A Midwest Journal

I’ve been struck recently to the constant problems people face in getting their view of how the world should run as they see it on the inside to what should be, in their opinion, showing up on the outside.

Manifestation, in the view from “The Secret” DVD, is really a lower “harmonic” of what we are talking about here. But the two are so closely related that they are just practically the same set of steps.

The earliest and most clear manual on this came from Christian Larson, and his bestseller “Ideal Made Real”. And my recent (continuing) studies of Levenson’s Sedona Method are simply a finer development. (As are most things I’ve found with Levenson – he simplifies concepts down to primary applications anyone can use.)

So I dug out my old copy of Larson to see what he had said back there in the 1920’s.

And there’s this fascinating tidbit which combines what we know of the Golden Rule (giving before you can get), but is also reminiscent of Wallace Wattles’ “Science of Getting Rich” (taking care with each little bit).

To give does not mean simply to give money, unless that is the best you have; but rather to give your own service, your own talents, your ability, your own true worth and your own real self. The man who lives a real life at all times and under all circumstances is giving his best and the very best possible that can be given.

A real life truly lived in the world is a power, and the person who lives such a life is a power for good wherever he may be. The presence of such a person is an inspiration and a light, as we all know. The man who loves the whole world with heart and soul, and loves without ceasing is doing far more for the race than he who endows universities, and will receive a far greater reward.

We must remember, however, that such a love is not mere sentiment. Real love is a power and will cause the person who has it to do his very best for everybody under every possible circumstance. That person whose heart is with the race will never be satisfied with inferior work. He will never shirk nor leave the problems of life to somebody else; he will go in and push wherever something good is being done, and he will constantly endeavor to render better and better service where ever his field of action may be.

And that is probably closest to what I see as the necessary balance a person has to maintain. You see the ideal intellectually inside you and work to bring this to the outside through your actions – and manifestations. Reach too high in the ideal and you risk frustration. Accept too low in the actual and your life is wasted.

However, Larson continues in this vein – as if reading my thoughts (through a time warp):

On the other hand, when we have faith in people we help them to have faith in themselves, and the more faith a person has in himself the fewer his mistakes and the better his work. When we have faith in everybody and are constantly expecting the best from everybody we create wholesome conditions in our own minds, conditions that will tend to develop the best in ourselves; that person, however, who has no faith in others will soon lose faith in himself, and when he does there will be a turn for the worse in his life.

So this tends to prove what I had discussed with a friend – as I mentioned I was in the middle of this post as a subject. He reminded me of what Huna has as a primary principle – that “There are no limits.” So as you demonstrate faith in others and expect them to have faith in you, as you give your best and expect the best from others, there is no inside and outside.

This is also known as integrity.

So when Hermes Trimestigus said something (on that mystic Emerald Tablet) down the lines of “as above, so below”, which has also been translated to mean “as within, so without” – there is not so much as an iota difference in actuality.

But where we can use this balance is in seeking to ever raise the high limits we’ve set for ourselves as a goal.  This, then, brings new realities to ourselves and to our surrounding world (which are arguably one and the same.)

Old habits die hard, I imagine.

Try this and see – and let me know what you think.

The problems governments and politicians have is that people have learned to distrust them – regardless of what “party” they say they are from or what they say they are going to “help” us with if we will only support them.

Governments can make or break a country, regardless of what resources they have. North and South Korea are prime examples. One destitute, with starving people, building weapons that can destroy life nearby for millions of years. The other, a few miles to the south, same language – have one of the most advanced public broadband systems in the world and are know for the quality of their innovation.

The US’s current leader is proclaiming a “shortage” in “affordable” health care. To solve this, he is going to make everyone pay and “redistribute” our wealth. The healthy are going to pay for the sick.

Wait a minute. Isn’t health something you were born with? If you take care of yourself, doesn’t the body normally heal? Laura Silva just sent me an MP3 and video this morning (free, of course) where she tells you how you can use your own personal resources to get and keep yourself healthy. Of course, she is going to pitch you a one-time couple-hundred dollar course. But you get to keep it (or return it if not satsified), and it’s cheaper than the annual payment we are being faced with.

There’s another course you can take, from Hale Dwoskin’s Sedona Method - part of a larger package – called Effortless Health and Well-Being. And yes, this is also only a couple hundred bucks and you can also return these if you aren’t completely happy with your results..

Both tell you to trust and use your own common sense to solve any problem that faces you. They don’t tell you to trust the government (which most people don’t).

My studies of earlier best seller self help authors shows that these guys (Charles Haanel, Wallace Wattles, Thomas Troward, Genevieve Behrend, and many others) all agreed on one point – that the Universe deals in abundance. Abundant health, abundant wealth, a gorgeous life for everyone.

