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The Wall Street Hustle

Mar 3rd, 2010
by Mayuri.
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Opting Out of the Big Bank Fiasco and Moving Toward Self Sufficiency

The Rolling Stone March 2009 issue had an article by Matt Taibbi called Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle in which he likens the financial crisis bailout to a street con and makes a very good case of it, taking us step by step through the con game led by Goldman Sachs. In the article he makes a case that the big banks aren’t just pocketing the trillions that were given them to rescue the economy, but that they are engineering another crash so that they can continue to feed at the trough.

There is one paragraph that is such a concise summary, it is worth quoting:

“Take massive sums of money from the government, sit on it until the government starts printing trillions of dollars in a desperate attempt to restart the economy, buy even more toxic assets to sell back to the government at even more inflated prices,- and then, when all else fails, start driving toward the cliff again with a frank and open endorsement of bubble economies”.

He goes on to say, that” con artists have a word for the inability of victims to accept that they have been scammed. The call it the “true believer” syndrome.”

It is time to quit believing that someone else- the government, the banks- are going to take care of you and will have your best interests at heart. It is time to wake up, smell the coffee and take responsibility. This is the  theme of the new consciousness phase that humanity is entering into, that we are each responsible for our lives, our personal growth. But it is also the beauty of the new consciousness, that each one of us is a unique  expression of the ultimate beingness, true nature, God, the Beloved, Unity, whatever you wish to call it. In order for each of us to realize we are an individual reflection of the divine, we have to start with where we are, and that means taking responsibility. It is not a moral thing, but a spiritual one.

There is another saying about cons: every con is based on the mark’s own greed.

I don’t feel like that is the basis upon which the majority of Americans have been caught, however. It seems to me the underlying motivation was fear. That if I don’t get on this train of “more is better” I am going to fail and if I fail, I won’t survive. This is very tied into the instincts that I have spoken about earlier and a feeling of deprivation. Don’t get me wrong,  greed was inherent in the field and was a motivator for many people who wittingly or unwittingly joined the ranks of the perpetrators in the giant Ponzi scheme that was called the economy.

It was costly to consume out of a sense of deprivation. We got caught up in wanting more-bigger-faster stuff and then had to go back to earn the money to pay for it, or even worse what most of us did was go into credit card debt and mortgaged our futures for unbridled consumption. And we were not really satisfied. Are you happier? What we really want is rest, time, and connection- beingness.

Fear is not a crime.  But if we don’t use the zen stick of the financial crisis to wake up, then we are also being willfully ignorant, and that is suicide. And that is a crime against humanity.

There is another belief that is in operation in most of us- that there isn’t anything we can do to change the situation- it is the way it is. Globally this makes it so that those with the most money wield the most power and feel encouraged and entitled to do so. In that resignation, we abandon our human potential and the possibility of contributing to a thriving, equitable, healthy world.

Another belief that is in operation in us is that someone has to end up with the short end of the stick, Those with more are smarter and more able, even more valuable human beings. In other words, we are helpless.

But these are just beliefs, not the truth. Beliefs are a crime against ourselves, our potential, our capacities.

So we need to stand up, dust off our trousers, forgive ourselves and begin to do what Americans have done for centuries when faced with adversity, is to take stock and do what is needed. And in the process develop the muscles of personal responsibility and resiliency. It is not a call to arms, but a revolution of evolution. Let’s begin to apply intelligence and consciousness to the situation. And in that process you will find that you are not helpless.

One of the things we are going to have to tolerate is that there is going to be more financial volatility than there used to be.  So there will be less of the illusion of security that we believed money provided. The truth is, we don’t know what is going to happen in the next moment. The more we can sit in not knowing, the more we realize there really is no perch of security in the world, the more we will be able to tolerate the volatility. And then instead of fighting it, we will be able to allow the volatility to inform our decisions, about our financial life. We will be more conscious about our financial life.

So, how would this play our on a practical level. Here are some things to consider:

Remove yourself from dependency on the centralized money system which,  as I described  above, is leading us down the road of another con. Move your money to a local bank or credit union that is supporting your local community and gives loans to small businesses (ordinary Americans) and not just large corporations.

Lower your overhead as much as you can. For example, pay down your mortgage rather than putting more money away for retirement into the stock market which is part of that system. In this regard, there are some I know who are actually cashing in their IRA’s and paying the tax penalties, in order to pay off their mortgages.

Don’t debt and definitely don’t use your credit cards. The predatory lending through credit cards has fostered the dependence of Americans on the centralized money system. Also, credit card interest adds to  overhead and delays self-sufficiency. If you don’t understand this, see my blog on debt entitled “Debt is the New Bondage”.

When you reduce your overhead, you reduce your income needs. And that leaves you more flexible in dealing with different scenarios as they arise. It also can begin to lead to personal self -sufficiency which is in alignment with each of us taking more responsibility.

If you are investing, consider that diversification means global and local, and acres and hooves, not just different stocks and bonds which are all part of the centralized money system. Also consider investing in assets that do no harm. Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com uses “total economic return” as a basis for choosing investments- one that brings economic return to everyone, and not at the exploitation of anyone.

When you become more conscious with your money, you will realize that wherever you put your money,  it goes in your name, that is WHERE YOU ARE. If you practice financial intimacy, your goals and values will be tied up with what you invest in, what you bring into the world.

