Forgiveness is a much misunderstood phenomena. With in a true and whole state of forgiveness lies a vast and transformative power. Yet misunderstood it shall do little more than confuse and result in a denial of ones relative experience of the world. Here we explore the Law of Forgiveness as seen through my eyes.
TrackbackTrue forgiveness can be rather hard to understand. It defies all human logic and reason, yet it is the very fact that we are human that makes forgiveness both possible and necessary. Here we take a brief look that the relationship between healing and forgiveness. We look at how acceptance and tolerance are quite different from forgiveness and have entirely different outcomes.
Click to continue reading “The relationship between forgiveness and healing”
Comments rss TrackbackSome months ago I heard the last part of a lecture series given by Ronald Wright that was broadcast on radio. It was quite fascinating.
The gist of what I heard was that his extensive research indicated that the primary cause behind the downfall of all great civilisations was over use of environmental resources. He gave some very compelling evidence and interesting historical data. Essentially it would seem we have learnt nothing in this regard from our ancestors and hence we are heading down exactly the same path.
Check out the book or the lectures at:
House of Anansi Press : titles
By Ronald Wright
Each time history repeats itself, so it’s said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water–the very elements of life.
The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?
In A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment’s inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.
Listen to Ronald Wright interviewed on CBC Radio One’s The Current.
>> Hide Reviews of A Short History of Progress
“I don’t care if you have never and will never read any kind of book at all, but you must read this one. If you can’t read, pay someone to read it to you. . . In prose that is balefully evocative and irreducibly precise, Wright is in effect reading us our rights, giving us our options. This is Wright’s Riot Act. . .This wise, timely and brilliant book will be a bulwark against the short-sighted and the self-interested, and may also ironically save them from themselves.”
- The Globe and Mail
“The Massey Lectures series has weighed in, once again, with a provocative and timely exploration of important ideas. Ronald Wright, one of this country’s intellectual treasures, brings his background in archaeology, history, and comparative culture to bear on the loaded question of progress, and whether it is a good or a bad thing. . .Of course, and not to keep readers in suspense, the answer is both . . .Wright notes that the economic interdependence of the world today means that collapse, if and when it comes again, will be global. Ideology of any sort – Islamic, Christian, Marxist, or market fundamentalist – will push us all the faster toward that collapse. Only “moderation and the precautionary principle” can save us. . .Now if this excellent book could only be made required reading at the White House and on Capitol Hill in Washington . . .”
- Quill & Quire
“[Robert Wright] is a hard-nosed thinker, a literate and provocative presenter.”
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trackback“Ecstasy is a Feeling that comes Only
When the Heart is tuned to that pitch of Love
Which melts it…Which makes it Tender…Which gives it Gentleness
Which makes it Humble”
Hazat Inayat Kaan – The Sufi Message
TrackbackHere’s a site with a great deal of interesting and potentially useful / valuable information. Enjoy…
TrackbackLINK –>> STAGGERING INEQUALITIES
The world is wracked by enormous inequalities in wealth, income and resources. That is the fundamental conclusion of the 1998 Human Development Report, an annual report issued by the United Nations Development Program.
The world’s 225 richest individuals have wealth that is equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 percent of the entire global population. Spending just four percent of that wealth, or about $40 billion a year, is all it would take to maintain universal access to basic education, health care, reproductive health care, adequate food, clean water and safe sewers for everyone in the world. Taking care of basic needs of the poor could prevent a global depression.
The three richest people have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of the 48 least developed countries. the 15 richest have assets that exceed the entire GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. And the wealth of the 32 richest exceeds the total GDP of South Asia.
The Human Development Report regularly introduces new and innovative ways to think about wealth disparities and the meaning of “development.” This year’s report highlights inequalities in consumption.
In terms of overall consumption, the report finds, the richest 20 percent consume 16 times more than the poorest 20 quintile. “Globally, the 20 percent of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86 percent of total private consumption expenditures – the poorest 20 percent a minuscule 1.3 percent,” the report states.
