Various Pointers to Non-Duality

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There is no attainment and no cultivation
of original nature. You are Consciousness,
not a farmer! Why work for that which you
already are? Do not mentate, do not stir a
thought. Trying to get out of superimposed
bondage, which is the notion that you are
separate from Existence, you will land in
superimposed freedom.

- From "The Truth Is" by Sri H.W.L. Poonja

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"When you become more sensitive to the body you have the impression that the inhalation-exhalation is no longer localized. It is all around you. It is important to see how we live mainly in our heads. Think with your whole body, feel with your whole body.

In the whole feeling, the global sensation, you go into your room and touch your whole room. You go outside and touch the clouds, the trees, the water. You do not live in isolation.

In your radiation you are in communion with all things. In this expansion there is no place for the ego because the ego is a contraction. Love is expansion, a feeling of spaciousness. "

- Jean Klein

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This is from New Seeds of Contemplation, pg 226, in the chapter called "The Gift of Understanding"

"A door swings open in the center of our being and we seem to fall through it into immense depths which, although they are infinite, are all accessible to us; all eternity seems to have become ours in this one placid and breathless contact. Where already, supernatural instinct teaches us that the function of this abyss of freedom, which has been open within our midst, is to draw us utterly out of our own selfhood and into its own immensity of liberation."

- Thomas Merton

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The Trap of Meaninglessness

There are other traps that are inherent within this process of going from the initial glimpse of awakening to real abiding awakening. There are several of them that come up and again these traps or these cul-de-sacs, these delusions aren't inherent to awakening itself but they arise with the mind's relationship with the awakened view because the awakened view is so far beyond the mind that the mind truly can't contain it but the mind's inherent nature is to try to contain everything that it sees. And so one of these very common traps that people can get into is a sense of meaninglessness.

Now this can arise because from the stand point of reality we are free from the egoic desire to find meaning. We see that the ego's desire to find meaning in its life is actually a surrogate, a substitute for having a direct connection with life, for having the perception of 'you are life itself.' But if we don't feel that, if we don't know that, we don't experience that, then we need surrogates, we need something to stand in to fill the gap as it were. And as egos, what the ego uses is meaning, 'I'm trying to find the meaning in my life, what's the meaning to my life.' Only someone who is disconnected from life itself will seek meaning. Only someone that's disconnected from life will look for purpose. I'm not saying that people shouldn't look for meaning or shouldn't look for purpose. Actually they are probably wise strategies that are used to help people cope with life. But remember that these egoic yearnings for 'what's the meaning of my life?, what's the meaning of my existence?, what's the purpose of my existence?' are ultimately derived from a state where we have no real knowledge of what we are, where we're disconnected from our true nature. I don't mean actually disconnected, I mean unconscious of.

So when there's a true realization, when we wake up from the dream state, when we wake up from the ego, what is realized, part of the realization is the search for meaning is now no longer appropriate. When one has a direct connection with life, all of a sudden to find one's meaning, to find one's purpose seems to be a rather paltry thing, to be a small thing, to be insignificant. It's no longer really a drive in our life. The drive for meaning and purpose falls out of our life because we are literally in a different perspective. In a perspective where such things don't really exist or certainly they don't exist in the old way, they don't exist from the egoic standpoint.

Now the mind will perceive this, this truth, this truth that when we wake up from the dream state we see that the dream state is a dream state. How could a dream state have meaning? How could a dream state have purpose. It's a dream. And that's very true but as I say over and over, there's still a human being and there's still a human mind. And the mind is trying to make sense of all this. The mind is even trying to make sense of awakening itself. It's trying to make sense of the view of awakening. And as I have also said, for most people there's not a total disappearance of the ego, of that which is the experience of division. And so the mind is in relationship with the insights of reality, at times. And the mind will start to say, 'Oh God, there's no meaning!' And what's left of the ego will say, "There's no meaning! I now have no purpose or meaning! It's like you've seen too much of Reality to believe in purpose or meaning.

From "The End of Your World" - Adyashanti

A Meditation on Our Monetary System: State of Permanent Siege

By Richard C. Cook

THE LEVEL OF PUBLIC IGNORANCE on the topic of the U.S. and world monetary system is astonishing. This is part of the plan, of course, because the monetary elite control not only the financial system but also the news media, the publishing industry, and the educational system. The blueprint for control was put together over a century ago by Cecil Rhodes and his friends, including British financier Nathan Rothschild, as documented by Professor Carroll Quigley.

During the 20th Century the power shifted to the U.S., with the Rockefellers playing the dominant role as they continue to do today. It is no accident that J.P. Morgan Chase—the Rockefeller family bank—dominates the U.S. derivatives market; nor that Exxon-Mobil, the Rockefellers' oil company, is the most profitable corporation in history.

The basic plan was to place all of mankind in a state of permanent mental and emotional siege so that in the end we would trade all our liberties to the controllers in return for protection; even freedom of thought would be traded for physical safety. That plan is well advanced. The sheeple have been prepared for the final shearing.

Meanwhile, every attempt at real reform has been strangled in the cradle. Past voices for monetary sanity like those of Congressmen Louis McFadden and Jerry Voorhis were silenced. Starting in the 1970s, functionaries like Kissinger, Brzezinski, and Volcker carried out David Rockefeller's plan to outsource manufacturing to China and eliminate the U.S. as the world's greatest industrial democracy, replacing it with a financier oligarchy.

During the 2008 election campaign, Ron Paul called for the end of the Federal Reserve, the bastion of financier control, but no one effectively organized the millions of people who responded to his call or had a viable plan to put in place. Barack Obama obviously works mainly for the financiers, as did Bill Clinton before him. The job of the Democrats is to keep the sheeple quiet by now and then implementing some “reforms”; the Republicans were a more blatant gang of looters.

With the financial crash of 2008-2009, the noose is tightening everywhere in the world. The International Monetary Fund is announcing, “The current global recession is likely to be ‘unusually long and severe, and the recovery sluggish.'” (BBC News, “IMF Sees Long and Severe Slowdown,” April 16, 2009.) In reality, as the IMF knows, it would be possible to put every nation in the world on the road to recovery by allowing them to prime the economic pump through sovereign control of their own monetary systems, with freedom to utilize their own natural resources.

The IMF announcement is in fact the start of a worldwide program of genocide similar to what was done to Russia in the 1990s, with crushing poverty, slashing of incomes, reduction of benefits for the poor and elderly, rising levels of disease and malnutrition, and reduction of life expectancy. We in the West will view the carnage with alarm from our own stripped-down economies but remain docile out of fear the same will be done to us.

Awareness of the hideous evil of the financiers' plans to destroy the soul of humanity is growing. This is being accomplished through the internet and the work of a number of writers who understand what is at stake. I doubt this channel of expression will be available indefinitely. Already alternative websites are being isolated and marginalized. But the fight must be waged.