The bottom line is that we are our own money counselors and we need to take responsibility for our money and our assets. And since money is our expression of our consciousness in the world, it also means  taking responsibility for that consciousness, and that is the spiritual journey. Money as spiritual practice.

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Chaos and The Economy

Feb 4th, 2010
by Mayuri.
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A Spiritual View of the Economic Crises

I was at a mediation and guidance session the other night that was led by my friend, Pratima Freeman, who has been receiving guidance higher consciousness during meditation for many years. Not any particular being, but a transmission from a source of wisdom. See her website, Gifts of Guidance. She told me on the way to the evening she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to teach on.  Apparently during the meditation, she got the message that she was supposed to teach on joy, but had a lot of resistance to that. With all that was going on in the world, why joy? But that’s what we did, and it led to a very interesting evening about women and their role in the ending of  the patriarchy.

What I understood, is that we all need to stay connected to our joy. I am not talking about happiness here. Joy is experiencing everything without judgment or concern. It is a state of beingness. Whereas happiness requires that “this” happen and “not this”. There is a vast difference between them. Joy  is inclusive, while happiness is exclusive. Another example (mine) is that when we say abundance, we don’t mean the being state of feeling gratitude for the beneficence of existence, of consciousness and experience that flows through our lives, but rather we mean money.

So it is joy that is needed is for there to be a grounding in being while the world enters into chaos.  Why chaos? According to Pratima’s guidance, that is the only way the entrenched patriarchy will be able to loosen it’s grip on the world.  When I say patriarchy here, I am not blaming the masculine. What that refers to is the imbalance between the masculine and the feminine that has been affecting the world for probably 4000 years, since the time of Egypt. The masculine and feminine have  been equally affected. But as women, because of our womb wisdom, we can more easily stay in joy when there is chaos.  So it is the work women can do during this time- stay grounded in beingness.

I found this very interesting, because this is not the first I have heard of chaos with respect to what is happening right now in the world.  We simply have to look around at what has been happening economically for the last two years,  and if we haven’t been personally suffering yet,  we know many who are. I know many people’s survival instinct alarms have been going off.

I see the upheaval the world is experiencing as a sign of the human spirit. In history, there has been chaos before the fall of every empire- in Rome, the British Empire,  and perhaps now the American Empire. And in each case, the fall was presaged by a growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

I recently just read a book called Unplugging The Patriarchy by Lucia Rene. In that book she also talks about chaos in a similar vein. She sees chaos as the feminine and is actually the ability to surrender and let the Divine rule. Therefore,  implicit in chaos is divine order, but this is not as yet understood or valued by men.

In her view, the world is trying to move to the heart-based fourth chakra- to a new fourth dimensional world. Where one learns about unconditional love, where community collaboration and cooperation are organizing principles. Instead of a world where power is power over, where there is dominance instead of divine oneness.

So the paradox is that chaos is the beginning of a movement toward more balance.

This movement doesn’t say who will suffer and who won’t,  and it won’t necessarily seem fair to us who does or does not suffer, but it is for sure fortunes will be made and lost.

If we are looking outside of ourselves, into the world of ego, then the chaos and crashing that is happening will be a problem, a catastrophe. The ego will see negative factions and will want to blame.  Instead, we need to get out of our denial, stay with our negative feelings and face our fears within. It is only by seeing our illusions and unwise choices can  we begin to see a paradigm shift with untold opportunities for connecting with our self, our deeper nature, our beingness that is unaffected by the domain of the ego, the world.

It is only when we feel our brokenness that we can move toward wholeness.

If finances are much in your consciousness these days, then that is your path right now.  Perhaps it is about overcoming financial limitations to  find out how love, joy, truth beauty, all aspects of consciousness can manifest in your circumstances.

Again what we see, is that money is imbedded in everything that we do. So any movement in consciousness in the world will also mean a movement in money systems. If you pay attention to your relationship to money, you will become aware of the thread of your spiritual path. Our issues are the raw materials of our spirit. Like I heard the Michael channel say one day “If we achieved perfection, we would be spiritually unemployed”.

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Sustainable World

Jan 9th, 2010
by Mayuri.
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The Great Turning

Laast Sunday, January 3rd, in Mill Valley, CA I spent the afternoon at  Awakening The Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium which was created by  The Pachamam Alliance. Apparently this symposium has 2000 trainers that share it around the world in more than 40 countries on six continents.

This alliance was created out of a call for partnership from one of the world’s remote  indigenous dream cultures, The Achuar of the Amazon rainforest that was anwered by a small group if people, that included Lynn Twist. Lynn wrote the book, The Soul of Money, which I love and supports the movement as I do from the chase from “more is better” to sufficiency. This is how she says the Achuar put it:

“We need to change the dream of the North, the dream of the modern world, a dream rooted in consumption and acquisition, without any regard to the consequences of the natural world or even our own future.”

The mission of the Pachamama Alliance is to bring forth as environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on earth. The symposium was organized around four questions:

  • Where are we?
  • How did we get here?
  • What is possible for the future?
  • Where do we go from here?

They have a book called the Sustainable World Sourcebook which we should all have which gives detailed answers to all of these questions, which  I can’t go into in detail here, but I would like to address.

If we really look at “where are we? ” it is very sobering.

  • 2% of people own 50% of the world’s wealth
  • 50% of people share in 1% of the world’s wealth
  • in North America we use more than FIVE TIMES what the earth can renew (our ecological footprint). In other words, we use five earths, Europe uses three, China and India so far only one.
  • we are approaching the climate change tipping point
  • we are approaching a mass extinction of species . One half of all species will be gone in 50 years

If you have difficulty relating to that personally, then let me give you something you can relate to. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes in your closet and a roof over your head  (if you live in Mill Valley, California for example) then you are better off than 83% of the people in the world!

