Archive for January, 2010

Spiritual Compassion

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

In the catastrophic situation of earthquake-ravaged Haiti, there has been much for which to be thankful. People climbing out of the rubble and bravely picking up their life again in the crowded, corpse-strewn streets of the capital, Port o’ Prince. Young and old people, with wounds, sometimes severe and life threatening, waiting patiently for rescue to come.

There are the medical volunteers: doctors and nurses volunteering to undertake the brutally demanding work of patching wounds, sawing off smashed limbs, trying to rescue little children from certain death, working by torchlight in the dust and infection of the crippled city.

From all over the world they have come: a Swiss rescue team, Australians, Scandinavians, Canadians, British—handlers with their dogs searching for people still alive in the dusty tombs of apartment blocks, houses, supermarkets, and schools, most of them having responded to the call for help out of the fullness of their humanity and not because they were forced to go.

The troops are there as well, placed on the frontline facing the hunger- and thirst-laden misery and anger of the crowds, as they battle to keep order and a semblance of good humor in the midst of struggling, grasping, desperately impoverished humanity.

And somewhere at the back of all this have been the organizers, not always getting it right but striving to do better tomorrow; the politicians working out the logistics; the celebs giving their time to raise awareness and money; and the millions who could do nothing much but dig into their pocket to give something from genuine compassion.

There is a togetherness and a sense of purpose in society at times like these. True, the pictures have been hard to look at (how much harder to be there!) but we have looked. The news coverage could have been overwhelming, maybe for some it was. But overall the story was of men and women helping people in need. In that respect it has been wonderful to behold.

WODEN SAYS: There is much for which to give thanks.

Within each one of us there is an immortal soul that is unconditionally loving. It speaks to the body’s conscious mind, the ego, directly through the gut-intuition and through the human heart.

At times such as these we may be fearful for our own safety; we may be angry at what we may choose to see as monumental failures by the rescuers; we may be upset by the builders of shoddy homes and offices; and we may detest those who take machetes to terrorize the populace, and who rob and destroy. But there is another prevailing possible emotion.

In disasters the human heart speaks with compassion. It is right to feel that way. I have told you before that the Earth has an equal balance between the negative and the positive energies of life.  The destructive power of the earthquake can be matched or overcome by the positive energy of human compassion, both in active service of the homeless and hungry, and by the less dramatic sympathy that is all over all the Earth as this time.

There is, however, one point that must be made. The spirit world wants our response to be one of gratitude for the earthquake itself. “What utter nonsense!” I hear you say. Yes, this is indeed a tough one. Yet those souls who have suffered in Haiti have freely chosen before incarnating here to undertake a life-lesson of this kind. Each soul involved was not there by accident. One of the maxims of the spiritual universe is: “There are no accidents.”

This is not a predestination ordered by a capricious or judgmental deity. It is an eyes-open free choice made by each soul present there. Some sought to die in agony, some to die and leave relatives without their support (usually in contracts agreed with the other souls). Others chose to learn a lesson of extreme suffering through amputation—the list is virtually inexhaustible, and the forces of the universe supplied the experiences that would give the life-lesson in every case.

Generally the positive side of life is left up to the soul itself to choose in its response. However, the experiences of some of those who committed themselves to positive action were sometimes given as opportunities according to their prior free choices.

So why give thanks for the earthquake? The answer is because it enabled lessons to be provided to all of us, whether directly or indirectly involved in the drama. We are all here as actors in a cosmic drama. We are here to learn about our loving inner nature in part through suffering. And some of us got to share our unconditionally loving nature in the support and service we gave to others. Both are paths to wisdom and the growth of the soul. So, thank you, universe, for the earthquake!

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“Fear itself”

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

On, March 4, 1933, in his inaugural address as U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke about the financial crisis that people now call the Great Depression. He proclaimed then the famous words, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Watching the televised reports of the immense carnage in Haiti, and reading in Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia, about the infinitely troubled history of that country, has reminded me of the truth of his words.

People the world over are scared of earthquakes. If the massive quake that hit Sichuan, China, in 2008 was too hidden by the Chinese from our view to trigger a big world reaction, the quake that hit the little island nation of Haiti has truly scared everybody. We are all capable of saying to ourselves, “It could happen in my area,” and we are right. The Earth’s entire crust is subject to massive change. Some areas—Japan, Indonesia, Samoa, California—are more than likely to be hit. But we never know, so can do little about it.

The worst disaster to occur in modern times involved an unofficially estimated 665,000 who may have died in the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in China.

In the blue Mediterranean Sea are the remains of an island, now called Santorini, that blew up sometime around 1500 BCE. That volcanic eruption eradicated the Minoan civilization. According to the philosopher Plato, this was the site of  the city of Atlantis. Nothing is now known of the extent of the casualties. Proximity to volcanoes has often brought disaster, as the ruins of the Roman city of Pompeii still testify today.

In 1784, the Laki volcanic system erupted in Iceland. In that country the recorded deaths were relatively small, 9,350 citizens. But after almost a year of continuing explosions, the gases and particles thrown up into the stratosphere had caused a dusty pall over the sky, leading globally to failed harvests and serious food shortages. Numerous deaths, from Europe right across the globe to as far away as Japan, were attributed to the widespread starvation that was the result.

