The Secret of Life

World Food Crisis - Urgent Petition

Regular readers of The Secret Of Life will know that I believe that the various problems facing the world are so complex that a wholesale upgrade in human consciousness is needed if we're going to sort them out. But that doesn't mean to say that we just have to sit back and twiddle our thumbs in the meantime. There are times when action is needed.

The current preoccupation with the world financial crisis has been drawing attention away from something which is far more critical: a world shortage of food. There have been food riots in Haiti (where people are having to eat mud cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening instead of the food they can't afford to buy) and unrest in a string of other countries including Egypt, Mozambique, Senegal and Indonesia. There are warnings that more than a hundred million people worldwide could be plunged into hunger.

The reasons for this are complex. They include the growing popularity of meat in some emerging nations and the effects of recent poor harvests due to climate change, but they also include the biofuels policy of western governments.

Biofuels seemed like a really good idea; reducing reliance on fossil fuels by growing plants and putting those in your car instead. This would be a source of renewable energy and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

Biofuels have therefore become an important part of the strategy for cutting carbon emissions worldwide. The European Union's Biofuels Directive, for instance, states that biofuels should comprise 5.75% of traffic fuel by 2010 - and 10% of it by 2020. In the US, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires American fuel producers to use at least 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022.

The only trouble is: the leaders haven't done joined up thinking. The farmers who are being encouraged to grow biofuels are no longer growing food, which is why the use of these new fuels is one of the most important factors which is pushing up global fuel prices. Put crudely and simply (and only a little over-simplistically) people are starving and literally having to eat mud because we're putting their food in our cars.

I don't think we should be too hard on our leaders here. The drive to biofuels has come from perfectly sensible intentions. But clearly things are going wrong. The situation is proving to be a lot more complex than they realized. Quite apart from the food problem, it turns out that the growing of biofuels is not always environmentally friendly after all: not when trees are being cleared away to produce them. Of course it is vital to address the problem of carbon emissions, but it seems like a lot more serious thinking is needed before we make some terrible mistakes.

Sometimes petitions have little chance of making a real difference. They serve little purpose except perhaps to make us feel a bit less bad about whatever is happening. But this is a different situation. It is vital that we the people make it plain that we will not stand for this, that we are not willing to let people in other parts of the world starve to death so that we can run our cars. It is vital that we let our leaders know that they have to think again about this one. Please consider signing this petition, which will be brought before the leaders at upcoming global summits.

You can read about biofuels on Wikipedia here. There are many articles on the net about the effect of biofuels on the food crisis. One of them is here. But they need to be higher up the agenda....

This seems like a good time to mention that there's a big 'free food' button on my sidebar - it should be easy to spot. Click on that and you can give food to the needy for free. And from that site you can follow links to other sites about breast cancer, child welfare, saving the rain forest etc. They all allow you to give to worthy causes for free. I try to click through them every day. It takes very little time and every little helps.

But don't forget to sign that petition...

A Native American Message

I just discovered this video on You Tube. I think you may like it...

You can read the message around which the video is built here. Research on the net suggests that it may not come from the Hopi Elders at all, but may in fact be the work of a Cherokee Elder.  It still speaks to me, whoever its author may be...

((Additional Note: There's an interesting discussion about Hopi prophecy and the possible validity of this message here.))

The Oneness Temple

I've written previously here at The Secret Of Life about Deeksha or Oneness Blessing, the transfer of energy which I've been receiving for about two and a half years now and which I believe has had a remarkable effect on my spiritual development. The aim of Deeksha is to facilitate the shift in human consciousness which many of us believe - or at any rate, hope! - is almost upon us. Deeksha works not by creating the shift - which is going to happen anyway - but by helping the brain to attune to the transformation.

Now, at the Oneness Movement's HQ in southern India, a new project is coming to fruition. The Oneness Temple is a vast structure which is 108 feet high, stands on a 42 acre plot, and contains the largest pillarless hall in Asia. It is not dedicated to any particular religion but to 'the one divine presence which is everywhere'. After many years of work, it has now been completed and is being consecrated tomorrow. Built on an intersection of ley lines, the temple is intended to act as a spiritual 'power house'. The idea is that all times, eight thousand enlightened people will be meditating in the great hall, radiating their consciousness throughout the planet, facilitating the change.

This information may produce a wide range of reactions: awe, joy, curiosity, skepticism... For myself, I look at the state of the world and see how much we need such a transformation. How else are we to find a way forward? I can only be grateful for such a project. I shall be open to whatever it may bring.

