What's done to children, they will do to society. -Karl A. Menninger,
psychiatrist (1893-1990)

A nugget of wisdom from my inbox today -

"The purpose of life is to stand for something, to have made some difference. So don't ask yourself what does the market need or what skills do I have. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and give yourself to that.

-Mark Albion, Author, Making a Life, Making a Living

One of the coolest downloads I've found to date:

OCEAN - a downloadable, searchable database of over 1000 books of religious literature from 10 world religions that allows you to search for and find out about what the world's various religions have to say on whatever topic you need.

You can download the database to your hard drive and/or create your own CDs, to keep or hand out to your friends, with their easy-to-follow instructions and special CD-creation files (they even have a nice downloadable CD label image you can use) - all for free. Or you can have them mail you the whole shebang already wrapped up on a CD for $5.00 (their cost).

The group that put this together hopes that by giving this generous gift to the world, they can help bring people together as the users discover that...

...the core message of all the world's religious writings is the same: ethical integrity, honesty, sincerity, compassion, tolerance and non-violence.

Kewl.

Enjoy. I know I'm going to.

What I've been reading of a morning - some insightful commentary from one of the deepest and most profound of the old school Hindu mystics, Sri Ramakrishna (1836-18866) -

Mother, Mother, Mother!* Everyone foolishly assumes that his clock alone tells correct time. Christians claim to possess exclusive truth...Countless varieties of Hindus insist that their sect, no matter how small and insignificant, expresses the ultimate position. Devout Muslims maintain that Koranic revelation supersedes all others. The entire world is being driven insane by this single phrase: "My religion alone is true." O Mother, you have shown me that no clock is entirely accurate. Only the transcendent sun of knowledge remains on time. Who can make a system from Divine Mystery? But if any sincere practitioner, within whatever culture or religion, prays and meditates with great devotion and commitment to Truth alone, Your Grace will flood his mind and heart, O Mother. His particular sacred tradition will be opened and illuminated. He will reach the one goal of spiritual evolution. Mother, Mother, Mother! How I long to pray with sincere Christians in their churches and to bow and prostrate with devoted Muslims in their mosques! All religions are glorious!

Obsessive self-awareness, whether collective or individual, is a mere machine, an automatic function. God is the only living presence within us, our only true bliss and freedom. Divine Nature, which alone is our ultimate being, has nothing to do with narrow self-interest or limited self-consciousness. Divine Nature can be realized and fully actualized in daily life by sincerely following any number of revealed paths. All the integral transmissions of sacred wisdom and comtemplative practice that survive the test of time are true - true in the sense that they function authentically and bear the sweet fruit of sanctity.

Place your devotion whole-heartedly at the service of the ideal most natural to your being, but know with unwavering certainty that all spiritual ideals are expressions of the same supreme Presence. Do not allow the slightest trace of malice to enter your mind toward any manifestation of God or toward any practitioner who attempts to live in harmony with that Divine Manifestation. Kali, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Allah - these are all full expressions of the same indivisible Consciousness and Bliss. These are revelatory initiatives of Divine Reality, not manmade notions. Blessed is the soul who has known that all is one, that all jackals howl essentially alike.



*(Ramakrishna referred to the Divine as Mother, much the same way that modern Christians refer to God by the term Father)



From The World's Wisdom: Sacred Texts of the World's Religions, by Philip Novak

I experienced a big realization this afternoon and that is that coaching is not what I want to do with my life. Now, don't get all het up thinking I'm going to quit my day job - I'm not. Bear with me a bit and I'll try to explain what's going on in my brain.

You see, during my morning ruminations, I realized that what I wanted to do with my life is not coaching - it is to help people live better lives, to make the world a better place and to be part of the process of making that happen in the world around me. Coaching (which I love and hope to continue doing for some time to come) is simply one way in which I am doing what I want to do with my life. At some other time, it may be something else.

Well, you might say, if you're not quitting coaching and this is just a run of the mill "bigger picture" head trip, then what's the big deal? Why blog about it?

Because for me, this is an immensely freeing leap of understanding. It's easy to get caught up in the immediacy of the things we are doing that we can get attached to the individual actions and not recognize when we have reached the point when what we are doing no longer meets our needs or is taking us more in a direction away from our goals than towards them. We get to thinking that our current chosen work is the 'end all, be all' of our purpose, rather than simply a single mode of achieving that purpose. Really getting that distinction has "detatched" me from the job of coaching and opened me up to understanding that at some time I may be called to move on to another mode of achieving my goals, and that that process of moving on is not only okay, it's probably inevitable.