The Pachamama Alliance gives 7 foundations of a just sustainable world:

  1. Economic Fairness
  2. Comprehensive Peace
  3. Deep Democracy
  4. Social Justice
  5. Simple Living
  6. Revitalized Community

Bur we can’t change the world if we don’t change ourselves. Like I have been talking about all along here is taking personal responsibility for our choices.  We need to bring consciousness to the choices we have made and the underlying beliefs and assumptions that have been living our lives under. Check out some of these below and see if they fit for you. There are many more you can think of for yourself.

  • The world is here to satisfy our needs
  • Competition alone (without cooperation and compassion) is the fundamental law of nature
  • My value is dependent upon my success
  • We can throw things away eg; I recycle (Where do they go?)
  • Growth is based on consumption (the GDP)
  • We are separate people
  • Money (income, financial success will bring me happiness)

When we challenge our beliefs and assumptions, and inquire into ourselves about whether they are really true, we can get freedom from them, and start to live and act as a more conscious human being. Without consciousness we will continue to act out of our belief systems.

I want to address the last two here today. As I have spoken about before, we have been trying to fill our holes, our sense of deficiency with money. That having enough money or things will make us feel whole. Wholeness comes from beingness not more stuff. What we really want is connection, with the earth, with others, with our own deeper underlying nature.  Our mass consumption haas been based on the loneliness and hurt at the bottom of all of our ego structures. When we quit consuming, trying to fill this sense of deficiency with more stuff,  we will feel the underlying pain and hurt, and the hunger of the human heart. And when we stay with that pain and hurt, it will open into love. And we will recognize it is that we have been longing for. I call that Angelic lust, rather than the animal lust of more is better (more money, more pleasure, more stuff).

The indigenous view of the world is that we are it’s caretakers. That we need to be in balance with it. That what we do that assaults the earth, we are doing to ourselves. We haven’t recognized we are in a global village, there is only one boat and a hole will sink us all. Part of the reason is that we believe we are all separate human beings. Our whole ego structures are built around this assumption.

Physicist Brian Swimme, talks about the universe story, how we all and everything came from a point of singularity. So how can we be separate? That is at the macro level and the micro level. All of manifestation comes from one point of singularity. And yet we all act as separate, that our happiness is won at the expense of others, even our very survival. It is this belief that we are separate from everyone and everything else that underlies the imbalance in the world.  It is this separateness of the human heart  that hurts us, others, the world. Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist spiritual teacher,  talks bout the belief  that we are separate is primary to the world’s and our own imbalance puts it like this:  that “to be” means to “interbe”

So we need to inquire into this belief of our separateness, to feel directly whether it is true or not. To turn the gaze inward and find out what is the truth of our human heart. And with this new consciousness we are discovering within ourselves, we will bring more conscious actions to the world, because it will be who we are as much as what we do.

As the Pachamama Alliance says, we need to merge the genious of the human mind to the wisdom of the human heart. They say there needs to be a great turning, to bring a new possibility into the world. They are focussing on the world, the macro level.  That “great turning” also has to happen within each of us, within each of our own souls. Where we begin to look deeply within take responsibility for our own consciousness and what we each bring personally into the  world.




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Money and Inquiry

Dec 5th, 2009
by Mayuri.
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Applying the Spiritual Method of Inquiry to Money

One of the themes that I have continued to talk about is taking responsibility? It seems like an easy concept, but it is actually something very difficult to do. Mostly we like to blame- our mates, our parents, our investment advisor, the government, the economy, Bernie Madoff etc. etc.

What responsibility means is taking the 180 degree turn- instead of looking at the other, we begin to look at ourselves. This is the turn talked about in the spiritual journey- you can’t start until you begin to turn inwards. But it is not just those on the spiritual journey who need to take responsibility- we all do. It is required if the planet is going to survive- the argument about that has moved from “if” to “when”. There is no “other” that is going to do that for us. It is necessary that each one of us take responsibility for how we are living our lives and what we are contributing to the planet. If you confront yourself truthfully, you can know for yourself.

Of course, we are influenced by the culture we live in.  One measurement of  the mean responsibility (average) in your culture is the carbon footprint, which you, as an individual,  are contributing to. And the carbon footprint in the US is the second largest in the world. The only country higher is Australia, and that is because of the exportation of their natural resources, not because of their consumer consumption, which the US’s is a reflection of.

So, what does that mean practically to take the 180 degree turn? How can you practice that in a meaningful way? The answer to that is a method called inquiry which you can apply to yourself.

What is inquiry? It is an open and open-ended questioning of our experience that leads to a living understanding of ourselves. It is experiential, not conceptual.

It is also natural and simple. It is how we as infants began to orient ourselves in the world. It is how we learned. For example, like “how can I pull myself up to this table”, or “What is this like if I put it in my mouth”. These inquiries are  not  answered through concepts, but actually making contact with what is happening right where we are. So, inquiry is part of being human.

What I am talking about in this context, is applying that same natural attribute of inquiry to our consciousness, so that we can see  ourselves more clearly. So that we can wake up to what we are doing, how we are living.More importantly, it can wake us up to our underlying beingness. It can penetrate our layers of defenses, our resistances and opens things up so that we can see more clearly the truth of a situation .It opens things up within the realm of our personal experience. And we can apply this inquiry to our relationship to money.