The only reason people don’t have abundance in their lives is that they’ve listened to enough blow-hards and pompous dictocrats to the point they started believing them. Government-run schools are full of this type of data. You’ll find most of the independent thinkers have quit listening long ago and started looking at things for themselves.

I’ll keep this short. You don’t have to even buy anything to improve your health. Just do what you know is sensible. Eat right, get some exercise, stop watching TV (especially the news). Take up a hobby that gets you moving on a regular basis – doesn’t have to be expensive (how about bird watching in your own community – or gardening?)

Just start thinking for yourself – be yourself. Discover the abundance within you and all around you.

And have fun!

I’ve often repeated the old Japanese adage: “There are many paths up the mountain”, often with the Huna: “No one school has all the teachers.”

And of course, if you’ve been following my journey, you’ll note the stuff on Levenson’s Sedona Method. This last seems to be the capstone to my research. As this tends to explain and resolve the others I’ve come across.

Not that my research is done, it’s just that Levenson’s unique perspective on how things are brings new insight to older philsophies and understandings.

But I’m diverging slightly.

The point I was working over with a friend tonight, after he shared Ken Wilber’s video on “I am Big Mind” – it came to the point that “I am” is always present, timeless, outside of time in fact.

So this brings up the topic: You just got to the top of that mountain you and everyone else is climbing.

What do you find out?

Maybe there is no mountain – maybe there never was.

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Ask your “guru” that when he tries to sell you that new book, DVD set, or electronic gizmo…

The best-kept secrets are already known by everyone;
the best things in life are free and can’t be bought for any price.

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Update: 090906

This might be alarming to some, I don’t mean it that way. What one believes is exactly that – your own thought-system which works for you. There are two ideas here:

1. That many, many self-help guru’s are pitching hot-air (none listed on this blog)
2. The very old idea that the world is actually an illusion which we create from moment to moment and keep in front of us.

In the latter case, it is ourselves who are pitching the hot air and need not blame anyone else for the world we live in.

It is that exact scenario I am examining currently.

Levenson’s work has been the most enlightening I’ve seen on this. He is painfully honest on this point – saying in one tape: “I’m using your ego to undo your ego.”

And of course, this isn’t for the faint of heart. However, even if you do take the Matrix blue pill, you really wind up mostly surrounded again by the original environment you sought to escape – because there is no one-shot wonder to take you out of what you’ve created.

I have found, in working this line, that our old stand-bys work wonder to resolve any world-view. The Golden Rule, when utilized as an introspective tool, will markedly change the world around you. Where you are critical toward others, they will become critical toward you. Using the Levenson Sedona Method, as you keep simply releasing your own critical thoughts, all your in-bound critical remarks drop away as well.

The nearest I’ve found to this is in Christian Larson, “The Ideal Made Real”. (This was his bestseller.) In this, he goes beyond the old Hermetic saying, “As above, so below; as within, so without.” And points out that as you create your internal world, so will reflect the external. And to the degree which you simply keep applying Levenson’t Release techniques, this does occur.

I haven’t ever found anything this effective to date in all the spirituality and self-help famous authors I’ve studied.

I wouldn’t go so far to say that this replaces everything – more that it augments and improves everything it is aligned with.

So your mountain is still there – it is now just easier to climb. And what you find at the top is now up to you.

Photo: eschipul

How you or anyone plugs into this Universe around us has mostly been ignored by our educators, our governments, and our authorities. 

So most people don’t know how to go about it – although if you read the popular literature, you’ll see that a lot of people are looking and a great deal almost have it figured out almost or completely.

A friend’s conversation brought this up – you see, we are all connected and interconnected through our intuition. 

(Gasp, shudder – no, really?) Well, most people don’t have that reaction, because they actually suspected it for some time. A lot of people call it common sense, which might or might not be the best label to put on it (but government actions have pretty routinely shown that this substance is lacking in many, many people we elected.)

By whatever name you give it, it’s still the same quantity of stuff. 

Boil down all the hints, sudden inspirations, odd notions, genius ideas that you have had – along with all the poo-pooed “psychic phenonmenon” which all of us have experienced form time to time – and you’ll see that they all fit under this single name of intution. 

This is the single channel where we talk to the Universe and it talks to us.  

Now, let’s leave the concept of “God” out of this picture, since that is a personal thing to every individual, and just take this as a rational view of things – something anyone and everyone can apply without limit. 