There is a fine line between providing information of a difficult kind, and sensationalism. Though we can be aware of such dire historical events, and of people’s fearful response to today’s disasters, we must also be able to articulate a genuine positive message. That was the genius of F.D.R. in his presidential address. He drew attention to the way our human fearfulness feeds on itself. So did we give to the Haitian relief appeals out of fear? “But for the grace of God, there go I?” Cynics might think so. We may prefer to believe that we have given, and will give in future, out of human compassion, which is a positive sort of love-response.

WODEN SAYS: Read the Masters’ blog: mastersofthespiritworld.com

I recommend the message published this week by the Masters of the Spirit World because it is an authoritative account of the connection between what has happened in Haiti and the wider picture of the state of Mother Earth. We are living in the time before a truly major challenge—both physical and energetic—leading up to the Winter Solstice of 2012.

At that time, planetary and solar forces will play on the structure of the Earth, as they do every 26,000 years. The stress of the planets’ formation and proximity to Earth may intensify natural and human stress on our planet. We may well experience more, even many more, such events, seismic, volcanic, or weather-related, in the run up to this date and for an equivalent time afterwards.

It is easy to be skeptical about ideas such as these. You may be forgiven if you see me as a tired old Anglo-Saxon deity, trying to find something sensational to write about. But beneath the skepticism I hear poet John Betjeman’s plea in his poem Christmas: “And is it true? And is it true?” I believe that the Masters’ messages about 2012 are true.

I believe it is a time of change that includes the following major earthquakes of 7 or more on the Richter Scale: eleven, including the Indonesian tsunami, in 2004; eight, plus Hurricane Katrina, in 2005; eight in 2006; seven in 2007; six, including the big Chinese disaster, in 2008; seventeen in 2009; the eruption of an increasing number of volcanoes; and now, in 2010, two major quakes, including the disaster in Haiti. At what point do scared skeptics discover a pattern and ask the question whether it is true or not? It had better be soon.

Our fearfulness is wholly human—it represents our response to negative energy. It has a lot to do with our fears about suffering and death. The Spirit Masters constantly reaffirm that each of us has an immortal soul. The soul goes Home after death. Souls never die. But our guides also encourage us to discover our soul, and embrace the positive and the loving in life—not just for ourselves, but for our fellow creatures, and for the great Mother Earth who daily sustains us.

The task of finding who we are is just beginning. Let us strive to rediscover, for ourselves and our human society, the truth of the saying that perfect love demolishes fear.

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Sensationalism

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

If you turn on CNN anywhere in the world where it is televised, two things are certain: First, the anchors will tell you that CNN is the best in the world’s news business, with the most news, and the best qualified team of reporters and analysts. Second, each news item will be presented as the most recent, most important story, one you just have to know about. It’s not just news, it’s “breaking” news. It’s not politics, it’s “raw” politics.

Sensationalism is what CNN, Fox News, and the tabloid newspapers are all about. We know that we love to hate them—they are addictive. We flatter ourselves that because we have an enquiring mind—we’ve got to know. The result of widespread, shallow thinking of this kind has become predictable. News for some people is a schizoid obsession: schizoidal because we tend to fantasize about the importance of our knowledge and our viewpoint; obsessional because sensational news is something we find difficult to live without.

Do I hear shouts of “No!”? People can do without sensationalism; I do, you say. So answer me: how did Jacko die? Why did Tiger crash his car? From which country did a father bring home his little boy whose mother had died but whose relatives sued to keep him? Most people in the West, plus large numbers throughout the world, know all three answers.  Didn’t you?

When the media makes a practice of emphasizing the most lurid, shocking, and emotive aspects of something, that is sensationalism. But does it have to be lurid and shocking? (It’s not so easy to shock people these days.) No, it may be an emotional response to everyday events and ideas. What about the campaign, recently staged in the USA by opponents of the healthcare bill, suggesting that under the legislation, “Death” committees would be set up which would be able to terminate elderly patients’ lives? There was no such provision in the bill.

So we have sensationalism, a fact of life. But who are the sensationalists? Who is boiling up these stories for us to gobble down while we sit square-eyed on the couch consuming our TV dinner? They are not all called Rupert Murdoch. Well, Murdoch’s News Corporation is clearly the leader of the pack, but, in truth, it might be anyone—Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck included. Sensationalists are not elected; democracy does not operate here. They are not appointed by the state except in countries, like Iran, where the media isn’t free.

Sensationalism exists because we buy it. We the People love it. It sells newspapers, adverts on the box, and places in the pews. What! you gasp, now you (a worn-thin deity) would dare to attack religion. Of course, because it’s part of the grand sin-sationalist tradition. Who controlled the administration of law in ancient Rome? Answer: the priests. The Christian church controlled her adherents for centuries by the threat of eternal punishment—and she still does. Where would the war on terror be were it not for sensationalism?

WODEN SAYS: Count the apples on your tree.

