Love is the only power!

In the early 80s, when I entered my touchy-feely self-growth phase, I came across a recording by Rabbi David Zeller titled Love is the only Power. The lyrics are:
Love is the only power
Love is the only way
Love, Love
Our love
Watch our circle grow.

The song was sung in round with the lyrics repeated over and over. To me, the profound beauty is a simple take on the age old adage “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” http://www.religioustolerance.org/reciproc.htm has a listing of the various forms of this adage in the world’s major religious tradition. Virtually every major religious tradition expresses this adage in some form.

It seems to me that if people actually practiced this injunction, there would be no wars, poverty, famine or disease. There was a story circulating on the net this week, written by Joe Vitale, about a therapist, Dr. Len from Hawaii, who worked in a hospital ward that housed the criminally insane. The place was horrible. Therapists who worked there kept quitting. The staff fought among themselves. Some patients had to be chained for fear they’d attack the staff. Within a few months of Dr. Len started working there, the inmates started to heal: they required less medication and chained prisoners were allowed to walk about freely. In time, the ward was shut down because the patients healed so much they were able to be released. When asked how he achieved such a marvelous feat, Dr. Len said that he forgave the part of himself that helped create the situation. He would look at the patients’ records and repeat to himself, “I’m sorry” and “I love you.” Mr. Vitale points out that this is the ultimate taking responsibility for the creation of the world.

God-Realization is the goal of spirituality. Spirituality is an experience of the Divine presence. God-Realization and Self-Realization are the same thing. Tat Twam Asi, the Hindu expression meaning Though art That, means you are the thing you’re looking for. Maslow’s state of self-actualization is the awareness of the perfection of the One. If we all came from the same source, than we carry that source is within us. Waking up then means scraping away what we’re not to allow what we are to emerge. Waking up, too, means that we share the world’s consciousness. Anything we see in the world, good or bad, is some aspect of us. It can’t be otherwise.

There are some doctrines that are awaiting the return of the Messiah. Rabbi Zalman Schacter, a very inspiring rabbi said that we live in an age where we need to realize that the messiah is you. Unity says that you are the Christ. I believe it’s time, if one is a serious spiritual seeker, to stop seeking and start Being.

Honestly, I don’t want to forgive some of the stuff I see in the world. I in no way think that war or torture or deception are part of my consciousness. And yet, according to the principles of cognition, I can’t perceive anything that’s not part of my consciousness.

So as someone who wants to change the world, I’m spending more time forgiving myself for any and all hate, anger, fear, etc., etc. I’m forgiving myself for thinking that a world without love can even exist. And the miracle is that the more I do that, the more love I see.

The old metaphor that still works is that of a garden. Imagine the world is a garden and ask yourself what you want to cultivate. Do you want beautiful roses, then that’s what you have to focus on; do you want rotting vines, then that’s what you focus on.

Joel Goldsmith, a brilliant healer who lived in Boston in the 1950s who healed thousands and thousands of people never knew the names of symptoms of the people he healed. He would just go within and acknowledge and join with the one power in the universe.

There was an old quote by Eleanor Roosevelt about how one candle shines away the darkness. What would our world be like if we all just shone the light of love and really did do unto others what we would want to have done to us?

With love and peace,
Sorah Datri Dubitsky

Loverism vs consumerism: an example

Loverism, is a term I’ve coined as an alternative to consumerism. Loverism is defined as the art and practice of being loving. At a practical level, loverism is defined as investing our manufacturing and technological capabilities in products and services that are life affirming.

On a recent trip to Denver to visit family, the food choices consisted of four different box lunches consisting of prepackaged convenience foods. In looking over the menu of choices, I realized that none of these lunches met my standards of nutrition. They were all highly processed and laden with fat, starch, salt and sugar and carried negligible amounts of vitamins or minerals. So not only wouldn’t these foods nourish me in any way, but the only thing they’d provide me with would be a lot of calories. And, the airline had the nerve to charge $5.00 for each meal. What bothered me most was that the healthiest ‘lunch’ on the menu, consisting of tuna, gouda, organic crackers and raisins, was not available. Why? No one ordered it.

At that moment I realized that I couldn’t blame the airline for offering low quality food. Why not offer it? People eat it and are even willing to pay for it.

At the same time people are eating empty calories, there’s a furor over health care. Nutrition researchers have devised dietary guidelines. http://www.healthierus.gov/nutrition.html

Is the U.S. Government’s web site with the latest information about healthy eating. Fresh fruits and vegetables are integral to the healthy food recommendations.

There’s a paradox however: on the one hand it is evident that fresh, whole foods are healthier than processed highly refined foods, there are more processed foods sold in markets today than ever before. In addition, even though our government recommends eating fresh produce, it’s cut FDA funding for quality control inspectors. The recent outbreak of E Coli linked to spinach is a direct result of having too few inspectors making sure that the food we consume isn’t tainted.