Consider that the world around you is interconnected in every way possible. Scientists can’t explain it, other than in pieces,  but you and I know that this is true – just look at gardens, weather, gravitation, all these things. In Nature, everything works together. Where there is an excess of anything or a deficit, Nature (when left to it’s own devices) will adjust and transform those areas and bring new life – and even new life forms – into that area.  Eroded hillsides become populated with growing things again. Volcanic activity destroys everything for awhile, but then becomes some of the most lush and fertile areas. Glaciers wiped everything out, but then eventually left and we inherited incredibly rich topsoil. 

And the whole point of organic gardening is to simply figure out how to utilize the natural processes of growing things in order to raise any desired crop.

These same principles can be applied to raising a better humankind-type of crop. People get along pretty well overall. Some individuals (tyrants) can make living pretty harsh, and we haven’t yet figured out a really, really good government system (if it’s at all possible). 

I say to you that if people would spend more time paying attention to their intuition as to things surrounding them, they would come up with better solutions for their problems and situation they are facing.

Because we are all connected, as the ancient Polynesians would tell us. 

Any farmer or gardener would hold that to be true as self-evident. And almost everyone else would also agree with this. 

So the great collective of this – called the Universe – is actually a great interconnected grid of give and take that runs through all of us.  We each are contributing to this overall scene with every thought we make and every action we take. We are all tied together this way. 

Now, what a great deal of people don’t get is that we are also able to take away as well as give. Now, you don’t really take without giving, and what  you take doesn’t stay with you. Money (that great man-made fiction) can’t be put into a great bank in the sky or underground and personally owned forever. It’s just a symbol for how well we are doing at helping others and how much we are giving and contributing to others and the world around us. 

But you can ask and recieve. It comes back to you as inspired thought, sudden insight, or – intuition.

How well your intution works depends on how much you practice listening to it and being open to those thoughts. Historically, people who have known this have been called shamans, mystics, (and worse). But the people who respected them knew they could get insight others missed. And those who derided them were mostly jealous and whistling past the graveyard.

Of course, this is simply a post to tell you that this stuff exists. You will either agree or disagree with this wholly or in part. Doesn’t matter. Because there is this one lesson that is written in every religion and every philosophy on this planet – and below are some of the phrases which describe it:

You can’t get without giving.

As you give you will recieve.

Everything comes to those who wait.

As ye sow, so shall ye reap.

Seek and ye shall find.

The world is what you think it is.

We become what we think about.

And you see a lot of these are from the New Testament – but that’s more likely my own Western upbringing rather than any particular endorsement.

Intuition depends on how well you participate and give to the world around you. And how much you pay attention to the thoughts you recieve. The more you give, the more you are willing to recieve, the greater your intution – or the more inspired or “genius” you become. 

Too simple. Right in front of you all the time. Just as you suspected.

And you’re welcome.

How to make your dreams become real – and finish the last steps to world peace.

Your dreams become more real every day. Whatever you think tends to become reality around you. And there’s a reason for this.

Through years of studying things that work, I’ve discovered that there is an underlying system that keeps things working.

And this system is bigger than all of us, yet requires every individual to play their part in order to keep the whole thing running.

What is practical and observable is that we can work with our thoughts to produce the here and now. Every building has to be planned before it can be built. Any big ship is based on the observation of physical laws (like a china bowl can float, but a piece of china can’t float like a piece of wood.) Building big metal ships which can transport goods across water requires a lot of thought – and a lot of action.

You see, the world is what you think it is. As you change your thoughts, you change the world.

The world doesn’t run you – you create your own world.

As many authors point out, what you see around you is what you are constantly creating. There are pure metaphysical applications to this which take us into incredible realms. That one idea can take us far afield. But we are here to discuss solutions, pragmatic and practical solutions to your life and mine.

A problem is, of course, what we consider it to be. There is a field of study into problems which defines them by type. Yet the common solution to these is to take responsiblity for their existence and then they tend to vanish. You simply confront them head on and find the optimal solutions for the resources to hand. Once you do this, you find yourself at peace with what is happening and the changes that need to happen – in your estimation.

And that is the odd and interesting thing about that underlying system mentioned above. It runs on Harmony. It actually has Peace as its goal. That doesn’t mean a boring monochromatic world where everything is the same. Rather this system thrives on diversity. Like any great choir – it is composed of individual voices, all different in their ranges and qualities. But the result is to sing with one voice. And any great choir is capable of singing many, various songs.

While the metaphor is limited, it serves the point that we are all in this together to create a new world, to participate in singing a new song.

For any problem we are facing personally or globally is really just one which we aren’t confronting.

