The Global Conversation

Tag: government

  • Three things you need to know

    As I was driving to work the other day, I heard the local radio personality announce, “And stay tuned for the three things you need to know from the radio station that keeps you up to date with what is important in the world.”

    Oh, my goodness, I was going to arrive at my destination well before they told me the three things I need to know.  Should I stay in my car and risk being late for my appointment while I wait for these vital pieces of information?  What will happen to me if I don’t hear these three crucial nuggets of wisdom?  Because if I need to know them, won’t the absence of knowing them surely have dire circumstances for me?

    Could it be that I need to know that the American government is continuing to play intramural hardball with each other at the expense of the very people who voted them into office, the very people who they claim to have their best interests in mind?

    Could it be that I need to know that former Olympian Bruce Jenner and his wife, Kris Jenner, are now officially separated after 22 years of marriage?

    Could it be that I need to know that there are people who reacted sharply with racist comments and harsh accusations in response to Nina Davuluri becoming the most recent Miss America because of her Indian origin?

    Could it be that I need to know that a young pregnant woman in Mexico City gave birth on the front lawn of a medical clinic after being denied care from the medical personnel inside the facility who told her she was not ready to deliver?

    Or maybe I need to know that the foods I am eating are entirely wrong or what movies I must be watching.  Perhaps I need to know which preschools my children should be going to in order to ensure they will be successful adults or how to Feng Shui the furniture in my living room.  Maybe someone will tell me what car I’m supposed to be driving, what brand of jeans someone “my age” should wear, what length my hair is supposed to be.  And surely I need to know which politician is involved in the latest sex scandal.   And, of course, here is the big one that someone must tell me now:  which version of God I am supposed to be embracing?

    Where does the long list of “things I need to know” end?

    And how is it that everyone else knows what I need to know, and I don’t?

    Of course, I’m being slightly facetious here to make a point.  But how many times and in what kinds of ways are we being told we need something in our lives in order to be, do, or have something else?   In order to be happy?  In order to be abundant?  In order to be in a relationship?  And do we ever stop to consider where we are getting that information?

    Buried deep beneath our belief that somehow we are incomplete, insufficient, less-than, it seems we have forgotten the nature of who we really are.  We have caused ourselves to miss entirely the opportunity to experience ourselves as the source of our own joy and happiness by looking to and accepting external sources of information for our answers and our truth, even when that information is not in alignment with our own wisdom.  Can you imagine a more perfectly vulnerable position for someone to be in if and when somebody else wants their truth to also be yours?

    For me, it has been my experience that the understanding of what I need to know is most often realized in the space of nothingness, in the stillness of nature, and in the absence of words.  And while the outside world provides us an extraordinary opportunity to apply our consciousness through the process of choosing and creating and recreating, I believe there are not 3 things we need to know, nor are there 100 things or one million things.  There is only one thing we need to know; and that is this:  we already know.

    “Life (as you call it) is an opportunity for you to know experientially what you already know conceptually.
    You need learn nothing to do this. You need merely remember what you already know, and act on it.”

    ~ Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Vol. 1

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

  • Big Brother: Did He Like Your Status?

    When I first heard about the National Security Administration’s PRISM surveillance program, I thought it only extended to under covering the records of the phone giant Verizon. But, with a bit more investigation, it was also found that the ‘Big Nine’ Internet Networks (Yahoo, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Skype, AOL, Paltalk, Microsoft, and Apple) were infiltrated by PRISM’s backdoor access. And for many teenagers, this strikes VERY close to home. With the government having direct access to our messages, contacts, and even our GPS location, how will we teens react?

    Last week, Neale brought up a very refreshing idea about the court order for Verizon to hand over their phone records to the NSA. The idea of total transparency is very uplifting, and is something that we should all aspire for in our own lives and relationships. Cultivating Trust, understanding, and total acceptance is a great way to pave our New Cultural Story.

    Unfortunately, this idyllic transparency is not the first priority on Uncle Sam’s agenda. This action by the government and the NSA shows not a fear in us, but rather a fear in one of the most prized institutions of all history: our democracy. We may want to live in an open society – but clearly, our governments still don’t want us to. In an article from BBC, dated June 7th, 2013, it states that “the PRISM program has become a major contributor to the President’s daily intelligence briefing and accounts for almost one in seven intelligence reports.” Nearly 15% of President Barack Obama’s daily agenda has been entirely concealed from the American public. And it’s all about us.  