The one organization that has a program which is comprehensive and free from outside influence is the American Monetary Institute, which has drafted the American Monetary Act. If the Act is introduced in Congress, it will be imperative for it to be recognized and supported as the one chance to save our nation from the dark night that is threatening. But even progressive writers shrink from taking on the Monetary Power, with many of them putting forth the absurdity that all we need to do is reform the banking system.

The American Monetary Act has been in process since 2003. It may be found on the AMI website at: http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf. AMI will conduct a presentation on the Act on Capitol Hill, April 23, 2009, in Room 304 of the Cannon House Office Building. Presentations will take place at 10:00 AM and at 2:00 PM.

At the same time, groups of relatively conscious people can come together on their own to create refuges of sanity until the danger passes–over a period of years, decades, or even generations. And, to look at it from a spiritual perspective, we can hope that the Higher Powers who observe humanity's destiny refuse to allow our particular experiment in consciousness to be obliterated.

Destruction of human consciousness is the real goal of the financiers and their minions. It is lies above all that do this. The financiers' power is the biggest lie of all.

Richard C. Cook is a retired federal analyst who writes today on economic, political, and spiritual matters. His books and videos are available through his website at www.richardccook.com. He recently released his six-part video series: Credit as a Public Utility: the Solution to the Economic Crisis.

I Don't Know

A Dialogue on Intuition

An Interview with Robert Rabbin by Lourdes Billingsley
(Published in the Spring 1995 issue of the Institute of Noetic Sciences Review.)

Editor's Note: Intuition, like consciousness itself, has puzzled both scholars and laypeople for centuries. When we try to pin it down in words, it seems to forever elude precise definition. Yet many of us believe we have some sense of what it is. Lourdes Billingsley decided to interview workshop leader and author Robert Rabbin because "he has a way of responding that circumvents the mind." Rather than answer questions, he enquires into the motivation of the questioner. In the following interview, Billingsley demonstrates how the meaning of intuition is experienced rather than explained.


Lourdes Billingsley: I used to think that intuition was something which would somehow make me a better person, that intuition would be IT. Many people want to develop their psychic or intuitive abilities. Why do you think there is this interest in intuition?

Robert Rabbin: I think people are initially interested in what you call intuition because they do indeed think it will bring benefit. But you know it's hard to answer a question before first asking questions about the question. So let's begin with, What is intuition? I was thinking that if we just start talking about intuition, we'll never become intuition, we'll only know something about it. If we only come to know something about intuition, instead of becoming it, that knowledge will imprison us and reinforce the barrier against it. However, if we can end up inside intuition without knowing something about it, that will have value.

Let's talk about what you were saying initially, which is to ask why we have an interest in intuition. Do we think that intuition will positively affect something in our lives? Let's first find out what it is we want to affect through knowledge of intuition or the experience of intuition. Because the question, What is intuition? may be the wrong question. It may be that our pursuit, if it's unexamined, is misguided, it may not really feed and satisfy our hunger. So let's talk about intuition only if it turns out it's necessary to talk about it. Let's first ask, What is it about our lives that we feel intuition is an answer or an antidote for? Is intuition a medicine that's going to cure a condition? Why do we want to know what intuition is? That's my question to you.

At this point I feel my role and agenda as interviewer slipping away. When I am asked a question I can no longer hide behind the role of interviewer. The question brings me out into the open.

LB: I wanted to satisfy an inner yearning for a certain something that I could not name. I just knew there was something beyond what I knew. I have felt it deeply for years and have always felt a compulsion to seek it out, discover it, bring it out of hiding.

RR: I want to be precise about the condition that was motivating you to seek out this something. If you have a sense that there is something more in life to experience or become aware of, we would have to assume there is an a priori condition that is motivating you. That condition might just be curiosity, but from what you have said it sounds more like dissatisfaction, or perhaps unhappiness, emptiness, sadness, loneliness, insecurity. So those might be among the conditions in our lives that we feel intuition will mitigate. Already we could significantly alter the inquiry of our conversation from "What is intuition?" to "What is the nature and source of isolation, sadness, confusion, doubt, alienation, longing?" We might do better to inquire into the nature of those states—what are they, how do they arise, and what can we do about them? Developing our capacity for intuition may be the correct path" it may also be a colossal waste of time. We should carefully examine and clarify what we are doing. Let's look at what motivates us to explore intuition, and then let's look at what we are calling intuition. We shouldn't rust forward blindly.

An inquiry into the place from which questions arise produces not an answer, but a resolution of the tension from which the question appears. This is something much more profound and useful than any answer. The mind will swoon and fall back into its source. That's what we've been doing. We haven't answered anything. We haven't thrown ourselves carelessly into the world of abstraction. We are inquiring into the question itself. This inquiry creates a new space from which we can ask the question, should that still be necessary. Lourdes, would you say that in the few minutes of our inquiry anything has shifted for you?

I feel very quiet inside. The question is startling, I can't find an answer to the question I think he's asking. As far as my mind can tell, nothing has changed. I feel the same about intuition as when I arrived here for the interview.

LB: No.

RR: Are you sure ?

LB: Yes. Shifted from what? I can't really answer the question.

RR: Your mind has become more still. Your body has become more relaxed. Your senses have become more open. You can, if you take a moment, feel a current of subtle energy moving through and around you.

My mind has not yet got wind of the changes. I slowly begin to realize that he's right. I am more relaxed, my senses are more open. As I sense the changes that have occurred I begin to laugh and I feel bathed by light and lightness. Nothing is funny, yet I am laughing and I am in a state of joy. There is nothing: no thoughts, no me—just space. My body is laughing and there is joy. The person who thought of and was conducting the interview is no longer present. I am experiencing the quality of being that Robert describes continuously throughout the interview. His eyes and voice are bubbling with laughter as we laugh together. An understanding of what is happening is present without words or thinking. In the laughter, he continues:

RR: Now we're getting somewhere. Intuition is not something that can be understood. What we're going to do is end up being possessed by intuition without knowing anything about it. Rumi said, "You are the whole ocean. Why send out for a sip of dew?" If we want only to collect information or have an experience of intuition, aren't we sending out for a sip of dew when we are the whole ocean? Let's go into this a bit more.

We love that momentary excursion into the relaxed and unconstricted state of intuition. But we haven't yet questioned the structure of the reality from which we assert intuition, we just take it for granted. So we want to know about intuition to enhance who we think we are while we're living in that structured reality: how it can help us, how we can use it, how we can access it. The world of intuition exists only because it exists in relation to where we stand now, outside intuition. If we were standing over there, in intuition, wouldn't our situation be like a fish in the ocean trying to find its way to water? What could we say? "Hey, fish, wake up. You're already in the water! "

So we also need to question the place that we're standing in from which we think there is something called "intuition" that we want to know something about. Do we remain as we are in our structured reality and then take a momentary excursion into a relaxed and unconstricted mental realm, or do we remove ourselves totally as we journey into the water of intuition? Which happened to you a moment ago when you started laughing? Our absence becomes the presence we call intuition, and this absence of ourself takes over. What we call intuition takes over; it does not serve our hopes and aspirations but dissolves the one who hopes and aspires.

