THE SELF LIBERATOR'S DIGEST
VOLUME TWELVE

Followers create leaders.
Become who you are; There are no guarantees.
Disobedience is the greatest taboo.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Change is the only Constant.
You who are reading this will die.
Disillusionment is basically a sign of Intelligence.
You shall know the truths, and the truths shall set you free.
Nothing is true. Everything is permissible.
Doubt, and find your own light.

" Every error is an opportunity to learn. Just don't commit the same mistake again and again -- that is stupidity. But commit as many new mistakes as you are capable of -- don't be afraid -- because that is the only way nature allows you to learn."

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

The Basic And The Unfamiliar Human Community

All Human Societies are base upon, and their continuity and growth are reinforced by, the use of hope, fear and repetition.

Although this simple structure is not visible to the overwhelming majority of people, everyone who is concerned with human groupings uses and approves the application of hope, fear and repetition.

The structure is employed in every type of organisation: whether tribal, national, political, religious, recreational, educational or other.

Two things militate against the recognition of the structure by the people in it and those operating it :-

The seeming diversity of objectives of the societies in question;
The very simplicity of the structure. It is so obvious as not to be self-evident in the way in which people think things are self-evident.

There is also an unspoken, because unrecognised, consensus in human thought upon this matter: Because everyone is accustomed to being manipulated by hope and fear, and because everyone assumes that repetition is necessary, the possible progress in analysing this situation is virtually at a halt. It is as if one might say: "we make sounds. Why should we turn these into words? That suffice us." - in a pre-verbal condition of man.

Such a hypothesis (about words not being necessary) would be adequate only under circumstances in which there was no real need for coherent speech. In a society, in other words, where there were no dissatisfaction and no real curiosity leading to investigation which might result in the production of a useful instrument (that is to say "speech") and the removal of a source of tension and annoyance leading to frustration (for instance, super-abundant grunting and chattering!).

When such statements as the forgoing are made clearly enough, experience shows that they tend to elicit two main automatic reactions. These reactions may be presented as attempts to avoid or resolve the challenge. In fact they are capable of doing neither.

Summarising the first reaction:
"Man can learn only by these methods. To abolish them would be to prevent learning and reduce the chances of human cohesion

Summarising the second reaction:
"This contention does not prove that there is any other way of learning or organisation, or that quality and measure in these techniques exists or need to exist."

Now, it is always difficult to deal with prejudices which provide people with advantages - such as not having to think. It is equally difficult to satisfy people who inwardly but not admittedly fear that they might be revealed as shallow; or who fear that the consequences of admitting something unfamiliar might "change" them. It is difficult - it is not however, impossible.

If it were impossible, the human race would have died out through lack of adaptive capacity. It is true, though, that those who cannot or will not adapt to constructive but unfamiliar information are members of the segment of humanity which does, in the cultural sense, die out. Those individuals, schools of thought and societies which have not adapted to "now" (that is, unfamiliar) information and environmental changes have died out.

The two main reactions just quoted are less plausible than the contentions which they oppose. For that alone they could be dealt with merely by ignoring those who hold them, and regarding the actual fact of holding such opinions as evidence of the incapacity of that person to adapt to unfamiliar ideas: evidence of his relatively poor survival ability.

But there is a mechanical trap here, and it is worth observing in passing. People who oppose "now" or unfamiliar concepts can be made to accept them if the "new" conception is sufficiently energetically projected. That is to say, there would be no real difficulty in conditioning, by fear, hope and repetition, these objectors to "believe" that fear, hope and repetition were undesirable in quantity or quality. The trap is that you would now have plenty of conditioned people who objected to conditioning because they have been conditioned to object! They would be useless to further understanding, almost by definition, certainly by the crudity of their operational capacity.

So agreement with your original statement, or "belief" in it, are not what is aimed at. This in itself is a very unfamiliar concept, since virtually all human societies prize above everything agreement and belief. What do you seek, they will (and do) ask in bewilderment, if you seek converts, heros, martyrs, believers, dedicated supporters, disciples, propagandists, enthusiasts, representatives, common denominators, and so on.

What you seek, because it is an essential prerequisite to understanding, is people who can accept the possibilities which follow:-

That virtually all human communities are established and maintained by the reward/punishment and repetition mechanism;
That there might be an alternative;
That this alternative might not require the abandonment of membership of one or several of the "basic" type of groupings; the basic type is a grouping produced by hope and fear and maintained by repetition.
That it might even be necessary for man to remain, for some of his purposes, formerly grounded in one or more "basic" grouping;
That it might be possible to add the unfamiliar form of relationship to one's range of experience, without disturbing the "basic" type already implanted;
That there may be a value in some form of understanding which could be prevented by conversion;
That it might be useful to observe and recognise the occurrence and operation of the "basic" structure in all forms of human association which surround everyone;
That it might be advantageous to absorb this "new" information rather than to react to it as if it were a key, panacea of magic wand;
That it is being suggested that it could be the exclusion, (not the cultivation) of emotional or intellectual bonds based on hope and fear and operated by repetition, which could open a door to knowledge of a kind different from that which is available through the single system just described.

Deeper Things affect Surface Ones

One of the reasons for having a school and a teacher is that the teacher and the curriculum are responsible for dealing with learning in a manner appropriate to the student, irrespective of his own priorities.

People who want to learn will naturally choose what they want to do, unless they realise that there may be a better way known to specialists.

A good example is in human predicaments. People seek from spiritual sources solutions to problems which are themselves generally only symptoms. The real spiritual school deal with the cause.

When the spiritual experiences have been achieved, they remove the problems which trouble people. It is not the other way around.

This is a good analogy :-
A shopkeeper had a cask of oil, which he sealed with his ring-impression after filling it full. His assistants, however, found that they could steal oil by drilling a hole near the bottom of the barrel and plugging it until they wanted to draw off the oil from there.

When the shopkeeper opened his cask and found that, although the top was secure, the level had gone down, he was baffled. He asked a wiser man, who was a customer at his shop, what this might mean.

The wise man said, "Some has been drawn of from the bottom: why don't you look there for the source of your problem?"

"Fool!" shouted the shopkeeper: "I am talking about the oil that is missing from the top!"

True and False Teachers...

Since there are so many people all over the world claiming that they are spiritual teachers, many of those who want to follow them - and those who want to refute them - spend much of their time trying to work out which are real ones and which are not.

What is rather remarkable is that a great many of these self-styled teachers are discernibly not teachers, if studied with the normal rational apparatus which is of some value even to seekers after truth.

There is a story about a man who went up to another one who was selling what he described as "the most delicious and irreplaceable honey in the world" in a market-place. "If it is so marvellous," he asked, "why are you selling it?"

"I wouldn't try, you may be sure," answered the honey-seller, "if a mouse hadn't fallen into it!"

