The Global Conversation

Tag: humanity

  • Genocide underway in Burma:
    We must act with one voice

    There is currently a genocide underway in Burma – as you read this, an “ethnic cleansing” is happening, with unspeakable horrors being committed against the peaceful Rohingya people.  The President of Burma, Thein Sein, has done nothing so far.

    What is the crime of the Rohingya people?  Why are they hated so much?  Is it because they are murderers, or terrorists?  No.  Is it because they are polluting the land, destroying vital crops? No.  They are hated “simply because” their skin is darker and the majority fear they’re ‘taking jobs away’.

    The real question before us is not why do we continue to witness so much suffering and violence, but rather why do we allow it?

    I agree that this question may be difficult for us to hear – however, whilst this life-threatening situation is most certainly not our fault, it is most certainly our responsibility.

    Are we going to stand by and idly watch hundreds of thousands of innocent people be massacred from the comfort and safety of our own homes?  Or are we going to cry out to all of our powerful world governments and insist that they do something!

    Burmese President Thein Sein has the power and resources to protect the Rohingya.  All he has to do is give the word to make it happen.  Yet, rather than deal with this urgent situation, he is instead looking to come to Europe to sell his country’s new openness to trade. It beggars belief!

    These terrible atrocities happening on our planet continue to be tolerated, regardless of the fractures they create in our collective unconscious, because we continue to put commerce before vital, humanitarian interests; because we have constructed our individual and collective lives around such false paradigms as ‘survival of the fittest’, we continue to experience life as a massive struggle.

    Right now is the time to change all of this nonsense – and we must act, with urgency! All of us, together, as ONE voice. This situation demands it.

    To change the results we are witnessing, we have to change ourselves; we cannot keep saying we are going to change things but then fail to act.

    We cannot keep listening to greedy, naive or inept politicians, and those governments and institutions who would deliberately mislead us, and then seek to placate us with excuses of how they could do nothing, and how their hands were ‘tied’, when they could easily move into action.

    We keep waiting for a better time, a better future… but it never arrives because we have not arrived. We have not had the courage to act as ONE. To be as ONE.

    Natural disasters are terrible enough when they do happen, yet human acts of war and genocide are many times worse. They betray us all at the deepest level.

    The invitation is to BE HERE NOW. To act from presence, not powerlessness.

    What will you do today? What stance will you take?  Will you shrug your shoulders and walk away – or will you sound the clarion call of freedom, respect and dignity for all?

    We cannot allow this to become another Rwanda, or Sarajevo….

    Sign the Avaaz petition here, and get involved.

    Thank you for being part of a movement of change.

    Namaste,
    Jaime Tanna

    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.”)

  • 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.”)

  • The Italian Tsunami: we are loving it!

    The wind of change is blowing on Italy. Following the Pope’s step down, on February 24, 2013, the Italian political elections took place with astonishing results.

    The M5S or “5 star movement,” guided by the standing comedian Beppe Grillo, has unexpectedly become the first political force in the Italian Parliament, with 25.55% of the votes.

    It is extraordinary that one person, a comedian, who has for more than 20 years brought to the attention of his audience the most incredible facts that were affecting people in Italy as well as in the rest of the world, is now leading the most powerful political movement in Italy. Millions of people have started to support the 5 Star Movement, guided by common sense and the desire to change, independently of any ideology or political affiliation. Internet, with all its social networks, and the very effective use of streaming TV, have been the simple, democratic and revolutionary tools used by them.

    These are citizens who, out of generosity, have chosen to use some of their time and resources to give their contribution to the rest of the people in their country. In the last 5 years or so, Beppe Grillo and his Movement have provided independent and transparent information, which is much needed, given the fact that all of the media, including newspapers and TVs, are owned and manipulated by a few individuals and interest groups.

    By creating a spontaneous movement for change, Grillo has inspired people to participate in the reconstruction of the country, by taking responsibility and giving a new sense of democracy and citizenship based on transparency and communication. At the moment, Beppe Grillo and the M5S are the most followed streaming TV on YouTube. They, like Obama in the U.S., are requesting that internet be made freely available to every citizen in Italy, as this is the main instrument of knowledge and information, and free right to information should be a birthright for everybody, like the right to have a house and a job, and a minimum income if temporarily out of job.