Please see my Spirituality Links page for information on Deeksha-related sites.

We Have The Biology

I just want to share a few thoughts about the video by Jill Bolte Taylor which I mentioned a few posts ago. If you haven't seen it, do go and take a look. It's quite amazing.

Jill experienced a stroke which intermittently incapacitated the left hand side of her brain, so that her right hemisphere became dominant. She reports becoming disconnected from her mental chatter, experiencing a sense of peace and euphoria, and feeling at one with All That Is.

She realized that she had found Nirvana and yet she was still alive. If this is true, she reasoned, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana. She pictured "a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate people who knew that they could come to this space at any time".

This got me thinking about human potential.

Many people believe that our ultimate goal is to merge with universal consciousness, with All That Is, with God, or whatever you want to call it. Then our suffering will come to an end and we will dissolve in a cloud of bliss.

This is quite a nice idea and is certainly a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but I can't help having the sneaking feeling that, when push comes to shove, it isn't enough. That, ultimately, bliss is not enough.

The way I look at it, bliss is where we started from. We embarked on our current adventure in the so-called material world in a quest for something more than that, for experience, for darkness as well as light - in order to allow us to fully know the light.

The only trouble is: we got too heavily into this. It's like we were playing a game of, say, Tomb Raider, but forgot that we were playing a game. So we started thinking that the Tomb Raider world was real. Which is where we are at the moment. Only now we're starting to wake up and remember it's only a game. Not to stop playing the game - because the game has great potential - but to wake up and get the game into perspective. To see the world as we know it now, with its seemingly solid objects, but also to see that all this is really a fantasy in a field of bliss. To walk around and interact with the world and the people in it, but understand at the same time that we are all part of a quantum field of energy, that all of us are really One - and start behaving accordingly.

This is what I see as our ultimate goal (at least for the time being!): not the release of oblivion, but something more like what Jesus called 'Heaven on Earth'. To be in the world yet not of it, to live in our 'material' universe with all its potential for rich and diverse experience, yet at the same time to know who we truly are: to live lightly and fearlessly, free of the heavy burden of separation.

Jill Bolte Taylor's video suggests that we have the potential to do this right now, in these bodies of ours, with these heads of ours. We have a left hemisphere to see our familar world of 'solid' objects, and a right one to see the field which underlies it . All we need to do is get those hemispheres into balance.

Heaven on Earth is only a tweak of consciousness away. We already have the biology we need.

Acceptance & Friendship

There's a wonderful story in last week's edition of the Eckhart Tolle & Oprah Winfrey webcasts which echoes what I've been talking about in my recent 'Ultimate Truth' series of posts. It lasts about five minutes. You can listen to it here.

The whole of these weekly webcasts are available on free download (in either audio or video format) from Oprah's web site. If you haven't been following them, I urge you to give them a try. I thought that last week's (number six) was particularly powerful.

You may have noticed a picture which has recently appeared at the top of my sidebar. This is a recent award which was passed on to me by the generous Angelbaby. I think it's a lovely image and one which appears to symbolize a lot of what this blog is about, so I stuck it up there on the mantelpiece as soon as I got it. But it's a chain of friendship award and the idea is that I pass it on, not hoard it for myself.

So, if you are reading this, please consider yourself my friend! Please feel free to accept this award and know that you deserve it. You can use it on your blog (if you have one) and pass it on to others. Let's spread the love around and let it encompass the Earth...

The Ultimate Truth 4 - Living Fearlessly

Last time, I was talking about something I call Emotional Breathing Technique or EBT. I've added a few more tips for using this technique in the comments on the previous post. You can find them here.

If you try the technique and would like to discuss it or give me feedback, do leave a comment. But if you've tried it and find that it doesn't work for you, then don't panic. There are lots of other ways of dealing with emotions - I mentioned a few of them last time. The only trouble is that some of them don't actually release the emotion, they just put a sticking plaster on it. It seems to me that the NLP anchoring technique falls into this category, for instance. Creative activity, which I also mentioned last time, is probably half and half. It's partly displacement activity, to take your mind off whatever you're feeling, but it's also possible that in your creative work you will be actually working through - and so releasing - the emotions.

EFT, emotional freedom technique, is the same as EBT in that it seems to actually release the emotions. Nick Roach's technique for dissolving emotions (as described in the earlier post 'How To Deal With Difficult Emotions') also falls into this category. Indeed, it seems to me that EBT is a variation on Nick's technique. Instead of simply observing the emotions, as Nick suggests, EBT involves actively welcoming the emotions. The best thing to use is whatever works for you...