Let’s take an example. Let’s say I am a married woman who takes care of the money in our relationship because I believe my husband has no capacity in this area. I feel resentment and wish I had a more responsible partner.As I feel into my resentment, it reminds me of my mother’s resentment. I begin to recognize that my parents’ experience  molded this belief in me. In this example, my mother had an alcoholic husband and I remember the fear in my belly,  and I feel like I need to control the money or I won’t survive.So  I begin to see how I have been blaming my husband instead of looking at me.This looking at your own experience and taking responsibility for what is happening in your life is the 180 degree turn.

With inquiry, you can find what is beneath a feeling or belief, and this takes us into deeper and deeper realms of reality. And if we apply this inquiry into our beliefs, attitudes and reactions to money, we are using money as a spiritual path. Inquiry is the defining method the the Diamond Approach in the Ridhwan Spiritual School.

There are qualities that support our inquiry and make it more effective.We need to have an openness to seeing the truth, to allowing whatever comes up without having any goal or position or preference. That means we have to be able to allow ourselves to experience not knowing . Not knowing is the doorway to something new, to new possibilities and is not normally valued in our culture.  Otherwise we stay in the realm of the known which does not take us deeper into our depth or the truth. If we think we know the answer, then we are not open. We can be truly surprised about what we find out if we remain open to what is being revealed in our inquiry.

You need to start where you are. It is not about what you think, but what you feel. So check in with your emotions and body sensations. Remember inquiry is experiential. You are not trying to figure it out with your mind. In inquiry, the mind’s role changes from “figuring it out” to curiosity and recognition of what’s true.

The world of truth  is approached through increased attention to oneself - to our consciousness in the midst of our world dealings. And this is the beginning of our freedom from it.

The issue confronting us is that money is such an enormous role in our lives yet we are generally unconscious about it.

So in order to free oneself from the thrall of money, we need to study ourselves in the middle of it. Not avoid looking at our money issues and hope it will work out for the best. We need to begin to see the causes and effects of our relationship to money and inquiry can help us do that.

So the process is to dive into the middle of our money issues, feel the discomfort energy fully, and recognize what truth we find for ourselves in the middle of it.

When you do this, it removes the power from a structure, a belief, an emotion, and makes it transparent, so that whatever it was creating in your life disappears. And at the same time opens you up more and more to who you really are.

And when you rest more and more in your deeper true nature, in beingness, even in the midst of the intensity of feelings that you experience around money, you will be able to respond more skillfully to your money situation. And you will have more wisdom about your relationship to money that you can apply to it. And equally importantly, as a result, you will contribute to the sanity of the planet.

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The Future is Now

Nov 11th, 2009
by Mayuri.
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Are  Being Spiritual and Not Debting for the Future Contradictory?

I received this email last week:

“In an excellent post last April on credit card debt, you stated bluntly, ‘Debt steals from the future.’

I’m in full agreement, but I fear this line of reasoning falls on deaf ears to many debt-laden people who’ve imbibed spiritual literature over the years that emphasizes “present-moment awareness.”  They don’t want to hear about the future, don’t want to think about it.  For them, that 60s song by The Grass Roots, ‘Let’s Live for Today’ has been a lifelong mantra.

Do you have any thoughts on how to overcome this resistance to the notion of focusing on the future?  You hint at this when you write, ‘You will become more present, and not living in the bondage of your future’ by avoiding debt… but what exactly should someone tell himself or herself while climbing out of debt to ‘become more present’?”

This is an excellent question, but not a simple one to answer. There are many levels on which to answer this question. I am going to approach it for the purposes of this post from two perspectives.

Firstly from the perspective of Right Action.

We are where spirit has materialized, so you cannot separate yourself from that which is physical or material. So being in the moment, in the now of our experience, does not negate the laws of relative reality, of physical manifestation. And there are patterns that manifest regarding money just as there are other patterns we have learned to see and understand. One of those patterns is the effect of debt on our present experience.

To be spiritual is not contradictory to material well-being. In fact, to bring our spiritual realization into the world is part of the spiritual journey.  There is realization of your true nature which  you could call vertical realization, and then there is the movement of this realization into the world. You could call this the horizontal integration of our realization, whatever state or level that is. That is bringing our realization into our lives.

This implies right action. If we don’t attend to impeccability and right action, then there is an insincerity on the path.

So we  need to become more aware of the actions we take. We need to know what is RIGHT action. The more we live our lives in a “correct” way, the more we integrate being/ our true nature into our lives.

It is an ethical question: when we align ourselves with  an ethical response, that is right action. And ethical responses are in alignment with being. If truth does not enter into our relationships with money, then it cannot enter into our lives.

This requires both integrity and responsibility.

The more mature a human being we are, the  more we have a feeling sense of integrity, the  more we have self respect and also respect reality. The less mature we are, the less able we are to consider the totality of any situation.

And when you are more able to see the totality of the situation with money, you will recognize the implications of debt. When I talk about debt, I am not just talking about money, but also talking about consciousness and waking up to the reality of your situation in the now. That is why I call this work I do  “money as a spiritual practice”.

The second perspective is that of Future Orientation.

The NOW is without the future in our experience of the present moment.