Now, in spiritual matters it may be claimed that the seeker, however sincere, cannot tell whether there is a mouse in the honey of the teaching which he offered. But if he would only steel himself to look at the honey with dead mice floating on top, he would start to learn how to recognise the real thing. If you can test a verifiable counterfeit, you will eventually find a coin which is gold. Those who start at the other end: who can test gold without being confused by counterfeits, are different lot of people, sad to say.

Whom do you imitate?

It is one of the commonest things in life to imitate. People copy kings or sages, according to whether they are snobs or spiritually-minded (as they call it). People applaud or deride the act, instead of noticing the common factor, mimicry.

Mimicry is trying to look like someone or something else.

But what about looking, feeling or being like yourself?

A wise man once said:
"In the next life, you will not be asked, "Why did you not behave like such-and-such a person?"

You will be asked:
"Why did you not behave like your real self?"

"If you know who and what you are, you can start to be that person, instead of a copy of ideas, the behaviour or the image of someone else, or some collection of people. Then you can really be."

from The Commanding Self by Idries Shah

The other day upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
Gee! I wish he'd go away!

How Many Heads Do you Have?

Borrowing a joke (or a profundity?) from Bertrand Russell's Our Knowledge of the External World , I will now demonstrate that the reader has two heads.
According to common sense, and the consensus of most (Occidental) philosophers, we exist "inside" an "objective universe," or -- to say otherwise -- the "objective universe" exists "outside" us.
Very few people have ever doubted this. Those who have doubted it have arrived, inevitable, at highly eccentric conclusions.
Well, then, avoiding eccentricity and accepting the conventional view, how do we know anything about that "external universe?" How do we perceive it?
(For convenience, I will consider only the sense of sight in what follows. The reader can check for himself, or herself, that the same logic applies if one changes the terms and substitutes hearing or any of our other senses.)
We see objects in the "external universe" through our eyes and then make pictures -- models -- of them in our brains. The brain "interprets" what the eye transmits as energy signals. (For now, we will ignore the data that shows that the brain makes a gamble that it can interpret these signals.)
Again, very few Occidentals have doubted this, and those who have doubted it arrived at strange and incredible alternatives.
So, then, we live "inside" an "external universe" and make a picture or model of it "inside" our brains, by adding together, or synthesising, and interpreting, our pictures or models of parts of the universe called "objects". Then, it follows that we never know the "external universe" and it "objects" at all. We Know the model of the "external universe" inside our brains, which exist inside our heads.
In that case, everything we see, which we think of as existing externally, actually exists internally, inside our heads.
But we have not arrived at solipsism, remember. We still assume the "external universe" from which we started. We have merely discovered that we cannot see it or know it. We see a model of it inside our heads, and in daily life forget this and act as if the model exists outside our heads -- i.e., as if (1) the model and the universe occupy the same area of space (as our map that tries show "all" about Dublin would occupy the same space as Dublin) and (2) this space exists "outside."
But the model and the universe do not occupy the same space and the space where where the model exists can only be located "inside" our brains, which exists inside our heads.
We now realize that, while the universe exists outside, the model exists inside, and therefore occupies much, much less space than the universe.
The "real universe" then exists "outside" but remains unexperienced, perhaps unknown. That which we do experience and know (or think we know) exists in local networks of electro-chemical bonds in our brains.
:w Again, if the reader cares to challenge any part of this, he or she should try to imagine an alternative explanation of perception. It will appear, or has always appeared to date, that any and all such alternatives sound not only queerer than this but totally unbelievable to "people of common sense."
Well to proceed, we have now an "external universe," very large (comparatively speaking) and a model of same, much smaller (comparatively speaking), the former "outside" us and the latter "inside" us. Otherwise, I could not get up from my chair, walk to the door, go down the hall and accurately locate the kitchen and get another cup of coffee from something I identify as a Coffee Maker.
But where does our head exists?
Well, our head obviously exists "inside" the "external universe" and "outside" our brain which contains the model of the "external universe."
But since we never see or experience the "external universe" directly, and only see our model of it, we only perceive our heads as part of the model, which exists inside us. Certainly, our perceived head cannot exists apart from our perceived body as long as we remain alive, and our perceived body (including head) exists inside our perceived universe. Right?
Thus, the head we perceive exists inside some other head we do not, and cannot, perceive. The second head contains our model of the universe, our model of this galaxy, our model of this solar system, our model of Earth, our model of this continent, our model of this city, our model of our home,our model of ourselves and atop our model of ourselves a model of our head. The model of our head thus occupies much less space than our "real" head.

Think about it. Retire to your study, unplug the phone, lock the door and carefully examine each step of this argument in succession, noting what absurdities appear if you question any individual step and try an alternative.

Let us, for Jesus sake and for all our sakes, at least attempt to clarify hoe we can have two heads. Our perceived head exists as part (a very small part) of our model of the universe, which exists inside our brain. We have proven that, have we not? Our brain, however, however exists inside our second head -- our "real" head, which contains our whole model of the universe, including our perceived head. In short, our perceived head exists inside our real head which exists inside the real universe.
Thus, we can name our two heads -- we have a "real" head outside the perceived universe and a "perceived head" inside the perceived universe, and our "real" head now appears, not only much bigger than our perceived head, but bigger than our perceived universe.
And, since we cannot know or perceive the "real" universe directly, our "real" head appears bigger than the only universe we do know and perceive -- our perceived universe, inside our perceived head.

from Quantum Psychology by Robert Anton Wilson

SOME SONNETS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

SONNET LXXI: NO LONGER MOURN FOR ME WHEN I AM DEAD

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sudden bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that write it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.

SONNETS: XCIV

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

SONNETS: CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

SONNETS: XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

TO HIS COY MISTRESS
BY MARVELL

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Mind conditioning organisations

It is important to recognise the characteristics of exploitative help groups, mind control cults and other forms of sham religion when you encounter them, so that you can protect yourself from their influence and hopefully minimise their influence on others. The presence of several of these characteristics are symptoms of brainwashing and thought control. Susceptibility to such cults is increased by the desire for certainty, a fear of the unknown and ignoring disturbing information.

Leader a Self-Proclaimed Higher Being

Usually characterised by a leader or teacher who claims divinity, to be the Christ, a prophet, a man number 4 or higher (such as man 7.2 or man 8.3), or to have a special mission or task given or delegated by God or higher forces.

Devotion to Strict Centralized Hierarchy

The leader or founders (usually still alive), or their minions, demand absolute and unquestioning obedience and are the self-defined sole judges of the members' faith, status, and commitment. Criticism and disagreement are not allowed.

Vague about Group Aims to Outsiders

Established members are often guarded, vague, deceptive, or secretive about beliefs, goals, aims, demands, and activities until the recruit, prospective student, or new student is �hooked�.