Whew. Glad I flushed that horse-choker out of my energy pipeline. No wonder I couldn't meditate worth a crap this morning.

And I've also realized something else - something I've known for a while but have been terrified to face head on. What I'm doing is not enough, not by a long shot. Some of you may be familiar with my personal life goal of creating a retreat lifestyle in the southern foothills of western NC, a place where I can live a simple, semi-retired life surrounded by beauty, serenity and self-sufficiency. This is what I see when I close my eyes and dream about my future - me, sitting on a deck overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains in a sheet-cotton robe with a cup of steaming tea, a wireless laptop on a nearby table for odds and ends of work and an overwhelming sense of peace and richness and rightness.

But there's another vision there, too, a big one that makes me turn away quickly lest my eyes be burnt out, as if I have had the hubris to look upon the face of God uninvited. And that is an image of me, (in a freakin business suit, of all things) leading, advising and working along side great men and women who are in the process of changing the world by changing the way in which it is governed. I am not running for office in this dream, but I am a respected, listened to and integral part of the process of changing the way we live, interact and do business with ourselves and with others in the world. I am part of the process of deep, abiding change in government, moving us to a better way of being.

This, ladies and dudes, scares the lily-white piss out of me. We're talking puddles like a Great Dane puts out. Why? Well for one thing, I hate politics, and this is definitely getting involved in politics. I don't want to get involved in politics. I'm quite good with letting Jon Stewart provide me with all my political information, thank you very much. But this is undeniably a political situation. You can't change public policy if you don't get involved in politics. Crud.

And for another, these are really powerful people I'm seeing - governing members, thought leaders, heads of state. And in my vision they are listening to me, or at least inviting me into the process of change creation as a valued member of the group. Gulp.

And thirdly, I am in a position to make great change - or inadvertently cause great harm if I get it wrong. Holy hot crap in a bucket.

Thoughts I hear in my head range from the old favorite "Who do you think you are, miss too-big-for-your-britches" and such classics as "as if" and "yeah right" and "uhm, you're just little old you, remember?" to "this is stupid, you know - you are out of your freaking gourd."

What a playlist, eh. Recognize any of your own favorites in there?

But I can't ignore the pull to this calling anymore. It hurts to much to keep walking the other way, whistling as loud as I can so I can't hear my conscience screaming at me that "waiting for others to get the ball rolling so you can pick up a sign and slip in behind them once it's safe is a hypocrisy beyond all abiding, young lady, and by the way would it hurt you to call your mother once in a while?" Shaking like a leaf I may be. Sick to my stomach from thinking about it I may feel. But I've got to turn back and face that dreadful light anyway. Because I can no longer live with myself in integrity if I don't.

So what's this mean in terms of cold, hard action? It means finding a way to work toward making this happen. Even if I never get to where I'm dreaming of being, as long as I am walking in that general direction, I am living in integrity. So I guess I need to find a way to get involved with some people who are working hard to make the differences in the world around them that I want to support. People like the US Peace Government (formerly the Natural Law Party), the Restorative Justice folks, the Department of Peace initiative and so on. Not sure just how I'm going to swing this and how it will look once I get it in motion. But I guess that's just part of the fun.

Yeah. Fun. Like a ride on a rip-your-heart-out stand-up rollercoaster first thing in the morning before coffee fun.

Wheeeee....

God. There's never an airsick bag around when you need one.

Tired of second-hand propaganda and pre-chewed information about Islam and the words of the prophet? Get a free copy of the Koran from The Council on American-Islamic Relations and do your own inside investigation.

And remember, boys and girls - The Koran is a sacred and holy text believed to be the direct words of the Divine Itself and at least in part responsible for civilizing a large part of the eastern world. It is not a drain cleaner. Please do not flush the Koran down the toilet, or insert it into any plumbing orifice, for that matter. Try to show it at least the respect you would show the Judeo-Christian texts. You know, if Jesus was looking or something.

Don't make me come out there.

My first day of attempting to go complaint free and I think I did okay. I did fall prey to one outburst while I was fixing dinner, however, and it's a telling one. Like the majority of my complaints these days, it had to do with living in my grandmother's house.