If you have an appointment tomorrow, or if you need to make travel plans, or if you need to consider the impact of debt, you do need to consider the future in that sense.  We do need to consider it for practical matters. But what does that have to do with the experience of yourself in the moment? Your experience of yourself can be in the now, even as you are making plans.

So we can be efficient and intelligent about the future, even as we reside in the present moment.

The problem is that we believe we have to jump into the future in order to plan. We can plan in the now. Our consciousness does not have to jump into the future, but for most of us that is what happens.

Most of us live in hope for a better future and we attempt to alter our experience to make a better future.  That means we believe in a future and we end up living for that future. So we end up in a future orientation missing the now. But what is there other than now?

So it is a paradox. The nowness of our experience is where our being, our essence, our true nature is. So we don’t want to live in a future orientation.

But that doesn’t negate the recognition and needs of manifest reality.We are human beings afterall.

Where there is paradox there is also truth. There is always both sides of any coin.

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Money and the Patriarchy

Oct 30th, 2009
by Mayuri.
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The Challenge to the Old Masculine Mentality

The masculine is what turns the soul  outward to affect the world. But in order for it to help us through the global crisis, which is really a wake-up all to humanity, it must escape the defining cultural influences to which it has been subjected for centuries. The forces of the old masculine approach ( what I call the patriarchy) are being challenged by a the arising of the feminine and a new masculinity that uses its strength to support and empower the community.

What I call the  patriarchy is really a  magnification and distortion of the true masculine qualities. True masculinity is about  achievement in the world, but not cut off from consciousness and in partnership with the feminine.

The old patriarch loves the rigidity of the law, the power of the hierarchy, and the tyranny of oppression. The difficulty is that old ways die hard and our institutions including banks, government, church, and corporations are still easily controlled by this mentality.  People who are in these institutions are not objective, because their own  interests are being served- so whether consciously or unconsciously, they are enmeshed in this mindset. You just need to look at the bonuses Wall Street keeps paying out  to see the truth of this.

These people have not reflected on their inner lives, and the values that would flow from such a reflection. Instead, they act through layers of rationalization, manipulation, greed, and hidden agendas which (I hope for the planet’s and humanities sake, not too late)  are no longer so hidden.

This distorted masculine has no  respect for individual autonomy, honest emotion, or thinking for oneself. American’s have stopped thinking for themselves, and instead adopt the latest sound bite as the truth. We are the object of  scorn and contempt in the world for our astounding lack of intelligent discernment.

Signs of this patriarchy way of thinking is seen everywhere in the west: in the forms of absolute control, war and oppression, logic without emotion, science without consciousness,  and “objectivity” without relationship. This has been going on for centuries, and even millennium. And it is not  allowing humanity to evolve.

For those of us who have been aware of the movements of the new masculine, which bring truth and honesty and integrity to their dealings in the world, there have been equal and opposing tactics by the patriarchy in order to attempt to maintain control. I believe this is the thrashing tail of a dying dragon , however, and won’t ultimately prevail.

In fact, “fighting” the patriarchy is not the movement that is needed: our energy, our time, and therefore our creativity is drained from us when we oppose something. What is needed is to move forward with the new.

But, this new masculine consciousness cannot exist without the feminine, nor vice versa. What is needed is an equal partnership with respect for each other. This is already beginning to happen at an increasing rate. I see it happening all around me.

I can give you some examples. You probably have many of your own to contribute.

I was recently at a wonderful shop like few you’ve ever visited, called Spirit Matters in West Marin, CA that has all kinds of spiritual crafts, books, music (what the owner Nonnie Welch calls “oddities and deities”). It was amazing seeing all the books on the feminine that are available right now. There are all kinds of group experiences for addressing  the issues of both the emerging masculine and feminine that you can find on the internet, and maybe in your neighborhood. Personally, I just got back from a retreat with Bernie Prior , a world teacher on the masculine and the feminine who calls his work SHE (Spiritual Human Evolution).This partnership of the masculine and feminine will begin to align individual, national, and global, concerns and provide the gateway toward greater human evolution of consciousness.

My husband and I first addressed what we felt was difficult in our relationship, but didn’t realize as a split between the masculine and the feminine several years ago, when we read the Toltec books, Unveil the Mysteries of the Female and The Quest for Maleness by Theun Mares which you can get on Amazon. Although I didn’t agree with everything in these books, it allowed the two of us enter into a partnership that totally changed our relationship and has endured. The biggest thing was that my husband started to really listen to me, my intuition, my depth, my groundedness in the forms of reality, my view of what was happening. I remember him saying to me  in the language of the Toltec books”You have been stalking me, but I haven’t been listening”.

“What does this have to do with money?”  you might be asking. One simple answer, is that if men had been in partnership with women, there couldn’t have been the financial instruments so cut off from actual reality. There would not have been derivatives, bundles  of debts with fancy names (the real estate bubble) , buying stocks without underlying real value (the dot.com bubble).  There would have been the values of the feminine including nurturance, community, respect for the other, love, and the conception of purpose in life, and therefore in equity, in assets- the world of money.

So how about now, how about you as an individual? The steps toward transformation are simple and humble. Start where you are.  A couple needs listen to each other and value what the other is bringing to the table, as equals. I was speaking to Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com who amongst many things helps with investing from this new mindset. I heard her say, that the voice of the wife, the feminine, has been a big part of her most successful stories of transforming the equity of her clients, out of the patriarchy and the centralized money system, and into a more sustainable reality.