In a society based on consumerism, all of the above paradoxes exist. People can eat what’s bad for them because that’s what’s readily available and through advertising is made enticing and there’s no oversight to ensure quality.

In a society based on loverism, where people are nourished rather than fed, no one would eat anything that’s bad for them. Food would be seen as something sacred; a gift from the earth; a thing to be relished and savored. Companies would invest in making sure that they produced only the purest, most wholesome foods under the most stringent hygienic conditions. And government would insist on overseeing the companies to ensure that they were living up to the highest standards.

There was a commercial for Hebrew National franks a few years ago that said that the company answered to a Higher authority. A society based on the loving values of a Higher authority, would want every single living entity to be nourished and cared for so that he or she can make the highest contribution to that society that he or she can make.

A life well-lived

In an age thick with threats of all kinds, staying happy may seem more difficult. The irony is that happiness and health go hand in hand. Stress, worry, and anxiety deplete us of energy reserves and contribute to illness and aging. To keep up with life’s demands, we need to have as much energy and enthusiasm as we can generate. The key to staying both healthy and happy is to savor the current moment. This sounds simplistic, but the more one focuses on the current moment, the more brain waves and breathing slow, and the body’s restorative mechanisms are able to kick in. How do we allow our bodies to restore? Below are five keys to savoring a well-lived life.

1. Practice breath awareness: Breathing patterns are related to mood. When we’re stressed, breathing is shallow. When we’re relaxed, breathing is full. Full breath means that your cells are receiving more oxygen. Your system is restored to a state of equilibrium. One simple breath that will begin the restorative process is to focus your attention on the middle of your chest and inhale to a count of four and exhale to a count of four. As you slow your breath, your mind becomes clearer and more focused. By calming your mind, you can begin to pay attention to your body’s subtle promptings

2. Tune into your Chi: Chi is the vital energy that animates the body. Chi is also called prana and kundalini. By tuning into your Chi, you will become more and more aware of the difference between feeling good and feeling bad. The busyness of mind chatter and multi-tasking takes a toll physically. A full body scan, done with eyes closed and slowed breathing, not only restores energy, but makes you more aware of when you’re body is functioning optimally.

3. Make pleasure a priority: Doing what you love doing is healthy. This should be a no-brainer. Yet, too many people deprive themselves of joy. Sunsets, music, sensuous fragrances, fine wine, great food, and giving and receiving love are all part of life's bounty.

4. Practice gratitude: Gratitude is a very healing feeling. When you focus more on what you have, what you have multiplies. Gratitude sends happy hormones to your brain and initiates the relaxation response.

5. Love somebody: Giving and receiving love is the primary human need. Dr. Dean Ornish, who reversed heart disease through behavioral change and diet, has found that love and intimacy are the most important contributors to health and well-being.

The times we live in require clear thinking, emotional balance, physical strength, and spiritual fearlessness. By practicing the five keys above, you will be able to handle anything that comes your with grace and energy You will feel healthier, happier and more fulfilled.

Healing Our Relationship with the Earth

When I read about the current administration’s lack of any strategies to protect against global warming, I am reminded of the movie The Matrix. In the movie, people are kept alive in pods by some global corporate conspirators. The people in the pods are dreaming their lives - i.e., jobs, families, towns, cities, are all a dream. Before I saw the movie, I had been told it had deep metaphysical significance, but failed to see beyond the revolutionary visual effects that the movie was most noted for.
But then a vision came to me that human beings, or at least human beings living in the U.S. are very much like the people in the pods. We’re asleep to the fact that our lives are being run by corporate interests.
There was an episode of Friends where one of the characters, Joey, reads the wedding ceremony he had written for his friends’ Monica and Chandler’s wedding as part of his ministerial duties. He talks about how Monica and Chandler “share and care and give and receive,” repeating the words over and over. Spiritual values are about sharing and caring and giving and receiving repeated over and over.
Our society does not foster spiritual values, although it pays lip service to them. If we really concerned ourselves with sharing, caring, giving and receiving, then George Bush and his administration could never get away with passing off an energy policy that actually allows for the increase of greenhouse gas emissions, but is cloaked in language that sounds as if greenhouse gases would be reduced.
I see Americans driving around in SUV’s with American flags sticking up from the windows, asleep to the fact that their SUV’s are part of the greenhouse gas problem. SUV’s are part of the bigger problem that Americans are asleep to. The bigger problem is the fact that their consumption patterns are the cause of global warming and other environmental problems that they face.
We fill the earth with toxic chemicals that pollute our ground water, but then buy bottled water. We spew toxic emissions into the air widening the hole in the ozone, but then slather ourselves with SPF 50. A miraculous life is a conscious life and a conscious life is about seeing the cause and effect relationship between our actions and their consequences. In the dream sleep we’re living, we are blind to consequences. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can see the consequence of our current energy and consumption policies. Our beaches are disappearing. If you’ve ever seen the coast from the air, there’s just this thin little strip of sand separating the ocean from the towering high rises that continue to be built.
I believe we’re at a choice point. Can we wake up? Can we demand that our legislatures support alternatives to our oil based economy? They exist. A search on the web for “alternative energy” sites brings up pages and pages of links. Can we actually apply the spiritual values of “sharing and caring and having and giving,” articulated by Joey in his impassioned description of his friends’ relationship? It’s those values, coupled with waking up to the consequences of our actions that will provide a sustainable future for everyone on this planet. The good news is that some people are waking up. Some states, like California, and some countries, like England, are joining forces to institute earth-saving measures.
The real healing comes when we realize that we’re not separate from any living thing. What we think, say and do impact the whole. Love begets love. Indifference begets indifference. Ignorance begets ignorance. The kind of world we want to see really is the kind of world we get.

