Between the Cracks

Beware of this Splinter Group. A correspondent for the Village Voice, Tony Ortega, recently wrote about a long standing law suit that a former member of Scientology brought against this L. Ron Hubbard-founded organization and subsequently added a recent resolution article to the original set piece. I have added the website location so you may read this long and winding tale of subterfuge loaded with threats and innuendo and other nefarious elements.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0826,Scientologys-Crushing-Defeat,487758,2.html/full

Known to be politically incorrect but hopefully as spiritually up front as possible and as honest as the day is long, I would like to see the shell fronts of groups like Scientology be exposed for what they really are-dangerous breeding grounds to entrap and milk the mind of its capacity to discern truth love and beauty from manipulation and control using the most sinister forms of ‘come into my parlor said the spider to the fly’ mantra. The no-money-back Scientology offer is that this dark and dangerous camouflage renegade cartel will remove all the negative input from the world at large and guarantee you ‘peace in the valley’ for life. From what survivors of these empty promises have to say under ‘so help me God’ oaths in the Courts of Law, Scientology is armed and dangerous; that its end game is to distort and destroy your ability to discern between good and evil and they do it by separating one out from family and friends who might spoil the chicanery and darkness from which they operate.

Opposite end of the Spectrum. I was recently at the 87^th birthday celebration of my spiritual teacher, Swami Swahananda, headmaster of the Vedanta Society of Southern California and I once again returned to a place where one is never indoctrinated but has access to one’s own spiritual sanctuary within himself or herself where the God within can speak with the still small voice of intuition. One of those who flew to California with me to hear Swami speak said that they could not understand a word he said. (Although Swami has been in America for years and years and years, his India accent is very pronounced. I read lips; what’s the problem?) When I told this to Swami he said, “Ramapriya (my initiation Sanskrit name), it is better that she understand herself.” Once I went to him and said that someone had said something terrible to me about me-it took me 45 minutes to tell Swami the whole painful and sordid tale with all the drama of a Leo rising like I have in my astrological birth chart. Swami: “Ramapriya, once you said to me ‘I am not who I think I am.’ Perhaps you are not who he thinks you are either.” In 20 seconds Swami reintroduced me to the authentic me and I went away joyful.

Who do you Worship? Have you been snared by the likes of Scientology? With me, a traditional Christian religion that once controlled me with half-truths was my bete noir and Rubicon. I am very careful about whose tenets I embrace and whose divinity I espouse. I suggest you only bow down to an ism if it rings true for you.

Global Prayer Project
Prayer, Meditation & Discussion 
with James & Salle Redfield

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Tuesday, July 1
8-9 pm Eastern/US

click here to convert to your local time

Accessible via Live Teleconference & Webcast
- see below -

If you can’t join us, please hold a supportive prayer vision for the world at that time…

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This week’s prayer visualization
Tensions are escalating in the Middle East. Iran continues to posture for the destruction of Isreal and many in the west are calling for a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Our prayer initiative will focus on all parties involved and visualize that leaders will emerge who can find a way toward a peaceful resolution. Also, as usual, we will focus on the needs of our participants, sending a prayer visualization for all those experiencing grief, conflicts, illness, or just a need for clarity about a decision, to move toward peace.

Follow-up discussion
Is war and violence ever a correct response to conflict? When will we end wars?

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Our twice-monthly gatherings have been making a powerful difference, both in people’s individual lives and the world at large. Many of you have written us saying that the energy generated from this network of spiritually-minded participants is “indescribable,” and we look forward to continuing this healing circle of focused prayer. Like all prayer experience devoted to helping others, many participants have felt the results in their own bodies and received guidance for their own lives.

Research tells us that the more people praying together, the more powerful the prayer and the greater the level of energy felt by the participants. We invite you to join the largest regular prayer network in the world. If you would like to take an active role in maintaining a circle of positive intention across the globe, while going deeper and heightening your own spirituality, join us on Tuesday, July 1.

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US & CANADA
Tuesday, July 1
8 pm New York 
5 pm Los Angeles

AUSTRALIA
Wednesday, July 2
10 am Sydney

EUROPE
Wednesday, July 2
1 am London

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Teleconference:
Call 212/461-5860 OR 646/519-5860
Caller ID: 6999#

The phone line will open at 7:55pm EDT. Call the number above and follow the directions. Once you are connected to the call, please say your name and where you are from, and then press *6 to mute yourself so the noise level will be kept to a minimum. Each participant will be responsible for their own long-distance phone charges.