Whether  as an individual or in a couple, it is important to see where you are. What that means practically is preparing  a monthly cash flow statement (”cash in” minus categories of “cash out”) to see where you have spending your life energy and whether, if you turn and reflect on your inner self, does where you put your money reflect  your values, or does it reflect the values of the patriarchy, like fear and greed. This will take radical honesty and a desire to know the truth.

But it will also support taking responsibility which I keep saying, is a necessary, from my view, the primary ingredient for humanity to continue evolving. If you start taking responsibility for your money, since money is imbedded in everything we do, it will lead to being responsible in all aspects of your life, and a step toward contributing to a consciousness shift in humanity.  We may feel helpless in personally fixing the system, but we can be part of the movement toward sanity.

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Money and Fear

Sep 2nd, 2009
by Mayuri.
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The Survival Instinct and Money

One of the opposing forces in addition to the usual resistances and psychodynamic issues we have to  contend with on our journey of realization are the animal instincts. They are powerful drives underneath our consciousness that want to preserve life on an animal level and are not concerned as consciousness is with the mysteries.  But they often run us. And often without us knowing it.

I am talking about the survival, social and sexual instincts. And all of them affect our relationship to money.

For example, the social instinct can play out on the ego level as superficiality of relating, need for dominance and control, social climbing, status, image, the need for fame, or a dependency need. The sexual instinct can play out on the ego level as pleasure and compulsion. And fear, aggression, terror, worrying and obsessions are part of the survival drive. This last is the most primitive of the drives. Everyone wants to survive and live in some level of creature comfort. In fact, the majority of the world is dominated by this.

 You can easily see how our money is tied up in these.

We don’t want to suppress the instincts as they are our life force- the expression of creative dynamism and not just the animal. We can’t be free of them, but rather want to free them to become a support and a protection for our spiritual journey.

We do that by clarifiying them, liberating them from their distortions, and integrating them and harmonizing with our True nature, God, The Beloved, The Absolute, whatever you want to call our living experience of the ultimate truth. So we use the energy of the drives in our realization rather than them running us and disrupting our lives.

Some distortions of the survival instinct for example, might show up as marrying for money. Or not letting anyone share your life because you don’t want to share your money. Manipulativeness, seduction, meanness and aggression. Over accumulating money. These are just a few.

But this is not easy. This is a lifetime proposition- something you have to continuously pay attention to. To recognize the distortions and align  your actions with what you know to be true, to take an appropriate action. The more you are aware, the more the energy of the drive will be liberated.

 If you are caught in fight, or flight or freeze, you know how powerful these drives are and how difficult what I am talking about is.  So practice is a very important part of dealing with the instincts. Eventually, with practice, drives can be penetrated and the energy can then be used for our realization.

The social instinct will become the drive for intimacy and the sexual drive, the drive for union. And the survival drive, the drive for selflessness.

The survival drive often shows up its distortions  in money. I believe we are all becoming much more aware of this with the current economic crisis.  Survival and money have a huge connection. And partly it’s true because without money, we would die, which makes it even more difficult. So it is very important to understand how our relationship to money is affected by the instincts and become aware of the distortions and how we relate to them.

And the practice of inquiry can help us do that. What I mean by that is inquiring into our experience with openness and curiosity without judgment.

I wanted to bring this part up right now as I’m sure fear and uncertainty are part of everyone’s experience, as it is very big in the collective.  We need to have some perspective and understanding if we are going to take responsibility in our lives.

But I want to point out something else. That when live in the moment and in the dynamic unfolding of being, uncertainty is inherent in it. Not knowing is a natural state of man.

 Ultimately there is no perch, nothing concrete to stand on. There is no self to protect. And this is very difficult for the ego self to tolerate. But it is also our freedom.

 

 

 

 

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Money and Enlightenment

Aug 7th, 2009
by Mayuri.
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How I See What Spiritual Teacher Jed McKenna Has To Say and the Economic Crisis Are Related

 

I have been reading Jed Mckenna’s Notebook which is the newest from Spiritual Teacher, although he would hate that title. I have read his other  three books in what he calls his Enlightenment Trilogy: Spiritual Enlightenment The Damnedest Thing, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment, and Spiritual Warfare. I have read and reread them all and loved them, even if he would regard me as someone waking up within the dream and not waking up from the dream.

You can’t find him in Wikipedia; there is no picture of him on the website for Wisefool Press, his publisher (I would guess he is self-published); there is no mail or email address for the publisher- he does not want to be contacted it seems.

But he definitely has something to say, that is necessary if you are at all serious about waking up.

In his latest book, he also has some great things to say that is relevant to money and the spiritual journey, so I am dedicating today’s blog to quoting Jed’s book. Please enjoy. If you are intrigued, then by all means, order his books. they are the least thought provoking, and if you are open, life-changing.

“Somehow everything has become flipped upside down. Not knowing of anything better, we have elevated the banalities of physical survival to the summit of human experience- eating, drinking, sensual pleasures, sex, mating, gathering- what pathetic consolations they are! Wealth ,power, prestige- such words would not even appear in the vocabulary of a society of Whole beings, but for us Halflings, they’re all we have.”

As Jed says, yes, we are all halflings, but not the good half!

Some, including realized spiritual teachers, thought that in America could be the “New World” or as Osho said, “The New Man”. That in America, man would begin to find true freedom,  that America would be in the center of a new era of “fully realized human potential”. Not a “continued downward spiral of  greed, corruption, disease and stultifying mediocrity.”

