Category Archives: Survival

Rethinking POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION

An earlier blog took a different approach to racial prejudice in the context of Affirmative Action legislation. Here is the balancing, opposite and equally positive approach to discrimination.

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19. DISCRIMINATION

“Relying more on the social scientists than on legal precedents . . the Court insisted on equality of the mind and heart rather than on equal school facilities. . . . Brown symbolizes the Good America, rather than the country that slaughtered Native Americans, subordinated women, and enslaved blacks.” — Jack M. Balkin, What “Brown v. Board of Education” Should Have Said

“Dealing exclusively on a rational level with an issue like discrimination which is deeply emotion-laden (sub-rational) on the one hand, and highly value-laden (super-rational) on the other, fails to acknowledge and draw on the levels where problems begin and where solutions can be found.” — Patricia West, Positive Action: The Next Generation

“Seeing and hearing are like food and drink; you need them every day, but you also need to digest and eliminate them every day. If they are not digested and eliminated thoroughly, they remain in the gut, eventually producing illness.” — Taoist Meditation, trans. Thomas Cleary.

THE FRONT

Three levels of definition attribute opposite, contradictory meanings to the single word discrimination. In the last century, failure to recognize and sort out this confusion resulted in muddled perceptions of purpose, inconsistent implementation and half-hearted compliance with Affirmative Action legislation.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s rational definition of discrimination posits a neutral function of mind. To discriminate is to distinguish with the mind or intellect; to perceive, observe, or note the difference in or between. As an analytical tool, discrimination is the neutral function of mind used to dissect a situation’s parts and deduce cause/effect relationships amongst them. As a tool, effects of its use, whether creative or destructive, depend on the motives and competence of the user.

The last given definition adds a preposition: against. To discriminate against is to make an adverse distinction in regard to, to distinguish unfavorably from others. This negative definition is the sub-rational use. It describes abuse of the critical faculty of mind to separate, distance and subordinate others, and to rationalize exploitation. Discrimination as a function of biased, negative emotions such as fear, hate, envy, arrogance or greed is the polar opposite of objective analysis.

Still further from the rational meaning of discrimination is its super-rational definition. It is not included in The Oxford English Dictionary. However, in Eastern scriptures, the highest function of mind is called buddhi (hence the name Buddha), translated into English as “the power of discrimination.”

This usage alludes to the ability to see through deceptive illusions, to recognize the eternal in the midst of change, to be aware of all-pervading spirit operating within gross material forms. While rational discrimination is neutral and sub-rational discrimination has separatist results, the super-rational function of discrimination is unifying in effect.

Depending on the user’s mind-set, the I Ching can be used to serve rational, sub- or super-rational motives. Ideally, it’s used to facilitate the process of mental metabolism. When the senses are overloaded with impressions, the Book of Change can be approached as a discipline for settling down and organizing one’s thoughts sufficiently to define the immediate situation and ask questions about it.

As negative emotions surface, they’re named and released, not unlike the process of separating toxins from useful nutrients, eliminating them as waste. Rational thoughts are then simplified, prioritizing essentials and aligning them to basic purpose. Then, when emotions and rational mind are harmonized and stilled, the higher mind is invoked.

It is in this state of tranquil revere that one pierces the veil of ordinary thought, allowing the transcendent awareness attributed to genius to come forward. Einstein, for example, acknowledged that his famous e = mc2 formula came in a flash of inspired contemplation. He faulted his peers for what he called the “fateful fear of metaphysics,” a pernicious prejudice that’s easily as dangerous as racism or sexism.

THE BACK

Mercy and compassion ameliorate the effects of negative discrimination. Introspective activities like self-analysis and use of the I Ching promote the positive capacity to discriminate, make correct decisions, and act wisely. In human law, the opposite of discrimination is justice and equity. In an equitable society, wisdom is promoted as the foundation of harmony and order.

The discipline of positive discrimination is neglected in an unjust world. Ruthless extortionists in positions of political power will kill to prevent discriminating thinkers from recognizing and opposing their abuses. Tyrants promote negative discrimination. They exploit hatred, weakening the people by turning them against each other, conquering by dividing them.

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What “Brown v. Board of Education” Should Have Said. Ed. Jack M. Balkin. (New York University Press: New York, 2001.) pp. 4, 5.

Patricia West, Positive Action: The Next Generation of Affirmative Action. Unpublished paper. (Madison, 1976).

Taoist Meditation: Methods for Cultivating a Healthy Mind and Body, trans. Thomas Cleary. (Shambhala: Boston, MA, 2000.) P. 57.

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See the UPSG for a description of the structure-within-structure format of the Essays, an overview of CONSCIENCE: Your Ultimate Personal Survival Guide, and an alphabetical list of the Essays.

Rethinking SEX & TANTRA

Today is a tongue in cheek test of the SEO factor, to find out who is visiting this blog and why. Visitors, are you there? What do you think? Your comments are welcome!

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9. SEX

“Sexual union is physical enactment of the virtue/power, the te of Taoism. It is the resolution of the physical dichotomy of male and female, of self and not-self. Man enters woman while woman receives man. Two bodies become one. Physical separateness is transcended. Each is the completion of the other.” — Ray Grigg, The Tao of Relationships

“Everybody affected by feelings of guilt and shame will have negative feelings about their sexuality. These feelings block the flow of primal life force through-out the entire body. Equally, at a physical level, any negativity toward your sexuality or parts of your body leads to chronic tension in muscles throughout the body. This means that your energy can no longer flow between your Tan T’iens, or centres of Divine Energy. ” — Russell & Kolb, The Tao of Sexual Massage

“If we want to reach our boys and help them develop mature and responsible attitudes towards sex, we need to understand their motivations. As a culture we are much more aware of and sympathetic to the pressures around sexuality girls feel. The confusion boys feel is hidden, hidden under their own masks of macho posturing and under the weight of our misconceptions of toxicity about boys.” — William Pollack, Real Boys

THE FRONT

Roots of sex, discrimination and science all mean to divide. Webster’s definition of sex includes either of the two divisions, male or female, into which persons, animals or plants are separated, with reference to their reproductive functions. Sex refers to the character of being male or female, all the attributes by which males and females are distinguished. It can refer to anything connected with sexual gratification or reproduction, or the attraction of those of one sex for those of the other. It can also refer to sexual intercourse.

The dictionary does not differentiate between sex and gender stereotypes. While the biological differences between human males and females remain constant, their roles and prescribed behavior varies from culture to culture, and within cultures over time.

For example, Margaret Mead, a pioneering anthropologist, challenged the stereotypes of her day both in the moral conduct of her personal life and in the conclusions of her published research. In Coming of Age in Samoa, she reported that the many different ways boy and girl children can be raised will shape their attitudes and relationships into very different patterns.

She described one tribe that taught their children easy-going, accepting attitudes towards sex and raised contented, peaceable adults. In contrast, a cannibal tribe raised fierce warriors by systematically frustrating their infants, hanging them on tree branches to swing unattended, withholding basic touch and caring. Current civilizations resemble the cannibals more often than the peaceable, contented tribe, both in training and results.

Tantric yoga is a discipline which trains students to change sexual impulses from a culturally conditioned detriment to intentional accelerator of personal growth. Its premise is that forbidding people to think about sex has the opposite of intended effect. For centuries it’s been know that if you tell people not to think of white elephants, they’ll think of nothing else.

Slamming the lid on libido drives it into the inaccessible “unconscious.”

While publicly feigning compliance, people thus repressed indulge compulsive sexuality in extreme. Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, sexual deviance has been systematically programmed into the world’s highly educated elite for centuries, making them vulnerable to blackmail and/or public humiliation for their inevitable discretions, placing them at the mercy of puppet masters who wield secret powers behind the scenes.

To prevent such personal/political undoing, energy science trains students to be wise, skillful and practical in sexual matters, fulfilling intimate needs without tearing the fabric of their emotional, family and professional lives apart.

As with communication, power and peace, the purpose and expression of sex evolves as awareness grows. For humans, the sex act begins and ends in the mind, the body’s most erogenous zone. Depending on attitude, it can be experienced as debasing or pure bliss. Sex can be a mating for the purpose of reproduction. It can be a one-sided expression of lust or will to dominate, motivated by insecurity, cruelty or even revenge. It can also be a source of healing, an expression of compassionate love. Comprehensive sex is practiced with reverent understanding that the individual act mirrors the sacred union of opposites.

THE BACK

An inversion of sexuality is frigidity or impotence, the lack of attraction to the opposite sex or incapacity to reproduce. It implies rejection of the creative, reproductive process. Negative role models, unfortunate experiences, inhibiting education or poor health are possible contributing factors.

In mythology, an androgynous person balances male and female aspects from within. If used as an excuse to shun the challenge of relationships, aspiring to this perfect state forfeits the learning opportunities associated with being human. There’s time enough in the hereafter for the even harder lessons reserved for angels.