Intuition is really an ending of ourselves. Even though we think we want to add something, we really want to lose something. In this ending of ourself, there is silence. There is love. The lack of this love which exists only in the moment we end ourselves is the cause of our sadness. One's own self is the barrier to love. One's own self is the sadness. That's why you can't do anything about it, you can only see it. Then it ends, by itself.

I start to laugh again. This time I'm laughing because I can't imagine writing an article about intuition. It's true that when intuition takes over there is no desire for it. It stops existing in the way that it does when we want it. So from this place why write an article, why care? It's like wanting to make love when you're making love. You miss what is already there by wanting it, and you are drawn further and further away from the experience.

RR: The yearning for the serenity and exhilaration of intuitive insight is a fragment of the desire to become whole, the longing of the drop to become the ocean. Can we approach the subject of intuition objectively? Remember, we really want to know how to escape the heavy coat of sadness, loneliness. Can this be dealt with objectively? There is a clue in the unitive flash of total being glimpsed in the intuitive moment. This is the real candy. Not the information. Not the knowledge. The real allure is in the instant of total being. What we are describing occurs when our conventional dualistic reality is dissolved, when all of the conditions that propelled you to seek something more disappear. They are only symptoms of fragmentation, symptoms of duality. In the nondual instant, which can never be objectified or known, there is no separation of knower and known.

There is no object of experience. Not a sensation or a perception or even a thought. Pure awareness alone exists. This is a key. The attraction of intuition is in the momentary dissolution of the subject and object. In the instance in which there is the "aaha", there is no knower and known, there is only knowing. It passes so quickly that we are then left with the knower and the known again. This is why, even as you went deeper in your exploration of intuition, you ended up sad all over again. You returned too quickly to this habitual pattern of dualism. Of course, we all do. You are left with the memory of your absence, and this remnant will not feed your soul, it will not respond to the conditions that are symptoms of your fragmentation. The habit of living in the subject-object world kicks in. We're not ready, we're not ripe enough for full dissolution of ourselves, to live fully in knowing. So we become the knower and the remembered. Then we try to use what is remembered to enhance who we are in the subject-object world.

We are having this conversation about intuition because we all want to become real. We a want to be delivered from those conditions that you talked about before for which we may think intuition is an answer. But do you see how, without dismantling the structure of reality that puts intuition "over there", we will continue to be sad? That sadness will not be brightened for long by a mere remembrance of who we are. We want more than a periodic glimpse. We want to be taken by that.

As I'm listening, I see my many years of frustration and sadness. I had taken what was an awakening to the possibility of something deeper and richer in my life and turned it into a salve for my deflating ego. I kept reinventing the problem. This explains why my joy would always slip away.
RR: We need to understand that what we truly want is a dissolution of the barrier to the intuitive world, the world of nonduality. We want this world to possess us, so that the pain of isolation gives way to the joy of being. Then there is only that. The world of duality that creates intuition collapses. There's no more intuition.

LB: Everything disappears.

RR: Just you, you disappear. Our inquiry into intuition has led us here, to this curious place. Isn't one's interest in intuition really the desire to be free from suffering? Can't we see, through persistent and honest inquiry, that the end of suffering is in the disappearance of the separate self? "In this absence is our presence," says Jean Klein. That knowingness of life itself appears, magically and beautifully.

Once again I am reminded of how I became caught up in the phenomenon of intuition. I tried to hold on to it the best I could. My thinking made it about me, and my striving to maintain an experience that thinking fundamentally could not understand. It exists in daily living. I was so sheltered from the grace of life that I turned it into something special.

LB: You're just seeing things the way they are.

RR: Yes. In this seeing, there is just awareness itself there is no knower of the objects of awareness.

LB: So when you say that there's no knower, will this "I", the person that I am, disappear? Is there no one there anymore to really notice?

RR: Let's take your experience. When you were laughing a few minutes ago, what was your experience? What happened to you when you started to laugh, when laughter took you over?

LB: I disappeared.

RR: Yes, and it's the same with the experience of intuition, you disappear in order for intuitive knowingness to appear. The problem is that we want to use intuition to enhance what disappears in the moment of intuition, instead of seeing how what disappears in the moment of our fullness appears in the first place!
If we were to undertake a journey of inquiry into the knower and the known, we would become that vast frontier of pure knowledge that we call intuition. We wouldn't use it. We would be it. It would be us. We would have erased the ground from which we look out and say, Aaha! Intuition must be over there.

LB: So does that mean [laughter], so that would mean that I would disappear? There would be no one there to notice that intuition was happening?

Every time I disappear, I laugh and become blind to the world as I usually know it. The furniture is here, Robert is here, my body is here; but it's not here as it usually is. I see it, but I am not of it.

RR: Excellent question. Let me ask you to look as clearly as you can into the intuitive insight. It's like a lightning flash. When you look up at a dark sky and you see a flash of lightning it's as though it cracks open the darkness of the sky and reveals another dimension. Go in and find out where the knower, the "I", the experiencer goes in the lightning flash of intuitive awareness. You can look and see a person being struck by the lightning of intuition and it is as if the entire conditioned habitual mechanism of the I-thought, of the knower, the person, disappears. For the briefest instant, just like lightning shattering the sky, you can see what we're calling "intuitive insight" shatter the person that exists in duality.

Over the years I have had experiences where who I am and all that I know is instantaneously erased. It's a beautiful experience of deep simplicity and beauty. Then slowly it disappears, and I am back in the painful place of wishing I was still in the beauty.

RR: Can you ever know who you are, or can you only discover who you're not? If the intuitive flash, the absence of ourselves, is a resolution of duality, then there can't be a knower of one's own self. So how can one know who one is? We can't do that. Let's not be satisfied with this as an idea or a philosophy. Let's look directly into what happens, because there is always enough space in between thoughts to discover the truth of what happens. We can find our way into and between the otherwise relentless stampede of thinking to see, not to know and remember, but to see.

As I look directly at what happens as Robert suggests, I experience a release from thinking and, instantaneously, spaciousness occurs. I disappear, then reappear. I can only describe it as being poor one day and winning Lotto the next. Then losing it all and winning it again. In an instant your concerns disappear and all is well. Until you fall back into thinking again.

LB: Can this spaciousness happen for longer periods of time?

RR: If we ask the question in this way, we're again asserting the reality of the world of duality. You're asking, "How can we make that happen for long periods of time?" Isn't this an escape? What is it that we want to escape from? Do we want to become free from the pain of isolation, from duality? Let's look at this and see if we can directly see, without explaining, without creating abstractions. The lightning flash that fractures the dark sky, the intuitive insight that stops duality within a person, this merging of beauty and silence, if we see that, is that in itself not the answer to your question, "Does that occur? Can that occur more frequently?"

