Today, I am thrilled to have Michael Murphy, co-founder of Esalen Institute, one of the fathers of the human potential movement, author of many books, brilliant thinker, great story teller and intrepid explorer into unseen worlds, as my on-air guest. We’ll be discussing new research into life after “death”. This promises to be a lively and informative discussion!
You may want to hear my weekly radio show, but can’t because you’re working, or just away from the computer. Now I have begun to podcast the shows (2 are up so far). It’s not perfect yet (I have to upload them in pieces, for example), but it does work, and the sound quality is pretty good. To listen to the podcasts, go to my website, http://www.888-4-hollis.com and click on PODCAST in the menu bar at the top. This will take you to a sign in page (which you only have to do once for any and all podcasts), and then you’ll be emailed the link to the podcasts.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
How YOU can help end the "War on Terror"
It isn’t what you think.
First, we have to look at the meaning of the phrase “war on terror”. This has been widely derided as absurd, because “you can’t make war on a tactic”. This is true, but misses the mark. The tactic is terrorism, and so if one were making war on a tactic, this would be the “War on Terrorism”, but it wasn’t named that. Let’s go deeper.
“Terror” is, of course, an emotion, an exaggerated fear. So the “War on Terror” is actually a war on an emotion. Absurd, right? Well, perhaps not absurd, but fiendishly clever.
War is the man-made mass event that is most feared in the world. And so war creates fear — war creates terror. Aha! This is self-reinforcing. The war creates the very thing it is supposedly made to stop. So the “War on Terror” is designed to be never-ending. You might think of it, instead, as the “Love of Terror”.
Then you have to ask the age old question, “Who benefits?” I’ll leave the answer to that one up to your imagination and investigation, because this isn’t meant to be a political article.
So how do you help end the “War on Terror”? It’s simple.
Refuse to be afraid. If you’re not afraid, those who would manipulate you, can’t. This is true at every level from the boyfriend or girlfriend who threatens to leave you if you don’t do a certain thing, or act a certain way, all the way up to a group or a nation threatening another group or nation with bombs if they don’t behave in the way the first group wants.
But, you say, fear is natural. Yes, that’s true. Fear is an evolutionary mechanism related to “fight or flight”. Humans evolved so that when confronted by a large, hungry animal, their instincts helped protect them so they’d live and procreate another day. But much of what we fear today is artificial — we fear ridicule, or we fear losing a loved one, or we fear losing a job. In fact, none of those things is in your face, life or death, and so none of them requires “fight or flight”.
In over 20 years of counseling people, I’ve learned that almost all fears, when you push them, are masks for the fear of death. Think about that. When you’re afraid of losing a job, the subconscious train of thought goes like this: if I lose my job, I’ll never find another one, and then I’ll lose my home and my family and won’t be able to feed myself and I’ll die. If you’re able to read this message, then that’s probably pretty unlikely, because you live in a society where there are resources. Yes, life might get harder, maybe a lot harder, but it might get better too (by, say, finding work you like more), and the chances of you dying because of a job loss are pretty small.
So how do you stop being afraid? Learn about “death”! There’s nothing to fear. At this point, massive evidence exists that one lives on afterwards. Check out
1) World ITC – The new technology of spiritual contact: http://www.worlditc.org,
2) the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson’s group at the University of VA: http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/, and
3) Near Death Experience and the Afterlife: http://www.near-death.com/.
If you know you are going to live on after “death”, and so are not afraid of it, then what in the world is there to be afraid of?
In addition, here are two other things you can do:
1) Forward this widely (with attribution), so that others will refuse to be afraid.
2) If you are so moved (and because today is the International Day of Peace), you may choose to actively work for peace. One way to do that is to support the Peace Alliance in its efforts to create a Dept. of Peace — check out http://www.thepeacealliance.org/.
First, we have to look at the meaning of the phrase “war on terror”. This has been widely derided as absurd, because “you can’t make war on a tactic”. This is true, but misses the mark. The tactic is terrorism, and so if one were making war on a tactic, this would be the “War on Terrorism”, but it wasn’t named that. Let’s go deeper.
“Terror” is, of course, an emotion, an exaggerated fear. So the “War on Terror” is actually a war on an emotion. Absurd, right? Well, perhaps not absurd, but fiendishly clever.
War is the man-made mass event that is most feared in the world. And so war creates fear — war creates terror. Aha! This is self-reinforcing. The war creates the very thing it is supposedly made to stop. So the “War on Terror” is designed to be never-ending. You might think of it, instead, as the “Love of Terror”.
Then you have to ask the age old question, “Who benefits?” I’ll leave the answer to that one up to your imagination and investigation, because this isn’t meant to be a political article.
So how do you help end the “War on Terror”? It’s simple.
Refuse to be afraid. If you’re not afraid, those who would manipulate you, can’t. This is true at every level from the boyfriend or girlfriend who threatens to leave you if you don’t do a certain thing, or act a certain way, all the way up to a group or a nation threatening another group or nation with bombs if they don’t behave in the way the first group wants.