The report also highlights disparities in consumption of particular goods: – The richest 20 percent use 17 times as much energy as the bottom 20 percent. – The richest 20 percent of the world’s population consume 11 times as much meat as the bottom 20 percent. The richest fifth eat seven times as much fish as the poorest fifth of the world’s population. The richest 20 percent consume more than 45 percent of all meat and fish – the poorest fifth a mere 5 percent. – With 74 percent of all telephone lines, the top 20 percent have 49 times as many telephone lines as the bottom 20 percent. – The top fifth use 84 percent of all paper, 77 times as much as the bottom fifth. – The richest 20 percent own 145 times more cars than the poorest fifth.
The flagship measure of the Human Development Reports is the “human development index,” a measure based on life expectancy at birth, educational attainment (based on adult literacy and school enrollment levels) and real per capita GDP (with the value of GDP above the world median treated as less valuable).
At the top of this year’s list is Canada, with a 79.1 life expectancy, a 99 percent adult literacy rate and US$21,916 real per capita GDP. At the bottom of the list is Sierra Leone, with a life expectancy at birth of 34.7 years, an adult literacy rate of 31.4 percent and a per capita GDP of US$625.
The other countries atop the list are in descending order:
France, Norway, the United States, Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand and Sweden.
The rest of the 10 worst performers, from worst to better, are:
Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea, Mozambique and Gambia.
THE WORLD’S PRIORITIES? (annual expenditure)
Basic Education for All* $6 billion
Basic Health and Nutrition* $13 billion
Cosmetics in the United States $8 billion
Pet Foods in Europe and the US $17 billion
Water and Sanitation for All* $9 billion
Business Entertainment in Japan $35 billion
Ice Cream in Europe $11 billion
Cigarettes in Europe $50 billion
Reproductive Health for All Women* $12 billion
Alcoholic Drinks in Europe $105 billion
Perfumes in Europe & United States $12 billion
Military Spending in the World $780 billion
* Estimated additional annual cost to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries.
Source: Human Development Report, 1998
(Reprint, Multinational Monitor, September, 1998 edition)
TrackbackUN report shows poverty grinds on
The benefits of increased global trade, investment, technology and economic growth are not flowing through to the world’s poorest people, a new United Nations report released on June 29 has found.
Worldwide, 1.2 billion people live on less than US$1 a day, more than a billion people in the Third World lack access to safe water and more than 2.4 billion lack adequate sanitation, the UN Development Program’s Human Development Report 2000 reveals. One hundred million children live or work on the streets.
Yet the combined wealth of the richest 200 billionaires hit US$1135 billion in 1999, up from $1042 billion in 1998. The combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the world’s 43 least developed countries (LDCs) is scarcely a 10th of this figure, $146 billion a year.
“Global inequalities in income increased in the 20th century by orders of magnitude out of proportion of anything experienced before”, the report states. The distance between the incomes of the richest and poorest country has increased from 3:1 in 1920, 35:1 in 1950, 44:1 in 1973 and 72:1 in 1992. According to the report’s principal coordinator, Dr Richard Jolly, a similar calculation today would show an even greater gap.
Go to UN report shows poverty grinds on for the full article
TrackbackI have written and explained previous to now that the human ego—in the cultures and societies I am familiar with— generally lives in some degree of victim mentality. This is the mentality that I am a victim to life. Things that happen in life, things that people do, disease, misfortune, accidents, theft, crime, abuse, etcetera. What I have shared is that in my experience this is a erroneous perception set up by the ego and what’s more it is a misperception that keeps the bearer forever trapped in a cycle of disempowerment and struggle. Eventually each of us shall learn through either the school of hard-knocks or more favourably the school of mystical wisdom that this victim mentality is a disservice to humankind and has no function but to perpetuate separation and illusion.
What I wish to share here is that I have experienced some people having a reaction to this idea that I suspect is fairly typical. Just today I was explaining the nature of victim consciousness to a friend in response to her enquiry about a book I am writing. I quickly mentioned some examples of where people fall into a victim roll, and it went something like this… “many of us believe we are victims to life, victims to events, victims to other people doing things to us, victims to disease, victims to misfortune….”