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Let’s see how large we can grow, and how much difference we can make…

Blessings,
James Redfield
Salle Merrill Redfield

EXTENDING PRAYER FIELDS
For centuries, religious scriptures, poems, and philosophies have pointed to a latent power of mind within all of us that mysteriously helps to affect what occurs in the future. We are now finding that this prayer power is a field of intention, which moves out from us and can be extended and strengthened, especially when we connect with others in a common vision.
The Eleventh Insight

Opportunity Not Depression; Faith not Fear

At long last I can crow, “Age has its privileges-the longer you live the more you have had to endure-good times and bad”.

I‘m reading On Chesil Beach-set in the English countryside in the 40’s-by British writer Ian McEwan in which Lionel, one of the main characters, talks about having to walk or ride a bicycle because the petrol is too dear. In 2008 we bawling American babies act as if the sky has fallen or God has turned on us with the soaring price of gas. We cower in the corner with all the flooding-did anyone ever ask why smart and pre-warned homeowners would build or buy in a flood plain? God, I wonder what the tubbies would do if they had lived in World War II when everything was rationed, especially meat (which according to Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa in Aventura, Florida, causes bloating and mid-section expansion just when you need it to deflate). Okay, so the stock market does up and down like an escalator-down 350 points today-and Federal regulators have increased their search and expose efforts because there are so many crooks in the business of investing your money. So? We are living in a greedy society-all of us to one degree or another can be included in this line-up-so what happened to ‘working for a living and investing with modest return expectations’?

What is going on in the land of ‘O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain…’ is a reflection of each of us at a deep soul level. We have grown up to be credit card junkies-in a stupor to Hollywood glam and egocentric actors and actresses whose lives on and off the silver screen have us mesmerized to the point of having to have what we see and hear and read about-paradise and splendor whether we can afford it or not.

I am not one to preach about family values since I don’t put much stock in family, but I do have a lot to say about why we are in the condition we are-in our own backyard and from the great plains, coast-to-coast, inside and outside the Beltway right up to the hallowed privileged pair living in the White House. We are getting what we deserve and the minute we start claiming our just deserts the clock will start ticking to demark our return to sanity and self-responsibility. Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you do not need to listen to self-serving pundits on television and radio to have it revealed that it is not anyone else’s fault but our own for buying into the nut-house philosophy of borrowing in order to keep up with the Rockefellers.

May I sprinkle your morning java with a little faith instead of the abject fear you have been absorbing since the sub-prime expose starting the gutter ball rolling and panic spreading like the bubonic plague of the Dark Ages? I love clichés especially one that says, ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going.’ It is time for all of us to stop the nonsense that Armageddon is just around the corner. No, sir. What is in the here and now and near future is an opportunity to rebuild a better house, brick by brick, and stone by stone.

The Internet news sites have headlines about President Bush’s welcoming remarks to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in the Oval Office. The quotation makes us want to cringe.”And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the — of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House”. (Laughter.)

First, let’s set the record straight. The Executive Chef at the White House is a woman named Cristeta Comerford. She was selected after a 10 month search and has no doubt earned her title and her longevity in the job. She is both the first woman and the first Filipino to hold the position. It is not a question of whether or not she deserves recognition.

The problem with the comment is that it displays the tin ear that our President has about what, when and how to say something that is appropriate. We expect the word salad at the beginning of the sentence; that’s old hat. What makes us cringe or, in this case, nervously laugh, is how little attention this man pays to anything that is not directly in front of his face. Filipino-Americans have been artists, authors, poets, politicians, athletes and Medal of Honor recipients. They have lived in this country since the middle of the 18th century. One would think that someone at the White House would slip Mr. Bush a list of 3 -5 prominent people that he might reference along with his chef. It would have been a small act, a gracious act, but one that would have communicated respect.

But our President has turned into an easy target, a piñata for us all to take a whack at for anything from the war to the economy to health care and on and on. It’s almost too easy to cringe at what he says because most of us have come to the conclusion that much of what he says is at best ill informed or at worst a total misrepresentation of the facts. The real question for us all is how he came to be in the White House for eight years.

The easy answer is that we put him there. Not having voted for him doesn’t get any of us off the hook. He’s there because the majority of us voted for him the second time and the rest of us weren’t energized enough to oppose him. He is what we wanted and perhaps he is what we needed.

Consider this:
A very successful man has a large apartment in the city and several houses in the country in several different countries. He wants for nothing and devotes little thought to how he is blessed and how he accumulates his wealth. One day he walks out the front door of his building, begins to cross the street and is hit by a bus. Severely injured, he is taken to a hospital where he lies in traction for the better part of the year. As he lays there, in pain a good deal of the time, he evaluates his life. At the end of the year he leaves the hospital with a new awareness, a new set of values and a determination to define himself by something other than how much he has accumulated.

