Author: Fred

Wealth | Happiness | Spirituality

On October 16, 2024

Wealth | Happiness | Spirituality

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

–Albert Einstein

It’s important to remember that supporting businesses doesn’t mean people are supporting greed, and supporting people doesn’t mean they don’t want businesses to succeed. Being pro-business doesn’t make someone materialistic, and being pro-people doesn’t make someone spiritual. We need to understand that having material success without spirituality can lead to a lack of inner and outer peace, greed, and war, while spirituality without material development can result in poverty and hunger. An unbalanced system is produced when capitalism lacks spiritualism, and socialism lacks materialism.

I found peace from learning that lots of money don’t increase happiness after reading a 2010 Princeton study that found that happiness plateaus at a household 2010 income of $75,000 a year ($97,500 in 2023) on average in America with some states higher, like California ($90,000 now $117,000) and some lower according to a follow-up study by the Huffington Post. That’s the good news– we don’t have to be overly wealthy to be happy.

The bad news is that as of October 18, 2022, only 33.6% of U.S. households earn $100,000 or more. A household can include more than one earner. Some will reach the financial base for happiness but want much more.

“We work very hard to reach a goal, anticipating the happiness it will bring. Unfortunately, after a brief fix, we quickly slide back to our baseline, ordinary way of being and start chasing the next thing we believe will almost certainly—and finally—make us happy.” –Frank T. McAndrew

Steve Jobs worked very hard and became very rich and successful. Here is what he had to say just before dying:

The last words of Steve Jobs –

“I have come to the pinnacle of success in business. In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success. However, apart from work, I have little joy.

Finally, my wealth is simply a fact to which I am accustomed. At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches of which I was once so proud, have become insignificant with my imminent death.

In the dark, when I look at green lights of the equipment for artificial respiration and feel the buzz of their mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of my approaching death looming over me.

Only now do I understand that once you accumulate enough money for the rest of your life, you have to pursue objectives that are not related to wealth. It should be something more important: For example, stories of love, art, dreams of my childhood. No, stop pursuing wealth, it can only make a person into a twisted being, just like me.

God has made us one way; we can feel the love in the heart of each of us, and not illusions built by fame or money, like I made in my life, I cannot take them with me. I can only take with me the memories that were strengthened by love.

This is the true wealth that will follow you, will accompany you, will give strength and light to go ahead. Love can travel thousands of miles and so life has no limits. Move to where you want to go. Strive to reach the goals you want to achieve. Everything is in your heart and in your hands.

What is the world’s most expensive bed? The hospital bed. You, if you have money, you can hire someone to drive your car, but you cannot hire someone to take your illness that is killing you. Material things lost can be found. But one thing you can never find when you lose: life.

Whatever stage of life where we are right now, at the end we will have to face the day when the curtain falls. Please treasure your family love, love for your spouse, love for your friends…Treat everyone well and stay friendly with your neighbors.”

Were employees happier between the late 40s and early 70s because their employers treated them more as a family and were not stepchildren to investors? When businesses distributed their profits widely and proudly boasted about how much they paid workers and Uncle Sam and when suppliers were getting a fair price for their goods?

Has happiness taken a hit starting in the mid-70s when corporate America began laying off massive numbers of workers and closing factories, which resulted in less money going to workers and more to investors? If someone owned stock, they were happy and protective of such businesses. If someone were a worker, they would take financial hits. This was coupled with businesses trying to pay as little taxes as possible. For the last 40 years, shareholder primacy has existed.

Wealth distribution in America is highly unequal with the top 1% of households owning more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. According to a report by the Federal Reserve, as of 2020, the top 1% of households in America held 16 times more wealth than the bottom 50% of households. The median net worth of white households is 10 times greater than that of Black households and 7 times greater than that of Hispanic households. The distribution of wealth also varies greatly across different regions, states, and cities in America.

The United States of America is currently the most influential economic and military power in the world. It has some of the best hospitals and universities, and its cultural impact can be felt worldwide, particularly through its music, movies, and TV shows. However, despite its dominance, other countries seem to be happier and healthier. According to the Best Countries Report by U.S. News & World Report, the top 10 countries in the world, based on their perceived stability, safety, fairness, and openness, are ranked as follows: Canada, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Jim Collins, the author of Built to Last and Good to Great, identifies the key traits of highly successful leaders. These leaders possess personal humility, which means they are modest and never boastful. They rely on inspired standards rather than inspiring charisma to motivate their team and act with quiet, calm determination. They prioritize the success of the company over their own ambitions and work to set up their successors for even greater success. When discussing success, they attribute it to luck, external factors, and credit others rather than taking all the credit themselves. In contrast, when faced with problems, they take responsibility and look in the mirror. According to Collins, these great leaders are often spiritual people.