    Unfortunately, all of these fundamental rights are not guaranteed for the majority of people in Italy. The Italian social and economic situation is very dramatic. Many families are struggling to get to the end of the month and small businesses are closing down every minute mostly because of heavy taxation, which has reached 70%. But rather than complaining and just playing the victim, M5S have taken action to start changing this situation, with small but significant steps.

    For example, M5S representatives who have been elected in the regional parliament of Sicily have voluntarily cut their own salaries by 70%, creating a fund to sustain the small and medium-sized local businesses. The candidates who have been elected to the National Parliament less than 2 weeks ago will do the same, and there are 163 of them!

    One of the main points of the M5S electoral program is to guarantee a minimum salary for everyone. People should not be left alone in this difficult moment, and because there is no money left in the government funds, the M5S is proposing to cut the pensions of those people who get up to 90 thousand euros a month. A little sacrifice is asked of those who have more. By fixing a ceiling of 4000 euros a month for pensions in the next 5 years, the remaining money can be given to those who need it most.

    By reducing and cutting the costs of the Italian huge and useless bureaucracy, much needed funds can be made available to those who really need it. Rather than cutting education and health funds, a rationalisation of the current expenditure would create, according to the M5S, enough funds to alleviate the dismal poverty of those who have less. These are just few examples of the many proposals M5S is making to tackle the Italian economic crisis.

    According to Beppe Grillo, if everyone will do his/her part in the next 5 years, change will occur faster and with the least effort. He is inviting the population to take responsibility and participate in any possible way, a bit like Obama did in his presidential speech in January 2009. One of the slogans of the M5S is: we are the State and everyone counts as One.

    Everyone would agree that this is the true meaning of Politics and the State. Politics does not have to be complicated, in fact, it is very simple, only if there is the willingness to address and resolve the real problems of the majority of the population. It is another thing when the politicians are trying to defend the interests of a minority of the population: that’s when they start to write laws and rules that are impossible to follow, to create a jargon that is impossible to understand, and a cast that is difficult to remove. But this is no longer acceptable: humanity has grown up, change is already happening, and we are loving it!!

    marielle guillermo2(Mariella holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Modena Italy. She also is a Reiki Master and founded a Meditation Centre in her hometown in Matera, Italy. She is currently living in Brighton with her two children and her partner Guillermo. Guillermo has worked successfully in the IT & Electronics field covering from developing to marketing roles in Argentina Italy and Switzerland. He graduated from the Silva Life Method in 1994 and has been interested in healing and spirituality since then. He currently works in Brighton as a carer for people with learning disabilities.)

    (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.”)

  • Embracing the awakening process

    As someone who has been on a spiritual path, I see a great need in this world for the process of awakening to be recognized. Humanity will not be mature until we not only cease legal discrimination and protect ecosystems; but also until we recognize each person’s birthright to live his/her life to the absolute fullest, to be true to his/her path to maturity however conventional or unconventional it seems, to have an unmediated relationship with God, and to express his/her timeless inner wisdom whenever it comes through. Each of us belongs here. Each of us is here not because society or anyone approves of who we are or how we live, but because Spirit wants to experience this lifetime. Each of us, whether aware of it or not, is contributing to life becoming fully conscious of itself through the play of manifestation. Each of us has a role that no one else can take on in this great play of life.

    In this article, I focus specifically on the situations of those of us who have had experiences of awakening, or glimpses of the depths of reality. These can come not only through prayer, formal meditation, or situations involving death and dying, but in virtually any circumstance. When we awaken, we experience ourselves as the timeless One Life or Spirit. Our reference point of “I” shifts from being an little individual temporary person to being God expressing Godself through a form, though we might have completely different ways of communicating this or have no clue how to talk about it. We come to know our nature as vast, whole, peaceful, wise, intelligent, open-hearted, unconditionally loving, eternal, infinite, pure, formless, spacious, fully alive, completely present, and/or one and the same as the Source and destiny of everything that ever was and ever will be. We see that life is truly beyond anything that even the most brilliant and most creative language or manifestation can capture.

    This shift does not care who we are or where we come from as people. It can happen whether we are young or old; cool or uncool; rich or poor; liberal or conservative; indigenous, traditional, or modern; urban or rural; male or female or gender-non-conforming; straight or gay; monogamous or not; sexually active or not; religious or atheist; saints or sinners; or highly regarded or infamous. It does not regard successes or failures. It does not regard race, current values and beliefs, past personal history, cultural background, geographical location, language, roles, personality, relationships, physical appearance, health, stability of livelihood, abilities and talents, educational attainment, level of familiarity with spiritual materials, or the presence or absence of a spiritual teacher in human form. Indeed, awakening can be said to be the most democratic of all things in the universe.

