JOURNAL 2003

I am a Sagittarius (fire sign) and I really love the challenge of being honest with the depth of my soul. Yet, I have a limitation, I do not like to be the cause of or stimulator of other people’s emotional self abuse.

Therefore, I am always open to finding somebody who wants to go to the depths and is willing to explore themselves and another.

I love to hike and climb mountains (hence one of my reasons for being in Colorado). I love being out of doors and in nature so if you are interested in showing me places to hike around here I would be most interested.

I think of myself as a gentle soul but I do have some passions that can really animate me. Dishonesty is one. Some people find they are intimated by my passion so they usually keep a distance from me.

I should add that being healthy of body, mind and spirit is VERY important to me. I do consider it a team effort so somebody who wants to be healthy of body, mind and spirit I am more than willing to work with. But somebody who wants to get close to me should be pretty adept at it already.

Thanks for your posting. I look forward to hearing from you.

Meditative Discussion is different than regular discussions or talks in that we are learning how to be open to receiving without the limitation of our preconceived thoughts and ideas. These are fundamental skills in gaining clarity of mind. We still the body and then the mind’s reactions or thoughts to what is being said or done. The stillness creates a clarity that enables us to see the reality that sets us free to enjoy what life is offering.

Posting for craigslist: To Be Perfect

Thoughts from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey.

Help people see a different paradigm or way of thinking.

1. Be Proactive. Taking responsibility for your life.
2. Begin with the end in mind. Think of how you would like to see the end of your life. What type of funeral would you like? What eulogy would you like to have? Write down your life mission statement.
3. Put first things first. Know the difference between importance and urgency. Think of one activity that if I did very well would produce superb results.

Profound health is approaching perfection.

Right now I am trying to finish my ‘work’. This work is just the typing in of some thoughts and ideas that I have recorded. But I am feeling a lot of inner pressure to just escape and go into my thought or fantasies. Yet the moment I started to write this paragraph I notice the desire to fantasize go away. I was again in the moment and dealing with the past; my spirit was aligned with my task.

As I think about what I have just written I realize that I almost NEVER go back and read any of the postings I have here in my journal. So why would I bother to even write it.

Email to Adam:

When you were a child did your parents "rule" with a representative and democratic style or were they more naturally autocratic? I doubt that they were "representative and democratic" because you, as a child, were not ABLE to even know the choices let along decide what would work best for you. So too with government, most of the 'subjects' of government really do not have a inclination, knowledge or ability to decide what they even want let along what is best for them. So as long as there are people who want government (mommy and daddy) there will be non representative government. Government has always been and will always be a took of the ruling classes (be them religious, business, unions, etc.) to control and use the weaker classes of people. THAT IS ITS NATURE.

The real question is do you and I want or need government? I have not been involved with government in any way since 1978. I have not voted nor paid taxes since then. What they do only marginally effects me. But I do care about what they do because it does effect the quality of life for others.

I would like to confront you on something. You wrote, "Recognizing that industry and commerce are simply tools of the ruling class to dangle a carrot in front of the masses in order to make them feel like their lives have
meaning." Have you not taken of the carrot in your current occupation? You seem tantalized by the trinket of the media. Is this occupation giving you ‘meaning’ or is it just a distraction for the deeper things you used to be aware of?

You ARE pessimistic not realistic. A realist does not have a reaction to what they see, a pessimist has a negative reaction and sees it as ugly. An awakened person recognizes that what they want is to experience beauty and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So the awakened person CHOOSES to see things first as they are THEN to find a way to appreciate it and look at the opportunity in it.

The world IS PERFECT, if you are open to it. It is a perfect playground with infinite opportunities to play and enjoy life. I feel like a kid in an ice cream shop where there are not just 31 flavors but 31 BILLION flavors to choose from. I feel overwhelmed by the choices and have found myself leaving the shop WITHOUT any ice cream because I could not choose which flavor to choose from. I do feel that I am about ready to actually make a decision and start enjoying my ice cream.

I trust you had a good nights sleep last night. I really do appreciate our interactions and friendship.

By the way, I think my ‘revolutionary potential’ is in inspiring people to see life as perfect and looking for the opportunities that they want to play with and that give them meaning.

End of email to Adam.

Quality vs. quantity in the pursuit of perfection. We want lots of stuff, many friends, lots of money, lots of exercise, many experiences. The quality of perfection is available to us if we just change our ways of thinking.

Enlightenment, realization, perfection, heaven; these are all terms that point at a reality that is beyond the ordinary, the extraordinary experience of life. Something beyond the normal, something beyond the mundane.