How can what is eternally present occur more frequently?

Why don't you first find out how you create the perception that what is in actual fact always present seems to be distant and remote? You are sitting on the treasure right now.
What we want is freedom from the self. We want to be free from knowing. We want to be free from remembering and becoming. We want to be pure being. Our own seeing will reveal this. If we learn how to see, we'll know this. See how quickly the dissolution of the self in the intuitive insight reappears as the knower and the remembered.

LB: How do you learn to see that?

RR: Just begin to look at it. It's there. You can see it right now. When I asked you, "Lourdes, what happens when intuition strikes you?", you said, "Well, there isn't me. There's just pure knowing." That's seeing. You don't have to do much more than be assisted in seeing what is, and in this seeing the false self drops away. Unfortunately, we have mostly been supported in believing that what isn't, is, which then leads us to ask, How can we develop intuition to solve our problems? figure out which way to go in life? decide which person to marry?

I feel a split within myself. I am very aware of the peacefulness within me. I am also aware of something being afraid of it. I simultaneously feel a sense of relief and a fear of myself disappearing. I feel joy, and also terror, because everything that I thought I was here for no longer matters. I tell Robert about this.

RR: This has never been a problem in the moment of your total absence. Then there is only the joy of pure being. When the joy of pure being dissolves back into the knower and the remembered, then you become afraid, not of that joy, but of the lack of that joy in duality. That fear, that anxiety, is the primary experience of the limited self. We can never truly do anything about that because we have so identified with all that limitation: body, mind, and patterns. We can only see that we are fundamentally not that.

Duality doesn't want to erase itself. So of course the thinking "I" will always suggest fear about its own death. So we say, I'm kind of happy, but I'm also terrified that I'm not going to exist. Of course, but when you don't exist there is no terror. There's nothing but ecstasy, joy, and complete lucid clarity that is more compelling than anything you as a person could ever create on your own.

When we see that we are the joy of being, we won't need any more strategies in life because the fundamental condition that we need strategies in life to deal with has disappeared. So much of our life is spent trying to feed the monster of our apparent separation from life. That comes to an end. You won't need intuition any more.

Freeing Yourself From The Past

by Leonard Jacobson

In truth, there is no life outside of the present moment. Sooner or later, we must all come to terms with this simple fact.

If you are to awaken fully into the present moment, and remain fundamentally grounded in Presence, then you will have to liberate yourself from entanglement in your own past. It is not the true past. It is the remembered past, which you access through the mind whenever you think. You will also have to free yourself from the imagined future, which is nothing more than the past projected forward. It is simply a fantasy.

The true future does not exist in the world of the mind. The true future unfolds through the doorway of the present moment, just as the true past is accessible through the doorway of the present moment.

To free yourself from the past, there are a number of steps you will have to take.

1. If there are feelings from the past, which have been repressed within you, will have to allow these feelings the opportunity to surface into conscious and responsible expression. You are not trying to get rid of these feelings. You are simply allowing them to express. Everything in existence has a right to exist, including the feelings of need, hurt and anger. If they were denied the right to exist when you were young, because they were too painful then or simply not allowed expression, they will have to be restored into the flow of conscious expression that was once denied them.

2. Forgiveness is a powerful force, which can release the past from you and you from the past. Forgive all those who have hurt you and seek the forgiveness of everyone you have hurt. The forgiveness must be authentic. Sometimes, the pain and the anger at those who have hurt you must be experienced fully, before forgiveness can occur.

3. With some people, healing of the past is necessary before forgiveness and release can truly arise. The good news is that, through the power of awakened Presence, which is a state of Oneness with God, emotional and soul healing is possible in a way that defies all reason and is beyond belief. In working with others, I have so often seen their lives transformed, as we successfully bring to consciousness some traumatic experience from the past, either in this lifetime or some earlier life time, which has been unconsciously projecting into and affecting their current experience of life.

4. To the extent that you maintain yourself in resentment, guilt or blame, you cannot be present, simply because these feelings keep you imprisoned within the past. You must bring these feelings to the surface. Bring them to consciousness in a loving and accepting way. Identify, own, confess and express these feelings, but do not project them onto anyone. Do not believe in them. You are allowing them into consciousness, simply so that they are no longer hidden and so they can no longer control you unconsciously. Feelings of resentment, blame and guilt are an indication that you are not taking responsibility for your life or for yourself. It is easier to blame someone, than to take responsibility for yourself.

5. This next point is the most difficult to understand and is the most easily resisted. If you continue to generate good feelings by remembering happy experiences from the past, you will remain in bondage to the mind and ego forever. Identification with happy memories holds you in the world of the mind and locks in place all those unhappy and painful memories you would rather avoid. This is because the mind is a world of duality, and there is no way to avoid duality, other than by becoming so fully present that Oneness is revealed as the fundamental ground of your existence. It is the same with deriving pleasure from the anticipation of a future event. Only the present moment can fulfill you. It is only when we awaken fully into the present moment that duality is transcended and Oneness is revealed.

What is an Intentional Community?

by Kelly N Patterson

There are thousands of intentional communities all over the world: for a better idea, just visit the intentional community international directory at www.ic.org. There are hundreds of intentional communities in Costa Rica alone. There are so many of these communities in Costa Rica that an online, open-source directory of these Costa Rican communities is currently being constructed, called the Intentional Conscious Communities of Costa Rica (ICCCR) directory (coming soon to www.icccr.info).

By definition, an intentional community is a planned, usually residential community designed, operated and maintained by a group. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious , or spiritual vision. Community members also share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities are all inclusive; they include co-housing communities, residential land trusts , eco-villages, communes , holistic and alternative health retreat centers, organic farms, kibbutzim , ashrams, student co-ops, and housing cooperatives . They are often called “Conscious Communities” throughout Costa Rica. Usually new members of an intentional community are selected by the community's existing membership, rather than by real-estate agents or land owners (if the land is not owned collectively by the community.)

The ICCCR’s definition of an intentional conscious community is any shared work and housing group, community or program that seeks to do a combination or elements of mind-body-spirit-earth work that is eco-sustainable and empowers the local community (Ticos!): nonprofit organizations, social entrepreneurial programs, and small businesses alike.

The ICCCR, seeks to identify, assess, and unify these communities through an informational, open-source web portal, with the ultimate objective of empowering these communities through networking; skills-share; marketing their products and services locally, domestically and internationally; information exchange; capacity-building workshops; matching them with conscious investors and stewards; as well as keeping them up to date on funding opportunities such as social entrepreneurial grants and carbon credits.

Ultimately, the ICCCR seeks to empower these intentional conscious communities in Costa Rica in order that they can be economically sustainable, as well as eco-sustainable, stimulate their local economies, and protect Costa Rica’s natural resources (the rainforests are just one of many!) from big development. The ICCCR seeks to be a valuable tool for Costa Rica’s natural resource management.