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Ray Grigg, The Tao of Relationships: A Balancing of Man and Woman. (Humanics New Age: Atlanta, GA, 1988.) p. xiii.

Russels & Kolb, The Tao of Sexual Massage. (Fireside Books: New York, 1992.) p. 55.

William Pollack, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood. (Random House: New York, 1998.) p. 151.

Rethinking ACTION

One of the 64 Essays on Change is posted each consecutive Sunday. The choice is decided either by requests made on the Contact Page and/or immediate relevance to current events. See the UPSG Essays page for a description of the structure-within-structure format of the Essays, an overview of CONSCIENCE: Your Ultimate Personal Survival Guide, and an alphabetical list of the Essays from which to choose.

On the new moon of March 9, 2014, the first of the Essays to be posted was Number 61 on PEACE. It was selected as a timely response to events in the Ukraine. The following Sunday, the very first Essay, CRIME, was selected, followed by its companion Essay Number 18 on MOTIVES.

The final Essay, Number 64 has been selected for Sunday, March 30th, the second new moon in the month of March. It completes a triad that started with CRIME, then MOTIVES, and now, consequent ACTION. This Essay has immediate applications to the progression of world events.

Bloggers have likened Putin’s actions to the strategy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. America’s leaders have been faulted for lacking the ability to think in terms of positive action responses. It therefore behooves everyone, everywhere with an eye to the future, in the interests of human survival, to fill in that void.

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64. ACTION

“Military action is important to the nation — it is the ground of death and life, the path of survival and destruction, so it is imperative to examine it. . . The Way means inducing the people to have the same aim as the leadership, so that they will share death and share life, without fear of danger.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“The warrior is always alert. He is always awake. He knows how to focus his mind and his body. He is what the samurai call “mindful.” . . . As a function of his clarity of mind, he is a strategist and a tactician. He can evaluate his circumstances accurately and then adapt himself to the “situation on the ground.” — Moore & Gillette, The Warrior in His Fullness

“We cannot stop the seasons of history, but we can prepare for them. Right now, in 1997, we have eight, ten, perhaps a dozen more years to get ready. Then events will begin to take choices out of our hands. Yes, winter is coming, but our path through the winter is up to us. . . History’s howling storms can bring out the worst and best in a society.” — Strauss & Howe, The Fourth Turning

THE FRONT

Webster’s defines action on a sliding scale of meanings. Taking in the full spectrum as a whole is an eye-opener. Originally it was a physics concept, the state of being in motion. From there the definition changes to habitual conduct characterized by energy and boldness. It changes again to include the effect produced by something (like a drug), or the way organs or machines work.

Action is used to describe the function of a piano or a gun. It shifts to take on the connotation of a legal proceeding by which one seeks to have a wrong put right. It’s the term used to describe military combat. Lastly, in slang it denotes excitement, specifically gambling.

Over a life-time, novelist Earle Stanley Gardner worked to develop a best-seller formula: a virtuous hero whom everyone loves to see in action. The result, Attorney Perry Mason, solves crimes and puts wrongs right in the court of law. He’s a deliberate blending of Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes. Robin defended the betrayed and down-trodden. He took from the rich to give to the poor, helping them stand against oppressors. Sherlock used his highly trained powers of observation and deduction to trace devious crimes to the unseen hand of the evil Moriarty, then courageously drew the villain out to defeat him.

New law students are often grieved to find reality so far removed from fiction. Just so. Gardner knew people bought his books exactly because they longed for what’s missing in their lives. But fiction soothes without solving. The times call for a multitude of Positive Perrys taking positive action every day, here and now.

Movie action heroes also exemplify the intellect-action blend of leadership we miss. To become a Jedi knight, Luke SkyWalker first must train to attune himself to “the force.” Indiana Jones similarly blends the best of right and left brain worlds. Both he and Nazi opponents search out the arc of the covenant, then the grail. The enemy wants the key to world domination; Indy and his beloved father seek “illumination.” They respect the wisdom of ancient times and adventure to recover lost treasures. The I Ching is another of the ancient lost treasures, both used and abused by seekers through the ages.

Unlike these action heroes, intellectuals who contempt practical people and workers who enviously mistrust the educated are equally lop-sided actors. For positive results, scholars and street-smart frontliners must join ranks. Better still, we should each train ourselves like action hero role models to balance self-awareness and action, to live fully effective, each in our own way.

George S. Patton, the general who defeated Hitler’s army, quoted scriptures like a bishop, knew Shakespeare’s verse by heart.

THE BACK

The opposite of action is inaction. This may be appropriate. Those who patiently wait also serve. Other times it’s due to indifference or paralysis of will. Procrastination, delaying action, may be a result of ambivalence. Lack of commitment or conflicting goals and beliefs often work unconsciously to sabotage consistent action.

A perversion of action is hyperactivity, sometimes the result of a chemical imbalance, other times an effort to avoid thinking. Restricting youthful energies, forcing children to sit too long inactive, can trigger rebellion as an extreme and opposite reaction to boredom.

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  • Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Thomas Cleary. (Shambhala: Boston, 1988.) p. 41.
  • Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, “The Warrior in His Fullness,” in The Awakened Warrior: Living with Courage, Compassion & Discipline, ed. Rick Fields. (Putnam’s Sons: New York, 1994.) pp. 29-30.
  • William Strauss & Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy. (Broadway Books: New York,1997.) p. 7.

The Positive Paradigm Handbook is Coming SOON

HERE’s a sample from the Coming Positive Paradigm Handbook!

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PREFACE

The Positive Paradigm Handbook will change the way you see yourself

and relate to the world – forever.

  • It gives you a functional picture of how your life really works, and by extension, what moves the people around you.

  • It gives you the map for achieving fulfillment, personal happiness and higher love.

  • It give you an instrument with which to effectively organize your personal life, make realistic decisions, and act more effectively to achieve intended results.

  • It gives you premier tools for cultivating self-awareness, making the unconscious conscious, and mapping goals for personal change.

  • It gives you a comprehensive standard for assessing your leadership skills, maximizing this potential, and choosing which leaders to follow.

  • It gives self-healers and therapists a powerful diagnostic tool for identifying the roots of disease-causing stress and correcting lifestyle imbalances.

  • It gives profound insight into the causes of discrimination, sexual abuse and PTSD, as well as how to heal from their effects.

  • It gives everyone a realistic standard for recognizing true friends from mortal enemies.

  • Ultimately, it gives those who follow through the edge on long-term success, tipping the scales of history in favor of human survival, one person at a time.

If these claims sound intense, they are. But they’re well founded.

As a teenager, I was fascinated by the fact that Einstein’s abstract formula, e = mc2, could produce powerfully tangible results — the atomic bomb!

Later, I was even more intrigued to discover that this same formula, when plugged into the concentric circles of the Positive Paradigm Wheel, not only resulted in the Unified Theory of Einstein’s lifelong quest. It was capable of generating equally powerful and practical personal results.

The Positive Paradigm Handbook reveals this Unified Theory and supplies the tools needed to start thinking like a genius. By internalizing this method, making it your own by repeated use, your life will be changed in ways only dreamed of before. Virtually endless in its practical applications, it can be pointed like a laser beam to illumine every field of endeavor.

The Handbook is the bare bones take-away from Rethinking Survival. The author’s personal background, academic credentials, research and experience are described in Getting to the Positive Paradigm. But here, what matters is simply that it works and that owning it is a matter of personal survival.

Based on the foundation of the earlier books on change, The Positive Paradigm Handbook goes directly to the heart of personal, practical application, here and now. The purpose of working with the Handbook is to ingrain Einstein’s “substantially new way of thinking,” which, he said, is required “if mankind is to survive.”

In a world seemingly intent on fracturing experience into smaller and smaller niches, the Positive Paradigm provides an urgently needed counter-balance, applying an opposite and equal weight in a unifying direction.

Rethinking MOTIVES

One Essay on Change is posted each consecutive Sunday. The choice of which is decided either by requests made on the Contact Page and/or immediate relevance to current events.

Tonight, 03/23/14, I’m following through on a promise made in answer to the question, “Crime, Is It Natural?” I told Barrister Brendon Moorhouse, a reported Sherlock of the Courtroom, that I’d respond to this important question on this website with my perspective. After all, CRIME just happens the very first of the 64 UPSG Essays. However, I’ve waited until the following week because the companion Essay on Motives speaks more closely to the subject of investigating crimes, white collar as well violent ones.