You will find lots of agreement on ideas like everyone having a liveable quality of life. That no one person should hold any individual or group of people hostage. That people should have their own individual and personal right to think whatever they want. And they should have the opportunity to express that thought – to create their life the way they want it. What people object to is when someone considers that they have the right to change others’ thoughts by force.

In that statement above, you’ll see the complete struggle in Politics. Classes of thought striving for control over law-making bodies – so that they can determine how best to forward their particular class of thought.

But the funny punchline is that people in general don’t want government telling them what to do with their lives. Sure, they will do what they have to in order to “get along” with people around them. And there has to be ways in our modern society to get the garbage picked up, and keeping the streets cleaned, and keeping the roads repaired, and keeping all our modern improvements like telephone and Internet running when we want to use them. We all participate in keeping these services running, either by working at repairing these directly, or paying a fee to someone else to do so.

That’s mostly the basis of taxes and government.

My divergence with all these classes of thought is that I know for a fact you can’t require anyone to think any particular way. That no way of thought is “better” than any other. That all classes of thoughts are necessary.

But the best government is the one which interferes with individual lives the least. It facilitates environments where free thought can generate new ideas and new creations. But once you get past keeping the roads open and ensuring that no one is blowing our trade ships out of the water or our airplanes (transporting goods and people) out of the sky, then most people think that government should give them little more and require as few fees as possible.

And Politics is a fascinating study in and of itself. But I’ll leave that to people who study that stuff for a living – or a hobby.

My job is to tell people about this great natural system which makes politics and government and anarchy all possible at the same time.

If you study Nature, you’ll find all the points of the above present – except one: thought. And that is the universal solvent to all of Nature, which people have said “sets humankind apart” from the rest of the species. But does it?

All we have is the capability to examine our own thoughts – or so we think. Practically, there have been a great deal of studies into “Animism” and all sorts of beliefs we use to hold from ages past. What you make of these ideas is entirely what you believe – what you think.

Because if you believe that our species is alone on this one ball of water, dirt, mud, and rock – then that is what you will always find. If you open your mind to the possibility of other life “out there”, then you find ideas of UFO’s and Atlantis all very possible and real. Evidence starts being dropped in your lap to support whatever you believe.

This brings up “The Secret”. Not everyone believes in that that DVD said. And yet, it was really only quoting our own texts from across history. Everything those people said who were in that movie – all these things can be found in much older texts – our Bibles, our ancient legends, all these sources of information just came forward and were produced into a modern version we can all experience. And it was translated into many languages so that many various peoples besides our Western, English-speaking culture could have this data.

I like to point people to an earlier best seller, Earl Nighingale’s “Strangest Secret”. There he points out other authors and historical figures who have stated the same point over and over and over.

That point: “We become what we think about.” All through written history, people have this same concept – and they all agree on it completely. They may not agree on anything else completely, but this they all held in common.

And when you go down that road, you’ll probably see some system build up along these lines. That is, if you’re looking for this system to show up. If you are only looking to get your own team into the play-offs and then win the world title – well that is what is going to happen for you, as long as you take some action to make it happen.

That is the great second part to this: you have to take some action to help your thought take place. That’s the difference between daydreams and what is good-naturedly called “reality”. People think up goals and then work out a plan, and then carry out that plan to achieve those goals.

You can have this big, beautiful world in your mind – and it will stay there. Big, beautiful, and shining – until you take some steps to make it happen. It may just be writing down your descriptions of all this – most, if not all of our great novels and fantasies stem from this. Or you might tell enough people about it and allow them to co-create your thoughts so that they also create your vision. Our United States developed from that – several ideas from Locke and Smith and others which said that a person could think independently and that we were “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights”, among these being “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

That one concept, of individual freedom to think and act on those thoughts, is what is revolutionizing this world. While not everyone (even in this country) wants the Western culture – they mostly all want to have their own thoughts, to think whatever they want, and to be able to act on those thoughts and make their dreams become reality.

And while we’ve covered a great deal of ground today, what we are really saying is that there is one principle common to all humankind: You can think for yourself, and that thought can create your reality.

Beyond that the idea: If you think and act in terms of harmonious interaction, your world and all the worlds around you will be better places to live in.

From those two points, you can probably work out that all our laws and rules have been working in that direction for eons.

And right now, we are living in a true Golden Age, which can be improved and made more golden and shiny – as we continue to work at it and help others around us to create their dream. Because, if you think about it, some 90% of our planet is working together in peace. We’re almost there. (Just quit listening to what passes for modern News and start observing for yourself and it’s easy to see this.)

