life of the planet as sacred. It isn't just an evolution I'm talking about, but will have to be a revolution of humanity, from the unnecessary waste and despair we experience now, towards its highest order. 

So, for what it's worth (humbly and honestly), I too am following the indescribable urge that's calling for revolution–a recognition of our spiritual nature; and the requirement that a just and humane respect be shown to the Earth and all it's occupants, enforced by whatever means our Intelligent Design determines us to follow...and it's not even my idea at all.

"To the knowing, all of life is a movement towards perfection; so what need have they for the excessive, the extravagant, or the extreme?"

Tao te Ching, 29

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!