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18. MOTIVES

“Although the feelings mentioned above [sadness, pessimism, guilt, emptiness] may accompany a depressed mood, the most prevalent effects usually involve low energy and lack of motivation. . . An effective way of lifting these moods involves using music to activate our resources.” — John M. Ortiz, The Tao of Music: Sound Psychology

“It occurred to me that the only way to figure out what had happened at a crime scene was to understand what had gone on inside the head of the principal actor in that drama: the offender. And the only way to find that out was to ask him. . . If we could give the law enforcement community some insights into the process, the internal logic, of how violent offenders actually decide to commit crimes and why they come up with their choice of crimes — where the motive comes from — then we could provide a valuable tool in pointing investigators toward what for them must be the ultimate question: Who? Stated as simply as possible: Why? + How? = Who.” John Douglas, The Anatomy of Motive

“On some level, you are meditating all the time. One goal of meditation practice is to become aware of that. Another is to extend that awareness to more and more areas of your life. . . It takes practice and conscious effort to restructure the mind and move it from habitual patterns.” – Andrew Weil, 8 Meditations for Optimum Health

 THE FRONT

The root of motive means to move. Webster’s single definition refers to “some” inner drive, impulse, or intention that causes a person to do something or act in a certain way. It’s an incentive or goal.

Motive, purpose and intent explain human behavior. Unless viewed as a whole, what we see is taken out of context and misunderstood. You see a man take someone else’s car. That’s intent, the what. You see him grab the keys and drive off. That’s purpose, the how. But unless you know his motive, why he did it, the picture is incomplete. Was he desperately racing to save his beloved child’s life, escaping from vengeful gang lords, or simply lusting after a fancy new car?

We’re fascinated by crime. Mystery novels, detective movies and sensational murder stories on TV news are big business. We stretch our minds to second-guess the ending, figure out who committed the crime, and why. We look for the mistakes that reveal dark secrets and lead to the criminal’s undoing. We’re satisfied only when truth is revealed and order is restored by justice.

At heart, what we’re really trying to understand is ourselves. We’re haunted by a pervasive sense of wrongs committed against us, or by us. We can’t quite bring ourselves to recognize what they are, or to admit our own mistakes. But a nagging sense of unfinished business leaks out as voyeurism.

Ultimately, it’s the stifled voice of conscience that persistently calls us back to our neglected dreams and deepest longings for fulfillment. Those who allow themselves to be defined by others, who live in habitual fear of people’s opinions and fail to honor their inner sense of calling commit a soul-searing violence akin to suicide. The crime they commit is against their own true selves.

Failing to be true to oneself can be the hardest crime to detect. Finding one’s true calling can be the greatest mystery of all. People who march to others’ drums, unconscious of their motives and what moves those around them, live in painful confusion. Only those who know how to listen and dance to the inner music of their soul’s desire live in joyful harmony with themselves and the world around them.

 The I Ching is a means for turning the camera around, focusing in on ourselves. Uncovering hidden motives might cause initial discomfort. But it can lead to positive changes. After analyzing them, we have the option to decide on better ways to accomplish intentional ends.

Our what and how isn’t always appropriate to our why. Other solutions may accomplish our goals without committing crimes against ourselves and others.

 THE BACK

The opposite of motive is motiveless, to be without awareness of calling, any conscious purpose, or impulse to action. This condition is sometimes an extreme reaction to an extended period of frenzied, excessive, forced action. People experience it as apathy, shell shock or burn out.

 When crazed criminals go on sprees, kill strangers and wreak havoc on public property, their acts are regarded as random and senseless. To all but the most highly attained, the subtle laws of cause and effect are incomprehensible. There’s wisdom in accepting the unfathomable as Job did, saying, “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.“

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John M. Ortiz, The Tao of Music: Sound Psychology. (Samuel Weiser: ME, 1997.) p. 7.

John Douglas, The Anatomy of Motive. (Scribner: New York, 1999.) pp. 25-26.

Andrew Weil, 8 Meditations for Optimum Health. (audio cassette, Upaya,1997.)

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Illustration from Conscience: Your Ultimate Personal Survival Guide

 

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Rethinking CRIME

Today, I’m fulfilling a promise made on a LinkedIn thread in answer to the question, “Crime, Is It Natural?” I responded to look here for my perspective on this very important question. After all, CRIME just happens the very first of the UPSG Essays.

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1. CRIME

 “Our time has committed a fatal error; we believe we can criticize the facts of religion intellectually . . . The gods have become diseases; Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctor’s consulting room, or disorders the brains of politicians and journalists who unwittingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world.” — C. G. Jung, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 13.

“Nature itself has a pulse, a rhythmic, wavelike movement between activity and rest . . . We are capable of overriding these natural cycles, but only by summoning the fight-or-flight response and flooding our bodies with stress hormones. We can only push so long without breaking down and burning out.” — Loehr & Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement

“Your life is created from the inside out, so you must get right with you on the inside — and that takes time and focus on you; not your social mask, but you. . . You are uniquely equipped for a mission in this world, and to fail to commit to finding that mission and then achieving it is to wither the mind, body and spirit.” — Phillip C. McGraw, Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out

THE FRONT

Linguistic roots of crime indicate a verdict, an object of reproach, or offense. According to Webster’s, crime is an act which the law prohibits. Conversely, it is failure to act as the law orders. Crimes are variously punishable by death, imprisonment, or the imposition of fines and restrictions.

A second kind of crime is an offense against morality, called sin. More loosely, this word is used to refer to something regrettable. “It’s a crime you didn’t finish school.”

What’s significantly missing from Webster’s definitions is reference to violations of Natural Law. Over millennia, Asian practitioners evolved sophisticated sciences which map the subtle laws of energy movement and study the effects of natural change on human physiology, behavior and institutions. For thousands of years, health sciences, social structures, business practices and the education of monastic, government and military leaders alike were based on this practical understanding of human dynamics.

Westerners, in contrast, have little functional understanding of Natural Law and violate it with impunity. We experience subtle energy shifts as emotional reactions or the erratic ups and downs of daily life. Because Western cultures are historically out-of-tune with energy dynamics at this level of law, it is often referred to as the unconscious. Crimes of passion and self-sabotage are proof of this bind spot.

The focus of Conscience: The Ultimate Personal Survival Guide is the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Change. It embodies a time-tested method for making the unconscious conscious. As the repository of Natural Law, it fills a gap in the way we’ve been taught to think about life.

Restoring its ancient wisdom to current awareness could correct mistakes in the ways we think and therefore act, revitalizing virtually every field of endeavor, from the healing and entertainment arts to the political and social sciences.

In I Ching context, the worst crimes are those we commit against ourselves when we accept and act on limiting suggestions. When we block out the lower octave of sub-rational intelligence (the middle, energy level of the Life Wheel) as if it didn’t exist, we fail to recognize and release the buried fears that sabotage our rational decisions.

When we disown the higher octave of our super-rational awareness, (the Center of the Wheel) we block out intuitive access to the Book of Life, written in our very DNA — the universal source of creative solutions, the means of healing every disease, and hope of ultimate survival.

Those who dismiss, demean or control children with fear condemn them to empty lives of masked conformity on the material surface of the Life Wheel. Instilling extreme ideas about death, as if it were either a reward or ultimate punishment, one’s only hope or worst enemy, results in living inappropriate to reality.

 The more moderate, I Ching view accepts mortality as a natural change. Sages use keen awareness that time on Earth is limited as motivation to live authentic to their true selves, making the best possible use of every precious moment here and now.

To keep people in ignorance, lulling them into inaction by minimizing future dangers or the opportunities inherent in them is irresponsible. To withhold the information we need to be effective in meeting and surviving immanent challenges is most certainly the ultimate crime against humanity.

For a timely wake-up call would serve to shake us out of self-denial and shatter the prisons of narrow thinking. It could rouse the courage to face up to the unknown, to slay the demons that lurk in the sub-rational mind. It might also open us up to our super-rational potentials and the distant calling of eternal life.

 THE BACK

The positive resolution of crime is atonement. In social relationships, it’s accomplished by setting wrongs right. At a personal level, it’s accomplished by returning to a lifestyle compatible with Natural Law. Lat the deepest level, at-one-ment is attained by overcoming separation and restoring one’s original at-one connection with conscience and the creative Source.

The negative consequence of unrepentant wrong doing is punishment. Breaking human laws, as Webster’s enumerates, precipitates punitive results. Over time, the Natural Law of Karma returns actions in kind to the doer. Retribution can be visited in many forms, from mental or physical disease, to personal, professional or financial misfortune. The biblical admonition holds true: As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

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Carl G. Jung, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Vol. 13.Alchemical Studies. (Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1967.) p. 36.

Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz, The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal. (Free Press: New York, 2003.) pp. 30, 31.

Phillip C. McGraw, Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out. (Free Press: New York, 2001.) pp. 12, 13.

Clinton, Putin and Einstein’s Worst Nightmare

Once again, the U.S. and Russia are edging towards the death dance JFK engaged in with Nikita Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

The ego-sparing between Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin has been escalating for months, almost as if to precipitate the current crisis, only ostensibly over the Ukraine.