She immediately picked up on the “victims to disease” bit and asked what I meant by that.
I explained that we are not a victim to disease; that it is something that will arise into a my experience in order to illicit my attention and focus it on some element of Self that I have denied or fallen into misperception over.
She stated categorically that she did not agree. She stated that she’s aware there may very well be certain situations where a person through their own dysfunction might bring a state of disease on—that there is certainly a link between our chemistry and how state of mind/emotions—but that this certain could not always be the case. She has a friend that is currently dealing with a very aggressive form of cancer. Her comment was something like, “I can’t for a moment believe that she is to blame for her cancer”.
I pointed out that it is not a question of blame. That this notion of blame presupposes that this apparent “cancer” is wholly bad and unfortunate and is the outcome of this person being at fault. Let us explore what my known tells me about this example.
If I find myself experiencing a disease then at the level of apparent reality it could be said that I (“I” as ego) am at fault and therefore “to blame”. Yet at this level healing is impossible and hence it is really rather unproductive to dwell there, although the ego would dearly wish to. What I saw arise within my friends perception is the notion of “self victimisation”. This is the idea that if I am not a victim to things happening to me then I must be a victim to my own self. “I made this disease happen”, “I brought this cancer upon myself” and this of course seems to imply that one has malice toward oneself. Of course anyone in their right mind would not have malice toward oneself, yet on the other hand the ego has nothing but malice toward the True Self.
I realise I am walking of eggshells here yet I shall proceed all the same.
To say that “I am to blame for my disease” and therefore imply that I am a victim to my own self malice is really the victim mentality perpetuating into an a perception that has the potentially to be wholly void of this madness. The ego-mind will quite naturally conclude that “if I am not a victim to this disease, event, misfortune, then that means I create this and therefore I am a victim unto myself”.
I would to suggest another path of logic that will lead to an entirely different conclusion and outcome.
If I am to truly appreciate that I am not a victim to things happening to me then I must realise that things are happening for me. Therefore rather than falling into the trap of thinking that “If this cancer has happened to me then that means I did this to myself and what a horrible thought that is”, it is vital we rise above this level of perception and realise that “what I am experiencing here is in fact a gift I Am extending to my self here on Earth and that it is imbued with Divine purpose and function”.
The purpose of all disease, suffering and pain is to arouse awareness. It is about Self Awareness. To the degree that I forget the true nature of who and what I Am is the degree to which I will experience pain and suffering. The purpose of this pain is not to punish me nor is it a form of self malice. Rather it is a powerful means through which a soul can turn a situation around and experience self-reflection for the purpose of waking up to what is true. Therefore the challenges I face in my life—whether they appear in the form of disease, suffering, abusive relationships, accidents etc—are not indicative of my being wrong, bad, or at fault. It is vital that all such thinking be arrested immediately. If I find that I there is emotion aroused by this sort of thinking then a process of healing and forgiveness is called for. Not blame and self-judgement. It’s not my purpose here in this article to explain what that healing process shall look like, so please explore that elsewhere.
It is actually very empowering to deeply realise and experience that everything in life is happening FOR ME and not TO ME—that I am not a victim to external things nor am I a victim unto myself. Rather I am a gift unto myself and through the infinite omnipresent intelligence that I Am it is my gift to myself to extend into my human experience those phenomena that shall lead to my awakening.
There is plenty more I could say on this topic yet I am aware that any further comment will only be of value if it is in direct response to your particular enquiry based on where you are presently at within your consciousness. Therefore please feel free to ask questions.
With love,
TrackbackI have a great deal of respect for the Mankind Project, and I can’t begin to explain the degree of love that is aroused within me when I think of the amazing men—men of all shapes and sizes, men from many walks of life—whom I have met through MKP and who have had the courage to go through the New Warrior Training Adventure Weekend. What a ride when all went on !!!