The ICCCR, in collaboration with Fincas Amanecer and Fincas Paraiso Verde (both organic farm communities in Londres, Quepos) are holding their very first workshop for intentional communities in Costa Rica:

Intentional Conscious Community Planning Hands-On Workshop (For Beginners/Forming Communities to Established Communities): March 27-30, 2009

Workshops include how to write a short-term and long-term business plan for people who do not speak Business; how to market your products and services on the internet (social media network marketing); how carbon credits work; how to procure social entrepreneurial grants and seed money; pigs for propane; an edible and medicinal plant tour (which can be used as an income generation tool for eco-communities!); and then valuable information about legal, business and residency issues in Costa Rica.

http://thenonprofitguru.wordpress.com/

http://icccr.wordpress.com/

http://www.examiner.com/x-2454-SF-Alternative-Recreation-Examiner

A Mayan View of 2012

Carlos Barrios was born into a Spanish family on El Altiplano, the highlands of Guatemala. His home was in Huehuetenango, also the dwelling place of the Maya, Mam tribe. With other Maya and other indigenous tradition keepers, the Mam carry part of the 'old ways on Turtle Island (North America).They are keepers of time, authorities on remarkable calendars that are ancient, elegant and relevant.

Mr. Barrios is a historian, an anthropologist and investigator. After studying with traditional elders for 25 years since the age of 19, he has also became a Mayan Ajq'ij, a ceremonial priest and spiritual guide, Eagle Clan. Years ago, along with his brother, Gerardo, Carlos initiated an investigation into the different Mayan calendars. He studied with many teachers. He says his brother Gerardo interviewed nearly 600 traditional Mayan elders to widen their scope of knowledge.

"Anthropologists visit the temple sites," Mr. Barrios says, "and read the inscriptions and make up stories about the Maya, but they do not read the signs correctly. It's just their imagination. Other people write about prophecy in the name of the Maya. They say that the world will end in December 2012.The Mayan elders are angry with this. The world will not end. It will be transformed."

The indigenous have the calendars, and know how to accurately interpret it, not others. The Mayan Calendars comprehension of time, seasons, and cycles has proven itself to be vast and sophisticated. The Maya understand 17 different calendars, some of them charting time accurately over a span of more than ten million years. The calendar that has steadily drawn global attention since 1987 is called the Tzolk'in or Cholq'ij.

Devised ages ago and based on the cycle of the Pleiades, it is still held as sacred. With the indigenous calendars, native people have kept track of important turning points in history. For example, the day keepers who study the calendars identified an important day in the year One Reed, Ce Acatal, as it was called by the Mexicans. That was the day when an important ancestor was prophesied to return, "coming like a butterfly". In the Western Calendar, the One Reed date correlates to Easter Sunday, April 21,1519 the day that Hernando Cortez and his fleet of 11 Spanish galleons arrived from the East at what is today called Vera Cruz, Mexico.

When the Spanish ships came toward shore, native people were waiting and watching to see how it would go. The billowing sails of the ships did indeed remind the scouts of butterflies skimming the ocean surface. In this manner was a new era initiated, an era they had anticipated through their calendars.

The Maya termed the new era the Nine Bolomtikus, or nine Hells of 52 years each. As the nine cycles unfolded, land and freedom were taken from the native people. Disease and disrespect dominated. What began with the arrival of Cortez, lasted until August 16, 1987 - a date many people recall as Harmonic Convergence.

Millions of people took advantage of that date to make ceremony in sacred sites, praying for a smooth transition to a new era, the World of the Fifth Sun. From that 1987 date until now, Mr. Barrios says, we have been in a time when the right arm of the materialistic world is disappearing, slowly but inexorably. We are at the cusp of the era when peace begins, and people live in harmony with Mother Earth.

We are no longer in the World of the Fourth Sun, but we are not yet in the World of the Fifth Sun. This is the time in-between, the time of transition. As we pass through transition there is a colossal, global convergence of environmental destruction, social chaos, war, and ongoing Earth changes.

All this, Mr. Barrios says, was foreseen via the simple, spiral mathematics of the Mayan calendars. "It will change," Mr. Barrios observes. "Everything will change." He said Mayan Daykeepers view the Dec. 21, 2012 date as a rebirth, the start of the World of the Fifth Sun. It will be the start of a new era resulting from and signified by the solar meridian crossing the galactic equator, and the earth aligning itself with the center of the galaxy.

At sunrise on December 21, 2012 for the first time in 26,000 years the Sun rises to conjunct the intersection of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic. This cosmic cross is considered to be an embodiment of the Sacred Tree, The Tree of Life, a tree remembered in all the world's spiritual traditions.

Some observers say this alignment with the heart of the galaxy in 2012 will open a channel for cosmic energy to flow through the earth, cleansing it and all that dwells upon it, raising all to a higher level of vibration. This process has already begun, Mr. Barrios suggested. "Change is accelerating now, and it will continue to accelerate. If the people of the earth can get to this 2012 date in good shape, without having destroyed too much of the Earth, we will rise to a new, higher level. But to get there we must transform enormously powerful forces that seek to block the way."

A Picture of the Road Ahead.
From his understanding of the Mayan tradition and the calendars, Mr.Barrios offered a picture of where we are at and what may lie on the road ahead: The date specified in the calendar Winter Solstice in the year 2012 does not mark the end of the world. Many outside people writing about the Mayan calendar sensationalize this date, but they do not know. The ones who know are the indigenous elders who are entrusted with keeping the tradition. "Humanity will continue," he contends, "but in a different way. Material structures will change. From this we will have the opportunity to be more human."We are living in the most important era of the Mayan calendars and prophecies. All the prophecies of the world, all the traditions, are converging now.There is no time for games. The spiritual ideal of this era is action.

Many powerful souls have reincarnated in this era, with a lot of power. This is true on both sides, the light and the dark. High magic is at work on both sides. Things will change, but it is up to the people how difficult or easy it is for the changes to come about.

The economy now is a fiction. The first five-year stretch of transition from August 1987 to August 1992 was the beginning of the destruction of the material world. We have progressed ten years deeper into the transition phase by now, and many of the so-called sources of financial stability are in fact hollow. The banks are weak. This is a delicate moment for them. They could crash globally if we don't pay attention. If the banks crash .... then we will be forced to rely on the land and our skills. The monetary systems will be in chaos, and we must then rely on our direct relationship with the Earth for our food and shelter.

The North and South Poles are both breaking up. The level of the water in the oceans is going to rise. But at the same time land in the ocean, especially near Cuba, is also going to rise.

A Call for Fusion.
As he met with audiences in Santa Fe, Mr. Barrios told a story about the most recent Mayan New Year ceremonies in Guatemala. He said that one respected Mam elder, who lives all year in a solitary mountain cave, journeyed to Chichicastenango to speak with the people at the ceremony. The elder delivered a simple, direct message. He called for human beings to come together in support of life and light.