Staying Sane in an Insane World

I was raised with the dictum, “You shouldn’t be too happy!” The phrase wasn’t overtly stated, but my family had a generalized angst that I internalized at an early age. Worry was my family’s response mode to any crisis, and even when there wasn’t a crisis, well, there were still the everyday worries to worry about.
My mother suffered from manic-depressive illness. Her way of coping with major transitions – good or bad – was to become psychotic. The first episode that I was aware of occurred when I was five, but according to what a cousin told me recently, my mother showed signs of manic behavior soon after I was born. My cousin told me that she wanted to adopt me.
Had she adopted me, I would have missed out on an opportunity to learn about mental illness and insanity. I would have missed out on learning about the freedom that comes from love and forgiveness and seeing another as yourself.
The main lessons life offers us over and over is to question our sanity, if we were honest with ourselves. Who doesn’t struggle with staying sane in this insane world we live in? Who’s not neurotic here? Who’s not living in fear on a daily basis? There are those who achieve enlightenment without being neurotic. I’m not one of them.
This essay isn’t about what my mother did to me. As one of my teacher’s, Marianne Williamson has often repeated, “God says to us I want to give you a wonderful life, but your mother was such a bitch, my hands are tied.”
This essay is about the lessons of living a spiritual life. A spiritual life is nothing more than having a worldview that allows for (a) going inside to find the resources we need to cope with whatever life hands us; and (b)having that inner awareness become the touchstone or modus operandi of daily living.
I’ll always be grateful to my husband, Larry, for teaching me that life is much too important to be taken seriously. A neurotic, which I readily admit I am, takes herself very seriously. That’s because she has forgotten who she is. The only problem I or anyone in this world has is an identity problem. There was a song I remember hearing called Remembering and Forgetting. When I’ve identified with my ego self as Sorah and that’s all I am, then I’m in a state of neurosis. Neurosis is separation from self. This state has to breed fear, because as an ego or an “I, I’m vulnerable to all the other “I’s” in the world. When I remember – no, more than remember – when I feel my connection to certainty or when I’m grounded in it — then I am remembering who I am. And when I remember, I’m at peace.
Problems or chaos or turmoil or trauma force us to reach inside and to and find that wisdom, strength, peace, inspiration, intuition, still small voice or whatever you want to call it, that when heeded, leads us step by step to growth.
A spiritual path is not for the queasy. The process is one of uncovering the light or love or wisdom that resides within each of our soul’s. To uncover light, first one needs to look at the covering. That’s what life’s lessons are about. We get to look at ourselves and see what we’re made of. Some of us think that who we are is the covering. The covering is what we’ve come to identify as “I.” The covering is made up of all the roles we play, our belief systems, and the sum total of all our past experiences. The spiritual life means taking responsibility for our lives totally and completely. It requires that we look at each one of the pieces of the covering because any ideas about who we are and what we need to do are limiting. To grow spirituality means allowing these ideas to be dispelled. Once I let go of the identity I made, then I can remember that we are all one. Then we are free to follow our hearts. Following your heart doesn’t mean that you dwell in bliss forever. My experience taught me that sometimes when I followed my heart, I found bliss, but then sometimes that bliss was short lived. Or sometimes when I followed my heart, things fell apart. Mostly following my heart lead me to bigger challenges, people, events, situations that tested my mettle and made me go even deeper inside to marshal the resources I needed to rise to the occasion. I've found that when I follow my heart, there is no road map. It's like Stephen Levine once said to me, "I Braille my way through life." That's what the path with the heart is. It's a feeling journey – a -- a sensing journey. The path with the heart leads us to the depths of ourselves. The path with a heart leads to the home within our hearts we never left. Following a path with a heart means trusting yourself. It’s the only way to stay sane in an insane world.
Reflection
In order to enjoy your spiritual peace, you have to give it away. For example, this morning I was nuts – really, really angry at someone. I was so angry, I called a friend to vent, which didn’t really get rid of the anger; it just validated my right to be angry. I prayed for help to release my anger. I had an appointment to work on a grant. The time spent with my co-worker was really enjoyable. We got into creative sync that was satisfying to both of us. The grant had to do with getting funds to create a spiritual center. My co-worker began asking me questions about what it means to lead a spiritual life. There was my opportunity to get sane again by teaching what I had to learn. I had to be peaceful in order to teach peace. If you give away money or objects, you have less. If you give peace to another person, you have more of it.
Peace is like a river. When you give a cup of peace to another, you find that you haven’t given up anything. The Source of Peace is eternal; the more you give away, the more flows into your heart.
Share your peace today with a person, a flower, a plant or a pet. Experience the fullness that comes after you have given. At the end of the day, take time to mentally note of what your day was like. Enjoy.