Why does truth set us free? Because the absolute truth or reality is infinite and eternal; there are no limits to it. So anything that talks about limitation is only talking about a limited truth or relative truth which is conditional and subjective.

I see that I am stuck on wanting big results. I want to give feedback to people/humanity in a big way. I am inspired to do that in a big way to have big results. Yet I do not have the faith as a grain of mustard seed that sees the big picture in time and recognizes that it will take a long time for big changes to come about. I have had the vision in the past that it will take a long time for real changes to happen but I have lot that as my current experiences. I have the sense of urgency feeling, the get rich quick mentality. I seem to want to have the ego gratification of seeing the changes I envisioned manifested in the world in my lifetime.

I realize that what I do want is to be a public speaker. I enjoy stimulating and challenging people.

America has had many black marks on its rich history of liberty and respect for others. Guantanamo Bay will be another one. Just as we look at the embarrassment of the Japanese internment camps during World War II, someday we will look back at the internment camp of Guantanamo Bay as an embarrassment.

The current Bush administrations wants to change the fundamental structure of our society from a society based on the rule of laws to a society based on the rule of men. Guantanamo Bay is a foothold for this administration into a society where people are subject not to the laws but to the whims of the rulers.

If we are going to seek the moral leadership of the world we will have to think as world class citizens, not just as Americans. Our hearts & minds have to reach out to those who will not have a vote in our elections.

The economy is based on our attitude, not necessarily the policies of our government. If we are upbeat and our leaders are upbeat then the economy will be upbeat.

The unions of America must recognize that the market climate of this country has changed and that their product/service is not needed like it was in the past. This is not to say that there is not a market for the unions, only that the unions should look beyond the borders of America for their members. It is the duty of all freedom loving people, and particularly Americans, to work to create environments in other countries where unions can do the work they do if it is needed.

If our companies can go to other countries and have those people manufacture products destine for America but at a lower labor cost, then those countries should be open to our unions to go there and unionize their employees.

If we do not have an equal amount of funding for population control as we do for disease control then we are working against ourselves.

There are three things that keep people down; lack of energy, lack of knowledge and lack of courage the latter is just a product of the lack of knowledge. Lack of energy is a product of physical and mental health, diet and lifestyle plus the lack of passion or desire.

What happened to "Liberty and justice for all?" Where is the justice for those in Guantanamo bay? Our principles were based on the Golden Rule; do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. We no longer treat non Americans as we would treat Americans. Just as we used to abuse Native Americans and Africans because they were not white, now we abuse non Americans.

When said we opened our arms to the worlds hungry, the poor the disadvantaged we were saying that we were open to diversity. That diversity is what made America great. To return this country to greatness we need to return to being open to diversity. Out of diversity comes creativity and entrepreneurship that made America great. We become the nation of creativity.

A Life of Excellence (instead of the Pursuit of Perfection)

Population Control: An idea that everyone be born with the right to have one child each. That would mean that a couple could have two children and no more, or they would be penalized. If a person choose not to have children then he or she could sell their right to the highest bidder. There could even be a market where these rights could be traded.

Is the fact that G. W. Bush lied to the American people the problem or is the problem that the American people were gullible enough to believe him.

The foundation of all ethics is the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. In my mind I always add…because they are you.

What would I say to people right now if I had a crowd. I would say that you are infinite beings who always have been and always will be. You are without limit. I would say that we do unto others as we would want done unto ourselves BECAUSE THEY ARE US.

If you are not a master over yourself then you are a slave to everybody else. Being a master over yourself is just learning the art of relaxation of body and mind so that you do not have to react to what is said or done. The art of that starts with the ability to let go of making things important.

Article idea: based on the false assumption of GW Bush that America has the best health care system in the world, or that money can buy. Our health care system is really a sickness care system that is based on profit. The profit is only there is people are sick, people only go to doctors or take drugs if they are unhealthy, not if they are healthy. They symptoms of this are that we have more obesity, heart disease, diabetes, chronic diseases, etc..

It is in the best interest of stock holders that people are unhealthy but not for the people. What Bush proposes is good for business but not good for the people.

Article idea: When in Doubt, Do Nothing. Talks about the option of doing nothing, an option that we are rarely told we have.

Article idea: fictional story; It is a fictional story of the meeting of Mohammed Atta and a Christian pastor on September 1, 2001. The story would be from Mohammed’s perspective and written as an open letter to America but influenced by the pastor’s perspective. (Mohammed Atta piloted one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Centers). I, Mohammed, want to write this down so that someday other people can learn from what I have given my life here for.