Right now each person and group is going his or her own way. The elder of the mountains said there is hope if the people of the light can come together and unite in some way. Reflecting on this, Mr. Barrios explained: "We live in a world of polarity: day and night, man and woman, positive and negative. Light and darkness need each other. They are a balance."

"Just now the dark side is very strong, and very clear about what they want. They have their vision and their priorities clearly held, and also their hierarchy. They are working in many ways so that we will be unable to connect with the spiral Fifth World in 2012."

"On the light side everyone thinks they are the most important, that their own understandings, or their group's understandings, are the key. There's a diversity of cultures and opinions, so there is competition, diffusion, and no single focus."

As Mr. Barrios sees it, the dark side works to block fusion through denial and materialism. It also works to destroy those who are working with the light to get the Earth to a higher level. They like the energy of the old, declining Fourth World, the materialism. They do not want it to change. They do not want fusion. They want to stay at this level, and are afraid of the next level.

The dark power of the declining Fourth World cannot be destroyed or overpowered. It's too strong and clear for that, and that is the wrong strategy. The dark can only be transformed when confronted with simplicity and open-heartedness. This is what leads to fusion, a key concept for the World of the Fifth Sun.

Mr. Barrios said the emerging era of the Fifth Sun will call attention to a much-overlooked element. Whereas the four traditional elements of earth, air, fire and water have dominated various epochs in the past, there will be a fifth element to reckon with in the time of the Fifth Sun: ether.

The dictionary defines ether as the rarefied element of the Heavens. Ether is a medium. It permeates all space and transmits waves of energy in a wide range of frequencies, from cell phones to human auras. What is "ethereal" is related to the regions beyond earth: the heavens.

Ether the element of the Fifth Sun is celestial and lacking in material substance,but is no less real than wood, stone or flesh. "Within the context of ether there can be a fusion of the polarities," Mr. Barrios said. "No more darkness or light in the people, but an uplifted fusion."

But right now the realm of darkness is not interested in this. They are organized to block it. They seek to unbalance the Earth and its environment so we will be unready for the alignment in 2012.

We need to work together for peace, and balance with the other side. We need to take care of the Earth that feeds and shelters us. We need to put our entire mind and heart into pursuing unity and fusion now, to confront the other side and preserve life. Mr. Barrios told his audiences in Santa Fe that we are at a critical moment of world history. "We are disturbed," he said. "We can't play anymore. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action."

"Everyone is needed. You are not here for no reason. Everyone who is here now has an important purpose. This is a hard, but a special time. We have the opportunity for growth, but we must be ready for this moment in history."

Mr. Barrios offered a number of suggestions to help people walk in balance through the years ahead. "The prophesied changes are going to happen," he said "but our attitude and actions determine how harsh or mild they are. We need to act, to make changes, and to elect people to represent us who understand and who will take political action to respect the earth."

"Meditation and spiritual practice are good, but also action. It's very important to be clear about who you are, and also about your relation to the Earth. Develop yourself according to your own tradition and the call of your heart. But remember to respect differences, and strive for unity. Eat wisely (Ormus rich food). A lot of food is corrupt in either subtle or gross ways. Pay attention to what you are taking into your body. Learn to preserve food, and to conserve energy. Learn some good breathing techniques, so you have mastery of your breath. Be clear. Follow a tradition with great roots. It is not important what tradition, your heart will tell you, but it must have great roots."

"We live in a world of energy. An important task at this time is to learn to sense or see the energy of everyone and everything: people, plants, animals. This becomes increasingly important as we draw close to the World of the Fifth Sun, for it is associated with the element ether, the realm where energy lives and weaves."

"Go to the sacred places of the earth to pray for peace, and have respect for the Earth which gives us our food, clothing, and shelter. We need to reactivate the energy of these sacred places. That is our work."

"One simple but effective prayer technique is to light a white or baby-blue colored candle. Think a moment in peace. Speak your intention to the flame and send the light of it on to the leaders who have the power to make war or peace."

We Have Work to Do.
According to Mr. Barrios, this is a crucially important moment for humanity, and for earth. Each person is important. If you have incarnated into this era, you have spiritual work to do balancing the planet. He said the elders have opened the doors so that other races can come to the Mayan world to receive the tradition.

The Maya have long appreciated and respected that there are other colors, other races, and other spiritual systems. "They know," he said, "that the destiny of the Mayan world is related to the destiny of the whole world."

"The greatest wisdom is in simplicity," Mr. Barrios advised before leaving Santa Fe. "Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you."

"Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way."

The Transparency of Things - Rupert Spira

Excerpt from The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience, by Rupert Spira


Whatever it is that is seeing and understanding these words, is what is referred to here as 'Consciousness. ' It is what we know ourselves to be, what we refer to as 'I.'

Everything that is known is known through Consciousness. Therefore, whatever is known is only as good as our knowledge of Consciousness.
...

The mind has built a powerful edifice of concepts about Reality that bears little relation to actual experience and, as a result, Consciousness has veiled itself from itself. These concepts are built out of mind and therefore their deconstruction is one of the ways through which Consciousness comes to recognise itself again -- that is, to know itself again.

Consciousness is in fact always knowing itself. However, through this deconstruction of concepts, Consciousness comes to recognise itself, not through the reflected veil of apparent objects, but knowingly and directly.

Concepts are not destroyed in this process. They are still available for use when needed.

In the contemplations that comprise this book it is acknowledged that the purpose of reasoning is not to frame or apprehend Reality. However, it is also acknowledged that the mind has constructed complex and persuasive ideas that have posited an image of ourselves and of the world that is very far from the facts of our experience.

These ideas have convinced us that there is a world that exists separate from and independent of Consciousness. They have persuaded us to believe that 'I,' the Consciousness that is seeing these words, is an entity that resides inside the body, that it was born and will die, and that it is the subject of experience whilst everything else, the world, 'other,' is the object.

Although this is never our actual experience, the mind is so persuasive and convincing, that we have duped ourselves into believing that we actually experience these two elements, that we experience the world separate and apart from our Self, and that we experience our own Self as a separate and independent Consciousness.

In the disinterested contemplation of our experience we measure the facts of experience itself against these beliefs.

The falsity of the ideas that the mind entertains about the nature of Reality, about the nature of experience, is exposed in this disinterested contemplation.

All spiritual traditions acknowledge that Reality cannot be apprehended with the mind. As a result of this understanding some teachings have denied the use of the mind as a valid tool of enquiry or exploration.

It is true that Consciousness is beyond the mind and cannot therefore be framed within its abstract concepts. However this does not invaldiate the use of the mind to explore the nature of Consciousness and Reality.

Ignorance is composed of beliefs and belief is already an activity of mind. If we deny the validity of mind, why use it in the first place to harbour beliefs?