“A young country with boundless idealism, poetic vision’ and virtually limitless wealth, burning with words like freedom and expansion and exploration, with phrases like all men are created equal,  and inalienable rights, and pursuit of happiness”. A place “where good things could happen”.

“What is the Declaration of Independence except an act of rebellion?” “It’s a revolutionary decree; a response to what it calls an absolute tyranny. It’s a declaration of war. Where’s that spirit today? It doesn’t exist”. “We are a vanquished broken people. We are slaves”.

 

“The current state of humans on earth is, compared to what it could and should be, a state of being far more terrible than any writer ever has or will portray” We can look at the dystopian visions of Huxley, Zamyatin, Orwell, Burgess, Rand, Bradbury and others and think about how good we have it compared to how bad it could be, but when we adopt a view that encompasses our full potential, it becomes painfully clear that dystopian vision has ever been imagined that rivals our very own  reality for inescapable nightmarish horror. Emerson was right when he said man is god in ruins, and what could be more terrible that that? We are our own worst case scenario. It is only our ignorance that shields us, but it is that very ignorance that imprisons us”.

If this sounds depressing, Jed addresses that. “The only thing I know that is depressing is being ego-clad, because then you can awaken to your situation and remedy it.” “Everyone should be as depressed as hell, and if they were, then something might actually happen. He says we live in a protective  state of constant denial, that has us living a barely consious life. “The necessities of life are  food, water, clothing, shelter, denial and distraction”.

What Jed points to, and what I agree with, is that the idea of a society waking up is a pipe dream, that a whole society could enlighten themselves. As Jed says, it is “One person making a break, drawing a line, that’s where the best thing in the world happens; not in groups or in societies, but in individuals”.

That is part of what I have been saying- what is needed is for each of us to  become responsible, to wake ourselves up. That is the new spirituality.  I don’t believe we are in for a slow burn economically. I believe there is going to be chaos. The more awake you are, the more you have taken responsibility for your life, the more able you will be to see the storm, and yourself, as actors in the game of life, and not take it so seriously. The more you are able to do that, the less you will be tossed about on the ocean of chaos. If you don’t, you are going to suffer more. The coming economic crisis can be used as a tool for each person to wake up.

This can lead us to what Jed calls, “The good part”. “Man’s potential   is not dark and murky and unknowable, but consciousness and infinite.We can gain entry into that from which we have been cast out”.  ”Anyone can do this”. “It’s not reserved for the elite, or intelligent, or the devout any more that sunlight  is reserved for the wealthy or the worthy”. “We can look hard and see clearly”.” Think for yourself, open your eyes, ask Who am I”. 

When we see clearly, we will see that the lens we have been seeing through has been murky, the lens of ego and self. “Clean the lens and the world resolves into crystal clarity, and the darkness and murkiness  are forgotten as if they never were”.

This can be your quest if you choose to take it on. And now is an opportunity like no other.

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Facing Limitation Is Being Human

Jul 16th, 2009
by Mayuri.
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The Economic Crisis as Human Growth in Conciousness

 

As I spoke about in my last blog, the chase for more is better has been a defining characteristic of our culture for some time.  One of the hallmarks of this is the resulting “ubiquitous frenzy , arising from the almost universal discomfort of being with oneself. Everyone involved in this chase has been exploiting the present moment as a stepping stone to new experiences or pleasures that will keep them from having to feel our discomfort. We have become attached to our escapes from ourselves.

This has become such an expectation of our culture, that Obama and the present government administration has been trying to bail out the centralized money system in an attempt to let us keep the “American Way”. It’s failing. It was doomed to fail. And not just becuase of the economics involved. I do follow those. I have made reference before to those I trust on that front, for example   Michael Hudson    who wrote “The Financial War Against Iceland” and many other articles over the years of great insight and wisdom and also  Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.com. But the economics is not my job. My job is one of consciousness, and to bring that to our money.

From my perspective, the bailout was doomed to fail because a new consciousness is necessary for the survival of the planet, and us. That means we can no longer run from our discomfort. If we had chosen a different path we might not be in the position now of being forced to confront our truths. It is not as if we have not had warning. Think of Al Gore and his movie An Inconvenient Truth which, if you haven’t seen it, you should. It is available on DVD.

So we are going to have to face ourselves. Each one of us. Me included. Even though I could see this coming and have been trying to wake people up about how their money attitudes were contributing to the coming crisis, I am in the field that we are all part of and I am not exempt.

Some of the things I have seen recently in Marin County where I live ( a very partial list):  

  • Contractors going bankrupt
  • Car dealerships closing
  • Houses not selling
  • Domestic help getting fired (women cleaning their own houses for the first time in decades)
  • Restaurants closing
  • Retail stores closing
  • Clients cancelling appointments because of finances
  • Friends who lost money with Madoff having to sell their homes or go back to work
  • Investment bankers and commercial real estate brokers with mortgages and families losing their jobs

And each one of these is a pebble with a ripple affect on  many others. And that is just in my immediate neighborhood.

It is time to get out of denial and face the fear and other negative emotions we are feeling. 

Many people now have have less money now than they did a few years ago and I believe there is going to be a slow burn of reducing this even further for most people for some time. By some definitions, the world has become farther away from perfection. Yet, from the soul’s point of view, there are many new lessons available in what has been occurring. Much emphasis has been on blaming the government and Wall Street, yet people are also looking at their own illusions and unwise choices. Or not looking, which will ultimately make them suffer more.  When the truth feels unpleasant, people try to hide from it.

