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I work as a psychotherapist with an emphasis on transformational learning - a blend of psychoanalytic and transpersonal approaches, and am the author of Self Actualization and Unselfish Love and co-author of Families Helping Families: Living with Schizophrenia, as well as Mental Illness as an Opportunity for Transformation. My interests and life have taken parallel courses, which together have woven a complex tapestry: spirituality and meditation on the one hand, and political psychology on the other. I have studied and practiced with Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Mata Amritanandamayi and Gurumayi Chidvilasanda, and continue a daily practice of meditation. My early political education began with the writings of the founding fathers. Over time this led to involvement in the anti-Vietnam war and anti-nuclear movements. I was interested in the powerful molding of prevailing political and economic dynamics by what C. Wright Mills called the military-industrial complex. In time I have come to the conclusion that, despite various interest groups' attempts to minimize or trivialize the concept, the deep state is a reality - decisively and covertly shaping events on both the domestic and international fronts. I am interested in an exceptionally promising alternative source of energy that has yet to see the light of day. I see the current period as a precarious form of initiation rite into the beginning of adulthood for our species, and hope to do whatever I can to help us reach this goal. Meanwhile, I seek daily to recall the reality that the same awareness (the Ever-Present-Origin) looks out through all of our eyes, and actualize this in my relationship with other beings.
(8 comments) SHARE Wednesday, October 5, 2022 Personal Trauma and World Conditions - Transcending Paradigms - Part 8
Questioning everything - one's life, beliefs and worldview - is the key part of discovering our inherent power to create the world we meet. It takes great courage to question our existence, and even greater strength is required to know and recognize the truth when we see it. If events in our world steadily escalate into chaos and confusion, many of us will be compelled to wake up and really think about what is occurring. Series: Our Collective Predicament - The Recovery of Humanity (19 Articles, 43173 views)
(7 comments) SHARE Monday, October 3, 2022 Transcending Paradigms - Systematic Assertiveness - 7
Our primitive survival responses include coping with difficult people by fight or flight - becoming aggressive or avoiding other people. The alternative is verbal assertiveness.
The unique difference between ourselves and other animal species is our interpersonal verbal problem-solving ability.
Pulling Your Own Strings:
youtube.com/ watch?v= WLJYCd4Wq6E Series: Our Collective Predicament - The Recovery of Humanity (19 Articles, 43173 views)
(17 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 17, 2022 Healing Shame: Transcending our Paradigms Pt. 5
The most paradoxical aspect of shame is that it is the core motivator of super-achieving and the under-achieving, the star and the scapegoat, the righteous and the wretched, the powerful and the pathetic.
Shame is one of the most potent tools of the societal control paradigm. It gains control of a person from within and replaces brute force, which requires energy and can lead to a boomerang effect. Series: Our Collective Predicament - The Recovery of Humanity (19 Articles, 43173 views)
(3 comments) SHARE Saturday, September 10, 2022 Transcending Paradigms: The Most Important Challenge of our Time Pt. 4
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon described our world this way: "Throughout the ages, people have said that the world is in the midst of big change. But the level and degree of global change that we face today is far more profound than at any other period in my adult lifetime. I call this period the Great Transition." Series: Our Collective Predicament - The Recovery of Humanity (19 Articles, 43173 views)
(15 comments) SHARE Friday, August 19, 2022 Buddy, Can You (S)Par a Digm? Pt.2
Paradigms are the lenses that shape the way we view our lives. When they no longer fit our needs, we can experience great perceptual distortions.
Even without the help of obsolete paradigms we can misperceive a great deal. Bob Wilson was walking through the Castro district, a section known as a place where gay people gather. He saw a sign saying, "Half-Gay Cleaners;" yet when he looked again, it said, "Half Day - Cleaners." Series: Our Collective Predicament - The Recovery of Humanity (19 Articles, 43173 views)
(16 comments) SHARE Friday, August 5, 2022 We Need a New Self-Help Group: "Humans Anonymous"
It will avail nothing if we stay the same and expect the world to change. There is plenty of work to do in the public sphere. However, we must not limit ourselves to focusing on the outer world. We also need to look inward, working on our own consciousness. We need to become willing to grow emotionally, mentally and spiritually - in essence, recreating ourselves to express transpersonal qualities - beyond the intellect.