Cut Off from other Traditions

Often encourages exclusivity and isolation using such excuses or reasons as that all and everything outside the group is totally evil, satanic, or asleep. Controls Communication and Peer Relationships Meaningful communication with family and friends outside, or peers within, the group is often discouraged or sharply curtailed and the group becomes the convert�s or student�s �family�. Usually every attempt is made to blur or eliminate the convert�s or student�s memories and habits of their former way of life and personal history.

Uses Brainwashing (Thought Control)

Employ systematic brainwashing (thought reform) techniques designed to effect the destruction of the sense of self and ensure dependence on the cult.

Group over Self

Indoctrinated members put goals and aims of the group ahead of individual concerns, interests, family, education plans, career, health, and well-being.

Group Hypnosis

Members may be maintained in a state of heightened suggestibility through lack of sleep, engineered diet, intense spiritual exercises, physical work, constant indoctrination, controlled group experiences, planned spontaneity, and manipulated encounters which seem to be spiritual.

Evokes Guilt and Humiliation

Members may display symptoms of extreme tension and stress, fear, guilt, lack of humour, and diminished communication skills, critical judgement, judgement and logical skills, and reality testing.

Preoccupation with Group

Members are preoccupied with fund-raising to support the group, earning money for �donations� and �special donations�, recruiting new members, and group activities.

Requires Large Quantities of Money

Some groups exploit the members� finances.

Requires Large Quantities of Free Labour

Exploits members through unpaid unemployment and poor working conditions.

PERSUASION TECHNIQUES USED BY CULTS

(A Selected List)

PHYSICAL TECHNIQUES

HYPERVENTILATION
Continuous overbreathing causes a drop in the carbon dioxide level in the bloodstream, producing respiratory alkalosis. In its milder stages it produces dizziness or light-headedness. More prolonged overbreathing can cause panic, muscle cramps, and convulsions. Cults often have people do continuous loud shouting and chanting to produce this state, which they reframe as having a spiritual experience.

REPETITIVE MOTION
Constant swaying motions, clapping added to chanting or almost any repeated motion helps to alter a person's general state of awareness. Dizziess can be produced by simple spinning or spin dancing, prolonged swaying, and trance dancing. Group leaders relabel the effects of these motions as ecstasy or new levels of awareness.

BODY MANIPULATIONS
Former members report that a leader of one cult would pass among the followers pressing on their eyes until the optic nerve caused them to see flashes of light. This is called "bestowing divine light." In this same group members were instructed to push on their ears until they heard a buzzing sound, which was interpreted as hearing the "divine harmony."

PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES

TRANCE AND HYPNOSIS
A number of cults use hypnosis and trance to put people into altered states of consciousness, making them more compliant. Examples of techniques that induce trance include prolonged chanting, meditation, and phrase repetition.

GUIDED IMAGERY
Cult leaders use a number of different guided-imagery techniques to remove followers from their normal frames of reference. For example, long detailed visual stories can absorb the listeners in a trance-like state where they become more susceptible to suggestion. Another effective method popular with therapy cults uses guided imagery to regress members back to the pain and loneliness of their childhood.

Adapted from CULTS IN OUR MIDST, by Dr. Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich (Jossey-Bass Publishers, April 1995)

Recent history is the record of one vast conspiracy to impose one level of mechanical consciousness on mankind.

Allen Ginsburg

Song of Myself

I think I could turn and live with animals,
     they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine 
     about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark 
     and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their 
     duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented
     with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind
     that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the
     whole earth.

Walt Whitman

The Top 10 Things To Help Your Business & Personal Life Become Healthier & More Successful

By: Dennis R. Tesdell.

There are always things we can do to make our life better or easier or closer to our "dream" life. These changes or "choices" can affect our business and professional life in profound ways. This list is a sample of just some ways and areas that will help us get closer to our "ideal" life.

1. Assess Your Health and "Get Healthy"- Inside and Out.

Simple enough? Look in the mirror. Look at the bathroom scales. How is your energy level? Your diet? Your blood pressure? Your stress level? Know what your current health status is by seeing your doctor,and start correcting things that limit your quality of life. Get healthy by choice before you are asked/forced to due to a preventable or treatable problem.

2. Honestly Examine Your Current Financial Situation.

What are you "worth"? How much debt do you have? Do you have a budget? savings? plan for retirement? Is your business making money or has it turned into just an expensive "hobby"? Get out all the "books," cheque books, etc. Use a professional planner or consultant if necessary. Correct overspending and reduce consumer debt. Increase profits, or make plans to do so. Have a 6 -12 month "reserve" of money and good disability and medical insurance for yourself and any family members living with you. Don't assume anything!

3. Get Rid of Any "Garbage" or "Unfinished Business" from Your Past!

Yes, it is difficult to forgive and "let go" of old hurts, pain, and other unpleasant memories. AND it is necessary to do that if you don't want those "old tapes" to drain your emotional & physical energy. People also tend to let some of that old "baggage" influence their present lives, almost always in a negative or unhealthy way. Write down who or what you are still hanging on to, and decide what it would take to let it go for good! Seek out a coach or other professional to help if you need it. It is vital to resolve the past for us to be able to grow and really live in the present, and move ahead and embrace the future.

4. Make a Monthly and Annual Goals Plan or List.

Decide what you are lacking that you need or want. Write it down as an achievement or goal to reach by the next month or three months or year! Make the goals reasonable yet challenging. Let your reach exceed your grasp, and work toward it daily in steps you can handle. If you need help, hire a coach, or ask your coach to help you specifically in that area.

5. Upgrade Your Personal Standards and Your "Boundaries" if Necessary.

Know what your values and standards are. Make them as high as you can given your goals, your needs, and your personal and business situation. Make sure you have set boundaries or rules for people in your life around what you will and will not accept from them. This can be done in a calm and non-threatening, yet firm manner. If you are stuck or having problems with this, ask a close friend for help, or if the lack of boundaries and high standards is affecting your life badly, consider hiring a coach!

6. Stop Tolerating!

All of the small to large annoyances, insults, things we do to ourselves, and that other things and people do to us, are not helping us have a quality life. Make a laundry list of all that you are putting up with currently. ANY toleration is going to affect you and have at least a small adverse affect on your life unless you either eliminate it or "re-frame" how you view it or respond to it. To have a quality life and to be healthy, we need all the energy we can get. We do enough things to ourselves that "drain" us...we don't need other people or things draining us as well!

7. Be 100% Honest When Speaking With Others.

Holding back how you really feel when communicating does more damage to ourselves, as well as to the relationships we have with others, than almost anything else. It takes courage and practice (by just DOING IT!) to learn how to do this and to do it in a non-aggressive and non-judgmental way. It is a skill or trait however, that is essential to having a truly healthy and integrity-based business and personal life.