But, you say, fear is natural. Yes, that’s true. Fear is an evolutionary mechanism related to “fight or flight”. Humans evolved so that when confronted by a large, hungry animal, their instincts helped protect them so they’d live and procreate another day. But much of what we fear today is artificial — we fear ridicule, or we fear losing a loved one, or we fear losing a job. In fact, none of those things is in your face, life or death, and so none of them requires “fight or flight”.
In over 20 years of counseling people, I’ve learned that almost all fears, when you push them, are masks for the fear of death. Think about that. When you’re afraid of losing a job, the subconscious train of thought goes like this: if I lose my job, I’ll never find another one, and then I’ll lose my home and my family and won’t be able to feed myself and I’ll die. If you’re able to read this message, then that’s probably pretty unlikely, because you live in a society where there are resources. Yes, life might get harder, maybe a lot harder, but it might get better too (by, say, finding work you like more), and the chances of you dying because of a job loss are pretty small.
So how do you stop being afraid? Learn about “death”! There’s nothing to fear. At this point, massive evidence exists that one lives on afterwards. Check out
1) World ITC – The new technology of spiritual contact: http://www.worlditc.org,
2) the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson’s group at the University of VA: http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/, and
3) Near Death Experience and the Afterlife: http://www.near-death.com/.
If you know you are going to live on after “death”, and so are not afraid of it, then what in the world is there to be afraid of?
In addition, here are two other things you can do:
1) Forward this widely (with attribution), so that others will refuse to be afraid.
2) If you are so moved (and because today is the International Day of Peace), you may choose to actively work for peace. One way to do that is to support the Peace Alliance in its efforts to create a Dept. of Peace — check out http://www.thepeacealliance.org/.
Monday, September 11, 2006
The web of creation, part 2
I have recently had a vision of the physical world as a (probably) 5 dimensional matrix, populated by intention. Here’s what I mean:
Imagine that you are looking through a window screen at a tree. At first, you notice the screen, because it is right in front of you, and then, as you pay attention to the tree, its leaves, bark, the way its branches sway in the breeze, you stop noticing the screen.
Now imagine that the screen is three dimensional, or rather four dimensional, because it exists through time. Now imagine that there’s at least another dimension to this. This is the matrix that turns the non-physical into the physical, the basic stuff of the physical universe. Now imagine that the tree exists inside this matrix (because it does). The tree is actually created by intention, from the pure potential held in the spaces between the matrix.
The matrix can be likened to female energy, the intention to male energy. Together, they make the world. Neither alone is enough to create physical reality. You need the female to hold and give form to the male intention.
Now imagine that each thing in the physical world, from the tree to the window screen, to you, all exist as intentions outside of the physical world. These intentions are vibrational fields, auras, which interpenetrate each other. When you can feel yourself as a field of intention, and everything around you as fields of intention, then they all interpenetrate each other.
This interpenetration is the visual or felt equivalent of a band playing music. You can concentrate on just one instrument, and hear that. Or you can hear the whole piece. Or maybe you can hear the interplay of two or three instruments.
Imagine that you are looking through a window screen at a tree. At first, you notice the screen, because it is right in front of you, and then, as you pay attention to the tree, its leaves, bark, the way its branches sway in the breeze, you stop noticing the screen.
Now imagine that the screen is three dimensional, or rather four dimensional, because it exists through time. Now imagine that there’s at least another dimension to this. This is the matrix that turns the non-physical into the physical, the basic stuff of the physical universe. Now imagine that the tree exists inside this matrix (because it does). The tree is actually created by intention, from the pure potential held in the spaces between the matrix.
The matrix can be likened to female energy, the intention to male energy. Together, they make the world. Neither alone is enough to create physical reality. You need the female to hold and give form to the male intention.
Now imagine that each thing in the physical world, from the tree to the window screen, to you, all exist as intentions outside of the physical world. These intentions are vibrational fields, auras, which interpenetrate each other. When you can feel yourself as a field of intention, and everything around you as fields of intention, then they all interpenetrate each other.
This interpenetration is the visual or felt equivalent of a band playing music. You can concentrate on just one instrument, and hear that. Or you can hear the whole piece. Or maybe you can hear the interplay of two or three instruments.
Monday, September 04, 2006
The web of creation
Last Friday I was privileged to be a participant in the first beta test of a new workshop, designed around the Clarity Process, offered by Lee Glickstein of Speaking Circles. The process itself consists of dyads, one person sitting in an open-eyed meditative state, that is, listening with an open heart, not judging, not commenting, for 5 minutes while the other talks about his/her experience in that moment, or perhaps explores a personal issue.
I had an amazing experience! It occurred to me that I am generally doing one of two things. I may be having my own experience, that is, focusing my attention inside myself, on what I am feeling or thinking. Or I may be focusing my attention completely on the other person to whom I am relating, trying to understand what is going on for my partner, to support him or her, to “read” or help or offer my skills in service.