    In my case, I as a person am a 23-year-old woman from Indiana who dropped out of college after a major awakening at age 20, during my third year as a biology student. The event that triggered it was the death of a friend; at her funeral, I experienced a total acceptance of the temporary nature of all manifested forms and bodies. I was at peace with my own mortality and knew that life is meant to be lived to the absolute fullest. It is not meant to be taken for granted. After two days of experiencing this deep peace, I returned to school and felt as if I had been dropped there from another world. Nothing felt rigid or absolute anymore. Over the next two months, I experienced acute sensitivity to the energies of spaces and people and much disorientation. There was a period of intense self-examination during which I pulled apart every thought, perception, action, and reaction I could and saw it for what it was and where it came from.

    What followed was a profound conscious glimpse of the Source that made it even clearer that there is no “I” apart from life and that life is everything and everyone. Indeed, life is literally infinite. In this hole created in the realm of time and experience, I saw that all possibilities and everything we commonly perceive as separate are One. I knew that life (God) creates the realm of differentiation, time, and experience in order to know and express itself through it. I knew that every struggle, tragedy, mistake, and shortcoming without exception is destined to be transformed into a greater strength as life evolves through form. We humans are a species through which life can fully come to know and see itself. What I have just described is absolutely beyond words.

    After this, I entered a long period of adjustment. I left school. I traveled and explored many forms of spirituality and other resources. The disorientation and sensitivity continued and frequently prevented me from functioning. I often felt like I became everyone and everything I encountered and lost myself in a pattern that wanted to identify with and grasp something—anything—lest it be annihilated. There have been many hardships and challenges as well as insights that deepened the initial realizations.

    We are living in a time when more and more of us are having spiritual awakenings. There is a greater need than ever for widespread awareness of this phenomenon and the adjustment process that usually follows. It is easy for these to be misunderstood and for the experiencers to be subject to much unneeded struggle, rejection, mistreatment, and pain. The following points highlight some common changes experienced in daily life and areas where mindfulness is especially needed:

    The experiencer becomes less preoccupied with past and future and lives for the present moment. External circumstances become preferences, not absolute needs.

    The ego of the experiencer dissolves as it is seen to be based in falsehood, sometimes not without major struggles for its survival or control in the process. Understanding naturally replaces fear in all areas where fear exists.

    Nothing internal or external is seen as a problem to be feared, despised, and fought. Rather, everything is as it is and has its nature. Nothing manifest is absolute. Effects arise out of causes, and all identifications, thoughts, emotions, and experiences have a fleeting nature.

    Identification with the body also diminishes, and the body comes to be seen as a vehicle instead of a self. Fear of death is lost as death is seen for what it is.

    Many mistakes are made. The experience of awakening and adjustment process are often not immediately understood for what they are. Old patterns can disguise themselves in new forms.

    Experiencers often become highly sensitive to energies and dynamics. Positive energy is felt as alive and nourishing, while negative energy is felt as toxic and degrading. The “how” of things becomes more important than the “what.” The thinking mind ceases to dominate, and the heart opens.

    The experiencers come to value honesty, ethics, humility, gratitude, openness, awareness, responsibility, diversity, equality, harmony, health, balance, cooperation, compassion, unconditional love, wisdom, genuineness, integrity, joy, peace, creativity, and respect for all life.

    Experiencers frequently manifest much more curiosity, creativity, and/or divergent, non-linear thinking than before. The nature of art, poetry, music, and scripture is understood. The nature of true intelligence is seen and valued. Profound creative insights and other forms of ingenuity can come in.

    Experiencers commonly express heightened intuition and/or various abilities we tend to call psychic. Synchronistic coincidences become common, and intentions and wishes are made manifest more quickly. If fully seen for what they are, these are regarded as completely natural to life and not personal.

    Those who have had awakenings often need to release energy, experience phases of disorientation or lowered ability to function, spend long periods of time alone doing “nothing”, meditate and read a lot, communicate from their place of perception, and/or not focus much on those things regarded as important in a “normal” human life.

    While it is essential for experiencers to learn to recognize all dysfunction so that they cease to identify with it altogether and are not affected by it, there are some phases in which they can be very vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed by others’ projected negativity. It is not always easy for the experiencers to remove themselves from negative people and spaces.