8. Listen 2 - 3 Times More to Others Than You Currently Do.

Listening is an art. Almost everyone likes to talk, and to be "heard." In business and personal relationships, learning how to listen well is very important to understanding another's problems and what they really need from you or want to tell you. In coaching, if a coach can say that he/she listens to their client 75 - 80% of the time, and talks the rest of the time, they are probably hearing and helping their client much more than a coach who talks 50 - 75% of the time and listens only 25 - 50%. It is not easy for many people to develop this skill, and it is important. The way to learn it is to be quiet more...and listen more. There is no other way.

9. Assess, Re-evaluate Your Career and Career Goals.

Are you doing what you really want to do for a living? Do you get satisfaction and enough financial remuneration from your job to satisfy your needs so that you feel you are respected, impacting on people, and doing what you were meant to do? Are you excited and drawn to your profession? Were you ever? If you come up with unsettling answers to these questions, it is time to make some plans for moving up, moving out, or changing your job description, hours, etc. A coach or career counsellor can help you with this if you cannot work it out on your own. Most people need to feel good about their jobs to feel good about themselves and others. If you do not, find out why, and start looking into other options, actions, and choices.

10. Decide to Think & Talk in the "Present" At Least 80% of the Time.

The past is gone, and we have NO control over the future. Living in the now or present, and thinking in the present, is both healthy and more productive. If we can use self - discipline and practice, so that we do not talk or think about the past or the future more than 20% of the time, we will be much happier in many areas of our lives. The past can have many good memories, but often when people think or talk about the past it is not about positive things, rather the bad or negative stuff. The future is a dream still. It is a waste of energy and time to stay in the past or in the future much more than 20% of our total waking hours mentally or when talking. If we live minute to minute, hour to hour, there will be much less chance of dwelling in the past or dreaming too much - far into the future. We do a lot of that anyhow when we dream in our sleep!
http://www.coachdt.com

10 Things To Do To Keep Your Relationships Healthy

By: Carol Reynolds, Professional Coach

1. Be unconditionally constructive in all communication without fail. This builds trust and increases others' ability to listen openingly.

2. Make everyone right in your mind all the time.

3. Blame is a way you torture yourself. Do not blame anyone ever for anything. This is a learned response and does not solve anything.

4. The biggest problem in relationships is withholding...withholding communication, truth, attention, affection and love. It undernourishes and depletes the relationship. The very things that you cannot imagine telling your partner are important to be told.

5. Remember forgiveness is the key to happy relationships; a good definition of love is the experience you have following forgiveness.

6. There are no victims only volunteers, we volunteer out of the thought system we hold.

7. The person who holds resentment or revenge always experiences most of it.

8. The bad news is you are the only problem in your life. The good news is you are the solution.

9. Change yourself in a relationship, attempting to change someone else is a lost cause which adds insult to injury. But, we can change ourselves, the situation, our reaction and our boundaries.

10. Love is more than a feeling, it is a conscious and consistent choice.

Carol Reynolds carolr@wizard.com Web Addresses: http://www.wecoach.com
http://vegasnet.com/journey - (Carol's new book)
http://vegasnet.com/vision
http://worldlove.com

The World

People follow one creed or system after another, each one believed to provide an answer, the thing that will solve all problems. In the West, for instance, people followed religion and then threw it up for "reason"; then they put all their money on industry and finally on technology. Until they have run out of panacea they are unlikely to cure this habit.

There was once a man who took a flock of sheep and some bags of grain to market. He sold the grain and hid the money about him, and was looking for a buyer for the flock when a trickster approach him.

"I know someone who wants a flock of sheep just like that one," he said, and led the farmer to a gate. "Just wait outside this house," he said, "and I will drive the sheep into the yard and let the owner look at them. He knows me, and is suspicious of rustics."

He drove the animals through the gate and through an alleyway at the back of another road. Shortly afterwards he sold the sheep quickly and cheaply.

Disguising himself as a pilgrim, he hurried back to where the dupe had just realised that he had been cheated. "Good Sir," he cried, "I have just seen a man such as you described driving a flock os sheep like yours into a certain barn. Come with me and I will show you."

When he arrived at a large barn the trickster said, "Go in there, quickly. I will hold your horse."

As the farmer walked to the barn, intent on getting his sheep back, the thief galloped away with the horse and sold it in the market for one-tenth of its value.

The farmer was deeply distressed and ran hither and thither, crying out, "I have been robbed." The thief now disguised himself as a scholar and found the distraught man once again. "Have you nothing left, my poor friend?" he asked.

"Well, I have the money I got for my grain, so I had better walk home to such-and-such a place where I live, and count myself lucky that something remains to me."

"As it happens," said the trickster, "I am going that way myself, with this bag of money, which is to be used to build a new college."

He indicated a bag which he had filled with stones.
"Let us travel together, for safety on the road."
The farmer agreed, and they set off.
After some time the pair were crossing a bridge over a stream when the thief let his bag fall into the water.

"Oh!" he cried, "I am ruined... I am too old and frail to descend into the river, and the money is lost. I shall be disgraced..."

"I'll get the bag," said the farmer, "if you give me ten per cent of what is in it."

"Willingly," agreed the villain - and the farmer stripped off his clothes and left them, together with his own profit from the grain, on the bridge.

The thief made off with the money and the clothes.
When the naked and dripping farmer reached the bank and opened the bag, he found only stones.

The shock finally turned his head. He is now convinced, they tell me. that all he has left - himself - will be stolen from him, and he ranges the streets of the town alternately calling for his lost goods and cursing the thief whom he so often thought to be his friend.

Knowledge or Experiment?

The Sufi contribution to the release of human potential is dependent upon the understanding of the need to clear away barriers to understanding.

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases on. Hence, if a person is desirous of achieving spiritual states, he or she will pursue this end in a manner which corresponds not with the way in which it can be done, but which gives him (or her) satisfactions.

This is the mainspring of all human movements, whether political, national, religious, economic or other. First there is the objective, then there is the mechanism for attaining it. And as the object must always be one which pleases the aspirant; after that, the method must be one which gives him satisfactions.

No other pattern, no other formula, is needed to explain why people believe things, of such diversity of organisations and systems.

And the pattern is perfect, the system delivers results, subject to a single caveat. This must be stated in the phrase: "An attractive objective and a satisfying procedure will always produce results, providing that the objective is possible and the methodology is effective."

A very large number of aims are not realistic, and very many procedures are ineffective. An aim of the ancient Egyptians was to cure bilharzia; a very attractive one. The chosen method was circumcision. Its single flaw was that it did not work. Countless generations of people have wanted to make gold; this was their aim, and a very attractive one. Their methods (which included "getting the impurities out of lead") did not work.

Today it is widely known that bilharzia is caused by a parasite and that gold is not purified lead. Therefore either the aim or the method loses its appeal; sometimes both lose it. The cause of this failure of the appeal of the aim or of the method is - factual knowledge.