Quite aside from the sheer relief of getting rid of the things, there's another good reason why releasing these unhelpful emotions is so important. As I described in an earlier post, 'A Sun-Filled Room', our suppressed emotions block our connection to the sense of joy, of 'all-rightness', which is naturally ours. They block the connection to our true self. So releasing them is a vital part of spiritual development. This is true on a personal level but also on a global scale. If the transformation in consciousness which is needed for humanity's survival is to take place, then we as a race have to shed the great weight of hurt and grievance which makes our world such a painful, chaotic place. Only then can we stop hating and killing each other and join together to find a way to sort out our mutual problems. So when you work on releasing your suppressed emotions, you are not only helping yourself, you are helping us all. You are helping to shift a small part of the massive great hulking chip on humanity's shoulder.

Which really ought to be enough of an ultimate truth for one series of posts, don't you think? Except that this wasn't the ultimate truth I had in mind when I started this series. There's another one coming up in a minute, and this one is all about the full implications of total acceptance.

(That's the thing about ultimate truths: they're a bit like buses. You wait ages and then two come along at once...)

So just let's remind ourselves for a moment what we've been talking about in this series of posts. In part one, we discussed how practicing full acceptance means that sometimes you have to accept that you don't accept. This means being OK with all the 'negative' emotions which go along with that. In parts two and three, we went on to discuss how this acceptance can be achieved - and how full acceptance can actually help to release these emotions, freeing us from them forever.

But the point is that just being willing to accept these emotions is a big deal in itself. Think about what it means. If you can really be OK with the various negative emotions - the whole range of 'awful' emotions you can feel - you've done something very important. You've broken free to a place where there's no longer any need for fear. This is because, when you come right down to it, it isn't the 'awful' things in life of which we're afraid. It's the way they make us feel.

Just think about it. Think of any one thing of which you're afraid and ask yourself if it's really the thing itself which causes you fear or the way that thing makes you feel.

Let's do a few examples. Say you're afraid that your partner will leave you. Is it really their absence you fear or the way that absence may make you feel: the loneliness, the sense of loss, the hurt, the anger, the righteous indignation? The departure itself may have practical ramifications: you will have to make adjustments to your life. But once again, is it really those adjustments you fear or the way you may feel about having to make them? Think about losing your job or your home. The arguments are the same.

The ultimate fear, perhaps, is fear of death. But once again, isn't it really the feelings around it we fear: the having to say goodbye, the pain, the uncertainty? As for non-existence, is even that really an object of fear - or is it only the way we may feel about non-existence?

(I've a hunch we might be talking about this in the comments...)

So if all we really fear are our feelings but we've reached a stage where we're OK with having those feelings, what place is there left in our life for fear? What is there left of which to be afraid?

It seems to me that we have then reached a state of total freedom.

We should not underestimate the enormity of what this means. According to Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God, whatever action we take, our motivation comes from only one of two places: from love or from fear. If fear is overcome, then what remains?

In a post a few months ago, I quoted a Native American prayer about living fearlessly: "Oh Humankind," went the heartfelt cry, "we must stop fearing life, fearing each other... Life is wondrous, awesome and holy, a burning glory... Love is life believing in itself."

Could it be that there is a way to break free to this wonderful dream, this fearless life, this absolute freedom?

And could total acceptance be the key?

For if we've come to a place where we understand that all our fears are ultimately groundless, that it's OK to feel those 'horrible' feelings after all - and that if we do, it actually helps to get rid of them - then the hold which fear has upon us is overcome.

Then we are free to live the life we want to live - and to build the world of our dreams.

(I'm going away for a few days. As ever, any comments you make will be welcome! I shall respond when I return...)

The Ultimate Truth 3 - Breathe Away Your Emotions

As we've discussed in the earlier parts of this series, to practice full acceptance means that we sometimes have to accept our failure to accept - and the 'negative' emotions which go along with that (see part 1).  But what is really good is that if we can truly accept the way we're feeling, those emotions can be fully expressed and so released. Through acceptance, we can be free of those unwanted emotions for ever (see part 2).

Which sounds like it's worth a try, you might say, but how do we do it? How can we come to fully accept whatever unwanted emotions we might be feeling?

First of all, we may want to check if we really need to experience whatever we're feeling. Often, we experience negative emotions out of sheer habit. Take reactive depression, for instance. Something can happen which sets this off, but a year later, we're still stuck in the dumps, perhaps having even forgotten how we got down there in the first place. The anchoring technique (from NLP - neurolinguistic programming) can be useful for dealing with this kind of stuck emotion. I'll do a post about it one day but it should be easy enough to research on the net. I just found a good article about it here.