All of a sudden, I realized that our relationship is an entity in and of itself, and thus has its own heart center. In some sense, that heart is something about which we both revolve, like binary stars revolving around their mutual center of gravity. I can both see and feel this “heart of our relationship” psychically. It looks like a little thickening of the energy field, like the heat waves rising off a candle, but spherical because there is no candle. It feels a bit thick too, like static electricity or like the edge of an aura, when felt from outside.
If I connected my heart to the heart of our relationship, magic happened! Both of our auras got bigger and brighter, and something opened up from that place, a connection to the universe itself. I realized that that place is the place where creation, manifestation happens.
At the end of the day, I committed to exploring this phenomenon further in the next few days, which I am doing. I have learned that
- Attending to the heart of my relationship with anything brings on a nearly ecstatic state, which I can experience in the world, and still be walking around. I can access this state on demand, simply by asking, “where is the heart of my relationship with this [fill in the blank]?“, noticing where it is and connecting to it. The state is instantaneous and lasts as long as I am attentive to the heart connection.
- The center of my relationship to anything may or may not be half way in between us. Trees seem to rush out to meet me. One book, “Limitless Mind” by Russell Targ, did the same thing when I opened it, noticing where the heart of our relationship was. So far, no magazines have done this.
- I have a relationship with every thing, every animal, every plant, every person on earth, whether I know it or not, whether I like it or not, whether I come in contact with the physical thing/plant/animal/person or not. If I average where the centers of all these relationships are, it is in my heart. This is why the heart is our connection to the center of the universe, to God (if you like that word). This is why the heart is the center of creation.
- All of us have these connections going on all the time, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we come in physical contact with our partners (things/plants/animals/people) or not. This is the web of life, of all of creation.
If you want to try this for yourself, there are 3 steps in awareness:
1) Feel your heart center and place your attention there. (This may take some practice.)
2) Ask the question, “Where is the heart of my connection to [fill in the blank]?” Again, practice with things, plants, animals and people you see. Practice with big things, little things, natural things, hand made things, machine made things, simple things, complex things, small plants, huge trees, fruit, cut flowers, small animals, big animals, pets, insects, people you’re emotionally connected to, acquaintances, complete strangers. Practice, practice, practice.
3) Connect from your heart to the heart of this relationship. Notice what you feel, what you see or hear psychically, what you seem to know about your partner in the relationship, or about the relationship itself.
I had an amazing experience! It occurred to me that I am generally doing one of two things. I may be having my own experience, that is, focusing my attention inside myself, on what I am feeling or thinking. Or I may be focusing my attention completely on the other person to whom I am relating, trying to understand what is going on for my partner, to support him or her, to “read” or help or offer my skills in service.
All of a sudden, I realized that our relationship is an entity in and of itself, and thus has its own heart center. In some sense, that heart is something about which we both revolve, like binary stars revolving around their mutual center of gravity. I can both see and feel this “heart of our relationship” psychically. It looks like a little thickening of the energy field, like the heat waves rising off a candle, but spherical because there is no candle. It feels a bit thick too, like static electricity or like the edge of an aura, when felt from outside.
If I connected my heart to the heart of our relationship, magic happened! Both of our auras got bigger and brighter, and something opened up from that place, a connection to the universe itself. I realized that that place is the place where creation, manifestation happens.
At the end of the day, I committed to exploring this phenomenon further in the next few days, which I am doing. I have learned that
- Attending to the heart of my relationship with anything brings on a nearly ecstatic state, which I can experience in the world, and still be walking around. I can access this state on demand, simply by asking, “where is the heart of my relationship with this [fill in the blank]?“, noticing where it is and connecting to it. The state is instantaneous and lasts as long as I am attentive to the heart connection.
- The center of my relationship to anything may or may not be half way in between us. Trees seem to rush out to meet me. One book, “Limitless Mind” by Russell Targ, did the same thing when I opened it, noticing where the heart of our relationship was. So far, no magazines have done this.
- I have a relationship with every thing, every animal, every plant, every person on earth, whether I know it or not, whether I like it or not, whether I come in contact with the physical thing/plant/animal/person or not. If I average where the centers of all these relationships are, it is in my heart. This is why the heart is our connection to the center of the universe, to God (if you like that word). This is why the heart is the center of creation.
- All of us have these connections going on all the time, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we come in physical contact with our partners (things/plants/animals/people) or not. This is the web of life, of all of creation.
If you want to try this for yourself, there are 3 steps in awareness:
1) Feel your heart center and place your attention there. (This may take some practice.)
2) Ask the question, “Where is the heart of my connection to [fill in the blank]?” Again, practice with things, plants, animals and people you see. Practice with big things, little things, natural things, hand made things, machine made things, simple things, complex things, small plants, huge trees, fruit, cut flowers, small animals, big animals, pets, insects, people you’re emotionally connected to, acquaintances, complete strangers. Practice, practice, practice.
3) Connect from your heart to the heart of this relationship. Notice what you feel, what you see or hear psychically, what you seem to know about your partner in the relationship, or about the relationship itself.
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