The aims of contemporary people; pursuing power, pleasure, fulfilment and so on can also easily be seen to be, in some cases at least, modifiable or capable of being vitiated by an increase in factual knowledge which would illuminate the false assumptions on which the enterprise and/or its methods are founded.

These false assumptions, reinforced by greed and other subjectives, are barriers to knowledge, even factual knowledge. Until people start to ask the equivalent of "What exactly is bilharzia?", and "what really are metals?" the "circumcision" and the "purification" will continue.

This is the single reason why all Sufi effort is directed towards knowledge. From this viewpoint, all effort without knowledge must be seen as speculative, therefore wasteful of energy and perhaps even impossible of achievement.

from The Commanding Self by Idries Shah

In the Hollow of a Wave off the Coast at Kanagawa BY Katsushika Hokusai

Four Weights

"Behold, the human has become as one of us, and now may put forth a hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." (adapted from Genesis, 3:22)

To be fragmented means to be in a state where something out of balance or disharmonious 'takes over' consciousness, and it seems as if this state is all there is. Such experiences are frequent, even daily occurrences. You have just hit your thumb with a hammer, it is throbbing, and the pain is so intense it has 'taken over' your consciousness. You cannot think of anything else - you rush around, cursing, alternately sucking your thumb and shaking it, and frantically trying to change your consciousness (that is, stop the pain).

When you are 'taken over' by the pain from a physical mishap, like the hammer example, the pain is soon reduced to a manageable level. Some physical pain is more chronic or acute - if, for example, you suffered from appendicitis, you would not be able to just make the pain go away. You would need assistance from others, and even then there would be no guarantee of success. What is true for physical pain is also true for emotional and mental pain. It may arrive suddenly, with intensity - the shocking news that a loved one has died (the feeling of intense sorrow), that someone has committed a gross act of abuse against us (the feeling of intense anger). Emotional and mental pain may also be continuous, chronic, even obsessive - for instance, feelings about a forthcoming important meeting (the feeling of intense fear). Just as when you hit your thumb with a hammer and an intense sensation took over, intense emotional or mental reactions to events in life can just as easily take over. In fact, these mental or emotional reactions can be more painful at their outset and much harder to shift than physical ones.

Fragmentation is a symptom of a lack of spiritual connection. The classic 'mid-life crisis' is a good example of acute spiritual pain. Everything has been going fine when suddenly you start to ask yourself: what am I here for? what's the purpose of my life? isn't everything I've done so far meaningless, shallow, disconnected from any deeper significance? Spiritual pain can also be chronic in nature. For instance, many people experience for much of their lives that it is difficult to be here on the earth, incarnated in a physical body. They often expend much of their energy trying to find ways of 'blissing out', merging, avoiding the responsibility of life. There are many ways that spiritual pain can occur, and it can be just as difficult to shift as mental, emotional or physical pain. Someone might be cured from a serious, life-threatening disease but it does not ensure she won't still feel angry. Someone else might discharge his anger in appropriate ways, but that would not ensure he finds meaning in his life.

To heal something is not just to take the pain away, to make it better in some way or another. Healing can reduce or even eradicate pain, and after a session of healing an individual may feel better. Primarily, however, healing is about making something or someone 'whole'. The word 'heal' has a common root with the word 'whole'. To bring wholeness to something or someone, to heal them, is to complement fragmentation with harmony, and pain with wisdom, not to replace or somehow overcome the fragmentation and pain. To have healing does not mean to become perfect in any way, it simply means to become less fragmented than before the healing. To heal the system being worked upon, whether it be one's own body and psyche or someone or something else, is to move towards defragmentation. To heal is to bring together component parts of the system in an including rather than an excluding way. When this is done, true healing is brought about, rather than just that kind of 'healing' which is concerned with fixing pain, disguising discord or in some way treating the symptom rather than the cause. A whole healing of a person includes all the component parts of their system, body, personality, emotions, feelings, thoughts, soul, spirit. All the parts of each of these components of the system also need to be healed in their turn. For instance, the body cannot be part of a whole healing unless its parts are healed, everything from a heart valve to a little toe. Luckily, healing being holistic in nature, when a part is healed it also creates healing throughout the whole system.

Healing also has an effect on the relationship with the external world, improving relationships with other people and life in general. A whole healing includes changes at more subtle energy levels, those usually described as etheric and astral energies. This does not mean that when healing occurs everything will be fixed all at once. The change from any act of healing in itself might even be too small to register in our immediate consciousness as such, but a shift of energy is felt in some way. This is particularly true when the healing process is inclusive, holding the vision of the whole person and not just trying to fix a part. Without this vision there is a danger of contributing to fragmentation rather than working towards healing. This may help pain decrease or disappear in the short term, but in the longer term it will simply delay the changes necessary for the real systemic healing to happen.

The Three Body Weights

People who work with the body, actors, and dancers particularly, sometimes use the idea of three body weights in their work. These three body weights are the head, the first weight, which sits upon the thorax, the second body weight, which sits upon the third, the pelvis. The focus of attention can easily be moved between these different body weights. Notice where in your body your breath is going to right now, it will almost definitely be focused on either your chest or your belly. Don't try and change anything about your breathing just now, simply notice where your breath is going, is it into your chest, your belly or somewhere else?

Now put your attention on your first body weight, your head. See if you can breathe just into your head, imagine it, tune-in to it happening. Don't loose your head! Don't let it topple off your chest below! Look around you and notice what the functions of your head are: you see things through your eyes, hear through your ears, smell through your nose, taste with your mouth. The only one of the five senses not particularly involved with the head is touch, and of course, we all know how nice it can be to have our scalps massaged, our faces touched tenderly, or how painful to be slapped in the mouth! Your head and neck are also concerned with the input and output of air, with vibrating air to create speech, and of course your head acts as a container for your brain. I know that in our modern Western culture it is usually asserted that thinking takes place in the brain, but 'thinking' can and does take place in any area of the body. Consider the brain as the organ involved with processing sensory inputs, storing information, and processing the thinking and feeling that might happen elsewhere, not just within the confines of its own structure.

Now put a hand on your chest and consciously choose to breathe into that area of your body, the thorax, the second body weight. Feel your lungs fill with air as you breathe in, expanding your chest, then empty of air as you exhale, letting the chest relax. Don't breathe too deeply, this isn't a re-birthing session! As you breathe into your chest just let your attention move from your head into your chest. Let your attention become more heart-centred. This second body weight, the thorax, is positioned between the other two, the head balances on top of it, and it in turn balances on top of the pelvic weight. The thorax is involved with centralised attention and balance. Amongst other things, it contains your heart and your lungs. They are both involved with circulation, one of blood, the other of air. These are the functions of vital energy exchange. If one or the other of these is restricted there is pain, and if either is cut off the individual or system will die. The body of a headless chicken will still run around, but you don't see many heartless humans running around - or maybe you do! People usually appear to be heartless when they are fragmented in a way that causes them to live too much in their head or too much in their pelvis!