Habit can also cause us to have knee-jerk reactions to certain events, for instance always getting annoyed by the same people or similar situations. We get annoyed at such times because we always get annoyed. It's what we do. Here again, anchoring can be useful, or perhaps we need to simply become aware of what's happening and ask ourselves if we really need to be angry. If someone has pushed in front of us in a queue, for instance, does it matter? Are we really in a hurry or are we just getting annoyed because that has become our habit?

There's lots more information around about how to get out of a crabby mood - some of the excellent blogs in my mini-directory are good places to look for info on how to be happy if you're not. Creative activity has been a popular choice when we've discussed this subject before, then there's good old-fashioned endorphin-promoting exercise of course, and don't forget emotional freedom technique, which I described in a recent post.

The reason I'm going into all this is to make it plain that in encouraging you to fully accept negative emotions, I'm not promoting feeling miserable for the sake of it. But what I find is that there comes a time when you've tried everything you know and you're still left with strong unwelcome emotions. Either that or you've used the techniques and they've worked, but the emotions keep on returning nevertheless.  This is when it can help to practice acceptance.

We may be feeling negative emotions because something really substantially unpleasant has happened in our lives, in which case it is only natural to feel the way we do. In this instance, we can't necessarily expect that acceptance will 'magic away' our emotions. There are times when it is simply natural to feel 'bad'. Even so, if we are willing to fully accept what we are feeling and allow ourselves to fully experience it, the process of working through these emotions will be accelerated.

Alternatively, we may be feeling an unwelcome emotion for no very good reason. We may have become habituated to feeling this way, or perhaps something has come along which has triggered some emotions we have previously suppressed. In this case, the emotions we are feeling will usually be out of proportion to whatever has happened.

This is where acceptance can really work its magic, and emotions can actually disappear instantaneously (as I described in the previous post).

But how exactly do we put the technique into practice? How do you practice total acceptance? How can you get into the kind of mindset where you can fully accept your unwanted emotions?

You might think that one good way would be to bear in mind what I've just said: that accepting your unwelcome emotions is a good way to get rid of them. But unfortunately this doesn't work. In order to truly accept your emotions, you have to be willing to accept them staying around. If you're only 'accepting' the emotions in the expectation of getting rid of them, it isn't really accepting at all - it's just pretending.

So we need to have another think: what reasons are there to really accept having those negative emotions?

These are the reasons I use myself:

1) Bear in mind that as long as you feel these emotions, you're alive. Try to really get into this idea. Uncomfortable sensations are a part of life on Earth. We're here to experience.

2) Remember that you need to feel these negative emotions in order to feel positive ones. Darkness is needed here in this world in order for there to be light - otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. In order for us to feel happy, we sometimes have to feel sad.

3) These emotions have surfaced in order to be released. They are on their way out... Notice that this is subtly different from expecting them to immediately disappear. You have to willing to accept that the process of release may take a long time...

Like I say, I use all of these (though number 3 is my favorite). Then, when I have convinced myself that I am prepared to accept, I go a bit over the top. I welcome the emotion. I feel it with all my being. I take a deep breath and hold it for as long as is comfortable. (Please note that turning blue isn't part of the process.) I imagine that I am breathing in the emotion so that it surrounds me like a fog. It may help to imagine going for a walk by the sea on a cold blustery day. We think of the cold and damp as being unpleasant but there is also something very stimulating about this. It makes you feel alive. Think of that emotion like a cold mist all around you. Allow it to be there. When you feel the need, take another deep breath. Keep on doing this for as long as you wish. I find that it doesn't take very long until the emotion fades, to be replaced by a kind of heady, peaceful feeling. But don't anticipate this happening. Simply allow the emotion to surround you...

I call this technique EBT, emotional breathing technique! (Well, I have to call it something...) I find it works best when the emotion you're focusing on is strong, simply because that makes it easier to totally surrender and imagine it all around you.

Right then, now it's over to you. I'd be interested to know if this works for you. The specific breathing process is something I've developed myself, so I'll be very interested to know if it works for anyone other than me! Please leave a comment if you try it - even if it's a long time after I've posted this. After all, you may not have an unwelcome emotion to try it out on right now...

Next time, in the fourth and final part of this series, I'll talk a bit more about some alternative ways to get rid of emotions - and I'll also get further into the reason I've called these posts 'The Ultimate Truth'.