We know George Soros is behind Obama and heir apparent Clinton. Heaven only knows what puppeteer is pulling Putin’s (or for that matter, Soros’s) strings.

None of this is said lightly. In fact, the title Rethinking Survival: Getting to the Positive Paradigm of Change refers to Albert Einstein’s prescient warning. Human survival can no longer be taken for granted. Nuclear annihilation, so terrible a prospect that most of us refuse to wrap our minds around the possibility, doesn’t disappear by just denying it.

A ground swell of public opinion should be stirred to put worldwide pressure on leaders to back off from the terrible brink. This is the Positive Action response to the threat of mortal danger recommended in the section “We’re in a Terrible Mess.”

Open letters to Putin, Clinton, Soros and Glenn Beck set the stage. Here are excerpts from the frontispiece:

 “Cynics may ask, ‘Why do paradigms matter one way of the other? What do they have to do with survival?’ My repeated answer is, ‘A great deal!’ Rethinking Survival applies directly to practical politics. As an example of what’s possible, here are four open letters to world leaders currently dedicated to shaping the directions of our collective future.

 “VLADIMIR PUTIN: Let history remember you differently from the first consolidator of all the Russias, Ivan, who impoverished the serfs and was called “The Terrible.” Be remembered as Vladimir, who protected his people, prevented starvation and was called “The Wise.”

“HILLARY CLINTON: John F. Kennedy’s undelivered speech left us a legacy. Parallel to Einstein’s unfinished quest for the Unified Theory, the time is right to pick up Kennedy’s fallen flag and move forward, using the Positive Paradigm as the basis of a common leadership initiative.

­”GEORGE SOROS: In a flash, history’s greatest persecutor of truth changed into its greatest advocate. Like Saul become Paul, you still have time to open your eyes and truly soar in the annals of history by making a similar reversal. Apply the Positive Paradigm to your own life choices. See Part Three: Atheism Answered.

“GLENN BECK: Back Clinton and Putin’s efforts to transcend ego animosities for the sake of something truly worthwhile. Call on them to build lifeboats ahead of the crash looming ahead. Help them complete the unfulfilled legacies of Einstein and JFK. We have lost time to make up for.”

Commentators on TheBlaze, notably Jay Severin, have decried Russia’s so-called “intervention” in the Ukraine and expressed outrage over the ironic possibility of Putin receiving a Nobel Peace Prize. Though, why not? He’d fit right in with other recipients like Henry Kissinger and besieged Americans’ current disastrous leader.

Severin is adamant that his boss, Glenn Beck, has done much more for world peace than Putin. Hmmm. I’m not so sure about that one. What’s still missing is a critical piece of the information puzzle, lacking which, things continue to go terribly wrong, even despite the best of intentions.

The greatest irony of all is that Einstein had the key all along, but never knew it. Read Rethinking Survival for the missing Unified Theory. A five star Amazon review describes it as: “A broad brush stroke type of book that touches and colors so many elements and areas of life. A great read and well worth the investment.”

Read it. Give the Positive Paradigm of Change a chance. At stake is nothing less that human survival.

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Rethinking Discrimination

On Jan. 3, 2014 at 4:45pm a blog posted on theblaze.com announced that “Greta Van Susteren is one of few people who understands how to talk about racism.” Beneath that was the comment, “If national talks about racism could all be led by Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren, we’d all probably be in a better place.”

I checked out the comments she made on “Off the Record.” To summarize, Greta says racism exists and it’s terrible. But using the race card wrongfully is just as bad. Public figures who stir up the pot are dividing the nation, not healing it. They’re doing a real disservice to those with valid grievances. She called for “Real Solutions to Solve Real Racism.”

The first comment on her remarks was posted by BMRCG, who wrote “Bravo Greta! Although it is your opinion and it is commentary, I agree 100000000% with every last word. There are many in society that perceive life through emotion and feeling, much in the same way animals perceive their world. They have either lost the ability to think critically or never had it to begin with.”

I second this enthusiastic comment! Since Affirmative Action was my obligatory subject as a grad student in the UW-Madison Department of Educational Administration, I had to think long and hard about discrimination. As part of my story, Rethinking Survival has a lot to say on the subject.

So here are a few samples:

 THREE LEVELS OF LAW ARE OUT OF SYNCH:

Affirmative Action Was Doomed from the Start.

Why it Matters Now

The American Declaration of Independence names three kinds of law: the laws of man, of nature and nature’s God. The Book of Change is based on the laws of natural change. They emanate from and depend on divine law and serve as the rightful foundation of civil law. Clearly, human laws legislated in ignorance of or in opposition to natural and divine law are not likely to work out well. Policy makers at all levels would do well to give this point careful thought.

– P.E. West. The Common Sense Book of Change

In 1976, I participated in an educational law seminar, “How to Enforce Affirmative Action Legislation in Higher Education.” This assumption-driven premise (en-force) was backwards from the start. I applied the standard of natural law to social dynamics, backed it up with Jungian psychology, and arrived at the conclusion that the legislation was not only unenforceable. It would trigger backlash. Though hardly a popular viewpoint then, with twenty years time, my analysis proved correct.

 I wrote that we must first correct critical mistakes in our thinking which prevent both naming the problems we face and solving them. Experts mistakenly dismiss everything that’s not exclusively “rational” as “irrational.” The super-rational, highest octave (intuition, conscience, and divine guidance) and the sub-rational, lower octave (emotions and animal instincts) are lumped together as the “unconscious.” Poetic, biblical language is taken literally. Light and dark, male and female are mistakenly equated with physical bodies and skin types rather than dualistic pairs of cosmic energetic compliments which operate within each of us.

Based on this analysis, I made recommendations for what I called a Positive Action alternative for achieving valid Affirmative Action goals.

 ——————–

 Affirmative Action legislation was but one example of the disconnect between policy and practice which results when levels of law are out of synch. So long as rules of the knowledge game (epistemology — who has permission to know what, and in what ways) continue to close people off from the richness of their inner lives, negative discrimination (projection and scapegoating) will also continue.

 ——————

A keystone of this philosophy is the virtue of moderation. It acts as a fulcrum, balancing the alternating, see-saw ups and downs between opposite extremes. An example related to Affirmative Action legislation was the upsurge in the 1960s and 70s of radical feminism and angry black power in reaction to dominant oppression by white males. They are two extremes, opposite and equal mistakes. However, two wrongs don’t make a right. The second compounds the first, making a bad situation even worse. Solutions rest elsewhere. An easier way to approach the same understanding now would be to work with the derivative Positive Paradigm Wheel described in Part Two.

 ——————–

 In accepting an internship in 1976 at the Wisconsin Association of School Boards as their Affirmative Action advisor, I was intentionally seeking to broaden my horizons in what Goleman describes as “self-directed learning.” I was taking on an unfamiliar role within what, for me, was a whole new world. I was a relatively young, inexperienced woman being initiated into an old boys’ club. I was a university grad student mentoring with street-smart lobbyists who despised pointy-headed intellectuals. And the approach to “change” I brought to both the UW and to WASB — The Book of Change (the boundary-spanner’s handbook) — was continents and centuries apart from their ideas about change.

WASB’s Director, George Tipler, hated Affirmative Action legislation with a passion. As his staff secretly confirmed, the only reason I’d been brought on board was to get federal monies. The Association had been awarded a grant to train school board members on the school administrator hiring process, but only on the condition that an Affirmative Action component was included.

Nevertheless, when I pushed his buttons (as he said,“Put up or shut up”), George gave me his grudging respect. He introduced me to his lobbyist world, taking me to the Wisconsin State Capitol. He included me in lunch meetings with legislators, where he elaborated emphatically on his opinions.

But he also distanced himself, signaling to his constituents that it was okay to ignore my work. I organized a mandated state-wide seminar on Affirmative Action for school board members and district administrators. He set its date as the first day of deer hunting season. Morbid symbolism aside, no self-respecting rural school board member could be expected to attend.

To satisfy mandated requirements, I collected an anthology of papers written by seminar presenters. He had each article printed on different, pastel-colored paper. His staff snickered, “the fruit salad” manual.

However, there was some fun along the way as I managed to score enough “points” to keep the leader board even. My favorite example was the state-wide seminar on “How to Select Your School District Superintendent.”

For the sake of a five-minute presentation, I had to sit all day up front on the panel podium. Wearing my navy polyester pants suit, power red-white-and-blue neck scarf, and navy pumps, I was posed like politically correct window-dressing, while Lyle Bruss, the main presenter from Green Bay, droned on about selecting and interviewing candidates. His assumption: all were males.

