Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Soul of Money


I have been revisiting this book by Lynne Twist. She's been around the world as a fundraiser and activist for World Hunger and many others. She shares a story of a people that live deep in the Amazon rain forest, the Achuar people. This village of people have no culture based in money, have not used currency of any kind that exchanges hands for goods or services. Instead their culture is all inclusive in how it cares for its family and I can't get this image out of my mind. Imagine: When their child gets married both families come together and build the new couple their home. All they will need to begin their lives together is provided by their community. When a hunter brings food back from the jungle all the people gather to feast and share the food. No one is left without support and sustenance. She contrasts this way of life with the life of our modern monetary culture by sharing the experience of a designated native who lived with them in the US and learned our language and the culture of money. Our entire culture, purpose in living, and relationships as a community are based on the accumulation and value of money and consumerism. A person's value is based on their relationship and success with money. If you do not have it, have failed to earn it or succeed in the game of money, you are left to wither away, abandoned. What a contrast! I have been trying on the feeling of what it must be like to live in a community that gives freely of all of its resources with no intention or concept of keeping something for themselves when others are without. I am struck deeply by the inhumanity of our monetary culture and how it has destroyed our capacity to love and care for one another.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

"...turn entirely away..."


"...turn entirely away from the condition, because as long as we look at it, we cannot overcome it. By thinking upon a condition, we tend to animate it with the life of our thought, and thereby it is perpetuated and magnified. To rise above the contemplation of conditions is to enter that field of Causation which makes all things new in our experience." Ernest Holmes
There are those days when I am at peace with my spiritual beliefs and teachings in New Thought/Science of Mind, and then there are those days when I am completely thrown by a statement that stimulates so many questions that I am lost in my faith; when I become so bewildered by a statement that I am thrown into a tailspin and know no peace with the tradition I had just yesterday strongly aligned myself with. I am looking for the Truth in this quote with a capitol T. My mind naturally gravitates toward solving problems, studying a situation in order to understand its parts and effects. I feel I must understand what is my part in facilitating any changes that will benefit and uplift the situation. (Like solving our environmental dilemmas.)I have been trained to never ignore or deny the shadow but to acknowledge its presence as a way of neutralizing the dark effects it can have. To turn entirely away from a situation can also mean to go into denial, to oppress, to disassociate when direct attention is the healing mechanism. Unless Ernest Holmes in this statement is referring to the tendencies sometimes to unnecessarily obsess or perseverate about a situation I am right now in disagreement with him. And I am in deep contemplation about the implications herein. One day inner peace, the next day not as much...Peace is not an easy or passive path.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Heart Intelligence


It is a universal law that I have been taught—that the more loving you are, the more intelligent you become. If we have been able to create so much using just our minds, imagine what we might create if we were operating from the heart! Mind would not be inactive or unused—it would grow much more powerful, because it would be in right relationship to heart—to the source of being, and to creation. If we stop operating from an ego-driven, mental consciousness, we stop striving for meaningless things that gratify only the smallest part of who we are. We stop wasting our mental energy and can start directing every ounce of our hearts and minds to creating bounty for all beings. We could create a paradise on earth, unlike anything we have seen before. From Kiesha Crowther "Little Grandmother". Full text here http://www.greatmystery.org/nl/glast2011littlegrandmother.html.