(from 5/5/01 paper journal)

Sticks & Stones

Most adults are so habituated to reaction to words that they cannot imagine any validity to the school yard rhyme of "Sticks & Stones my break my bones but words will never harm me."

Yet, it is possible to get free from the negative affects that words can have on us.

All relationships rely on communications to create a bond between people. If we are habitually responding to the words by tensing us, contracting down and becoming hard then we are closing ourselves off to the people we want to connect to. In our hearts we want to be open, we do not want to be afraid of people and their words. In our hearts we want to be open to everybody, but we have been conditioned or taught to fear people and their words or judgements.

Impossible you say. No, it is not impossible to be open to everybody. I am not talking about physically being open to all forms of contact with everybody. I am only talking about being open to their words, ideas or even judgements.

It is sad to say that some people can not even imagine the possibility of being free from the abusive effect that words can have. Their conditioning is so strong and habitual that the idea that they could actually enjoy and even love everybody seems impossible and not evens worth considering.

It is not impossible. With patience and persistence it is possible to get free of all our negative reactions and feeling that limit the quality of our life experience.

"Meditation in Speech" Meditation in Conversation

Right Speech:

When dealing with children of all ages who have not come to the understanding of their responsibility for their reactions to words, a person who feels compassion for them will take that responsibility temporarily by being gentle and vague in their words while pointing out the greater truth of personal responsibility for our reaction to words.

(2) the assumption here is that one is dealing with intelligent, mature people who will understand the concept of personal responsibility for their reactions to words. But most people are not mature or intelligent enough to "get it," particularly children. Right speech is the product of awareness of this while having compassion for these asleep people.

JesusTest.com

A website where the question is asked of Christians, How well do you know Jesus? A dynamic questionnaire.

Addictive behavior is a product of people finding something they think of as good and assuming that that thing will be the only thing that can give them goodness.

I felt addicted to various people in the past. Just last night I felt that towards Nomi.

Last night I talked with Sherri about publishing her little book "Be God" by her self. I realized right away that I was talking to myself self. I got clarity on the structure of the book: Words Don’t Hurt, short and sweet chapters, no long essays. I will finish the book and then submit it to publishers or agents. While waiting for them to act I will publish it myself (with comments in the copyrights page that I am open to other publishers and how they can contact me.) Then I will promote the book myself with book signings at book stores, and maybe even on the streets or boardwalk.

Modern American Idolatry:

Guantanamo Bay and Moral Pluralism

When a people no longer live by the Golden Rule of Do Unto others As You Would Want Done Unto Yourself then they digress into a culture of barbarism. Americans are on the brink of such a digression. Our government does not treat people of other nationalities way it treats Americans. If we were a moral nation our government would be required to treat all those under it dominion equally, including prisoners of war or even those classified as enemy combatants. Our current attitude shows a lack of moral commitment and a moral ambiguity.

Story line: imagine that after years of experience you realize that you have a very reliable ability to see the future clearly. Now imagine you are in Germany in the early 1900s and a neighbor kid just lost his father, his name is Adolf Hitler. Now imagine you are Jewish and you can see 1945 and you can see what happens because of this little boy. What do you do? Do you kill the little boy and save the millions of Jewish people who died in the holocaust or do you let it go? You can see also what happened in 1948 where the UN created the nation of Israel because of the sympathy the world felt for the Jews because of all the people they lost in the holocaust. You are still in 1900 and that little boy Adolf is venerable. What do you do? Do you let his live so that he can kill millions of Jews and cause the nation of Israel to come into existence or do you interfere and stop Israel for becoming a nation.

Title: Clipped Wings; the psychological castration of the American male.

Idea today for creating an organization that will train people how to listen to other and how to speak from the heart while allowing others to react however they must. Enlightenment Evangelists.

Gunning Formula of Readability

• Keep sentences short
• Prefer the simple to the complex
• Use the familiar word
• Avoid unnecessary words
• Put action in your verbs
• Write as your talk
• Use picturable terms
• Tune in with reader’s experience
• Make full use of variety
• Write to express, not to impress

When we think about peace there are two different types of peace, world peace and peace with the world. One is possible, the other is not. One we think we want but we really don’t and the other we think we do not want but we really do.

If we do not have peace with the world we can not bring peace to the world.

Until we change ourselves we will never change the world. Once we change ourselves we will not NEED to change the world.