Was getting hit by the bus a good thing?

There are precious few of us who welcome misery and shame into our lives. The scriptures and the metaphysics may tell us that embracing pain it is the path to salvation and enlightenment, but not a lot of us are signing up for that - or so we think.

The fact is that we did sign up for it and we are in the latter stages of understanding what we chose. We can howl at the moon and beat our breasts and rend our clothing; it may be cathartic but it won’t accomplish much. Identifying what we don’t want may be useful, but nothing really changes until we do the work of being clear on what we do want.

From that perspective, Bush has been a necessary and important step in the rebirth of the promise of America. Without him we would not see who we have become and without him we would not recognize who we can be again.

Let’s take a closer look…

Every so often I have an epiphany, a brilliant insight or an itch that I scratch and scratch and scratch until I write about it. This latest compilation of the heretofore mentioned big three came as I read about something a columnist in England had to say about the upcoming presidential election in November.

http://www.utne.com/2008-06-20/Spirituality/Astrological-Disaster-Looms-In-Obama-McCain-Election.aspx?blogid=28

Always known to be politically and religiously and scientifically incorrect, I decided to weigh in on a lot of the %$#@^%&^$$ shenanigans that we of the red, white and blue and the democratic way of life are miring ourselves down with. And I welcome all comments as long as you do as I do-include yourself in the insanity of what is going on from the great plain clapboards to the trailers of Florida-stupid and inane performances by all of us.

STOCK MARKET
Grrr. This category, Alex, makes me so mad I could spit when playing Jeopardy! Nothing makes me crazier than to play the game of buying into the American dream when one sector of the financial diversion game is to throw money into NASDAQ, S&P or the ole tried-and-true slut, the Dow Jones. Grrrr. Who with a 5th grade education would join a club run on fear and innuendo as does the Stock Market? Today as I write, the typical investor did not like something that happened with UPS, so down went the Dow escalator. Hysterical Hyenas and Nervous Nells are running the largest most heavily invested crap shoot in the history of Mankind, and we know that it is run on fear, gloom and doom and yet we beg to get in. My momma used to brag that she would put her money in the bank and earn 3% rather than speculate on whimsy. She died with modest means but she slept at night.

In New York Magazine today (June 24, 2008), there was a story about a trader who eloquently and powerfully is able to out the malfeasance of companies like Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. “Anonymous sources” said that a naysayer like this trader negatively affects the market. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

POLITICS
If I hear one more politician like Barack Obama or John McCain make a fool of himself and then apologize before the cancer can kill his candidacy I am going to storm the gates with the few to demand to hear what he means and stands by. Everything in the American political landscape is about floating trial balloons and if they are not shot down within five minutes by blowhard Lou Dobbs or know-it-all Focus on the Family founder Dodson or shame-on-you Sean Hannity, the balloon lives to fly another day. Is there a pure and simple statesman out there? If so, call me. Let’s do lunch.

In that same New York Magazine there was a article about Hillary Clinton extolling the virtues of this feminist losing candidate in the presidential race who elevated the status for other women who might come after her. The article was a shameful exposition of what I said above-politics as usual. When are we ever going to turn back the tide of skullduggery in the politics?

OIL
Who in the world is dumb, dumber and dumbest enough not to know that after we invaded several countries in the name of oil among other patriotic reasons that one day black gold would not be hundreds of dollars a barrel? Several people that I know in the tiny kingdom of Sedona have bought scooters, albeit powered ones. Many are riding bicycles. A few have dusted off their feet and are walking to work or to the store or to the synagogue to pray us out of this mess.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
I loved what Wanda Sykes, the funniest woman besides Bette Midler I ever heard, said about when a woman marries a woman or a man, a man. “What’s all the fuss? What’s got yo panties in a wad about two people of the same sex getting hitched when you don’t want to marry some girlfriend? Just because yo marriage is %%#&&^$$ up don’t mean those two lesbians ain’t gonna be happy. Chill. Try it; you might like it.” Okay, so I am paraphrasing a tad, but you get the picture. What’s the big deal? Do not write me hostile letters quoting scriptures about how homosexuality is a sin. I memorized every Bible verse written when I was a tortured Baptist, and I can promise you that the God of my understanding is not going to condemn two women for loving one another or two men either. “Love thy neighbor as thyself…just love not hate, and quit tending to other people’s business.” Okay. So I paraphrased again, but you get the drift. Butt out and write me about your holier than thou straight partnership. Not!