Every time Lyle used the “he” word, I (quite inadvertently) winced. “Yeuch.” An audience member picked up on this, winked at me and elbowed his neighbor. Pretty soon, every time Lyle used the “he” word, the whole audience was going “Yeuch” back at him, chortling. It took Lyle several minutes to catch on. When he finally did, he turned beet red and made a flustered remark about having four daughters, all of whom were referred to as “he.” Point made, without my having to say a word.

——————

In his later bid for the presidency, Perot focused on the national deficit. He overlooked the greatest one of all: the leadership deficit. He propounded laudable policies, but was unable to enforce them, even within his own organization.

Just as policy was not enough to make Affirmative Action goals a reality, so policies out of synch with natural law fail miserably in corporations as well. The deficit which begins with limiting, skewed education incapacitates management. This reflects in government and world economies alike — a disaster of Titanic proportions.

The knowledge deficit — the change science sadly lacking in leadership training — cripples us. Politicians continue to talk about the urgent need for change. But they know not whereof they speak, any more than did the pseudo-Shogun honchos at E.D.S. Federal.

———————

 . . . tacking Affirmative Action legislation as an overlay on the surface level, while failing to address a deeper, divisive worldview, couldn’t help, and most likely would make matters worse. (Figure II.14 shows why enforcing morality with Affirmative Action legislation backfires, as well as the alternative Positive Action approach which works.)

———————–

Bottom line: exploitation is an energy dynamic, a symptom of self-destructive imbalance. To the extent that individuals operate on incomplete, inaccurate and false paradigms, they remain insecure, unconscious and functionally disconnected from their higher potentials. Out of that pain and suffering, like Kissinger, like Soros in the extreme, they will continue to feel justified in dominating, controlling and exploiting whomever they can, however they can — playing out power addictions with hypocritical talk of philanthropy.

Affirmative Action legislation has not changed these dynamics — nor, as discussed earlier, could it. Looking in the wrong places doesn’t help. Blaming outside enemies as an excuse to avoid self-examination and correction is a futile waste of precious time and energy. Although venting frustration in politically motivated social movements — even terrorism and outright war — may temporarily feel good, it doesn’t address the underlying paradigm deficiency that drives hatred, violence and injustice. It therefore can’t put an end to catastrophic outcomes.

Answering Chrystina’s Question

globeToday, December 30th of the waning year 2013, Chrystina Trulove-Reyes posted a question about Rethinking Survival.

She wrote: “I would like to know more about the book. Is it about survival, the human condition, or mythology.”

Hmm. I answered back, “Good question. The short answer is, All of the above. The long answer deserves a post.”

Here I must caution, as I do in Rethinking, about the flexible nature of the English language. We often miss each other coming and going because the same word can mean many different things. This makes clarity in communication challenging — at best.

My answer as to whether Rethinking is about survival, the human condition, or mythology depends on what you and I mean. And it’s not really an either-or choice.

This isn’t just a quibble.

For example, take the word “mythology.” In the full spectrum use of “mythology,” it can simply mean fiction. But sometimes the slang use implies unscientific and therefore utterly false.

In a certain way, Chrystina, you’re creating a mythology with Cleopatra Stevens at survivingthezombieapocolypse.wordpress.com. But your story, though fiction, also speaks to the human condition.

Joseph Campbell, the famous comparative religion buff, used “myth” to describe the creation stories of the world’s great religions. These stories may be fiction, but they have served to answer our deepest questions. How did we get here? What is humanity’s place in creation? They define our common purpose and suggest possible futures.

From Campbell’s perspective, Yes. Rethinking is about mythology and the human condition. It’s basically one and the same subject.

“Paradigm” is another word for myth. It’s a structure for how we define ourselves, the operating rules of the world we live in, and humanity’s possible futures. Paradigm is used interchangeably with world view and belief system. Rethinking is, most importantly, about the importance and effect of paradigms.

In this context, Rethinking is also about survival. My point is that our belief systems — paradigms, world views, mythologies — shape our experience. To the extent that they’re false — don’t correspond with the facts — they can drive us crazy, push us to murder or even suicide. They can endanger our very existence.

When Einstein said we will need a substantially new way of thinking if humanity is to survive, he was referring to the dangerous effects of limited, separatist thinking. According to him, we must to expand our circle of compassion to get free from the prison of limiting world views.

Rethinking answers this urgent need.

So, Yes. it is about human survival. Yes. It is about mythology insofar as the term is interchangeable with paradigms and belief systems. And, Yes, because paradigms have a great impact, for better or worse, on the human condition, it is about this as well.

Thus my short answer: All of the above.

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WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET

After months of over nights engrossed in writing Rethinking Survival, the kaleidescope has turned. Time to put on another hat. It’s now or never. Give form to thought. First I produced the Kindle version and now the paperback edition. Quite a strenuous project. A friend likened it to giving birth.

Tonight, Friday, December 27th of the waning year 2013, I’m waiting for final approval of the submitted book. How, then, do I announce this new arrival? It’s full of hope for the New Year, yet so fragile in its uncertain future.

When I draw on my memory banks for the best way to describe my concern, I’m remembering a powerful experience from Oberlin years. It was the mid 1960’s. I was a college Freshman. The occasion was a performance of Brahm’s A German Requiem.

I was seated towards the back of the upper balcony in Finney Chapel. This 19th century, church-like assembly hall was fitted with wooden pews and a large front stage. The Conservatory Orchestra and College Choir were seated up front. The chapel was filled to capacity with a mix of students, faculty and “townies.”

The Requiem wasn’t new to me. As a member of the Festival Choir at Interlochen’s National Music Camp, I’d actually participated in an earlier concert. So the power of the music was reinforced with memories of intense rehearsals.

The unforgettable, dirge-like opening weighs on the soul with its ponderous message of mortality. ” . . . all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man like flowers. The grass withers and the flower falls.”

But at Oberlin, I had the misfortune to be seated behind a clique of music students. (Conservatory students called their building the Con. We called them “Connies.”) They were remarkably oblivious to the solemnness of the Requiem. Throughout, they showed off their cleverness by critiquing the performance. In stage whispers, hissing derogatory remarks. A soloist’s pitch was off. The conductor’s tempo was too slow.

However, right next to them, ignoring the Connies entirely, sat a single listener, engrossed in his attention to the music. His right elbow rested on the pew before me, his hand resting on his chin, as if deep in thought. I could actually hear his wind-up wristwatch ticking in time to the morbid music. It took my breath away. It seemed as if the watch was in synch with the Brahms, confirming the shortness of human life on Earth. The countdown clock was ticking for those with an ear to hear.

Were the Connies rude? That was the least of it! They’d totally missed what Brahms had labored to communicate to us from an earlier century. What a loss.

Were they correct in their technical assessments? Maybe, so far as it went. I wouldn’t know. Because I was listening for the music, not the mistakes. This was my choice.

I made this decision at Interlochen while attending student concerts there. On the one hand, I realized, I could listen with my physical ears, focusing on the limitations of amateur musicians. But that approach would have driven me crazy. I’d have made myself miserable.

On the other hand, I could listen with the heart. I could open myself to what the composer heard with the inner ear and done his best to express in the language of music. I could admire the energy of enthusiastic, sincere students who loved the music and were doing their very best, however imperfectly, to measure up to it. That was the beneficial path of gratitude and enjoyment.

In the English language, we use the same word for both the piece of paper upon which physical notes are printed . . . the sheet music . . . and for the music itself. In contrast, in the German language of the Requiem, two different words are used to distinguish between the notation and the actual sound.

Just so, I agreed with myself not to worry so much for the technical notes, but instead to focus on the actual music. I chose to listen with the inner ear to hear what the composer intended and what merely human musicians labored to recreate. Here Brahms was reminding us with his dark, brooding music that mankind, as numerous as blades of grass on the face of the earth, is perilously mortal. Like flowers, all human greatness ultimately comes to naught.

But the Connies missed it in their chit chat, hearing only with their physical ears.

This memory serves to illustrate the choices available for approaching Rethinking Survival. It’s my best hope that readers will meet me half way — that they’ll focus not on the book’s technical mistakes but on its substance and value. This book is about survival in the very literal sense of the term. And like the Requiem, it balances short-term warnings with long-term hope. Brahms completes his reminder of mortality with the confirmation of immortality: “The word of the Lord endures for eternity.” Rethinking Survival mirrors this balance.

In short, what I’m offering is the very best I could do given limited time and finite resources. For the sake of the message, I urge readers to forgive an imperfect messenger for the sake of the message. Because what you see is what you get — either a powerful paradigm or a less than perfect physical book. Your choice.

 

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Rethinking Gladwell’s Tipping Point

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 The Call to Positive Action

 Malcolm Gladwell, author of David and Goliath, earlier wrote The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. In the language of Einstein’s atomic physics, it’s called critical mass. In the world of ideas, it’s the trigger point of a paradigm shift. Gladwell describes it as magic:

 The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. . . A precisely targeted push can cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate.

