We Need Consciousness, Not Just Political Reform Journalist Faiz Sakir of Think Progress wrote on October 5,2011: “The original “Occupy Wall Street” protest has grown beyond its name — it is no longer solely about the courageous people camped out at Zucotti Park; it is a nationwide movement bonded by a shared refrain: “We are the 99 percent.” This slogan has entered our political and financial lexicon and refers to the 99% , the vast majority of Americans, and their opposite, the 1% who have the exceedingly disproportionate share of the wealth. There is a mounting disgust and anger in America’s citizenry with a political and financial system that rewards the 1 % at the expense of the rest. The Occupy Wall Street protest reflects this by moving outside of it’s original platform as a protest against Wall Street, and has become a nationwide movement that is bringing awareness to ordinary Americans, not just about income inequality, but the declining median household incomes, the growing numbers of people getting kicked out of their homes, increasing numbers of adults and distressingly children falling below the poverty line, the millions joining the ranks of those without health insurance, and the corruption and unjustifiable political influence by greedy banks and corporations in the financial services sector. So far, the proposed solutions of the 99% have been political in nature at the level of national policy and are encoded in a list of demands called “99% Declaration” and a more loosely defined set of [...]
Greed
Money as Circulation
Why Hoarding by the Few is Death One of the principles of money is that it is fluid and dynamic.. It’s purpose is to go on moving from hand to hand, and that is why it is called currency. Greed and hoarding, destroys its whole purpose and the current becomes stagnant. The more money flows the richer a society, as it supports the unfolding of human potential of all of it’s citizens rather than for just a few. When it flows, money can be a servant of all rather than a master by a few. When there is only fiscal liberty for a few, it creates a hierarchy in society from which follows competition, ambition, dependence, helplessness, possessiveness, power over others, oppression and even tyranny. In our current society, money has stopped circulating. If we liken it to blood, we can see that when blood is circulating it is life. But when blood has stopped, it is death. It is the same with money. Money stopped is death. The more money circultaes the more there is. The more money is used the more it circulates, and the richer the society is. The fact that almost all of the money has been hoarded by a few- and it is getting worse not better- is leading to a death. Our money system, our society, and there are some who say even our species and/or planet earth cannot continue without the death of the organism. This is at the macro level. Now lets [...]
The “I Am” Sickness
Our Belief in Separateness is Leading Us To Serfdom Joseph Stilitz has done it again. He succinctly outlines the causes and impacts of the increasing disparity between those who have and those who don’t. The title of his article brilliantly says a lot: “Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%”. There are some amazing statistics out that illuminate this disparity in a way that make it more personal for us living in the United States. For example, that 400 families in the US have the same wealth as the bottom 150,000,000 million Americans. On the world stage, the top 1 % own 97% of the wealth. In the US, that percentage is 1% owns 40%, but it is a growing disparity. In the 1980’s , those percentages were 12% and 33%. So, we are being impacted too by this disparity and the statistics are changing at an alarming rate. As Sitiglitz pints out “we’re doing inequality on a world-class level”. In my experience, we in the first world were congratulating ourselves for not feeling subject to the lack that so many people in the world have been experiencing, which has been denial of the worst kind- we are special and it won’t happen to us- that’s what happens to “them”. Evidence of our belief that we are separate. Even as we watch protests in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, we are not recognizing it is increasingly the same situation at home. This is hubris and narcissism, not of the [...]
The Reemerging No-Growth Economics
Living Instead of Consuming There is a great article in the Nov/Dec issue of Utne Reader entitled “Nothing Grows Forever”, which is a reprint of the article from Mother Jones by Clive Thomson. It is a very hopeful article both for us and for the planet, as it not only questions the consumption economics that we have been living in, but provides a viable alternative. It provides a third way other then the dilemma that has been presented to us by growth economists, that without growth we would spiral into poverty and with it we deplete the planet. This third alternative is aptly names no-growth economics. It asks the questions of whether we could have a healthy economy that doesn’t grow. It also asks if we could halt the inescapable movement toward ecological catastrophe. The point of view of no-growth economics fits perfectly with the movement toward more consciousness in our economics. According to Thompson, in then 19th Century the economist John Stuart Mill had the point of view that growth only served up to a certain point where everyone would enjoy a reasonable standard of living. After that point he believed, people would be able to live their lives with a focus on things like child rearing, art, leisure and not get caught up in the “trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heals” that he saw in unrestrained capitalism. This chase of more is better is part of what I have spoken about earlier when I spoke about consciousness.This [...]