Stand up, with your feet a comfortable distance apart, and feel the floor beneath you, supporting you. If you are in a situation where you cannot stand up, you could choose to wait until later when you can stand, you could imagine standing up, or you could choose to ignore all this and continue anyway. Perhaps the most important healing for any of us is learning what choices are available to us and how we can make the most life-enhancing choice each time there is an opportunity. Making our own choices is most important. What are you going to choose for yourself right now? Put a hand on your belly, and feel it being pushed out as you breathe in, using your hand to move your breath lower now, not in your chest anymore, but deeper into your abdomen. Let your knees flex and bend, allowing a bounce to enter your legs. Really feel the weight of your body supported by the floor beneath you. Your head weight rests upon your thorasic weight, which then in turn rests upon your pelvic weight. Tune into your pelvis now. Let your hips sway from side to side a little, and forwards and backwards, too. Make gentle circular motions with your hips. Don't force anything, this isn't a Tantric sex exercise! Let your hips move as they want to, as you continue breathing deep into your body. Imagine you can breathe right into your pelvis. Feel your breath go as deep as is comfortable for you. I often find that when I'm out walking, or after I've done some good strong exercise, my mind seems clearer - I can think better. At these times I am 'thinking on my feet ' - or I could say I am doing 'pelvic thinking'. Pelvic thinking isn't just about being obsessed with sex, any more than heart thinking is just about being all lovey-dovey, or head thinking is all about being 'spaced out, man'. When body energies are flowing and the three body weights are aligned, thinking becomes clearer.

Thinking is not fixedly located in the head, heart, pelvis, or anywhere else, it just happens where and when it happens. Get a sense of the three weights in your body, the biggest pelvic weight supported, through your legs, by the floor; the middle weight thorax supported by the pelvis, and the head supported through the neck by the thorax. Move your body a little and as you do so get a sense of aligning the three weights. If you imagine a cord that comes out of the top of your head and pulls you up slightly, and another cord that comes out from your perineum - between your legs - and down into the earth, with a weight on it, pulling you down slightly, it helps to align the three weights. Try it. If you are not already doing so, you can sit down now!

Once you get a sense of these three weights, one resting on the other, you start to notice various things. For a start you can see how comedians do funny walks. You might like to try some for yourself, simply allow different body weights, or combinations of weights, to lead as you walk. Then try holding back one of the body weights as you walk and notice the different effects, not only on how you walk, but how you feel in yourself. More importantly, you can start to realise where you lead from, and where you hold back. Some people, for instance, lead with their heads, we all know this 'heady' type, rushing around, being interested, knowing everything, or wanting to. There are those who lead with their chests, sometimes all sweetness and light, sometimes proud and overbearing. Some people lead with combinations of weights, for instance, leading with the head and pelvis forward, and contracting the chest back, protecting the heart. It's a sign of how the world is met or withdrawn and retreated from. In other words, it's about both what is held back and what is pushed forward. If you lead with your head, for instance, then what are you holding back? What are you protecting?

I am not saying one way of being is better than another. Each of us has learned the ways of leading and holding back from life experiences. Most of us probably learned much of this in our earliest years, and then have reinforced the behaviour as we have projected onto the world how we expect it to be. At the same time, the world has reinforced our patterns by being like that. What we do have is a choice, a choice to simply focus on the body, work at aligning the weights and observing how different events bring about different reactions to life. This way is to start learning to respond rather than react, responding to contact, whether painful or joyful, with the world, the environment, people, all the beings around us.

The Weightless Weight

There is also a fourth body weight - one I'm going to call the weightless weight. Before describing this mysterious 'weightless weight', I'll briefly recap the other three. The largest weight is the pelvis. It digests things, both physically and psychically and energetically, and assimilates what the body needs, excreting the rest. On top of that sits the middle body weight - the thorax. It feels things, physically and psychically and energetically. It contains the lungs and the heart, both involved with energy exchange. The third body weight is that of the head, the smallest of the three. It sits atop the other two and contains the brain, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. It senses and processes information, physically, psychically and energetically. The fourth body weight, the weightless weight, has a dual aspect. Just as the three weights already described sit atop one another, the smallest on top, so in one of its two aspects, its 'spiritual mode', the fourth body weight sits atop the other three, even smaller than the head one. In this aspect it corresponds with the crown chakra. In its other aspect, its 'earthly mode', the fourth weight is the earth, on which rest all the other body weights. In this earthly mode, the fourth body weight is as weightless as can be - have you ever felt the weight of the earth? only when you are dragged down, when you are soul-heavy, so to speak. Focus on this now (that is, don't try to 'visualise' it as such, but allow yourself to get a sense of it).

The first three body weights are like silver-white globes, one on top of the other. On top of the smallest one, there is an even smaller ball that is somehow transparent, but it glows at the same time. It hovers just above the other three and looks heavy with energy, like it could zap things. All these four globes are resting upon a larger globe that looks like a very thinly stretched, see-through blue balloon. This is the planet earth, vibrating slowly as if it is filled with water. When the weights are tuned into in this way, we find ourselves standing on planet earth, today, here, incarnated. When the water (belly), air (thorax) and fire (head) are balanced, the earth and the spirit unite.

The fourth body weight, the 'weightless weight', has two modes. The first of these is its transcendent 'spiritual mode', which you can visualise as a sphere balanced atop of the other three body weights, a bit like a crown, really. The second is its immanent 'earthly mode', which is the planet earth. Nothing on the planet earth weighs more than the earth itself, and yet to our perceptions the earth is weightless. This weightless weight, when both its modes are connected, is the soul. When this is realised, the world is ensouled and soul energy is embodied. Once again, feel the three body weights as before, the head resting on top of the thorax which is resting on top of the pelvis. Feel how gravity holds these three weights onto the earth, and feel the sphere of the earth beneath you as your fourth weight. This weightless weight is the embodiment of soul. It is also the soul of earth, and when you are aligned with it, it is one with your soul energy. You can become unfragmented through the connection between your soul and that of the planet itself. Many of us spend a lot of our time out of touch with the planet beneath us, with this fourth body weight. Everything possible might be done to avoid it, stop the world, I want to get off! Alternatively, connecting with the earth is connecting with soul, in alignment within ourselves, rooted in the earth and yet able to move, to be, to become embodiments of this interconnectedness. The world is then ensouled, for when such a connection is made, everything contacted is an aspect of this soul energy.

from Four Weights and a Witness By Will Parfitt

Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will and the urge for achievement and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation.
Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time.

from Meditations by J.Krishnamurti

                Masks

We all have masks to hide behind
Every hour, day after day
To keep ourselves from being hurt
By the things other people may say.