His book identifies the catalysts which precipitate a tipping point. Psychological studies are analyzed to name the key elements of social change. At the right time, a handful of people with the right idea and the right messaging can make huge waves. With three key ingredients in place, what seems to happen spontaneously, almost mysteriously, can be deliberately replicated.

Three special kinds of people are necessary to precipitate a paradigm shift. Gladwell profiles the personality types whose combined effort makes the difference. He calls them mavens, salesmen, and connectors.

Mavens are the experts who know their subject in-depth and in great detail. They delight in sharing their knowledge to help others. They have no agenda other than to be of service, so people trust their information. In this case, the information being shared is the perennial philosophy embodied in the Positive Paradigm. It radiates from the center of the wheel.

Salesmen have a knack for tapping into what the public wants. They’re keenly perceptive about human nature and are therefore persuasive in getting others to buy what they have for sale. Salesmen are in touch with the middle level of the wheel. They connect with human motivations to energize basic hopes (namely, for survival) and fears (of extinction).

Connectors take joy in building extended networks of acquaintances. They’re the matchmakers who introduce friends to other friends. They’re the doers who spin the wheel round at the surface of the rim. In this case, they have the ability to spread the Positive Paradigm message worldwide to everyone with the common sense to hear.

Put these three special kinds of people together and there’s magic in the making. The levels of creation can be linked and unified. A powerful idea presented persuasively to the public and carried around the globe by word-of-mouth can travel faster than a speeding bullet.

Rethinking Survival is the work of a maven. I’ve spent a lifetime refining these ideas. I’ve worked hard to express them in a simple, clear and hopefully entertaining way. I take delight in the possible good that could come from sharing them.

But, true to life, there’s always a down side. The lifestyle optimal for writing such a book disqualifies me from wearing the hats of a connector or a salesman. My strength in one context is a weakness in another. I’m a deeply private person. Knowing my limitations, I’m calling on the strengths of my readers to balance out my weak spots. I’m not independently wealthy. (Joke!) I have no support network of family, friends, agents and publicists. I need you to ACT as salesmen and connectors on behalf of the Positive Paradigm. Together, we can work miracles.

What Gladwell describes in terms of psychological studies also expressed in Chinese philosophy. Here’s the tipping point idea from Lao Tze’s perspective:

Passage 78

 Nothing under heaven is as soft,

receptive or pliant as water;

but when amassed,

nothing withstands

its tidal wave impact.

 As water penetrates and dissolves the hard,

erodes and absorbs the rigid,

those who yield and encompass their foes

prevail long after evil doers

have disappeared.

Like water, the sage absorbs the world’s suffering,

endures its hardships,

and responsive to the times,

becomes the catalyst

of collective action.

So it is that the low and high trade places,

and the forceful lose their influence;

this is known by many,

but practiced by few.

 This passage applies to promoting the Positive Paradigm idea in the following way. A solitary writer is like a single drop of water in the ocean. But an idea whose time has come, when spread by word-of-mouth and owned by the masses, can take on the force of a social tsunami.

I have no political clout or social standing. But I’ve allowed nothing to discourage me in my determination to be a catalyst of collective positive action. I’ve experienced my share of hardships. I identify with the world’s suffering. So I trust that, having done my best, it will be enough.

This book will survive by surfing the tidal waves of Titanic times. Because there is a mighty zeitgeist stirring the air. Its force is obliging everyone on the planet to make critical choices. Its power is driving us to take action.

It’s a question of which worldview will prevail. Everyone must choose. (Failing to choose consciously is also a choice.)

Do we cling to dysfunctional paradigms that have brought us to the brink of Titanic disaster? Or do we opt for Einstein’s new way of thinking? Do we choose to be, or not to be? To survive or perish from the face of the earth, that is the question.

So if you’re ready and willing to tip the balance in favor of human survival, BE PART OF THE SOLUTION. SPREAD THE WORD. Urge everyone you know who stands to benefit from Rethinking Survival to read it and then act on it. Do so with passionate conviction. Now! Fill the all-important roles of salesmen and connectors.

And may the Force be with you and your friends, Now and into the New Year!

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Rethinking Our Common Humanity

Rethinking Survival

Excerpts

Without an accurate reality map, chances of success in life are slim to none. You need a complete picture of your potentials along with an accurate belief system, one that explains how the world works and what it expects of you.

Basing decisions on a worldview that’s distorted, incomplete or otherwise out of synch with the way things really are seriously diminishes chances of survival. In times as dangerous as these, it’s more important than ever to operate on correct and complete information.

But, as comparative religion legend Joseph Campbell observed, traditional creation stories no longer serve us well. He called for a re-vision of the timeless wisdom shared in common by the world’s great religions. We need a unifying view of creation that transcends cultural differences. In The Power of Myth, he put it this way:

“If we’re to solve the problem that’s confronting the world today, we will have develop a new mythology. The old myths are no longer serving us. We don’t have a mythology for people recognizing the humanity of a person on the other side of the hemisphere. I’ve often wondered if some of the notions coming out of quantum physics, quantum interconnectedness, don’t express that.”

Humanity needs a more inclusive reality map, one people worldwide can understand and identify with. The Positive Paradigm model meets this urgent need. It’s based on universally recognized and accepted physics, discovered by an internationally known and loved world citizen, Albert Einstein.

The Positive Paradigm of Change pictures an elegantly simply yet complete and correct reality map that accords with the way life truly is. It meets the Occam’s Razor standard: maximum inclusiveness with greatest simplicity. It has the power to give life travelers, wherever their journey starts, a new vision of life’s possibilities and with it, a realistic hope of survival.

It’s not “myth” as the slang implies, meaning unscientific, false and fictitious. To the contrary, it’s pure science, meaning “with knowledge.” It expresses the perennial philosophy embodied in the world’s great scriptures and shows them to be compatible with modern physics. The Positive Paradigm is equally consistent with science, the visionary poetry of culture-specific myths, and the Star Wars movies of George Lucas.

The Positive Paradigm structure satisfies Campbell’s call for a new mythology as the term is traditionally used. It is a symbolic representation of the creation story (genesis) and how humans fit into the picture. If it has a hero, as myths are said to center around a key figure, it would be Albert Einstein. He intuited the unifying theory which Campbell sought, and gave us the formula which, when plugged into Positive Paradigm Wheel, bridges the apparent gap between world religions and modern science.

The Positive Paradigm pictures what Campbell called “quantum interconnectedness:” a circle that, no matter where on the surface people stand, they are all connected to the same center. Every spoke of the wheel is linked to one unifying hub. The Positive Paradigm Wheel (which represents the whole world, of which everyone is part) literally gives us Einstein’s option of “widening the circle of compassion.”

It pictures a worldview where delusional separatist thinking has no place. Because, contrary to the conventional, competitive manner of thinking, the apex of individual achievement isn’t to rise above, separate from and dominate others. Quite the opposite. Paradoxically, the pinnacle of human attainment rests at the center of the Wheel of Life. Here, the illusion of Einstein’s dreaded separateness disappears.

Uniqueness belongs to the surface of the wheel, but the true height of attainment rests within. However, when the surface is linked with the center in an endless, infinite loop, there’s no conflict between individual freedom and universal compassion.

Tyrants of the world hate enlightened unity. They’ll do anything to prevent you from remembering that everyone, everywhere shares a common origin, that we are all inherently okay.

Because once you know this, as Einstein did, no one can intimidate, control or dominate you. No one can sell you on the virtue of warring against your neighbor. You’re aware that nothing anyone has for sale can make you more perfect. Nor can anything that anyone threatens to take away alter your essential okayness. It’s your inalienable birthright. A given.

“You are already okay.” This is the basic premise of the Positive Paradigm. It’s the realistic foundation upon which to build valid self-esteem. It’s the key to personal freedom — freedom from ignorance, freedom from fear. It’s the rock-solid foundation of functional democracy. It’s grounds for rethinking what the word really means and how to implement its promise.

One minor caveat: it all depends. While we all have the option to remember who we truly are, most of us are like Lambert, the sheepish lion. It takes a smack with a two-by-four upside the head before we’re finally ready to WAKE UP.

Often it takes the form of life-threatening danger to those we care for. A personal health crisis will also do the trick. So will job loss or a run-in with natural disaster. But, like Dorothy stranded in the land of Oz, when you want dearly enough to return “home,” you can click your heels whenever you chose — and come to find out, you’re already there.

Educators can use the Positive Paradigm of Change as a positive tool for motivating students. It is easy to understand, uplifting and unifying. It confirms the innate okayness of everyone everywhere. It simplifies the essence of world religions without bias. It emphasizes the importance of rational thinking and is compatible with science. It shows students the importance of experiencing every aspect of their lives. It’s the optimal tool for building the philosopher kings urgently needed today.

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Rethinking Survival can be purchased at amazon.com.