The Real Law of Attraction is NOT “The Secret” and NOT “The Power”
The Decent Of ”Spirituality” Into A Materialistic Egocentric and Self-Centered Doctrine I noticed in the New Yorker this week that the author of the book, The Secret, has just written a new book, The Power. Oh dear. It’s unfortunate that in the name of true spirituality ego-centric pseudo-spirituality gets on the New York Times best seller list. I was hoping that the Secret would pass by an disappear into oblivion before it could hurt people even more than it has and that the author, Rhonda Byrne, a purported ”spiritual” teacher would deservedly lose any proponents she might have gained. (I’m really sad Oprah didn’t see through this one and rather, by having the Secret contingent on her show, actually supported the growth of Byrne’s fan base). In case you need a reminder, in the Secret, Byrne was supposedly revealing a big secret that there is a “law of attraction in the universe”. Anyone on the spiritual journey, or even who has been in therapy, knows about this energetic law. It is no secret. She twisted the meaning into the idea that thoughts have power, and thinking about something is the way to get it, so therefore thinking positive thoughts will get you what you want. And mostly what people want is money. So it was just really about getting rich. She even went so far as to say the Law of Attraction is “the greatest power in the universe”. Wow. Even more than “God” or Being or whatever you call [...]
Concentric Circles of Recession
We Are Not Out of the Falling Bubble Woods Yet. I heard a joke the other day, that might have been funny if it weren’t so close to the truth. “The last will and testament of the Icelandic financial sector requested their ashes be spread over Europe”. I loved what my husband’s friend said in response to hearing that: There was a special bequest to England who replied “We said cash not ash”. But this is what is happening not just around Iceland debt, but debt in general all over the world. The debtors are being blamed, and the creditors have been given cash. The US government bailed out the banks- who were responsible for making bad loans, but gave nothing to the debtors. In effect, the bankers have been paid for their bad loans. As our economy is shrinking, these same creditors are grabbing as much as they can and in the process making the debtors feel guilty. The creditors are more guilty. They supported predatory lending- lending knowing that the debts could never be paid. It is another chapter in the wealth grab. The 10,000,000 Americans who are probably going to lose their homes didn’t cause the problems, but they and the American people whose taxes funded the bailouts are going to be left holding the bag. The economist Michael Hudson has likened the American democracy at the moment to an Oligarchy. He said that 25 years ago, 1% of the American public owned 27% of equity income, [...]
The Money Split
The Spiritualization of Money At the core of all great spiritual teachings is the recognition that as human beings we have two natures. In Hindu, this is talked about in terms of Shiva and Shakti. In Buddhsit Mahamudra, it is the union of luminous clarity and emptiness (Shiva) and Phenomenon. In Dzogchen, it is the union of awareness and phenomenon. In Tantra it is the Masculine (Emptiness) and Feminine (Form). In Christianity, it is the Father and Holy Ghost (Shiva) and the Son. In The Diamond Approach, it is the Absolute and the Logos or Realization/actualization. The shakti/phenomenon, form, the Son and actualization all point to us as human beings incarnate, as embodiment. So what is implied is that human life has meaning only insofar that we consciously and intentionally occupy two worlds, the spiritual and the human, at the same time. And that meaning appears at the place where these two worlds meet these two worlds- in the relationship between the two worlds. In our secular world, where we have not recently (I mean in terms of a few centuries) by and large not paid attention to that relationship, that meaning has largely been lost. I thought this was a good subject to cover today, because we have just passed Easter, where we have been reminded of the divinity of Jesus and hopefully also, of our own spiritual nature. So, let’s begin by looking at the symbolism of the cross. We have a horizontal and vertical segments meeting at the [...]
The Wall Street Hustle
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 [...]
Money and the Patriarchy
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 [...]
Money and Enlightenment
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! [...]