    Granted, this information really isn’t about us. It’s about our identity – our story, but it’s the choice (or lack thereof) behind this decision that is worth focusing our awareness on. As teenagers in the fine United States of America, one of the most valuable things we have is our freedom of choice. As noted in some of the responses, there is an extremely large gap between choice and coercion. This was pointed out quite eloquently by mewabe, as “Surveillance is the mode of operation of a POLICE STATE. Transparency is the way of life of a FREE PEOPLE.” The challenge here is not for citizens to create a transparent society, but for our ruling body to create one. If government is supposed to maintain the highest morality and social ideals for our country, then they need to set examples that push it towards openness and oneness – not the other way to secrecy and duplicity. We can choose to have a free and open society, but until our highest authority makes that decision, we will continue to live in this state of fear.   

    As the times keep changing, our most valued institutions see that their own values are challenged. We saw this earlier with the Religious Institutions, in the dramatic conflict of the Church and the Boy Scouts over sexual orientation (Speaking of rigidity, the Southern Baptist Convention has now overwhelmingly voted to denounce the Boy Scouts of America). Now, the same struggle reincarnates itself with the struggle of Government and Social Media. How many times have we heard of government promises, in the name of security and welfare, that have led to nothing but more dishonesty and less freedom? Even here, we see that giving the government more and more power over our own lives has led to making our own lives powerless. With control, comes power, and with power comes a large invested ego. With the nearly limitless freedom of the internet, the government is fueled by its need of control – and its basic desire to stay in control of those freedoms.  Generally, the older the institution, the harder they will they will struggle to hold their power. Even if it means that we are a part of the wreckage.

    This fear-sponsored action does not only happen in our domestic government, but also abroad, displaying that institutions across the world fear losing their power in a time of technological leaps and bounds. A June 12, 2013 article of The Christian Science Monitor has already confirmed that Canada, Great Britain, and the world’s largest democracy, India, has used surveillance technologies similar to PRISM to monitor their own citizens. There is also much speculation occurring over government surveillance in Turkey’s Gezi Park Protests, once again showing that these institutions have decided to be inflexible. We can only image how such surveillance can and could be used against the peaceful sit-in in Gezi Park, where it was police brutality that made the peaceful sit-in escalate into an all-out riot that’s affecting everyone from lawyers to the destitute. Why have direct communication when you can wiretap?

    Maybe I’ve read George Orwell’s 1984 a few too many times for my own good. But as for Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the NSA’s PRISM, he did realize that he “did not want to live in a society that does these things…in a world where everything done is recorded.” But it doesn’t have to be this way. As the real use of a prism is to refract light to show the spectral colors, perhaps this PRISM’s greater purpose is to show the ‘true colors’ of our Old Cultural Story. We CAN create a society where the people do live freely – and the government is truly free of its burden for power. Will you see the light?

    (Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • All attack is a cry for help

    Spiritual viewpoint on the Boston bombings: All attack is a cry for help. We are all ONE. Enough of the bloodshed. Let us call for a total paradigm shift.

    We must learn to find a way to know that we are all brothers and sisters here on this earth, and that humanity is ONE race.

    We must move into greater understanding, and have compassion for each other.

    We cannot continue to seek to control the behaviour of each other through force, which never works. It is a low energy vibration. All spiritual masters have said this.

    We must ask for greater transparency, and honesty, from our governments and leaders. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to ‘foreign policy’ which directly or indirectly suppresses whole nations because of our lust for power, and our need to maintain a status quo in which a great portion of the Earth’s people live in abject misery and squalor.

    Although there is talk of catching the terrorists responsible, these words surely ring hollow for those who are dead or injured, and all the families affected.

    Political rhetoric always comes to the fore at a time of crisis, and then our politicians and leaders soon go back to their old ways, oblivious to the world’s suffering.

    If we recognise there is no “other” than us, then all of humanity’s problems will evaporate overnight. It can be no other way. A sense of urgency must be upon us all now to correct our deepest misperceptions.

    “Consciousness is everything, and creates your experience. Group consciousness is powerful and produces outcomes of unspeakable beauty or ugliness. The choice is always yours. If you are not satisfied with the consciousness of your group, seek to change it.” ~ Conversations with God.

    It is clear then: what is needed is a change in consciousness, not merely a change in policy.

    jaime-tanna (2)(Jaime Tanna is the founder of Energy Therapy and an active Reiki Master and Spiritual Mentor, Healer and Teacher. Together with his wife Jennifer, their unifying vision is to empower others through spiritual education and energy-based healing treatments, to help them become aware of their true natures, and to live more joyfully and consciously. You can visit their website at www.energytherapy.biz)

    (If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Guest Column.”)