Peaceadmin, we can not give to others what we do not have so we must first find the peace within ourselves before we can bring it to our greater ‘Self’. Because we are connected to all life we naturally want all life to find the peace that we want. But if we are not at peace with the world then we will be afraid and this fear will close down our heart and our caring.

To change ourselves we start by learning to relax our body, mind and soul. Tension is caused by narrowing our awareness or focus of our attention (the attitude that you talk about of ‘belonging’ to a group or category is a narrowing of awareness.) When we make something important then we are narrowing our awareness. This is not to say that we should never narrow our awareness, only that we also allow for expanded awareness to open our minds and embrace the WHOLE world and everything it offers. Now, that is a real challenge. The challenge is to see good in all that life offers by not being attached to ANY outcome.

There is no way to Love,

Love IS the way.

Love is a choice.

The more you choose love,

The more you get to experience love.

The choice is yours

The power to choose comes with practice.

If you "get it" you realize that what you want is to experience love. How to love is both a science and an art. It is the art of relaxing, of letting go, of not making anything more important than love.

Worldly power is a product of focusing our mind on a purpose or mission. So I want to focus my mind, energy and resources on writing a book on communication, "Words Don’t Hurt," and promoting that idea.

Topic: The Power of Listening.

A question or perception I have is that there are two types of people: one, the majority, who serve their fear, and the other who work to drive out their fears with light and love. The first group tries to change the world and the other group changes themselves. Of course, we all do a little of both, but we emphasize one or the other.

Prejudice

Being a believer and being prejudice are one in the same. A prejudice person ‘believes’ something bad about someone or something that they really do not know anything about.

Topic: Do we believe in democracy? As I have been doing some petitioning I notice that many people do not to put citizens initiatives on the ballot so that we can vote on them. It is amazing that so many people say they believe in democracy by when it comes down to it they would rather see somebody else make the decision for them.

Topic: The Perfect Vacation: a trip to India and working with the poor people of Calcutta. Then, when you return to America you will be so much more appreciative of your life that the rest of the year you will feel like you are on vacation.

"I never gave them Hell. I only spoke the truth and they thought of it as Hell." Harry Truman

Religious fundamentalists have been left behind in the evolutionary process. The September 11, 2001 event was a wake up call to the rest of America and humanity to see that religious fundamentalism is a problem or a sickness that we must deal with. We can put our head in the sand and try to ignore the problem or we can look at why they have not evolved and why are they still in the Stone Age.

A Real Leader Wanted

I want to vote for somebody, but there is nobody out there to vote for. I am so embarrassed by our current pathetic President. He is an embarrassment to America and embarrassment to the Republican Party. I have never felt so motivated to get rid of somebody out of office as I am to get him out of office. I was excited during the Democratic primaries because there were some people out there who seem to have some real leadership abilities. At first I was excited about Howard Dean and later I was even more excited about Wes Clark. But they did not end up being the Democratic nominee and John Kerry did. Yet, he is boring me silly. He is totally uninspiring. He stands for nothing but somebody who wants to be President. I still feel there is nobody to vote for. John Kerry, George W. Bush, they are both just trying to buy this election. They just want to give favors to their special interests. They both just want to take the money from the pot this is our tax money and they want to give it to their friends.

They are not leading. Leadership is not about buying elections and buying votes. Leadership is about changing people. Changing their ways of thinking. Challenging them to be more than they are. If they really want to lead why don’t they confront us for the failures that we have created. This is suppose to be a nation of the people, by the people, for the people. The Democrats can not blame G. W. Bush for the way things are. The Democrats should be blaming the Democrat voters who voted and allowed Bush to become President. They should be pushing at us and making the people feel responsible for the failures of our government and our society today.

It is not George W. Bush’s fault with all the problems we have with Iraq or terrorism or the economy or anything else. He is doing the best job that he can. Yes, he may not be qualified to be doing that job, but we put him there and he is doing the best job that he can. So it is our fault, not his that we gave him more than he can handle. We are the ones to blame. We allowed him to become President. (Yes, I admit, we did not vote for him to become President, but we did not object either when he was appointed President.) (Yes, I admit, we did not vote for him to become President, but we did not object either when he was appointed President.)

Real leaders would point this out and make us feel that responsibility.

I want John Kerry to challenge us to be better citizens. I want him to be the leader. I want him to not decry the pathetic performance of a President who holds a press conference and never answers a single question put to him buy the press. I want him to challenge the people to not tolerate that kind of leadership. I want him to challenge us to want more than a leader who is constantly lying and manipulating us.

