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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.
(21 comments) SHARE Thursday, May 6, 2021 Bodhichitta - Opening the Heart-Mind
The Buddha said that we are never separated from enlightenment.
Even at the times we feel most stuck, we are never alienated from the awakened state. This is a revolutionary assertion. Even ordinary people like us with hang-ups and confusion have this mind of enlightenment called bodhichitta.
The openness and warmth of bodhichitta is in fact our true nature and condition.
(13 comments) SHARE Wednesday, April 28, 2021 Prison - Our Shadow Writ Large - and Bringing Light into the Darkness
The prison milieu tends to reinforce strongly held opinions regarding the intractability of inmates. One thing is clear: feedback from the environment is responded to not by learning, but rather a single-minded focus - remaining in control and command, "one-up" on others. Accompanying this focus of attention is another: the need to remain ever more vigilant against treachery by those whose whose obedience one has compelled. Series: Our Collective Predicament (3 Articles, 4658 views)
(20 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 22, 2021 The American Prison System, the Prison-Ashram Project and Other Alternatives Pt. 4
"" an offender has been subjected to unfair or excessive punishment and treatment more degrading than that prescribed by law, he comes to justify his act which he could not have justified when he committed it. He decides to 'get even' for his unjust treatment in prison, and take reprisals through further crime at the first opportunity."
Erving Goffman
(14 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 8, 2021 The American Prison System as a Failure in Human Being: Enter The Prison-Ashram Project
"Unfortunately, many of those nonviolent offenders will no longer be nonviolent by the time they leave prison. Prisons are not scaring offenders away from crime; they are incapacitating them so they are hardly fit for anything else... Many wardens, judges, and other officials know this, but it has become political suicide to admit it publicly."
Bo Lozoff Series: Our Collective Predicament (3 Articles, 4658 views)
(11 comments) SHARE Friday, April 2, 2021 The Prison-Ashram Project
Viktor Frankl wrote: "What would give light, must endure burning."
When we are unable to move horizontally (forward or backward), we are sometimes drawn to move inwardly - deepening our awareness. What we can discover illuminates the grace of being "stuck." With guidance, suffering can become a rite of passage, a death and rebirth toward personal and spiritual growth. Series: Our Collective Predicament (3 Articles, 4658 views)
(19 comments) SHARE Friday, March 26, 2021 Developing Authentic Power: If We Are a Wave, Are We Willing To Know We Are The Ocean? The Path to Survival. Pt. 6
Thom Hartmann summarizes the indigenous worldview as a succinct, simple solution to our world's problems:
"Return to the ancient and honest ways in which humans participated in the web of life on the earth, seeing yourselves and all things as sacred and interpenetrated. Listen to the voice of all life, and feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth."
(7 comments) SHARE Saturday, March 6, 2021 The Energy We (Sometimes) Call Infinite Consciousness - Pt.3 - Transformative Practices
"Hugging meditation is a combination of East and West. According to the practice, you have to really hug the person you are hugging. You have to make him very real in your arms"You breathe consciously while hugging, and you hug with your body, mind and heart. "Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, he is so precious to me.
Thich Nhat Hanh Series: Awakening to the Energy We Call God (3 Articles, 4331 views)
(13 comments) SHARE Saturday, February 27, 2021 Awakening to the Energy We Call God - Pt.2
Aldous Huxley discussed the essential common core of spiritual wisdom as profound insights that have endured across centuries and cultures - a treasure house of humankind's accumulated wisdom.
There is an essential idea to which the Perennial Philosophy points: that we have tragically underestimated ourselves and the deepest cause of suffering in life. Series: Awakening to the Energy We Call God (3 Articles, 4331 views)
(20 comments) SHARE Sunday, February 21, 2021 Awakening to the Energy We Call God - Part 1
As Einstein put it:
"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us."
(12 comments) SHARE Tuesday, February 16, 2021 Cultivating a Resilient Self Amidst Social Chaos - Part 3: The Spiritual Dimension
The word "soul" encompasses the beauty and strength of an experience of connection to the spiritual dimension-one that cannot be reduced to one word, but remains an ineffable experience, which is very central to the human condition and which we can recognize as common to all, in all in the midst of our differences.
(5 comments) SHARE Friday, February 5, 2021 Cultivating a Resilient Self Amidst Social Chaos - Part 2
Existential psychotherapy sought to address "terminal superficiality" in western man. "Not knowing who one really is," not being able to engage in life from the depths of one's being, necessarily creates inner conflicts. Beyond simply managing symptoms, this approach seeks to enable clients to grapple with the root causes of their symptoms. Underlying these issues is the search for Being.
(25 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 30, 2021 Cultivating a Resilient Self Amidst Social Chaos - Part 1
We need the kind of strength that is flexible to accommodate rapidly changing conditions. We will also need wisdom, compassion, and a capacity for loving ourselves, our fellow humans, and kindred Earth creatures. Here are some tools to accomplish these goals.
(4 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 21, 2021 Reconciliation Pt. 2 - Easier Said Than Done
"There is an important distinction between forgiveness and simply allowing others wrongdoing. Where wrong action is concerned, it may be necessary to take appropriate counteraction to stop it.
"Toward the actor you can choose not to develop anger and hatred. This is where the power of forgiveness lies - not losing sight of the humanity of the person while responding to the wrong with clarity and firmness."
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, January 18, 2021 Reconciliation: Toward a Unified World
There are so many divisions that alienate us - one from another. Yet, in order to survive as a species in the coming years, we must find way to bridge our divisions and learn to create a habitable, sustainable planet.
(12 comments) SHARE Monday, January 11, 2021 Dystopians R' Us
The message of the prophets of old: "Change your ways of seeing and living in the world because the path you are currently on will lead to disaster." At the core of our consciousness is a wellspring of caring and compassion. What David Korten has called "the Great Turning" emerges from shifts occurring in our hearts, minds, and views of reality.
(25 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 2, 2021 Deep, Positive Stories For the Future
We cannot avoid the urgency and importance of the collective effort of imagining and building a global "eco-civilization" - one that recognizes that we all inhabit the same Earth and want the ecosystem to be strong and resilient to sustain a global civilization into the distant future.
(53 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 24, 2020 Addiction, Humility, and the Fate of the Earth
This article is about our collective free will as a species. At this pivotal time our predicament calls us to bring to bear: great intelligence and knowledge, penetrating insight and far-reaching vision, and dedication to address the perils our human civilization faces. We need to discern how we might survive these adversity factors and even grow from them.