Seeing another as yourself is the key to healing relationships. Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati said that in some Native American tribes there is no word for I; they only have words for we. I believe in win/win outcomes. But to have a win/win outcome, means that we need to focus on what we really, really want. A Course in Miracles says that what we really, really want is peace. It also says that when peace is all you want, that's what you'll see.

Non-attachment means relinquishing attachments to tangibles. Everything tangible in this world will one day disappear. It's the intangibles, love, peace, forgiveness, compassion, mercy that have lasting effects. We carry them with us from life time to life time.

Be kind to each other. That's the only thing that's important.

Seeing another as yourself is the key to healing relationships. Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati said that in some Native American tribes there is no word for I; they only have words for we. I believe in win/win outcomes. But to have a win/win outcome, means that we need to focus on what we really, really want. A Course in Miracles says that what we really, really want is peace. It also says that when peace is all you want, that's what you'll see.

Non-attachment means relinquishing attachments to tangibles. Everything tangible in this world will one day disappear. It's the intangibles, love, peace, forgiveness, compassion, mercy that have lasting effects. We carry them with us from life time to life time.

Be kind to each other. That's the only thing that's important.

The holiest place on earth

According to A Course in Miracles, “the holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love” (T26.IX.6). By that definition, the Holy Land is not very holy, since ancient hatreds prevail regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the reasons. And, by ACIM’s definition, a holy war is impossible. Holiness is love. War is hate.

Many of the readers of this newsletter are spiritual seekers, and like me, are trying to incorporate an authentic sense of spirit into their lives. I’ve received email messages recently from Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson, whose insights into spirituality have influenced millions and millions of people. Marianne urges us to pray and ask to see beyond differences; Deepak urges us to establish a presence of peace where we are.

My latest column on http://www.religionandspirituality.com/ is titled “Making love to the Beloved” (http://www.religionandspirituality.com/view.php?StoryID=20060730-113126-5109r. While its focus is on seeing your spouse as the Beloved, or the embodiment of God on earth, I often wonder what the world would be like if everyone would see everyone else as the Beloved. In truth, that’s what we all are. Mother Theresa knew that. Mother Theresa is said to have looked at sick and dying children knowing that they are “Christ in disguise.” Christ is another name for God’s Creation, which is all of us. It’s a shared Self, and is only known through sharing. One of the songs that’s sung at Shabbos services, L’Cha Dodi, translates to “I am my Beloved and my Beloved is me.”

Steve Bhaerman, a/k/a Swami Beyondananda (http://wakeuplaughing.com/news.html), in his latest Notes from the Trail, cites cell Biologist’s Bruce Lipton’s work about how fear makes people stupid. When people are in “fight or flight” mode, blood leaves the frontal lobe, the seat of higher intellectual functioning, and goes to the reptile brain, which is the seat of instinctual reactions. This makes sense for enhancing short-term survival reactions, but in the long run, it makes for irrational thinking.

Sending love and prayers to the Middle East so sanity can return may have an effect. I honestly don’t know. It doesn’t seem that prayer has worked yet. But remembering our spiritual connectedness right here and right now does work. It also means that wherever we stand is Holy Ground. To stay focused on love, without denying fear, takes tremendous discipline, and yet it’s the only way to thrive during adversity. And I breathe in love and breathe out compassion and pray that all my hatred be converted to mercy and forgiveness.
Namaste,

Sorah Datri (my new Hindu name, as bestowed on me by my guru, Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati).

Link to my column about Married Sex on UPI's Religion and Spirituality Form

From Lust to Love: The Path of Relationship

http://www.religionandspiritualityforum.com/view.php?StoryID=20060514-084236-3109r