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Rethinking Christ at Christmas

RETHINKING SURVIVAL

 Excerpts

No matter what your beliefs, you’ll find Rethinking’s explanation for Christ’s enduring influence both fascinating and persuasive.

I came to the story of Jesus fairly late in life. When it finally came time to focus on The New Testament, I was ready and well prepared to appreciate it. It hadn’t been spoiled by being introduced too early, before I was mature enough to relate to the teachings as an adult. No one had spoiled the teachings for me with prejudiced opinions or by bad example. There was no social or authoritative pressure put upon me to either believe or not believe. It was my choice.

I came to the teachings, especially St. Matthew, with an open mind and uncluttered brain. Further, I Ching and yogic backgrounds put the life and times of Jesus in perspective. Many of his teachings and so-called miracles, it seemed, were built on tacit understandings generally accepted at a time when people lived far closer to nature than most of us city-folk do today. This bedrock of common understanding has since, for the most part, been lost or forgotten.

His story didn’t seem like hocus pocus to me, as intellectuals often assume. In the context of Chinese sages and Hindu yogis, it was plausible and wonderful. Here was an extraordinarily great master who choose to arrive on Planet Earth at a tipping point in history. Civilization had reached critical mass. This rare, great being had the compassion and power to influence the fate (survival versus extinction) of the human race. His demonstrated love, courage and personal sacrifice changed the course of history.

Not coincidentally, it seemed that at the time I was making friends with St. Matthew (the early 1980’s), humanity was slowly approaching another tipping point, another time when, again, human survival, cannot be taken for granted. There was a message here for those with “ears to hear.” It influenced me to write Rethinking Survival for the purpose of giving people worldwide the means to see Christ’s power and purpose with fresh eyes. The Positive Paradigm of Change offers a context within which his life, death and transfiguration are understandable.

It gives us an opportunity to rethink the example of his life, teachings and sacrifice. It’s a means to save the hope of the Christ child from the bathwater of false distortions. It offers a way out of narrow-minded strife in political and religious arenas alike.

Bottom line: I found that the Old Testament and the New Testament which completes it both work for me. What goes on at the surface, cultural level of institutional religions is a different matter. Sadly, too often, it’s apples and oranges. Disconnected universes. So it bears repeating: distortions at the ephemeral surface cannot negate the power and validity of the scriptures. Whatever unfortunate baggage and associations have accrued to the teachings, release them. However jaded you’ve become, get over it. However tragic the past, forgive it. Go back and rethink the teachings. See them like a genius, through fresh eyes, as if for the first time, new again. It’s worth it.

The 19th century poet William Wordsworth likened the paradigm’s center to “life’s Star.” Einstein’s earliest glimpse of eternity came from a compass. It gave him his first experience of something powerfully magical hidden behind the world of things. The True North center is the source of all-encompassing compassion, the Buddhist equivalent of Higher Love. It’s the fountainhead of Christian “charity.”

The Positive Paradigm model answers Bill O’Reilly’s implicit question. During a 60 Minutes interview on CBS, Norah O’Donnell asked for his take-away from Killing Jesus. His response: “The Christian savior was able to attract a following and a level of popularity that nobody to date has replicated.”

O’Reilly’s phenomenal success rides on technology earlier unknown. “He had no infrastructure,” O’Reilly marveled. “. . . He had no government, no PR guy, no money, no structure. He had nothing, yet he became the most famous human being ever.”

How can this be?

The level from which Christ broadcasts explains his extraordinary influence both then and now. His consciousness originates deep within the Life Wheel. It radiates from a place beyond time and space in all directions, permeating the entire field of creation, touching everyone everywhere. This explains the literal truth in his promise, that he would be with us always, even to the end of days.

0 CHRIST Permeates

The Positive Paradigm also gives us a picture of how disciples’ reports of Christ’s death and resurrection can be literally true. Accomplished meditation practitioners withdraw attention from the physical body and then return to ordinary consciousness on a daily basis. A true master of the change process controls the in-breathing return to the creative source and out-breathing reemergence into the material plane of physical experience. Proof of this mastery is the demonstrated ability to die to the physical body and then return.

Yogic literature is full of stories about masters who chose the time of their physical departure as well as the time, place and circumstances of their next incarnation. In this, Christ’s example is not unheard of.

It’s motive and magnitude of effect that make his story unique. His was an act of supreme self-sacrifice and compassion for self-doomed humanity. He had the power and will to buy humanity one last hope of survival — a final opportunity to WAKE UP in time to prevent ultimate extinction — being erased from the cycle of life altogether.

What’s critically important to remember here is that the example of his sacrifice speaks to everyone, everywhere. Jesus did not perform his apparent miracle to set himself above and apart from humanity. Quite the contrary. He did it to set an example of what’s possible, with the command that each of us should follow in his footsteps. “Ye must be perfect like your father.”

The Positive Paradigm is a model of potentials within each of us which make this command plausible and viable. The dynamic, creative process is on-going. The pattern of continuous regeneration is the deepest heritage of every individual. Whether aware of it or not, we continuously, daily, with every breath, release and die to the old in order to regenerate and be reborn to the new.

By extension, Christ’s example of mastering the change process applies not only to individuals but to the civilization as a whole. The world as we know it seems threatened, as if coming to an end. Yet those who hold the key to life and the universe, like modern day Noahs, have the opportunity — and responsibility — to ride the tide of the times and begin again, not just for themselves, but for the sake all life on Earth. They are the ultimate survivors who have it in their power to reseed the next generation, following Christ’s example to perpetuate the wheel of life.

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Rethinking Atheism

RETHINKING SURVIVAL

 Excerpts from the section ATHEISM ANSWERED

 The Ant and the Elephant

An ancient parable from India captures the dilemma of human inadequacy in the face of Truth. Four blind men were introduced to a gigantic old elephant. After touching only one part, each reported his experience.

The one who embraced a leg said elephants are round and rough, like the trunk of a tree. The next, who felt a tusk, said elephants are hard and sharp, like a sword. The one who felt an ear described elephants as thin, flat and flexible. The last, who grabbed hold of the tail, was certain elephants are like ropes, perhaps even whips.

A favorite contemporary riddle captures the humor of human gropings. Question: “What is the height of ambition?” Answer: “An ant climbing up an elephant’s leg with sex on its mind.”

Next question: “What’s the height of fulfillment?” Answer: “The ant climbing back down the elephant’s leg with a smile on its face.”

Just so, we’re like blind beggars, groping towards fulfillment and comprehension of universal Truth. We mistakenly generalize our partial perceptions of a reality which noone can see in entirety. We’re like ants who aspire far beyond our limits, sometimes fortunate enough to enjoy a taste of satisfaction.

In Positive Paradigm context, heated arguments between religionists and atheists are noisy, short-sighted and futile. Each disputant has a partial piece of the larger puzzle. But only that. Their antics — posturings and posings — would be comical, were it not for the extraordinary waste of time and energy lost to creative endeavors.

Atheists who deny the existence of God are equally hilarious and pathetic. They might as well argue that atoms have no nucleus, or that the solar system has no sun. It’s like ants presuming to deny the existence of elephants. Their superficial (often angry, self-pitying and self-serving) arguments have no affect whatsoever on the eternal center which always was, IS, and always will be.

Have authority-cloaked religionists, for thousands of years, abused the name of God to excuse abuse of power, claiming divine rights for human rulers — be it European kings, Chinese emperors, Russian tzars, Arabian caliphs, or whomever? Certainly. Have their enemies repeatedly wrested temporal power away from its holders, only to abuse it in even worse ways themselves? Definitely. Have humans suffered unspeakable cruelties and injustices at the hands of fellow humans from time immemorial? Sadly so. Continuous upheavals on the surface of the wheel are part of life. It’s nothing new.

But the existence of the unchanging silent center continues into infinity, regardless of what’s happening at the surface. Whether you honor it with awe in simple silence or choose a particular name for it, it remains the same. If you’re totally disillusioned by bad luck or the particular version of religion enforced by your elders, your quarrel is with the ways of the world and its human institutions. Your misfortunes don’t reflect on the Creator’s existence, which is a different subject. God continues to broadcast. Whether you listen remains your choice, the exercise of God-given Free Will.

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Alien Invaders

 In the 1980s, when the Affirmative Action legislation described in Part One was a subject of hot debate, one commentator made an astute observation. If foreign enemies had wanted to undermine the United States, they would have designed exactly this legislation. Valid goals — the window dressing — were buried in burdensome regulations and punitive economic sanctions. Rather than bringing people together, it was alienating, causing an opposite and equal backlash.

Alien invaders infiltrating Planet Earth, weakening humans to eventually take over and enslave them, is a familiar theme in science fiction. For example, in his various incarnations, Dr. Who — television’s time traveler — continuously detects nefarious alien plots and rescues heedless humans from annihilation.

