In Touch With Our True Self

In order to live life to its fullest we need to be in touch with our true being.

This means we must learn to live from our higher self, who we really are, and learn not to identify with the non-self.
This is not an easy process, it is a life long path. For most of us, a path that can take more than a life time.

The first steps on this journey is to recognise our soul and its life. What is important, meaningful to our soul? The soul is the reality that allows us to contact with our true self and what is of true importance. As we progress in this knowledge we come to understand that the personality is not our true self. The cares and worries of the personality are not of true importance. Slowly, the personality is recognised as a vehicle for soul expression. Instead of being control by our physical bodies, pour emotions and our thoughts, they become expressions of the soul. A process that allows us to dis-identify from the illusion and glamour of what is not our true self but that we have come to believe it was.

Our personality becomes aligned and identify with our soul purpose. Individuality diminishes in favour of a sense of collective and of belonging to a larger reality. We begin to sense group responsibility. We then can begin the redemption process of the other kingdoms of nature (mineral, vegetable and animal), plus the recognition of the One Humanity that brings about right human relations.

As the Ancient Wisdom saying goes; we pass from darkness into light, from the unreal to the real, from death to life. A life long process that lead to the emergence of a new way of living and loving, so let your personality express your Higher Self, since that’s what it’s time to do!

As individuals, as groups or collectives and as nations.

Turning the World Around can be simple!

We all wonder at times what we could do to make this world a better place. I am sure we often feel discourage when we realise how complicated it all is and how limited we are. That sensation is so familiar to me. 

I have learned that what is really happening is that I face a limit in my creative and thinking capacity. Sometimes simplicity is all that is needed and there is so much we can all do to make a change and bring about right human relationships and make this world a better place.

The following link will take you to an iniciative that is simple, enlightening and so full of hope and effectiveness. A true lesson in how there are ways to make things better when creativity and thought are put together for a good cause.

Enjoy and share,

http://www.youtube.com/embed/I6sPCSJu31U?rel=0

Heart and Mind

At times we need to be more mind oriented, more mental. Nothing wrong with that. Our mind, our intellectual powers are one of the traits that makes us human and that can carry us to success in our evolutionary path.

Nevertheless there is a danger of viewing ourselves as mental beings or of becoming to mental. That is, to believe that only the mind is trustworthy and any other source of knowledge and information should fall into the suspicious category.

Emotions are often view as a risk. They are not to be trusted and they should be managed by the mind. When we do this we may go to far as to separate mind from heart. The intellect from the emotions. It seems that only the brain can think and that only the heart can feel. This brings about a dichotomy. Instead of unity we have a duality and the two aspects will often clash.

Modern science has proven that our heart, (as our stomach and other body organs) have neurons and neuron clusters embedded within its other cell forming tissues. This gives the heart its own “brain”. It can and does control its functions with certain independence from the brain but does so using neurons, its own neurons. We then not only think with our brain, organs and we can say, even cells have their own intelligent ability. It has been an esoteric truth that there is intelligence in every atom. So, we actually think with all our being.

The same can be said about emotions or feelings. The brain impressions can be stronger or weaker according to the pumping rhythm of the heart. Emotions are not only heart felt, they stem from all over the body (and thoughts). We can often feel a part of our body reacting to emotions (or thoughts) by becoming warmer, by contracting etc. We feel with all of our body, with all of our being. Even our brain. Emotions are also a spiritual manifestation, a spiritual experience and/or action.

It is pointless to separate mind or thought from heart or emotions. This separation can be useful to gain understanding of what is happening with us. On the sources of knowledge or information. But, that those not make the distinction real. It also does not set a hierarchical subordination of one aspect to the other.

We need to reach a synthesis. We are a unity. Mind, emotions, body, spirit, are all manifestations of our true self. The same energy or vibration but at a different vibration. All valuable to understanding, to living, to achieve purpose, and to gain awareness of our unity and manifestation of our divinity.

The Free Market

By now we all know that the Free Market is not an absolute fact of economic practice. The old believe that “The invisible hand” would bring about equilibrium, stability and justice thus maximizing the common good is long gone.