Listen up! Woden is an Anglo-Saxon god, so he knows all about power. He knows about hurling lightening bolts: sun-sational! Do you think we could make it an Olympic sport? Just kidding.

One of the greatest and most commonplace life-lessons human beings encounter is to find and “take back” their power. Power resides equally within the human soul, for all souls are equally fragments of the energy of Source. Most of us believe in the myth that fast talkers, flashy individuals, and people who wear suits and exercise power are somehow better than we. And so we let them exercise power over our minds and hearts sensationally.

Not so. The humblest woman sweeping out her mud hut in a remote village in Africa has a soul that is the equal to the soul of the chairman of the board of the largest international corporation, who may spend more in a millisecond than she will possess in a lifetime. It just happens that her soul chose poverty while his chose opportunity. She can believe in herself and in her ability to shape her own life just as readily as he.

Taking back our power means understanding that nobody can think for us or feel for us. In the apple orchard of our lives we have responsibility for our own fruitfulness. No one has the right to make us think or feel in a way that is uncomfortable, unproductive, or abhorrent to us. Our lives may be painted on a larger or smaller canvas, but they belong to us.  Always.

In respect of sensationalism we have a choice. We can allow our minds to be seduced, attracted, or compelled by those who would talk us into believing what is best, most important, most needed for our living and thinking. But we can turn to another channel, cancel our subscription, vote the way we feel is right. We can be free of sensationalism.

The world is waiting to make you conform. Remember the apples on your tree and choose the one that appeals most to you. It has the best taste because you grew it.

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Facing Terror

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian man, was arrested on Christmas Day and charged by U.S. authorities with attempting to use high explosives to blow up Northwest flight 253. The bomb was said to have been secreted in his underclothes, and its partial detonation caused no great damage to the plane and no loss of life, though the man himself had to be given medical treatment for burns. The authorities are looking into his reported claim that he has links to al Qaeda.

One of the effects of this incident appears to be the likelihood that whole-body screening will be implemented in airports, raising the temperature of terror to an intimate level for those who fly into and out of the USA, Britain, and other nations involved in the Afghan conflict. The issue of personal privacy is likely to be crushed in the stampede for safety in the skies. Bombs can really be hidden in underclothes. So which will you have, a pat down or a body scan?

Another result of this incident has been the further identification of Yemen and Somalia as training grounds for future terrorists. The response by America is to extend the war against al Qaeda to these weak states. Yemen, being a neighbor of Saudi Arabia, raises the old fear among some Muslims of a Christian crusade. Western involvement in Yemeni territory will be seen by them as a threat to the sanctity of the holy sites of Islam, Mecca being relatively close to the Yemeni border. US involvement in the area to eradicate al Qaeda operatives is a clear case of  “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

So, that’s the latest news from the “war on terror”. But what of the terror you and I may be facing in our daily lives? Our little world is the setting for much more intimate terror. Most of us can say “forget it” to the problems of the wider world because they are not very likely to affect us. But we still have to face the terror of losing our job, our spouse, our mind. The airwaves are full of advertisers’ reminders that our heart may give us trouble, our prostate or breast may be cancerous, our brain may give  way to Alzheimer’s disease. Fear is hammered home every few minutes on TV by greedy pharmaceutical manufacturers, lawyers, insurance companies, and people who want us to be better than our neighbors. No wonder so many people are depressed.

WODEN SAYS: Now, Now, Now!

Our spiritual guides on the Other Side, the Masters of the Spirit World, teach us that planet Earth has been constructed with an equal balance of positive and negative energy. For every perceived evil there is a good. For every threat there is a promise. We live in a world designed to give us experience of negativity, but it cannot overwhelm our spirit.

The soul who incarnates on Earth does so for a purpose. It learns, by the experience of both the positive and the negative, to understand and appreciate its own nature. Negativity is the foil that shows off the nature of unconditional love that is the energy of the Creator. The inner nature, the very essence of our soul is the same love.

The human soul is creative and draws to itself what it needs to experience in life. We have the power to make choices. We do not have to live in terror. We can choose our own path and rise above the negative forces that would drag us down, by living in the present, by avoiding the past—which has gone anyway—and by not projecting ourselves into a vision of a future which does not and may never exist. Living in the Now takes away the sting of feeling overwhelmed. It is the keel that saves our boat from being blown over.

Take disease, for example. As we live in the Now we can tackle the problem of our  illness in two ways:

  • First, we can get on top of the illness by recognizing that it represents a lesson, a challenge, that our soul itself has requested. There are no accidents. Our soul is eternal and will outlast every challenge, every sickness.
  • Second, we can get to the heart of the illness by looking for the lesson it teaches us, what it means in our life as a soul now. Is it telling us that we do not love ourselves? or that we doubt our power to overcome fear spiritually?

Living in the Now is what all souls do naturally. It is only what our conscious mind says that paralyzes us with fear. But the conscious mind is temporal while the soul is eternal. There is bound to be a way to deal with the challenge. Even though we may face physical death sitting on a plane or lying in a hospital bed, we will never die because the “we” who lives in the Now belongs to the infinite. You cannot kill the soul, so nothing—but nothing—that causes terror to our consciousness has ultimate power over us.

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