    Many people are so completely identified with their conditioning and sense of self that they miss the light wherever it appears. They are skeptical of the possibility living in peace, seeing human nature as pure and free, or seeing all problems as temporary by their very nature. They scoff and project negativity at anything they do not feel they understand with their minds, and they regard anything they fear as if it should not exist. If anything is Satan, it is this—a limited and temporary form pretending to be God, everything, absolute, or at the very least superior. It is unconscious, present to some degree in almost all of us, and not who anyone really is.

    It is easy, in some stages, for those who have had spiritual awakenings to think other people are more aware than they actually are. People are sometimes trusted when they cannot be.

    Relationships with partners, family, friends, roommates, classmates, coworkers, supervisors, and others in everyday life can be challenging. Those based on personal neediness and dysfunctional patterns can fall apart quickly if mutual honesty, respect, and genuineness are not brought in.

    Experiencers tend to become more and more oriented toward unconditional love. This love is not personal; it transcends the personal and is far stronger and deeper than anything personal. It is the love of God.

    In a society that emphasizes material success, values competition, judges people, neglects and stigmatizes the vulnerable, fears that which it does not understand, and is not very open to examining itself, it is not difficult to imagine the struggles faced by people who have had spiritual awakenings. There is still much that needs to be addressed before we truly express justice. It is still very easy for those who experience loss or change (as well as others who do not identify with common ways of thinking or conform to a status quo) to fall into poverty, debt, discrimination, victimization, illness, alienation, and rejection from opportunities to make a living. Humanity will not be mature until the least of us, the most extreme outsiders, and the most alienated are respected as full human beings with equal dignity to those who have the highest status. Justice, freedom, peace, and democracy will not come into this world until all embrace mindfulness and take responsibility for what they create and project. It serves animals to be controlled by self-centered survival instincts, but it does not serve humans.

    All of us, regardless of who or where we are, have the right to face our own challenges, know for ourselves how life works, mature on the human level, and grow spiritually however we feel genuinely moved to do these. Making mistakes and facing appropriate consequences for our actions must not be stigmatized if our lives are to be lived to their fullest potential. We must embrace struggle and at the same time stop creating needless hardship and suffering. Evolution accelerates greatly when it is conscious.

    We will be truly wise when we do not regard any individual, collective, or other form as infallible or absolute, and when we are able to approach everyone from Adolf Hitler to Jesus Christ with understanding, empathy, honesty, and compassion. Everyone and everything—no exception—is us, including and especially God. Both hatred and blind following are aspects of unconsciousness. They divide us internally and externally and prevent us from living our lives to the fullest. They are not of love, but of the ego. It is a sign of dysfunction when openness, unconditional love, and transcendence are not allowed. When these are present, the infinite unconditional love of Christ, God, and Buddha is brought out much more fully.

    Although awakening is not personal, each individual experiences it in a unique way. There is no right or wrong way to awaken or right or wrong experiences to have after awakening. Not everyone is ready to awaken in this lifetime. No experience is superior or inferior to its alternatives—each of us is given exactly what we need in our situation. No emerging pattern or experience after awakening, however unconscious or sinful, negates what has been seen or changes the fact that the God/life/Spirit is everyone and everything, contains everyone and everything, and is the Source and destiny of everyone and everything.

    (Phoebe Lackawanna is a gifted artist whose work is divinely inspired.  Her art gallery can be viewed at Phoebe’s Art Gallery.  Phoebe currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. To contact her, please e-mail  Peaceloveandart89@gmail.com.)

  • I will NOT be voting…

    …for a candidate whose platform does not emulate my highest thoughts, core beliefs, and creative visions for our world.

    I WILL be voting for someone who will champion the type of change that benefits not just a select few, but ALL of humanity.  The inclination I feel towards one candidate or another has less to do with issues of money and more to do with freedom, choice, and compassion.

    I WILL be voting for the candidate who will tirelessly fight on the side of same-sex couples who desire the same benefits and recognition afforded to heterosexual partners in marriage, someone who will pave the way for gay couples to be afforded an equal opportunity to freely demonstrate their love and commitment both legally and socially.

    I WILL be voting for a candidate who understands and supports freedom of choice and promotes women’s health, empowering women to make their own decisions regarding whether or not to have sex, whether or not to use contraception, and whether or not to deliver a child into the world.

