03
We have to grant our imagination access to us. We do that by allowing our mind to range freely over our external and internal landscape, playing with the possibilities, turning things upside down, inside out, seeing things as they are and as they should be and as they never will be, wondering why how what when where about it all. Taking things apart. Putting them back together differently. Getting to the bottom of everything. Or half-way to the bottom of something. Let your imagination wander around with everything you have ever been told was so, with everything you have always held to be so, and see what you imagination has to say about what is so, and isn't so, and may be so, or not so. Let your imagination play with your life! And join in the game! Playing along!
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02
We need all the help we can get. We are here, in part, to help one another. The government is the extension of ourselves into an organized body of helpfulness, providing all people access to what they need to live fulfilling, productive, creative, satisfying lives. The government is our collective way of assisting one another in the task of finding our life and living it. But, the government has been shanghaied by corporate money and power to serve corporate greed at the expense of the people's need. "Profit At Any Price" is the motto of rampant capitalism gone rogue. The government has been taken over by capitalists who are out for their own idea of the good and use the people as means to their ends. The capitalists turn the people against themselves by demonizing labor unions, and collective bargaining efforts, and social programs, and civil rights endeavors, and environmental movements, and anything that the capitalists perceive to be a potential threat to their ability to increase their wealth. The capitalists own the government and the media and the social/cultural institutions that keep the people living well below their potential or their optimum level of functioning-- and incite jealousy, hatred and fear of each other among the people to keep their own interest in and allegiance to, Profit At Any Price serving them well in their pursuit of increasing their wealth for the sake of increasing their wealth throughout the rest of time. Capitalists need to wake up, grow up, and get a life that is centered on their self-development as persons, as human beings, without thinking that is in any way connected with their net worth. Money is just an easy way out of doing the work required to become a full/complete/actualized human being. Money is a diversion/distraction from the work of being who we are in the service of the true good of the whole. We only need enough money to buy the tools we need and provide the wherewithal to do what needs to be done with the gifts/daemon/character/ virtues/vitality/interests/ enthusiasm/heart and soul that are reflected in our original nature and come with us from the womb and are at our disposal in the work to find our life and live it in being who we are, doing what is ours to do, in each situation as it arises all our life long. How to do that is more of a problem than it needs to be because people are out for themselves at the expense of everyone else. Greed is driving the world. Compassion is a much better choice. See what you can do about putting things right in the time left for living.
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01
It takes more than the will to live. It takes willing to live beyond being 98.6 and breathing. It takes willing to live as self-directed, self-aware, self-sacrificing human beings, in the service of That Which Is Greater Than They Are, and Knows More Than They Know, in doing what is called for in each situation as it arises, with no interest in, or regard for, their own personal advantage, gain, benefit, good, interest, or boon, but with the sincere devotion to the good of the whole and loyalty to That Which is Greater Than They Are, and Knows More Than They Know, leading the way, supplying their motivation, and driving their effort day-by-day. A bit more on That Which Is Greater Than They Are and Knows More Than They Know... In The Hero With A Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell says, talking about the Hero-- which is to be understood as every person through time-- "There is everywhere a benign power supporting him in his superhuman passage." And later: "This is the power known to science as energy, to the Melanesians as mana, to the Sioux Indians as wakonda, the Hindus as shakti, the Christians as the power of God... Its manifestation in the psyche is termed, by the psychoanalysts as libdio. And its manifestation in the cosmos as the structure and flux of the universe itself." This is the power that is known to the Taoists as the Tao. This is the power that is at the heart of all religion everywhere. We all, at various points in our life, have experienced something beyond ordinary, apparent, reality at work in our life and in the world. That "something" is The Mystery At The Heart Of Life And Being-- about which we can say no more than "It Is!" But, if we cooperate with it, if we collaborate with it, if we "throw in with it," place ourselves "in accord with it," live "aligned with it," there comes to pass in our lived experience, a sense of peace and well-being unsurpassed by anything money can buy.