And now there are whole new sets of choices to be made in light of changed circumstances. There can be joy even in this. There can be joy in all things, including in some places you would not expect to find it. Our egos are attached to being victims- “it is the government’s fault” ot “Wall Street’s” or “the banks”. It will focus on negative factors when what is happening could be seen as a paradigm shift with untold blessings.

If finances are much in your consciousness, and right now that is true for many people, it may be your path to learn how to overcome financial limitations and see how truth, love, and beauty manifest in your financial circumstances.  

We have bodies. Bodies themselves are a limitation. You may never have the waistline that you believe would be ideal for you, and certainly everything in the physical universe is aging. We are on a planet of limitations. So limitation is part of our human experience.

 Whatever is on your plate right now is your opportunity to grow. Whatever negative emotions you are experiencing right now are what you need to feel, be with, and  learn to understand. Even just by making the best of it, you are fulfilling your destiny.  But more than that,  the problems of your life are the raw materials of your spirit. Achieving perfection in form would be to become spiritually unemployed; that is why it does not happen.

So instead of running, turn and face your discomforts and the limitations that are happening in your life. This is part of the human journey and is necessary for your spiritual growth. This is the opportunity of the economic crisis.

Otherwise it wouldn’t be happening.

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The Answer To Our Credit Crisis

Jun 29th, 2009
by Mayuri.
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The Antidote to Greed in the Economic Downturn

 

In my last post I talked about leaving the chase for more is better and a sense of deprivation which fueled that chase and start living in a sense of sufficiency. I also said this would take a shift in consciousness.

In the November 10 Newsweek, in the Article, A Darker Future For Us, by Robert Samuelson, he talked about how Americans have been “progress junkies”. That is part of what I believe allowed us to be asleep at the wheel  around the greed, miscalculation and  the subsequent economic ruin of  many Americans, and maybe America itself. The  recession will end, but it won’t be a recovery to previous rates of growth.  People are going to feel poorer, because their “sluggish income gains (will) get siphoned off into higher taxes, energy costs, and health spending.He says the we are about to begin a time of what he calls “affluent deprivation” which he says is a state of mind. 

I believe that we can, and need to move from a sense that without growth we will be in deprivation. It’s costly to consume out of a sense of deprivation. We get caught up in wanting more-bigger-faster stuff and then have to go back to earn the money to pay for it. And we are not really satisfied. What we really want is rest, time., money and connection.

Jacob Needleman talks about how our capitalist society creates ever new desires. And the ease of credit in our society , let us buy into those desires.. Credit went  from something you receive when you are in serious need to something you get to satisfy superficial invented desires.

 And what do we pay with? We pay with time. And time is our life. SO WE PAY WITH OUR LIFE. So you can have everything you desire, everything money can buy , and have an ever diminishing quality of experience. You can HAVE everything, and BE nothing. I consider this the true poverty, a hell on earth.

In his book, , Needleman says we got  “Plastic credit cards, masses of debt, enormous rates of interest, equaling massive inflation impersonal finances, continuous production of ever new and superfluous information  exactly like the continuous production of new consumer goods that satisfy artificially created needs, easy credit, borrowing money, electronic transfers of millions —ALL ON THE SURFACE OF LIFE”.

This source of this is in the realm of consciousness.  The mind always hankers for more. And more. If you have money, it wants more money. If you have prestige, it hankers for more prestige.  If you have knowledge, it wants more knowledge. The mind lives in the “more”.

You have each probably felt the thrill of spending money- but afterward the rush is gone. That is more about pleasure than fulfillment. It is more about satisfying the animal soul desires. Satisfying our instinctual needs has become mostly what society is about.

And, we have given value to things that don’t have value. Things that give peace, enjoyment, freedom.  

 

When we let go of trying to get more of what we really don’t need, it frees up our energy to make a difference with what we have. And when we do that, we will no longer feel deprived. When you make a difference with what you have, our experience of it is that it expands. So we don’t have to be in the “affluent deprivation” Samuelson is predicting, but rather a sense of sufficieny. That there is enough.

        

The struggle with sufficiency has nothing to do with the amount of money you have- it has to do with the relationship you have with the money. Can we recognize that better comes from not more, but deepening our experience of what’s already there? Rather than growth being external and acquiring, can we redefine growth to see it as a recognition and appreciation for what we already have?

 

A friend of mine  knew a chartered accountant down under who talked about ECHO-NOMICS The law of reciprocation. If we want joy, give joy. If we want love or appreciation, then give love and appreciation. 

Therefore, we need to be more objective about where value lies. 

OSHO quote:

“ The art of life is to live a rich life- but the richness comes from your inner awareness. You can live a very poor life and be rich outwardly- you can have a big bank balance. But a dog’s life.”

We are all about to face limitation in a way few have never experienced in our lifetime. Limitation is part of the human experience. And one thing you notice as you face limitation with responsibility, you learn from it, you grow from that experience. Look at other ways this has happened in your life.

If you begin to tell a different story of your life as you meet your economic woes, it will give you different results and because of those different results, it  will give you different beliefs or knowledge. And this will perpetuate.

So, look for what’s working instead of what’s not. Instead,   put your  attention and appreciation on what is there. What you appreciate, and what you pay attention to, determines the quality of your life.

And you will have a change in consciousness; you will begin to experience the abundance that is available in the moment , rather than in your balance sheet.


 

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