Don't get me wrong - I love the old bird. But she has that fatal Depression-survivor tic of keeping everything that she comes in contact with "in case someone can use it." Like old keys, the locks for which were probably in houses that have long since gone the way of the industrial waste dump. Like bendy straws the great-grandkids brought home from Sonic - last year (and which I doubt they ever use again). Like my Uncle Freddy's old game board pieces (he's over 50) and...well, you get the picture.

It's frustratiing to live and work around the clutter, especially when you prefer rather Zen-like aesthetics like I do, and I got fed up with trying to cook while the gravitationally-challenged mounds of stuff that hold down the kitchen in summer storms kept falling, sliding and catching on whatever I was doing. And before you can say "head's up for a flying bendy straw with 6 months of dust on it" I'm spouting anger and frustration like an ADHD stock trader on line at the DMV.

So what have I learned? That this subject is probably going to be my Achilles heel in this whole exercise. On the conscious level I know I should be very grateful to have a loving family who is willing to put me up (for free, no less, other than my own bills and whatever I can spare for the family larder). And I am, really. I mean, God, how can you not be?

But there is a layer of hair-trigger frustration just under the surface that probably has less to do with the actual booby-trapped clutter piles (although that's plenty by itself, believe me) and more to do with the fact that I don't really want to be here (in Missouri, specifically - nothing to do with gran herself) and I feel rather trapped - as if the mouldering detritus of a good number of lifetimes that surround me are a physical metaphor for this whole geographical-emotional place.

Lots of baggage here. Lots of memories, unfinished business and snippets of a past life I keep trying to get away from and never quite seem to manage to do so on any permanent basis. And all of which is has just been piled up inthe corners waiting for a fire or a really good round of twisters to clear it out of my head.

Stuff to think about. So far, I'd count that as a success.

Companies who hope to profit by shipping dehumanizing and exploitative work overseas are quickly discovering that you can lure a man to exploitation, but you can't make him stay and take it.

Abuse from British and American customers is driving increasing numbers of Indian call centre workers from their jobs, defeated by the strain of handling persistent rudeness.

'The anger in the West over job losses and fear about offshoring has made this a growing problem. Some people call up with deliberately difficult questions. Most just say things like: "You're from India. You don't know anything. I don't want to speak to you", [Shyamanuja Das, editor of Global Outsourcing magazine] said.

Like the eco-maxim says, there is no "away" to throw trash - it's all essentially the same back yard. I sense that the honeymoon is all to quickly over for companies outsourcing scut work "away" from home (where all those pesky labor laws and rights-waving hippies make turning a fast buck annoyingly difficult) as a way to scimp on overhead while trying to squeeze every possible drop of productivity out of their meat-based assembly lines. Looks like away wasn't away enough to get past the need for simply human dignity.

The article even mentions the dreaded "u" word (unionizing). Wooo boy. There goes the (overworked, underpaid, fat-catted, you'll-take-what-your-given-and-shut-your-yap) neighborhood.

Today is the first day of the month of June - a month during which, for several reasons, I have committed to giving up complaining in it's entirety. Yep - no bitching, whining, kvetching or ranting for moi this month. Nada peep. Should be interesting.

Why am I doing this? Well, for one, complaining is a lousy way to behave and (to my mind) an ungrateful one, given the amazing gifts we are all given (and I consider myself to be among those who are vastly overcompensated for the value they give, in terms of raw ROI).

Secondly, there is the concept in many religious and spiritual philosophies that what you focus on becomes your reality. So by giving up my involvement in disrespectful, bleak and negative appraisals of my surroundings and experiences, I hope to change the nature of those interactions for the better and to steer my life onto even happier shoals than it currently basks.

Additionally, I am just plain incredibly curious to see how hard it actually will be for me not to complain. Admittedly, I am not the sunniest person on the block although I am far, far better than I used to be (my family has a long history of participating in Olympic League competitive martyrdom and it has taken me many years to get the worst of it out of my system). Initially, last year some time, I came up with the idea of having a year of no complaining (I was trying to think of attention-getting publicity stunts that would be fit for a spiritual development coach), which I immediately ditched as being completely freaking insane. However, a recent and unrelated challenge from an online compatriot to cease complaining for a week spurred me into rethinking my position. So I'm giving it a short trial, as it were, to see what happens.