I am aware that for many of us the NWTA experience was our first major plunge into the world of self-realisation, personal growth, self-transformation—call it what you like. I am aware that for many of us this powerful dive into the inner realms of our psyche has opened us up to an entirely new way of living. What a blessing. What a profound gift. I give thanks to all those visionary brothers that have carried MKP from its early humble beginnings 20 odd years ago, to where it is today, with myself and many other men here in NZ (and all over the world) going through this important initiatory process.
I am equally aware that for myself (and a number of other New Warriors) MKP is in fact not the seed from which my journey into experiencing my authentic Self has sprouted forth—but rather it was another fine petal that has now been added to the mystic rose that was already blossoming deep within my heart and soul. This path of self-transformation is one I have been on for much of my life, from my early teens to now. It is a path that has many challenges, yet one that ultimately provides many wondrous fruit from which I now nourish myself whilst here in this world. I know there are other MKP Warriors that share a similar story in this regard.
So here’s my invitation, my encouragement, to all those MKP Men for whom NWTA was essentially their first step into waking up to this realm of new possibilities. My invitation is this:
Comments rss TrackbackIn my experience Attention and Intention are two important aspects of Self for those that wish to wake up and live life consciously.
To put it very simply — as far as I can ascertain — attention is the application or focus of awareness.
Upon what do I place my awareness? Where I place or focus my awareness is where I am holding my attention.
The object of my awareness in any given moment is where I have placed my attention.
One might also be inclined to say that this is “what” I have placed my attention on—and this too would be accurate—yet this does not necessarily embody the fullness of what I mean when I use the word “where”. Spatially all things that I perceive are taking place within my consciousness. Events and phenomena manifest on the intersections or conglomerations of the strands of light (or information, life, intelligence) that are spread throughout the manifest universe (at a non-ordinary or non-physical level) which is actually all taking place within an infinite expanding Awareness. I don’t wish to go into this just now as it is rather complex and I find it rather challenging to explain in writing—and any attempt to do so here would take us deeply off the topic at hand. The only point I wish to make here is to just briefly bring to your attention that WHAT is at a deeper level actually about WHERE. I shall say no more.
On with the topic at hand — Reclaiming your attention
So long as I am viewing the world as something other than free then I am essentially projecting onto the world something that is not real—a false perception.
The degree to which I erroneously perceive myself to be anything less than free is the degree to which I will also perceive the world to be bound and in need of rescue from its bondage.
The Truth, however, is that this world is absolutely free and perfect, although I know how hard that is for a person to accept when they are viewing the world through the eyes and senses of the ego, and not through the Vision of God.
I recall a beautiful moment in an underground subway in London. I was about 20 at the time. I was sitting there in this train and there across from me and a little to one side was this old man. He was hunched over, leaning forward off his seat. In his hand was a brown paper bag which I assumed had a bottle in it. As I sat there taking in the site before me I was overwhelmed by this total experience of how this man is 100% enlightened and absolutely free.
It was a very moving and power-filled experience. I could see nothing of his apparent bondage and suffering. All I could see—whilst feeling a deep stirring of love in my heart—was this glorious Being of light, so radiant and resplendent, sitting there before me in this apparent body that appeared aged and ready to pass away at any time.
There is a great gift that you and I can bring to this world in each moment. That is the gift of setting the world free. This requires forgiving all that you have perceived to have attacked you in any way whatsoever. It also requires the all judgment (the projection of concepts and beliefs) onto the things, people, events, relationships, and situations that appear to be going on around you.
From this clear space, it is possible to start looking straight through the apparent world. On the other side of this grand illusion is Heaven on Earth. For the Kingdom of Heaven is here within All That I Am and there for it too is right here and now in this world—if only I have the eyes to see it.
These eyes are the eyes that use not the two balls in your head, but rather rely on the Vision of God that is granted to you and I from within. To see that world from the “I” rather than the “eye”.
Setting the world free in this way is a great blessing to you and to all those you meet. Try not to underestimate the power in such a gift.
With love,
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