One of the problems with this conception is that at its root was the believe that individual actions, seeking individual gain would bring a general well being.
Individuals would follow a “rational” behaviour maximizing individual and social wealth. The market would select where more reward is to be found and would regulate individuals actions. The market is rational and fair. Individual benefit is the force behind decisions and actions.
Greed would propel individuals and society but the free market would regulate individual action and distribute social benefit.

Time has proven than only a few ended very wealthy while others are stuck with less and less. It is obvious that there are at least two problems with this view of the free market:

• There is no such thing as a “Free Market”. Wealth, the wealthy will ensure that the market swings according to their benefit. The most recent example is the tampering with the Libor interest rate by a UK bank. Obviously this bank could not have done this by itself and others are to be found involved too. On both sides of the Atlantic. What does this say of the culture behind the financial sector? What does this say about the role of controllers and supervision?
  Markets were rigged (again) affecting loans, mortgages, bail out money received, altering information and confidence and of course banks profits and tax return.
• The “Free Market” is sustained by the laws of supply and demand. But, do the laws of supply and demand apply to the whole population? Are they Universal? Of course not. Poor people (or countries) have needs but they have no role in the demand side of the market for they have no wealth/money to demand in the market. They are not a part of the free market, they simple don't count. Demand is not a synonym for need. Demand only applies to those that have resources to be part of the “Free Market”. The same can be said of Supply. How can the unemployed, the unskilled supply anything to a growing sophisticated market? No wonder sweat shops and such other abnormalities are an every day fact of life.
  
  

Today most wealth is “created” by the speculative capital managed by financial institutions. Volatile, risky, international suppositions are the realities behind price setting in the market. They are also behind the setting of interest rates for loans and investments. It is no longer the individual greed or “rational” behaviour that would lead to social benefit as first thought by the “Free Market” theorist and supporters.

Prices are no longer free to bring equilibrium into the market system (They have never been and they will never bring the theoretical stability and justice).

The current system needs reform. Mostly an ethical and legal reform. Capital is needed but it has to play a different role to the one that is playing today. A system that can rig the markets for the benefit of a few is no longer feasible.

The role of individual profit or of corporative profit (based on personal interest aka; greed) need to be redefined.
An individual or a corporation are part of a collective and it has to share fairly with the collective the profits and gains made, as much as the collective has bail out the financial institutions when they have done such a poor job.
The idea that greed as the foundation of personal benefit will bring justice and balance has to go. We need a conscious and conceptual change to

redefine economic laws and functions. The economy can not be an isolated reality that self sustain itself and that imposes itself on the gross of society. Economy is a means and should be subordinated to social realities. We need a new way of understanding of the foundations and purpose of economic activity.

Capital has a major role to play. It is needed and it can be a huge propeller of human development. It is not capital that is wrong, but the manipulation of it by selfish institutions and individual greed. Responsibility is a term that has to be brought into the centre light. There is no freedom without responsibility and a clear purpose. How each of us, how every society defines and implements the concepts and foundations of a new system is there affair and for sure will bring about different solutions and that is a good thing.

Brilliant Pain Killer

What a BRILLIANT idea. The Spaniards have come with this fantastic idea: Pain killer pills for someone else's pain!

They saw the statistics: 6 out of 10 counter sold medicines are pain killers. They are effective mind you, but they only have an effect on the person that takes them. Why not create a pain killer that would work for some else? Yes, you take it and some else's pain is mitigated, probably healed.

They got busy, developed the idea, got permission from the European Commission, the Spanish Health and Safety, the Pharmaceutical Guild, and the local governments. Then they signed up celebrities to promote their idea. It worked! The sales of pain killer pills that mitigate some else's pain have been a huge success and are now among the 10 most sold medicines in Spanish pharmacy s.

You buy a box that has a certain amount of pills (mint pills) for one Euro. The money goes entirely to Doctors Without Frontiers and is used to relieve pain in third world countries or poor neighbourhoods. As simple as that. You buy the pills, you take them and someone else's pain is mitigated.

People that take them say they have become addicted. Some say they have diminish the taking of pain killers for themselves. Many buy this pills as gifts for friends and family. What a nice way of the collective taking care of the collective. Of funding care and healing for others, of thinking about others and their situation and doing something about it. A simple idea thought out by average people and with huge results.