By reading these words, we are, consciously or unconsciously, agreeing to accept the validity and, by the same token, the limitations of the mind.

We are giving the mind credibility in spite of its limitations. We are acknowledging its ability to play a part in drawing attention to that which is beyond itself or outside the sphere of its knowledge.

It would be disingenuous to use the mind to deny its own validity. Our very use of the mind asserts its validity. However, it is a different matter to use the mind to understand its own limits.

It may well be that at the end of a process of exploring the nature of experience, using the full capacity of its powers of conceptual thinking, the mind will come to understand the limits of its ability to apprehend the truth of the matter and, as a result, will spontaneously come to an end. It will collapse from within, so to speak.

However, this is a very different situation from one in which the mind has been denied any provisional credibility on the basis that nothing it says about Reality can ultimately be true.

As a result of the exposure of beliefs and feelings that derive from preconcieved, unsubstantiated notions of Reality, a new invitation opens up, another possibility is revealed.

This possibility cannot be apprehended by the mind because it is beyond the mind. However, the obstacles to this new possibility are revealed and dissolved in this investigation.

They are dissolved by our openness to the possibility that in this moment we actually experience only one thing, that experience is not divided into 'I' and other, subject and object, me and the world, Consciousness and Existence.

We are open to the possibility that there is only one single, seamless totality, that Consciousness and Existence are one, that there is only one Reality.

The edifice of dualistic ideas, which seems to be validated by experience, is well constructed with beliefs at the level of the mind and feelings at the level of the body, which are tightly interwoven, mutually substantiating and validating one another.

In the disinterested contemplation of these ideas and feelings their falsity is unraveled. We see clearly that our ideas do not correspond to our experience. This paves the way for experience to reveal itself to us as it truly is, as in fact it always is, free from the ignorance of dualistic thinking.

We begin to experience ourselves and the world as they truly are.

Our experience itself does not change but we feel that it changes. Reality remains as it always is, for it is what is, independent of the ideas we entertain about it.

However, our interpretation changes and this new interpretation becomes the cornerstone of a new possibility.

This new possibility comes from an unknown direction. It does not come as an object, a thought or a feeling. It is unveiled, in most cases, as a series of revelations, each dismantling part of the previous edifice of dualistic thinking.

And the unfolding of this revelation, in turn, has a profound impact on the appearance of the mind, the body and the world.

The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience, by Rupert Spira
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First 3-Day Silent Retreat in Costa Rica

0Our first silent retreat is finally complete with glowing results, at least it seemed so from the look on participants faces. It was small and intimate, only 5 of us and all women.

Our Zendo

We began on a beautiful, sunny Wednesday afternoon, with plenty of time to settle in private rooms, tour the grounds, and go over the schedule before dinner. After a meal of fresh fish, whole grains, and salad, we gathered for questions and answers in preparation for 3 days of silence. Everyone was ready to enter that now moment arising when we give our full attention to the Source of our Being.

Our Daily Focus

The schedule was very precise, incorporating three 40 minute sittings in the morning, a 2 1/2 hour break for lunch, and another 3 sittings in the afternoon. Sittings were alternated with 20 minute breaks for stretching and personal care. Following the evening meal, there was another sitting followed by a short satsang and & A session. Our only concern was the variable winds that sometimes are very strong in the mountains of Atenas. In fact, our first morning was punctuated by a gust that knocked down and shattered a small vase that held a bundle of sage. So we moved indoors for all of Thursday, only to realize in the evening that we preferred being out of+doors, even with the periodic blusters.

The Buddha Watches....

Though some were certain that maintaining silence would be difficult, each were dedicated to respect it as the medium for realization. We recognized collectively that every Master has pointed to the power of Silence as the gateway beyond concepts and beliefs and into experiential Oneness. Though 3 days is really the minimal amount of time within which the veil of thought becomes noticeable, everyone had a taste of that deep peace pre-existing before the mind takes one step.

Reflecting Stillness...

Saturday, the quiet was so compelling, no one wanted to leave. In silence, we discovered what is behind the rattling of our endless thoughts....just awareness. We used the Awareness Watching Awareness Method as a tool to help us focus our attention on Awareness itself, not easy when the mind is busy narrating everything you do. But all it takes is a glimpse....

Beauty Is...

Thank you to Juan Enrique and Unity of Costa Rica for your continuing support, and thank you M.S., S.V., C.M., and S.C. for your courage, sincerity, and willingness to trust me as your guide. It was truly wonderful to share this with you. Namaste.

Monetary Reform and How a National Monetary System Should Work

By Richard C. Cook in Global Research, May 11, 2007

The author has received an overwhelming response to his recent Global Research report entitled, “An Emergency Program of Monetary Reform for the United States.” The introduction to that report stated that, “the U.S. financial system headed by the Federal Reserve System has failed, and…only an emergency program of monetary reform can address conditions which may be leading to a catastrophe like the Great Depression or worse.”

This new report on “Monetary Reform and How a National Monetary System Should Work” continues the dialogue by outlining the principles and mechanisms available to help guide the creation of a monetary system for any nation that wishes to enjoy economic democracy with prosperity. This would be in contrast to the collapsing debt-based monetary system overseen by the Federal Reserve and the other central banks of the world, coordinated at the top by such institutions as the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of International Settlements.

Note that all the banks of the Western world are ultimately private institutions owned by the world’s super-rich. The international banking structure is operated by and on behalf of the world’s monetary elite primarily for their own profit.

Just below the banking system are the giant corporations of the global economy which derive capital from and funnel profits into the financiers’ empire. Bringing up the rear are the populations and debt-serfs of the no-longer-sovereign nation states, including those of the United States, whose participation in the system as consumers is essential, but whose jobs continue to disappear as manufacturing is increasingly automated.

The author had realized as early as 1970 that the central problem with the world’s economy lay on the side of distribution, not production. He came to Washington, D.C., that year and spent most of the next thirty-six years working within sight of the Washington Monument, learning how things really work, and pondering the methods that might be more in concord with such founding documents of American democracy as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Twenty-one of these years were with the U.S. Treasury Department.

Now, for the first time, this report builds on the findings of many of the world’s monetary reformers past and present by offering a complete prescription for a new and better world. This prescription is radically different from most progressive reform agendas that address only symptoms of the underlying systemic failures.

WHERE MONEY COMES FROM

When setting out to study monetary principles, we must realize how little we know of the real facts of monetary history. Economics is an extremely limited discipline rife with untested assumptions and unchallengeable dogmas. Its most pernicious doctrine is the assertion that there is something called “the market,” where there is an “invisible hand” that makes everything work out the way it is supposed to.

Actually, an economy functions according to the principles according to which it is designed and regulated. If it is designed to funnel wealth into the hands of the monetary controllers, then that is what the “market” and the “invisible hand” will do. If it is designed to foster “the general welfare,” as it should according to the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, then the “market” and the “invisible hand” will tend in that direction.