Current events indicate there’s considerable truth cloaked in that science “fiction.” Starting with the premise that hidden alien enemies are covertly scheming to undermine humanity, ask, “How would they set about to destroy us?” Logically, they’d create chaos, setting everyone at each others’ throats. They’d trick humans into mutual self-destruction by stirring up dissension and fragmenting their governments.

As discussed in Part Two, the Old Testament and yogic scriptures both maintain that we’re made in the image of God. Each individual mind is a complete miniature of the Universal Mind. When open, receptive, and aligned, everyone everywhere mirrors the wisdom and strength of the Creator. Therefore, it’s an absolute priority for evil aliens to attack the mind. Their agents will do whatever it takes to pollute your mind. They confuse it with false paradigms. They clutter and distract it with the ongoing media circus. Every doubt planted in your mind, causing you to forget who you are, to disbelieve in your ultimate origins and creative potentials, is a victory for the dark side.

To totally undermine humanity, atheism is a must. The unifying beliefs which hold families and nations together and fortify them in times of adversity must be destroyed at all costs. Again, how would this be accomplished?

For one thing, language which makes communication and community-building possible would have to be polluted beyond repair. In Part Two, this ongoing process is described as the Tower of Babel factor. In the English language, for example, every value word has devolved to mean both one thing and its opposite. So people often talk at cross purposes, unaware that they’re missing each other coming and going.

Timothy Daugherty nails this tactic from the radical adversarial-political play book. They have nothing of substance to offer and unacceptably destructive intentions to hide. So the political left uses language “not to communicate ideas, but to create a kind of rhetorical fog that obscures real issues.

Alien agents are masters of double-speak, the child of deception and second-cousin of spin. Wayne Allyn Root paraphrases the lessons he learned together with Obama at Columbia on “How to Destroy America from Within:”

The plan taught us to hide your true intentions (in other words- lie, misrepresent, commit fraud) . . . A key component of the plan involved fooling the voters by calling yourself “moderate” and a “uniter,” even though you are a radical Marxist. We were taught to never admit what you really believe in. It involved demonizing your opponents, calling them “evil, greedy, extreme, radical, and terrorist.” Look in the mirror and call your opponents the very things you are.

He continues:

Why the lies? We were taught at Columbia that “It’s for the greater good” and “We know what’s best for those people” and ”The ends justify the means.”

Next, by every means available, alien agents would strive to pollute the idea pool. Promote dysfunctional paradigms. Ideas have consequences. False concepts will have predictably disastrous consequences.

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In the first chapter [of Rules for Radicals], Saul Alinsky stated his exact purpose, namely to coach those who “want to change the world” from what it is “to what they believe it should be.” In I Ching context, this assumption-packed premise is an extraordinary feat of tragedy-fraught hubris.

First off, what blind, ant-like mortal would dare to think that he can comprehend what, in its entirety, the world — the elephant — really is? What human could possibly be so foolish as to think she is qualified — on the basis of one puny view — to judge what it should be? Alinksy’s rules extended an invitation for blind mortals to jump in feet first where good angels know far better than to tread.

Second, who really understands change? Many bandy the word about. But it’s a profound science of which few have in-depth knowledge. Confucius dedicated a lifetime to understanding the dynamics of natural law encoded in the perennial Book of Change. Never in his wildest nightmares could he have anticipated anyone daring to force the world to conform to personal preferences.

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Divide and conquer. Pit each group against the others. I can almost see alien puppeteers behind the scenes clapping their hands in glee over Alinsky’s contribution to escalating worldwide conflict. It matters not to them which side wins. Let Sharia law advocates, members of Putin’s Eurasian Union and American exceptionalists squander their precious resources duking it out. If they destroy each other and no one’s left, so much the better.

What seems comical in the context of ant and elephant fables isn’t so funny played out in human history . . . It becomes horrific for humanity (members of every class alike) is when leaders like Mao, Lenin and Stalin slaughter untold numbers of civilians. They destroyed prevailing religions only to turning the State into a God. They ransacked houses of worship to fill their own coffers.

Alien invaders delight in cheating. They stack the deck, gumming up the works with false information driven by dysfunctional paradigms.

If you accept the game and its rules as alien agents define them and proceed to rebel against uncivil authorities, mindlessly hating and resisting, YOU LOSE. (Alien invaders win.)

If you give all your attention to what other guys are doing wrong, playing the role of contrarian, YOU LOSE. (Alien invaders win.)

If you quit on humanity and live only for yourself, leading a life of self-centered indulgence, YOU LOSE. (Alien invaders win.)

If you persist in thinking narrowly in terms of political interests and institutions, not human survival, YOU LOSE. (Alien invaders win big time.)

The only chance of winning — ultimately, surviving — is to demand a new, clean, unmarked deck, one with all the cards. In other words, make a fresh start based on an accurate, complete Positive Paradigm.

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Einstein’s New Way of Thinking

Rethinking Survival

Here’s a summary of basics from Rethinking. The title reflects Einstein’s prophetic words:

A human being is part of the whole called by us “‘Universe,’

a part limited in time and space.

We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings

as something separate from the rest . . .

This delusion is a kind of prison for us,

restricting us to our personal desires and to affection

for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison

by widening our circle of compassion to embrace

all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . .

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking

if mankind is to survive.

— Albert Einstein [emphasis added]

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The Positive Paradigm is the unified (and unifying) theory which Einstein sought. He missed it because he lacked a non-linear, concentric circle structure which expresses the dynamic relationships of his three variables in a two-directional, infinite continuum.

 The layered structure of the Positive Paradigm Wheel gives new meaning to Einstein’s observation that a problem can’t be solved at the same level on which it was created. “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” It gives new meaning to “Go deep,” and “We can’t be satisfied with superficial answers.” The model literally pictures the widening circle of compassion. It shows the way to escape from the prison of separatist thinking.

 As the book cover shows, three concentric circles orbit around a common center. The three variables of Albert Einstein’s famous formula, e = mc2 (energy, mass and light) are placed within this wheels-within-wheels structure.

 The figure-eight-shaped symbol of infinity is used in the Positive Paradigm Wheel. Because the Creator is characterized as infinite, beyond time, using this physics symbol is an especially appropriate way to symbolize the linking of the levels.

 As light travels on the outward path, it transforms from wave to particle. As pure, generative potential expands, silence transforms into ideas and then emotions within the middle level of the wheel. These in turn materialize into actions that produce physical, tangible results. On the return path, the process reverses. Matter disperses. It returns to its basic elements. It contracts, receding from particles to waves and then into the perfect silence from which it came.

 The Positive Paradigm Wheel mirrors the microcosmic structure of atoms as well as the macro-cosmic structure of planetary systems. At the microscopic level, its concentric rings mirror the structure of atoms around a nucleus. It equally mirrors the symmetry of the planets orbiting around an organizing star, the sun. On the largest scale of magnitude, it reflects the in- and out-breaths of perpetually expanding and contracting universes.

 This familiar atomic structure repeats smallest to largest in the patterns of nature, from snow flakes and intricate flowers to spiders’ webs and sea shells. Similar symmetrical patterns in repeat worldwide in the art of every culture — including the prayer wheels of Native Americans, the colored sand mandalas of Tibetan Buddhists, the stained glass windows of European cathedrals and the intricate geometrical patterns that cover Muslim Mosques, to name but a few. They speak to the universal awareness of a central inner reality. They confirm a continuity of experience deeper than individual lives or transitory cultures.

 Outer levels of the Positive Paradigm Wheel are ephemeral extensions a timeless, absolute center. But the layers of concentric circles aren’t literally separate and discrete. Rather, they are a continuum along the infinite spectrum of creation. Within each layer are numerous degrees and distinctions which can be verified only by direct experience.

 The word Change in “The Positive Paradigm of Change” emphasizes that this isn’t a static model. It is dynamic, inclusive of the outward path of creative extension as well as the inward return to the creative source. This change is called “positive” because the creative process as a whole is in accord with the organic laws of nature encoded in the Book of Change. Positive change is quite distinct from the unnatural, superficial and arbitrary changes of short-sighted human devising

 This Positive Paradigm of Change shows how to think in the new manner Einstein called for. Working with it instills the ability to link the inner with middle and outermost levels of experience. The goal is to integrate conscience with emotions, reason and actions.

 The Positive Paradigm Wheel as an organizing model of experience isn’t really new, however. Restoring it now isn’t so much a paradigm shift as a return to what Aldus Huxley called the timeless, perennial philosophy which the world’s major religions share in common.

 This model emphasizes the holistic quality of creativity associated with genius. In fact, the secret to thinking like a genius has been known for thousands of years. Yogis call it Raja Yoga. “Raja” is the Sanskrit word for “king.” “Yoga” means “link” or “union.”

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