A good example of what can be achieve when we think, we act, we engage the collective, we focus on others needs and do something about it.
Governments, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and many more should take notice. I did. I feel frustrated I did not come up with such a clever simple idea. I'm also very glad some else did and that it is working for the collective. Acting according to the need. Brilliant! Today, I feel much better and healthier.

If you want to visit their web page, here is the link:

http://www.msf.es/pastillascontraeldolorajeno/

There is also a brilliant Youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcluxN_2DfM

Sadly enough I haven't been able to find a translation for it. Maybe you will and if so, get in touch and let's spread the word.

The Economy needs Magical Thought

We all know times are complicated, in particular when dealing with economic issues. Whether the Euro-crisis or personal finances or our current economic model and its effects on our planet. (Interesting to follow what the Río 2012 Conference will be saying as it is held these next few days).

We all know that the current economic system is far from fair and not sustainable. Changes are needed as the patch up is taking place but we know that won't hold for long. We need a new economic and also a broader deeper sense of our place and mission on this planet. Seems we are all waiting for a new economic (political-social) theory to appear and provide us with a new paradigm to follow. Well, it won't happen just by magic and we are all involve in this. We all can think, imagine, new ways of doing things. We all need to be creative and bring this energies into the collective to aid in the upcoming of a different system.

I, for one have come about with a very simple one. Sure it is not perfect, nor immediately feasible, and open up to questioning and discussion, but, it is an initiative that adds up to the collective thought. If I could come with a simple proposition that may have some merits to it, I am sure that the eggheads that know about these things can come with better proposal any time.

Imagine that the world got together, probably by regions at a time (Europe, or America to take the lead, and other regions would follow). They agree on the following principles:

- The price of any good will create a certain set percentage of taxes. This tax will be distributed as follows: a certain percentage (fix) will go to the country where the good is sold, another fix percentage to the country where it is manufactured. Always the same fix rate and no exceptions. Eventually,we could do with just one currency, or if different, they will be so similar that no big financial speculation will really make the profits it makes today.
- Wages will be the same in every country. Same work, same pay. Simple. Eventually prices and wages and standard of living will become very similar anywhere.
- Interest rates will be very similar and fix both for investing and for loans. We are an international closely knighted that is becoming very similar so no need for big differential gaps in the finance sector.
- The price of a good will be the same everywhere because taxes, wages, finance are similar everywhere. The only difference that will be added to the price of the good is that of the cost of transport. This would foster local production, local sourcing, and buying local goods. Creating a stronger internal market and a stable employment opportunity.

- Because natural resources are not the same everywhere, the country or region that has a specific resource will naturally use and manufacture or harvest accordingly to what nature provides it with, and the technology for this will be developed locally or internationally for the benefit of all.
Countries that have lost their manufacturing capacity due to very low wages, poorer working conditions, etc. will have the capacity to regain them and countries that have specific national resources will bank their progress on them and take better care of them because that is what is at the core of their economical (social political) development and sustainability. Yet, interdependence will grow and the benefit of all parties will have to be taken more into account than that of what it is today. For example: Germany will produce amazing cars as it does today. African countries will benefit from exploiting their own natural resources (minerals, crops, etc.) that can be sold in Germany at a reasonable price and German cars would be sold in Africa at the same price as in Germany (plus transport costs), and both market could afford the products for wages, taxes and interest rates are the same.
- No more huge international, anonymous companies running the energy, the communications, the financial or the food market. We would need less intermediaries, no tax heavens, no big chances to make money in financial speculation. The linking of the economies (taxes, wages, interest rates) will makes us much more aware of what happens in other countries and if needs be provide them with assistance for if they fail, we all run into trouble. Charity loans, aids, etc. will truly become that and not an undercover business that only makes matters worst for the “beneficiary” as is often the case now.
We need to change our outlook from greed and individual benefit (personal, company, country) to collective awareness and responsible sharing. It can be done, it is at the core of true change.

Think about it. Simple global agreements can make huge differences if we are willing to make them. The times call for change, the current system will not hold forever, neither will the environment. We need original, new ways to see things and create them. Energy follows thought, so think about the changes you would make and put them out there in the collective mind. It is simple, not naïve. Magic does happen, specially if there is a will behind the trick.