Of course, as I pointed out to the challengers, I reserve the right to make statements of fact that may not be happy facts as long as these statements aren't made or intended soley for the purpose of bitching, such as saying "boy, it's hot" when it's 100 degrees outside. However, such statements as "I hate it when it's this hot" or "Holy cow! This heat sucks!" are clearly in foul territory and as such are verboten.

I'll keep you informed of my progress and we'll see what happens. If nothing else, it'll be worth the personal insight into my own character and mind even if I fail miserably (which, of course, would not actually be failing at all, given the valuable data the experiment itself provides).

Cheers!

Okay, so you've got a zit on your sit. Now what do you do? Do you take a crud-encrusted scalpel and slice it off to get rid of it, but continue to wear spandex rear-gear and sit on dirty barstools (or whatever it was you did to deserve that heinous hiney decoration in the first place - which we probably don't want to know)?

Uh, no. You treat it with something formulated to take down the inflammation, and then change your behavior (and your undies) to prevent further eruptions.

Like a great festering acne of the soul, terrorism and other such violence isn't the problem and as such, can't be treated as if you can simply get rid of it by attacking it directly. It's the final, visible symptom of a deeper condition, the pimple that forms when crap, crud and pressure builds up under the surface of an area beyond the ability of the overlying structure to keep things smooth and peachy. It's your "last chance for gas" sign that a pre-existing problem has gone septic and is about to explode very publicly and very messily. And puncturing that pustule, no matter how satisfying, macho and pro-active it feels, isn't going to do anything for the situation except make it worse. With luck, you'll get off with a nasty scar that will gnarl the surrounding area into a tough and unsightly mess that will always be there to remind you of your stupidity. More likely, however, is that you'll end up with a serious infection that will sicken the entire body and may never completely heal, causing illness, unbalance and pain throughout the entire organism for a very long time.

Playing "he hit me back first," eye for an eye, and other stupid tit-for-tat games of escalating violence and hatred, while turning a blind eye to what created the eruption in the first place (or deluding yourself that it's the people, and not the situations that motivate them, that are evil and therefore free game for righteous shoots) are no more of a solution to terrorism than a dirty blade is to unsightly butt-smut.

For one thing, no matter how deluded or how enmeshed in "the dark side" a person is, no one is ever completely without good and as such deserves all the compassion we can give them to bring them back from that sorry state. Yeah, I said compassion. Compassion, love, forgiveness and all that other namby-pamby Jesus-y/Buddhist crap. Sure, it's nowhere near as much fun as a good strafing run with a fighter jet, but infinitely more effective and long-lasting. And it does have the advantage that it's the one thing they really won't ever see coming, so you can score serious points for shock and awe.

For another thing, no one (not even "those people," whoever that happens to be this month) kills, maims or destroys themselves and others without what they consider to be a damn good reason. But, like all infectious concerns, the illness or problem itself can impair and twist reason. From the point of view of a terrorist, fevered and delusional by whatever circumstance has brought them to this point, their actions are reasonable and called for by the situation at hand. You may not buy it (I certainly don't - violence is never reasonable), but you do have to accept the fact that there is a strong and unarguable reason pushing them to this action, however wrong-headed, unless all the attackers are clearly and diagnosably insane (which they clearly aren't, all personal opinions aside - most terrorist attacks are brilliantly conceived, planned and executed. No pun intended.).

To cure the disease, you must find the reason for the disease and treat the source of the infection. Do that and the pimples will go away by themselves. Attack the outbreak, and you'll just elicit greater and greater reactions - until your left with nothing to sit on but a raw and gaping wound.

Addendum: And no, despite what you've been told on talk radio and other sources of such illuminating sources, "they" don't hate us because we're rich, skinny and God's real bestest-best friends. Don't believe everything you hear and don't insult people who are dedicated enough to a cause to blow themselves and others up by diminishing and belittling their grievences and motivations.

Willful blindness and arrogant patronizing attitudes just contribute to the problem. If you can't be bothered to explore the issues beyond the readily available, pre-filtered and easy-to-digest infotainment pablum (new and improved - boiled down to an easy-to-swallow content-free paste with all those pesky lumps of complexity strained out for you!) and form a truly educated opinion based on what's really going on in the grown-up world of complicated and layered issues, please just shut up, sit down and wait for the nice lady to come by with your free peanuts and movie headphones before you really piss off the big scary guy with the bomb and take the rest of us down with you. 'kay?