I want a presidential candidate who has vision who can talk about far into the future, far beyond the next quarters numbers. Far beyond next election. I want a candidate who can look seriously at where we have come from and where we really want to go. I want a candidate who can look seriously at where we have come from and where we really want to go. I want a candidate who looks at our deep rooted problems that we have in America today. We are a unhealthy nation; a VERY unhealthy nation. We are physically unhealthy people. We are fat, we are obese. We have heart disease. We have diabetes. We have the best health care that money can by and it is killing us. So throwing more money at the health care problem is not going to help us. We need to be challenged to do better for ourselves. So throwing more money at the health care problem is not going to help us. That is not going to make us healthier. That is just throwing good money after bad. We need to be challenged to do better for ourselves.

It is not throwing money at health care systems that will make us healthier. It is challenging us to choose healthier lifestyle choices that will lead us to be a healthy nation. That is leadership. Not buying people who are too lazy to get off their butt and walk down to the corner to buy a paper. How about challenging us to be healthier in our bodies and our minds.

How about challenging our economy to be something more than a consumer machine, that we have to go out and buy, buy, buy just to have a healthy economy. How about turning us from consumers to servers of the rest of humanity who is so far behind us and nowhere near our decadent lifestyle. How about challenging us to reach out to the people of Afghanistan or Iraq or some of the other poor nations and challenge us to reach out and help them evolve. We could make our economy based on service instead of consumerism.

A question I would like to ask people (maybe email it to everybody I know) would be to ask them where they think they are on the SPIRITUAL EVOLUTIONAL scale. If we were to use the measurement system we have for the educational system with kindergarten being barbarians and Ph.D. being the most spiritually evolved people in human history, then were are you on that scale. I would interested in understanding how they define the Ph.D. person.

Spiritual Evolution is a good title for a book and it could start with the results of this survey. What does it mean to be graduated from elementary school, junior high school, high school, college, graduate school and to get your Ph.D.?

I would define these steps by what a person still believes in. for instance, if they still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy then they are still in kindergarten. Etc…

Title: Beyond God. Beyond Jesus. Going beyond the concepts of God or Christ, beyond the value of those concepts that have been offered to us. Beyond the image we have of Jesus or the image we have of God. Beyond the idolatry of those images to the physiological reality. What are the advantages of the concepts of God. Is God a thing? If God is not a thing then God is no thing, nothing, the mystery or what the Buddhist calls the void, Shunayta.

Saturday, June 05, 2004 6:20 PM Somewhere east of Big Pine, Calif.

From 5/30: this morning I have been thinking about ‘show, don’t tell’. Instead of talking about the courage to be honest I should be demonstrating it. Instead of writing about how words do not hurt people I should be demonstrating it. I really do not enjoy writing but I do enjoy talking to people. So this is telling me that there is something wrong or something out of whack with what I am doing.

From 6/5: as I wrote the above I realized that I am mostly writing to create a text book for people who want to get free from their fear of words and communication. Today, I feel good, or at least better, about writing again.

Unions tend to be enabler because the enable people to stay in unhealthy, miserable jobs just motivated by the good money that unions offer. This is not healthy for the laborers. The only people this is really good for are the labor management.

We do not make mistakes, for we are perfect beings. We do create learning opportunities.

Where is America Going? It will look back in our history; one hundred or two hundred years ago, were we going back then and were we are going now and what is the sameness of those times. What is the pattern we have seen historically, over the long haul of two hundred plus years. What has been the common thread of those two hundred plus years of what America has been about and what has made it what it is today.

Then we will look into the future, a hundred years or so, and ask ourselves where do we want the country to go. What kind of world do we want it to be? What kind of vision do we have for that future after we understood our past.

Two hundred plus years ago people came to the land, our forefathers and our foremothers, came here to create a nation. When they came here they were looking for one thing: OPPORTUNITY. They were looking for opportunity in a land that had no limits, a land that had no laws. When they came here there were not governments, there were no boundaries, no rules, and no regulations. When the nation started forming on the East Coast they moved to the west looking for opportunity.

Opportunity is the reason that America became America. It is the reason today that people come here from all over the world, they come for the opportunity that America offers. Why do they seek opportunity here when they could stay at home? Because we have so few limits, we are not bounded. We are neither bounded by law or by belief. Our minds are more open then those of the rest of the world.

When a nation becomes hundreds of millions of people it must create laws and limits. For without those laws and those limits we create more problems then we create opportunities. But laws are only bad if they limit us from getting what we really want. And what we want is to be free to find happiness, joy and love in what life offers us.