    I WILL be voting for the candidate that holds the beauty and life-sustaining bounty of our world in the highest regard, enacting laws that protect and nurture our planet earth, creating revitalization in areas that have been depleted or abused, and steadfastly guarding our most precious resources.

    I WILL be voting for the candidate who recognizes the importance of affordable and sufficient healthcare, someone who develops and offers programs which enable those whose lives are less than easy to receive medical care and compassion, regardless of age or socioeconomic status.

    Will it make a difference when I throw my spiritual hat in the political arena and cast my vote?

    I believe YES.

    I believe that every problem has a spiritual solution.  And I further believe that not only do we all have the ability to recreate ourselves anew within the context of our personal relationships, the ones we hold as intimate and most cherished, but we also have the ability to recreate our world anew through the collaboration of our collective thoughts and an elevation of global consciousness.

    We are all in relationship with each other.  We are not separate.  What you think does matter.  Your vote does count.  And what you choose will make a difference.

    YOU are the author of the New Cultural Story…What will you write?

    (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.)

  • A new way of living for the highest good of all

    “In order to change an existing paradigm, you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called.”

    – Buckminster Fuller

    There are many challenges that we are facing in the world today. Humanity’s home, planet earth, is in jeopardy.  And as time goes on, the issues continue to rise at a rapid rate, even accelerating to the point that many of us may have lost hope.

    There are people in this country who are struggling to keep their homes, their jobs, pay their power bills, and feed their families. Millions around the world are homeless, without power, and starving to death at a rate of over 40,000 people a day.

    But instead of echoing what a growing number have been saying for years, we want to focus on a solution and believe that the future we want tomorrow is not only possible, but that we already have all the resources necessary to make it happen. Now it’s up to us to join hands, lock arms, and collaborate on a new way of living, one that strives for the highest good of all.

    To help facilitate the shift from where we are now to what we know is possible, One Community (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization) was formed after 15 years of planning, with the mission to provide what is necessary for the re-creation of this world as a cooperative of self-sufficient and sustainable communities. Their path to accomplishing such a lofty goal? To demonstrate and inspire.

    Firmly believing in the possibility of sustainable world development, One Community sees a working model as resource efficient, zero waste, and holistic living, with widespread appeal as the key to launching global change like never before.

    What makes One Community truly different from existing intentional communities is a commitment to inviting the world to participate and creating what they feel is essential to widespread appeal: It should be affordable, applicable across a diversity of cultures, easily accessible, created so that normal people with average knowledge and little or no experience can duplicate it, be packaged with an transformative education program for all ages, and it must have a marketing engine capable of exposing enough people to build the necessary momentum for it to continue on its own.

    With a 4-point strategy for accomplishment, this is what One Community is creating, and they are open source sharing (free sharing) everything they do so others can follow in their footsteps and evolve it all even further.

    Swiftly moving forward now, they spent two years to find the perfect property, a year building the necessary relationships with the county, are 2 years into architectural planning and development details, and are now focusing on completing their think tank of world-change-dedicated people, with the hope to move onto the property and immediately break ground in 2013.

    Keeping to their open-source sharing purpose and communicating with as many like-minded and forward-thinking groups, communities, and organizations as possible, they have been partnering, expanding their network, and free-sharing and giving away everything they create throughout their process of being the change they want to see. As a demonstration of early success, they are happy to say that this has already led to the formation of a “first wave” of communities with shared ideas of living for The Highest Good of All Concerned, launching websites and beginning the creation process with the help of what One Community has already accomplished and is providing.

    One Community is not just another community for sustainability, it is a new way of living For The Highest Good of All and open source think tank of demonstrating solutions that will be able to be duplicated and evolved collaboratively with the rest of the world as we collectively usher in a new Golden Age of civilization.

    For more information and on-going updates visit: www.sustainabilitynonprofit.org or just google “One Community.”

    (Tony Hua and Jae Sabol are two of the founding members of One Community. Tony manages and operates the marketing and open source web optimization and Jae is the Executive Director and overall coordinator of the One Community project. Combined they have over 18 years invested in this vision for an open source blueprint and modeling of a better world for everyone. The best way to reach them is through the www.sustainabilitynonprofit.org website.)

    If you have a Guest Column that you would like to submit, send it to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.  Not all material submitted is accepted for publication, but we appreciate each submission.