Think about it – we’re almost all the way to world peace. Sure, we have some minor conflicts. And we have some rather dense-thinking people in charge of various areas. And yes, there are some weapons around which can make that peace look rather fragile. But lets start talking with each other, in person, by letter or email, by chats and twitter across this planet. Let’s get some agreement on the idea of everyone working together so that individually people can make their dreams come true. Let’s get this idea out that people have a right to live their own lives and not be interfered with – so people can live long, prosperous lives in mutual action with the people around them.

We don’t all want the same thing. And that is what makes this idea possible. Anyone who wants to be a sports star can. Anyone who wants to be elected to a high office can be. Those of us who want to run a small farm successfully can. Not everyone wants to be a Luther Burbank or a George Washington Carver and create all sorts of new possilibities from plants. We each have our own dreams. Some simply want to raise a fine bunch of kids and live a quiet life. Others long to be movie stars, or just build sets for movies to be filmed on.

But the lesson here – we can each live our own dreams and make them into reality. And the more we tell people this, the more we help others achieve their dreams, the more our own dreams can take shape.

That’s the second basic law which is observable and also written throughout history – you can’t get without giving. Or, more positively – help others and that help returns to you from others. Also: spread over many shoulders any burden becomes light.

So that’s my gift to you: share the peace you are living with others so we can spread peace to everyone on this small planet. Help people with their dreams as you work at living your own – and living your own will become easier.

Thank you – and the very best to you.

It’s just a b*tch to have to use this stuff and be completely responsible for everything in your life – or at least your attitudes toward it.

This week, one of the neighbor dogs broke my dog’s leg. Aside from the vet bills, it was a mess for me inside. I know that if you take it out on that neighbor or their dog, it just comes back to you the same. But, damn it’s hard to be nice sometimes. I took a good look at it and figured out that the problem was that these dogs were not being trained to get along, but were being their instinctive types. Territorial, car-chasing, obnoxious – you know.

My solution? Start training them. Make friends with them (while my own dog heals up on the back porch) and start training them what nice behaviour is. Being agressive just makes them more agressive, doesn’t it? Getting them locked up would just make them locked up, agressive dogs. Look out when ever they are let loose…

One of them is a Lab and the other is a Doberman. Now I know from experience, that both breeds can be the nicest there are. And both can be incredibly dangerous. It’s just how they are worked with and so on.

So I started giving them treats – finding that they love to catch them out of the air when tossed. By the second day, I was petting that Lab. She still barked at me, but that is just a bad habit she is going to have to re-learn.

Now – the problem is with the relatives I have around me. Critical comes easier than not, sometimes. Especially if you’re trained at it all your life.

The problem is then to hold your tongue and say something nice regardless. Turn that cheek, as the parable says. And that doesn’t just take patience, it takes a great deal of practice.

As Wattles and others point out – it helps if you don’t work past the point you are physically tired. That’s saying a lot when you are on the farm and working to beat a deadline the weather is imposing… Today I fed the cows, got my dog off to the vet (again), fixed a heater for the basement water lines, repaired a neighbor’s tool I had borrowed (and broken – oops), got up on the barn roof to replace a stovepipe, then dug a three foot deep, two foot across hole to get a freeze-proof hydrant installed before I lost my warm(ish) mid-winter days – and before I moved some cattle in who wouldneed the water. Then I went to pick up said dog from the vets, as they couldn’t keep them over the holidays (and we didn’t want to pay for that).

With all that done, I was trying to rest in an easy chair when one of my sisters came in to pick up my niece (who had helped me with the hydrant and picking up the dog). She made a few remarks about how the neighbor dogs had chased her car “all the way up to the house ” (a slight exageration). I tried to say something useful, but ended up just tripping over myself and just shut up as a last resort.

And then sat and thought it over and over to see where my own criticism was coming from.

It just “ain’t easy”. And it certainly isn’t “fair”. But who said life was either easy or fair? The thing to do is to settle yourself down, learn to create your own peace within, and – once calmed – work out the optimal solution for what you’re facing/faced with.

Tomorrow, I’ve got another grueling 10-hour day (1/2 of my day job “week”) and then look forward to a bunch of visitors around the house for the next week. So I’ll rest up as much as I can…

But this post is for all of you out there with a lot of STUFF in your life…

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Some books I’ve edited and published recently is giving me a great deal of food for thought – as I’ve put them up on Lulu as beta and am going through the proofing process to get them over to Amazon.

Mystic Marketing Guide – takes up where Online Millionaire Plan leaves off.

and

Genius: How to be one, How to live with it.

Both have some amazing excerpts from the great masters of self-improvement and personal development. Not every day you get to sit at the feet fo the masters – unless you have my job…

But visit my Lulu bookstore and find out for yourself.

And sign up for an online course in the Law of Attraction.