The problem I've found with wearing a mask
Is that it often fits too well,
And when you try to open up,
You're still inside the shell.

The mask that was built to hide behind
Gets harder to move with the years.
It keeps your feelings deep inside -
The joy, the sorrow and tears.

Remove the mask you hide behind
And let your soul run free.
Pay good heed to your own true thoughts
And be what you want to be.
                -- (C) 1988 John M. Olsen


"There's glory for you!"
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,'" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.  "Of course you don't--
till I tell you.  I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful
tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you CAN make words mean
so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master --
that's all."
                -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass"

Something to ponder...

If we wish to succeed
in helping someone to reach a particular goal
we must first find out where he is now
and start from there.

IF we cannot do this,
we merely delude ourselves
into believing that we can help others.

Before we can help someone,
we must know more than he does,
but most of all,
we must understand what he understands.
If we cannot do that, our knowing more will not help.

If we nonetheless wish to show how much we know,
it is only because we are vain and arrogant,
and our true goal is to be admired,
not to help others.

All genuine helpfulness
starts with humility before those we wish to help,
so we must understand
that helping
is not a wish to dominate
but a wish to serve.

If we cannot do this,
neither can we help anyone.

Thoughts on teaching and learning from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.

Intelligence

We have noticed that your idea of intelligence and our idea of intelligence have very little to do with one another. For instance, you call yourselves an intelligent species, yet you are dangerously close to making your planet inhabitable by anything other than asphalt. You have also managed to place yourselves at the top of the endangered-species list. May we point out that even a virus demonstrates a more astute grasp of its situation than that. The only reason a virus is inclined to trash out its environment is in its well- calculated attempt to maintain its life.

We have also noticed that you use the word "smart" in conjunction with business swindles and corrupt deals. When someone sells property that is located on a quicksand bog, you say, "Boy, was that a smart move!" You also think it is incredibly clever to sell a used car for top dollar without mentioning that it has no transmission. Both these examples are trumped-up illustrations that lack the malignancy of your actual activities. Your governments, your corporations, and your citizenry commit mind-boggling atrocities in the name of material cunning, and all human commerce is riddled with spiritual scandal. Moreover, though such acts may technically be fraud according to your laws, fraud is an issue only if you have the misfortune of getting caught. Otherwise, these acts remain shrewd business moves, the product of brilliant minds. For obvious reasons, we are perplexed by your concept of intelligence and would like to offer another definition.

The basic misunderstanding of this term arises from the fact that the inhabitants of this planet have confused brains for intelligence. A brain is an instrument of intelligence, while intelligence is a force. Intelligence is the force of life expressing itself in created form. It exists in all life, regardless of whether it has a brain or not. Through the misuse of your mental processes, you have come to regard intelligence as the art of one-upmanship in acts of spiritual barbarism. You have somehow managed to reduce rationality to the mental faculty that enables you th grab the most the fastest. Meanwhile, true intelligence is an alignment with the matrix of creation and its source. It is an allegiance to light and an embracing of life, not a demonstration of how adept you are at the act of denial.

Our purpose here on this planet is to assist in freeing you from denial so you can finally begin to think straight. It is our mandate as well as our longing to help raise you out of your deranged thought process up to the status of a truly intelligent life form.

Reality

This is a difficult word to define because there really isn't any such thing. What we mean by that is that there is no single reality, here or anywhere else. There are as many different realities on this planet as there are people alive to create them all. And what passes for global reality is merely a group consensus on a few minor points. From there on out, it's every man and woman for him or herself.

The reality that you live is nothing more than an audio-visual demonstration of where your attention is. The universe presumes that your attention is on what you want and graciously provides you with more of the same. If this dynamic were understood, you would never do anything so foolish as to declare a war on drugs - unless, of course, your objective were to create more of them. There is no better way to increase drug traffic than to have everyone's attention focused on it. The same principle applies to increasing everything you think you oppose, and it is also the reason a war cannot be won. If you were serious about stopping drugs, the best course would be to stop being fascinated with them via your perceived opposition. Become fascinated with freedom instead, and your addiction will disappear naturally to satisfy your new preoccupation.

Because you have yet to understand your power of creation and who you really are, you perpetually put your attention on denial instead of affirmation. This results in the universe serving up an extra helping of what you thought you didn't want. Although a number of you practice the art of affirmation as a tool for changing your realities, you can affirm until you are blue in the face and they may fail. Unless your attention and your identity have also been altered to accommodate what you affirm, the universe has no option but to fulfil your real, though hidden, attention's desires. Until you understand the role your attention and sense of identity play in your creation, your affirmation track record will remain a perplexing hit-and-miss affair.

It is time to use your powers wisely and create realities that are worthy of who you are. You can do this by changing what you communicate to be real to the universe through your focus, and the identity you project by way of that identity's behaviour. If you so not make this fundamental shift, you will continue to transmit the same old tired requests to a universe that will dispassionately and lovingly respond with the same old tired and often toxic answers.

Co-creation

This concept may be difficult to get across because you neither acknowledge your part in "creation" no do you know anything about "cooperation." Although both words appear in your dictionaries, we have yet to see either evolve beyond the status of a good idea.

Please do not mistake your empire-building for creation or your mutual palm-greasing for cooperation. Creation is not about razing a site and then rebuilding on that recently destroyed location, nor is it demonstrated by erecting prison systems and euphemistically calling them cities. One reason the true meaning of creation escapes you is that it cannot be accomplished by people who seed themselves as victims. That disqualifies most of Earth's population right there. Another reason is that it is founded on cooperation, which eliminates all those who were not eliminated on the first count and brings us to the other word you do not understand.

If Earth's inhabitants had any idea what cooperation meant, the longest distance between two points would not be a committee. Nor would counties march endlessly from one war to the next. Your current understanding of cooperation is based on concession traded off for gain. That is why an institution like the United Nations is ineffectual. It has neither the bargaining chips nor the tools with which to play this global game. As long as the inhabitants of this planet remain powerless in their reality and separate in their intention and self-definition, co-creation will remain a pleasant, though unworkable, concept.

The reason we are trying to explain a word you are ill-equipped to understand is because it is the basis of this mission, and its entire plan. We are here to aid you in acknowledging your power. We are here to help you take command. We stand at your threshold, calling you to courageously walk away from the lie of human separation into the arms of your new and ecstatic lives. Once you have begun to take the first step, we will walk as your allies at your side. We will then be able to extend you our services, joyfully assisting you in the creation of your dawning, light-filled world. At that point you will finally understand that co-creation is the awesome life-giving, light-bearing act of equals, powerfully operating out of an integrity that is aligned with truth.

Unfortunately, that brings us to another word you do not comprehend. Please go to the next definition if you are curious what "truth" means.