Unfortunately, we march today to the tune of the monetary elite, so they are the ones who reap the profits and the benefits. They are the ones on whom the “invisible hand” lavishes the wealth of the world.

It is done through the process of bank-created credit. While during the nineteenth century other forms of money circulated, such as large quantities of coinage, silver certificates, and government-issued greenbacks, almost all the money that exists today originates through a loan by a financial institution to an individual or a business.

When a loan is made it is issued as a liability on the bank’s ledger. When it is repaid, the liability is canceled. With today’s computer systems, all transactions are digitized, of course. The bank keeps the interest on the loan as its combined administrative fee and profit. The money that is lent had no prior existence.

Once money is created as credit, it takes many forms according to how the loan recipient spends it. Some credit is used by businesses or individuals as investment in order to generate profits over and above the amount they must repay to the bank with interest. If the money is used simply for consumer purchases, the individual consumer must pay back the loan through future earnings. In those cases where the borrower defaults on the loan or goes bankrupt, the money simply remains in circulation however it was spent.

Unfortunately, large amounts of credit are used mainly for speculation, not for any benefit to the producing economy. This includes securities bought on margin and borrowing by hedge funds where the fund may make a profit even if the value of its investments goes down. Bank-created credit in this case is little more than chips in a casino.

Other borrowing takes place by equity funds and other types of investors for leveraged mergers or buyouts of entire companies, where the predators wreck a company’s infrastructure by reducing costs and selling its assets, then pay back their bank loans before unloading the business on someone else.

The most important thing to realize about the banking system is that the money which enters into circulation as purchasing power must eventually be returned in the repayment of loans. This is why the Federal Reserve’s monetary measures—M1, M2, and M3—are meaningless, because so much of it has liens against it.

We are taught that paying it back is the way things should be—obviously, if we borrow something, we should pay back what we owe.

But the peculiar thing is that because the borrowed money pays for labor, commodities, rent, etc., it becomes part of the prices that are eventually charged for goods and services. However, when the money goes back to the bank to cancel a loan, that purchasing power disappears. Neither the banks nor economists ever make note of the fact that this process creates a chronic shortage of purchasing power which must be filled by more loans and more bank profits. The economy is thus a treadmill that borrowers must constantly trudge along in order to have enough money for survival.

So a system which is seemingly grounded in the simple adage that if you borrow you should repay is all wrong. The reason it is all wrong is that in most cases, individual consumers should never have to borrow in the first place. And we never ask ourselves why, with the abundance that is possible from modern science and technology, should people have to borrow money at interest for the necessities of life—a house, a car, household expenses, an education, etc.

Click here to read full article...

HealthyToys.org Lead Check Finds Toxic Toys Before Xmas

Toxic Toy Guide Lists Chemicals Found in Hundreds of Toys

ANN ARBOR, Michigan - One in every three of the more than 1,500 children's toys tested in time for the holiday shopping season have been found to contain "medium" or "high" levels of chemicals of concern such as lead, mercury, cadmium and arsenic.

Lead, bromine and chlorine were found in this piece of low-cost jewelry.

Researchers with the Michigan-based nonprofit Ecology Center tested for chemicals that have been associated with reproductive problems, developmental and learning disabilities, hormone problems and cancer; and for those identified by regulatory agencies as problematic.

The testing was conducted with a screening technology - the portable X-Ray Fluorescence analyzer - that identifies the elemental composition of materials on or near the surface of products.

The Ecology Center and partners across the country today released their second annual consumer guide to toxic chemicals in toys, which can be found online at www.HealthyToys.org.

Environmental health groups are holding toy testing events nationwide and urging manufacturers and the federal government to phase out the most harmful chemicals at once.

"There is simply no place for toxic chemicals in children's toys," said Ecology Center's Jeff Gearhart, who led the research.

"Our hope is that by empowering consumers with this information, manufacturers and lawmakers will feel the pressure to start phasing out the most harmful substances immediately, and to change the nation's laws to protect children from highly toxic chemicals," he said.

Lead was detected in 20 percent of the toys tested this year. Lead levels in 54 products were well above the 600 parts per million federal recall standard used for lead paint, and will exceed the U.S. legal limit in February, according to the new Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations.

If the new regulations were in effect today, some of the toys on the shelf this holiday season would be illegal to sell. When children are exposed to lead, the developmental and nervous system consequences are irreversible.

Levels of lead in many of the toys tested were above the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended ceiling of 40 ppm of lead in children's products.

Children's jewelry remains the most contaminated product category, maintaining its spot at the top of HealthyToys.org's "worst" list for a second year.

Overall, jewelry is twice as likely to contain detectable levels of lead as other products, the researchers found.

Numerous Hannah Montana brand jewelry items tested high for lead. HealthyToys.org recommends that consumers avoid low cost children's jewelry.

The website allows searches by product name, brand, or toy type to see if certain toys have toxic chemicals. The newly-redesigned site also lets visitors create a personalized holiday wish list that can be sent to family and friends, and a blog-friendly widget to quickly search the toy ratings.

With millions of toys on the market, HealthyToys.org could not test them all, but visitors to the website can nominate other products to be tested. The most commonly requested items will be tested each week leading up to the holidays.

Through its testing, HealthyToys.org found toys made in China are not the only ones that contain toxic chemicals. Tests show that 21 percent of toys from China and 16 percent of those from all other countries had detectable levels of lead in 2008.

About one-third of the 17 toys tested that were manufactured in the United States showed detectable levels of lead. Two toys had levels above 600 ppm. Among the highest lead levels detected was in a Halloween Pumpkin Pin made in the USA, which showed 190,943 ppm of lead.

Lead is not the only toxic found in the toys. Researchers also found toys containing cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and bromine. Forty-five products tested showed bromine at concentrations of 1,000 ppm or higher, indicating the use of brominated flame retardants - chemicals that may pose hazards to children's health.

Arsenic was detected at levels greater than 100 ppm in 22 products, while 289 products contained detectable levels of arsenic.

Cadmium, a heavy metal, was found above 100 ppm in 30 products, while 38 of products contained detectable levels of cadmium.

Mercury was found above 100 ppm in 14 products, while 62 of products contained detectable levels of mercury.

HealthyToys.org identified products made with polyvinyl chloride, PVC, plastic by measuring their chlorine content.

"PVC is a problematic plastic because it creates major environmental health hazards in its manufacture and disposal and may contain additives, including phthalates, that may pose hazards," the Ecology Center said. Twenty-seven percent of the toys tested this year by HealthyToys.org, excluding jewelry, were made with PVC.

"The good news is that 62 percent (954) of the products tested contain low levels of chemicals of concern, and 21 percent (324) of all products contain no chemicals of concern. These products look and feel no different than other children's products on the shelf," said the Ecology Center. "These findings show that manufacturers can and should make toys free of unnecessary toxic chemicals."

© 2008 Environmental News Service (ENS)