(8 comments) SHARE Tuesday, August 2, 2022 "Humans Anonymous"
It will avail nothing if we stay the same and expect the world to change.
There is plenty of work to do in the public sphere. However, we must not limit ourselves to focusing on the external world.
We also need to look inward and to work on our own consciousness.
We need to become willing to grow emotionally, mentally and spiritually - in essence recreating ourselves to become able to express transpersonal qualities.
(20 comments) SHARE Sunday, July 24, 2022 Maturity and the Soul
"I have come to use the word 'soul' to express...the core consciousness in each of us that holds the potential and pattern of our full unique, maturity. This soul is seeking realization and expression in everyday life and its presence is within us from birth - death. I am...using the word in its existential meaning of human vitality and depth, core qualities and values"and particularly life... purpose/direction."
Tom Yeomans
(19 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 29, 2022 Facing Fear
"The third story is called the Great Turning...
"Whatever situations we face, we can choose our response. When facing overwhelming challenges, we might feel that our actions don't count for much. Yet the kind of response we make, and the degree to which we believe they count, are shaped by the way we think and feel about hope."
Joanna Macy
As systems theory states, we do n't know what ripples can flow out from our actions.
(15 comments) SHARE Wednesday, June 8, 2022 Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush vs. "The Sacred Pause"
Paradoxically, by silently learning to watch the ego (called in the East as "the monkey mind") play out its pretensions, we deepen our capacity for humor.
At the same time, we tune into our intuitive awareness, often seeing solutions to problems that evaded us through our use of the thinking mind.
This will be a necessity, rather than a luxury, in the difficult times ahead.
(62 comments) SHARE Saturday, May 21, 2022 Giving
Although this is not a final truth, A.A. suggests the self-accepting affirmation: "I am someone." The acceptance and affirmation of "someness" closes the door to infantile claim of being "all or nothing."
For a further step in human growth see the video - available on Amazon.com - of Ram Dass' "Becoming Nobody."
(44 comments) SHARE Monday, April 11, 2022 The Progress of the Soul
"The discovery of the highest frequency of sexuality arises from the love experience. It has nothing to do with relationships being either homosexual or heterosexual. It has to do with two human beings bringing pleasure to one another in a way that opens frequencies of consciousness. You have bought many ideas about what is proper and what is improper within sexual expression." Series: Evolutionary Intelligence (1 Articles, 4852 views)
(17 comments) SHARE Thursday, March 24, 2022 Evolutionary Intelligence - A Planetary Rite of Passage
"This is a clarion call to reclaim the universal, boundless state of consciousness that has periodically surfaced in the human evolutionary journey. If we are to survive the materialistic nightmare that currently threatens our existence on Earth, our choice is clear: awaken or perish. The good news is that the awakening has already begun."
(15 comments) SHARE Tuesday, March 22, 2022 Sacred Embrace: The Erotic Jesus Pt. 2
We can wonder about the source of resistance to the notion that Jesus was a sexual being. Why has Christianity so often taught that sexuality is a vile, disgusting thing? Why has it so rarely regarded sexuality as a source of creativity, or a doorway to the Divine and a participation in the continually creating God?
Beyond this, our extremely secular culture has conditioned us to regard such questions irrelevant. Series: Gnostic Christianity (2 Articles, 4553 views)
(15 comments) SHARE Sunday, March 6, 2022 What is the Sacred Feminine? The Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the Secrets it Contains - Pt. 1
For the last several thousand years, the religious belief systems of our world have been patriarchal, which sanctioned societal ethics that elevated God the Father over Mother Earth and man over woman. It is time to balance the masculine and feminine principles within our belief systems, our religious doctrine, our cultural ethos and within ourselves. Universal order is maintained through balance and mutual respect.