Truth

We have noticed that you pretend to value truth on this planet. Some spend a lifetime seeking it. Your legal systems demand it, and you can be sued if your business doesn't practice it. Your philosophers define it, your scientists measure it, your religions exalt it and you all fight over it. Meanwhile, all you are doing is paying global lip service to it. There is an excellent reason for this: You have no idea what truth really is.

How the obvious has escaped you is a tedious story. The abridged version of it amounts to this: You embraced fear. After that unholy act, it has been downhill ever since. Fear is the first lie, the lie that tells you that you are separated from the whole. Once it has been embraced, you are incapable of ever telling the truth under any circumstances without blowing the game.

Truth, by its nature, is the light. Fear cannot, by its nature, be in the light without dying. It becomes a simple matter of self-interest. Fear has owned this planet, its people, and their systems for a long time. It does not wish to give up the property it has acquired because it is a parasitic life form that cannot live separated from your life forces.

The truth is, you are the truth. It is not external to you, as you have been led to believe. For that reason, it is ludicrous to set out on a spiritual journey in search of it. It is likewise ridiculous to punish those who do not practice it when almost nobody on this planet does. As for philosophising over it, how can you when you wouldn't recognise it if it ran you over in the street? Meanwhile, measuring it is done in your attempt to dominate it. leading you further into the lie that it lives outside of you like an enemy that must be controlled. To exalt it is also to see it as separate. And fighting over it is so absurd as to not deserve any comment at all.

The totality of your clinically insane behaviour surrounding truth has been cleverly manipulated by fear in its attempt to keep you eyes off the truth. In this manner, fear was able to continue uninterrupted and undetected in its process of eating you alive. But don't worry - there is a cure. All you need do us awaken to the fact that you are truth. As the light comes on, the parasite will die, leaving you joyously able to reclaim command.

Self-help Techniques

The greatest self-help technique you can practice is the art of laughing. This is not to say that everything that is coming down is entirely funny. For instance, you may find it difficult, at first, to get a chuckle out of a rapidly disappearing ozone layer and the petro-chemicals you are drinking with every glass of water. And, to be perfectly honest, even we don't find the Federal Reserve very amusing. However, getting depressed is not an answer.

This is the most critical moment of change in this planet's history, and your assistance in that change is vital. Humour has the effect of raising your vibratory level, and you won't believe how high it has got to go to get through this one. Going catatonic over the seriousness of the global situation will not help the globe, but it will also effectively knock you out of the ball-game. Our advice? Keep laughing.

Another practice you will find invaluable is owning up to your creative capacity. Your reality is formed by your attention, and it is entirely your choice if you end up as a second-rate actor in a B movie instead of a star on the star that is about to be born. It is also advisable to keep in mind that you are here on assignment. Please don't get sidetracked into thinking you have cancer just because you have visited the ward. Remember who you are and what you are doing and keep your eyes on the stars.

from E.T. 101 by Diana Luppi

Some quotes of Oscar Wilde

A virtuous abstinence from the joys of pederasty
comes most easily to those who have no taste for it.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
(sipping champagne on his deathbed)

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its
fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease
to be popular.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of
the people by the people for the people.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable
that we have to alter it every six months.

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to
her if she is pretty and to someone else if she is plain.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
and that is not being talked about.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Young men want to be faithful and are not;
old men want to be faithless and cannot.

Hey, man, are you using only half your brain?

You're pretty hip. We all know that.

You can throw an I Ching hexagram and intuit its meaning. You know all about Hendonic Engineering and staying high. You've seen through all the social games.

When it comes to the neurosomatic circuit of the brain, and body wisdom, you're the champ. And everybody knows it.

But what about those mysterious left-hemisphere brain functions? Wouldn't you like to learn the secrets of the West, previously known only to the adepts at the esoteric Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies? Strange arts like the Equation, which predicts things before they happen, or the Syllogism, which allows you to test an argument for internal validity? Or wouldn't you like to know how the mysterious Stereo works, or what keeps planes from falling out of the sky?

Imagine trying to live with one eye, or one lung, or one testicle.

Isn't it equally a handicap to use only half your brain?

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Sir, are you using only half your brain?

You're pretty smart. We all know that.

You know all about partial differential equations, computer programming, cost analysis, flow charts, and vectors. If it can be put into an equation, expressed in human language, or recorded on a graph, you can handle it.

When it comes to the semantic circuit of the brain and precise manipulations of symbol systems, you're the champ. And everybody knows it.

But what about those mysterious right hemisphere brain functions? Intuition? Synergeric apprehension of whole systems? Aesthetics and ESP?

Imagine trying to live with one eye, or one lung, or one testicle.

Isn't it equally a handicap to use only half your brain?

"Specialisation is for insects." Robert A. Heinlein

"I once knew a man who was an ear, a magnificent ear, the greatest ear in Europe. But that was all he was: an ear." Nietzsche on Wager

I firmly believe that we are entering an age that will make the Renaissance` look like a tempest in a teapot, and that each of us can play a role in turning man into superman.

An old Sufi legend: The venerable sage Mullah Nasrudin was once condemned to death for certain witty and satirical sayings that disturbed the local Shah. Nasrudin immediately offered a bargain: "Postpone the execution one year," he implored the Shah, "and I will teach your horse to fly." Intrigued by this, the Shah agreed.

One day thereafter, a friend asked Nasrudin if he really expected to escape death by this maneuver.

"Why not?" answered the divine Mullah. "A lot can happen in a year. There might be a revolution and a new government. There might be a foreign invasion and we'd all be living under a new Shah. Then again, the present Shah might die of natural causes, or somebody in the palace might poison him. As you know, it is traditional for a new Shah to pardon all condemned criminals awaiting execution when he takes the throne. Besides that, during the year my captors will have many opportunities for carelessness and I will always be looking for an opportunity to escape.

"And, finally," Nasrudin concluded, "if the worst comes to the worst, maybe I can teach the damned horse to fly!"

Nasrudin was expressing the key element in the Sufi view of the world, which holds that each man and woman is an incarnate part of God, with infinite chances to improve his or her circumstances and likewise to improve the world. "Maybe the damned horse can fly" is a Sufi proverb, indicating that it is always premature to abandon hope.

We live in an age when despair is fashionable, even chic; when human self-contempt has reached heights not known since the Dark Ages; and when it is considered naive to believe that any good can be accomplished

Nobody needs to teach me anything about the inhumanity of humanity, Yet I still believe that there is, as the Sufis say, a divinity within each person that can be released.

from The illuminati Papers by Robert Anton Wilson

Nothing is true. Everything is permissible.

Love is the law, love under will.

This document can be found on the world wide web by pointing your URL to http://delphi.maths.qmw.ac.uk/~femi/sld12.html

Compiled and updated Wed Oct 15 21:36:59 BST 1997
by Obafemi A. Adewumi@qmw.ac.uk

THE SELF LIBERATOR'S DIGEST VOLUME TWELVE