BLAME
I am to blame for what a crummy game the stock market is because I keep playing it and bitch when my portfolio shrinks. Politicians say stupid things and then tuck tail and meow, “I’m sorry,” because I let them get by with it. In the Sedona Intensive, clients have to change their behavior and are given life-changing demerits when they say such self-serving, meaningless and empty sissy talk like, “I apologize.” I indict me with “shame on me” for buying expensive oil when I should have stormed Washington when George Bush invaded Iraq-invasion of someone else’s country caused the price of oil to continue to climb. Then I should have stopped buying gas.

O, you in the great sea of unwashed and mewling and puking crybabies-straighten up and fly right. Walk. Invest in yourself. Run for office and out yourself before the pundits do.

George Will was on NPR (National Public Radio) one night last week when I was searching the dial to fill an evening when the New York Mets were not playing baseball (and therefore not losing) and I was in need of some background conversation. Mr. Will, for those of you not in the United States, is a conservative columnist and a regular on a Sunday talk show. He is a well groomed fellow who wears wire rimmed glasses and a bow ties and he speaks with a certainty that I associate with my grandfather. It’s a very comforting certainty, almost narcotic in its effect.Mr. Will believes in the marketplace. It is, in his opinion, the panacea for all ailments. The US automobile industry is suffering because it should - it makes lousy cars that no one wants to buy. Oil prices reflect demand - drill more, increase supply and the price will go down. There is something very absolute in his views. Simply behave in the manner he proscribes and all will be well. All will be well if you look down from 50,000 feet, but on the ground things don’t seem to operate with the seductive simplicity that Mr. Will insists on.

When we think of the market most of us think about the stock market. Putting the latest index prices for the exchanges in New York, Tokyo, London and Frankfurt on one’s home page is a simple matter and our spirits can be dashed or buoyed by the red or black numbers that we see. Unfortunately, as we have discovered in fits and starts over the past year, the stock exchanges are really no longer the place where most trading occurs. There are unregulated markets for “structured financial products” which include mortgage backed securities, insurance on those securities and a whole range of other derivative instruments. The face value of these instruments dwarfs the value (several times over) of all the stocks and bonds traded on the regulated financial markets.

The unraveling of this system of derivatives is ongoing and it might be reasonable to assume that Mr. Will would instruct us not to be circumspect in our definition of the market. He might tell us that the credit squeeze, the foreclosures and the unemployment resulting from the financial losses in seemingly tangential treasury functions of corporations is but an example of the marketplace working its magic, regulated or not. Here the simplicity of the concept begins to get tangled up in human suffering but life is tough. You get what you pay for. The market is the great leveler of man’s folly.

No doubt that the competitive attitude required to play in the capitalist system has generated tremendous advances in the standard of living and the ability for humans to live in hope and see a brighter future. While that future seems increasingly in question the issue is not whether the market works but whether or not we have evolved as human beings since the 18th century. Commerce is but one part of our lives. Many cultures embrace that idea and incorporate relationships, family, art, science and religion or spirituality and give them equal or greater importance. We here in the United States tend to look askance at those folks. They ought to stop hanging around and get to work.

This idea that the lives of people, their aspirations, health and wellbeing had no value in commerce was informally codified in the United States in the early 90″s when virtually all corporations broke the social contract and subsequent legislation allowed them to terminate anyone and everyone for any or no reason at all. This ability to reduce or expand “headcount” without having to deal with external agencies or mandatory severance made us more nimble and efficient. The problem with all this, however, is that employees quickly understood the game and began to see their current employment as a place to build a resume in anticipation of the next job. Identification with the company and the strategy has fractured along with all of the built in risk management attributes that were so valuable when employees were valuable. Most theft these days occurs inside companies, not from external 3rd parties.

Hard times often results in a reevaluation of what is important and what is not. The market, whose only metric is profit, has defined what is valuable for the past three decades. We have an opportunity to think that through again.

I suppose Mr. Will and I do share something in common; a love of baseball and the manner in which it is a metaphor for American life. The game seems to embody every aspect of our culture. There is cheating and stealing and there are umpires who can’t seem to see a foul pole or a strike zone. There are also acrobatic catches, clutch hitting and tremendous heart and determination, individually and collectively. We Americans are all those things and we seem to gyrate back and forth between the good and the ugly in a wave that has greater amplitude in their expression than in most other countries. But there is a growing sense that we might be on the verge of fixing some things.

I believe Mr. Will’s team is the St. Louis Cardinals. They aren’t doing so well either.