Since President Obama has taken office, much of the time of his administration, has been consumed with attempting to enact reform legislation. Health care  reform, after a long arduous process, recently passed. Currently, financial reform, in order to avoid the previous meltdown from repeating itself, is being debated and worked toward. Thankfully, it seems this legislation will not be as drawn out and painful as health care reform was. Going forward, beyond financial reform, will be the task of attempting to address immigration reform, yet another emotionally charged and volatile issue. I applaud President Obama and his administration’s efforts, all of these issues need to be addressed, it is a monumental undertaking  and they have put forth a monumental effort.

It occurs to me that the reform most needed is not being addressed. As yours truly sees it, the only reform we need, is consciousness reform. Reforming our minds and our thought process will cost us nothing.  We will not need endless debates in congress, we will not need to appoint fact finding committees and we will not need to spend obscene amounts of money on research. All that is needed, indeed all that was ever needed, is a very simple, yet very complex reforming of our consciousness. We simply need to realize the following; every woman is our sister, every man is our brother. We need to learn to love people and use things, not the other way around. Everyone on this planet deserves basic dignities, food, clothing, shelter, education, health care and the opportunity to follow their passion, simply because they are alive.  These things are not privileges, they are the rights of every human being. I have said this before but it is worth restating here, it has been said that you can tell how evolved a society is by how it treats the least among them. By this measure, we are not very evolved at all.

We allow needless suffering such as hunger, poverty, homelessness, disease and oppression to exist because we say we can not do anything about them, we can not afford to. How insane is this?! We have given our power away to this thing we call money. Look deeply at every societal dysfunction, almost every story on the news can be traced to reveal money, possessions or power at its core. Even in the event of possession or power, neither of these are acquired without money. Its not that money is bad, it is our thoughts about it. We agree that money or the lack there of, can determine the quality of life, we even agree that without it, you may not have a life. Once again, how insane is this?! We need to revisit, reevaluate, revise and restructure this thing we call an economy. We may even want to get rid of it entirely. For a more in depth explanation of what I feel this would look like, see my piece on the economy, posted here on January 10, 2010. Our system of economics, in its current form, and oppression, are inseparable. There is nothing wrong with accumulating wealth, as long as it is not done at the expense of others. For someone to win really big, someone else has to lose really big.

I’ve said this before, but I will restate it here. When an individual, group or nation is cast aside, disenfranchised, discarded or oppressed, we all lose! We lose out on their potential contributions to our lives. A person of great wealth my cry foul at such a statement, claiming they do not lose at all. I will explain very simply how they would be mistaken. There are millions on this planet, whose every waking moment is consumed with thoughts of where their next meal will come from, where will they sleep tonight, how will they provide for their family, will we even survive today? A person of great wealth might be unconcerned with the conditions I just spoke of, until something like the following occurs. Either they, or some close family member are diagnosed with some incurable disease, although they would pay any price for a cure, none is available. Perhaps, just perhaps, if the millions who suffer daily on our planet, were afforded the basic human dignities I spoke of earlier, there in, would lie the cure.

So you see, this reform of consciousness does not need to be made from a mindset of unity, compassion and love for humanity. It can be made from mindset of separation and selfishness as well. All one needs to do, is make the connections between a wasted life, the possibilities it contains, and how their own experience of life might be lessened because of it. It has been said, we need to create a world that works for everyone, or we will have a world that works for no one. Carl Sagan once noted, that this pale blue dot of a planet we know as Earth, viewed from space, is a single, living breathing organism, and an organism at war with itself, is doomed. Yet, I am hopeful, I say we are not doomed, I have faith in humanity, I know our potential is unlimited, we just need to allow it to unfold. We can bring about the reform most needed. C’mon people, Yes We Can!!

Thanks for stopping by, be well, be peace. Join the conversation…..

I have observed that quite some time has passed since my last post. It is my intention to post at least two to three times a month.  The previous weeks have found me immersed in a health issue, nothing that was life threatening, yet potentially for me, very life changing. Although not completely resolved, things seem to be quieting down to a manageable level.  What this experience brought me is a deeper appreciation of what it is to be human, along with the knowledge  of how very human I truly am.  I was totally consumed with the issue at hand 24/7, with little time for anything else. My mind was filled with worst case scenarios, fearful of losing my way of life, my envisioned future and even fearful of my lovely wife Marie leaving me, because I would not measure up to the person she has known all these years. Could all these things happen? Anything is possible. Will they all happen? Highly unlikely!!

The mind does have a habit of jumping straight to most fearful place first, instead of the most hopeful. I had always thought that somehow,  my spiritual outlook  would make facing such issues a little less turbulent, it eventually did, but only after the initial rude awakening. Going forward, I will explore alternative healing modalities, as traditional western methods are limited in solutions for my particular issue. I am cautiously optimistic in regard to future results, not because of my lack of faith in alternative healing, more because of faith in my ability to do my part in producing a positive outcome. Once again, I am very human. At some later date I will report back on progress and future outlook. For now, I am happy to be back.

Be well, be peace and join the conversation!