Partisan Politics

By Fred

On September 6, 2023

In Politics

The philosopher Confucius argues
that virtuous rulers must lead by
example, for laws alone cannot make
people just or moral.

We are divided by political parties, the divide is getting wider, and we might want to admit that it isn’t benefiting us. The more we associate ourselves with a specific party/group, the more we lose our ability to think independently and we eliminate what might be the best choice. Even if we believe something to be true, it can be difficult to admit when it’s not. As Mark Twain said, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just isn’t so.”

Parties change, and we have to keep up with that change because sometimes we need to change groups or leave a group. Andrew Jackson altered Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln anchored the creation of the New Republican Party. Franklin Roosevelt revived the Democratic Party which almost disappeared after the Civil War. Donald Trump altered Lincoln’s and Teddy Roosevelt’s Republican Party.

The Founders of the United States warned against political parties, believing politics should be rational and collaborative, not competitive. Over time, Americans have increasingly voted for their party’s nominee rather than the individual. Simultaneously, Americans have been finding nothing but contempt for the opponent. This trend has risen since the 1970s, particularly in the 2016 national election.

Registered voters in 2024 were/are evenly split between the two major parties. It’s been this way for the last 30 years. 49% of registered voters are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, and a nearly identical share – 48% – are Republicans or lean toward the Republican Party. There are voters within the two parties who identify as independents. The percentage of voters in 2024, compared to the last 30 years, who do not vote for straight-party tickets has stayed the same for the Republican party (15%) but decreased for the Democratic Party from 16% to 12%. This suggests there is a little more dissatisfaction within the Republican Party than there is the Democratic in 2024.

33% of all registered voters are ideologically conservative and as one would guess associate with the Republican Party.
14% of registered voters describe their views as liberal or moderate and as one might not guess also associate with the Republican Party or are Republican leaners.
23% of all registered voters say they are liberal and align with the Democratic Party.
25% of all registered voters describe their views as either conservative or moderate and associate with the Democratic Party.

The most recent significant shift in party affiliation occurred when large numbers of Southern state Democrats became Republicans after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For the Democratic party, it was a change by subtraction; for the Republican party, it was a change by addition.

This data would be more interesting if Presidents were elected by popular vote but they are not. Instead, candidates are elected by an Electoral College. Each of the 50 states receives electoral votes equal to its total congressional (Senators + Representatives) delegation. Since all states have two Senators and a minimum of one congressional district, the fewest electoral votes a state can have is three. Although not a state, the District of Columbia (DC) receives 3^a electoral votes. Therefore, the total electoral votes is 538, reflecting 100 Senators + 435 Representatives + 3 for DC. The number of congressional districts in each state is determined by its Census population.

All but two states use a winner-take-all system to apportion their electoral votes (Maine and Nebraska are the only two states that don’t). For example, a state with 100 electoral votes where 49% of the popular votes went for candidate A and 51% went for candidate B, all 100 electoral votes would go to candidate B. This means that popular votes for candidate A were changed and given to candidate B. In this case all 100 electoral votes were given to candidate B. That’s why there are swing (purple) states. In swing states, the popular vote is fairly evenly divided between the two candidates and a small difference would still give 100% of that state’s electoral votes to only one of the two candidates.

As an aside, since congressional districts are proportional to population but Senate seats are not, the net effect is that states with lower populations are over-represented in the Electoral College. In contrast, those with the largest population are under-represented.

Democrats and Republicans are present in our everyday lives as neighbors, co-workers, and friends, and it’s often difficult to tell someone’s political affiliation unless we talk politics or see a yard sign. Despite this, we tend to hold a harsh view of the “other” party, which is usually unrealistic and inaccurate. Our emotions can cloud our judgment, causing us to be gullible and making it harder to keep a balanced view.

It would seem like there is a need to break free from the bonds of political party affiliations that divide us and make it harder to keep our nation moving forward with balance.

In study after study, social psychologists have shown that the group with which we identify, not individual personality, often determines behavior. We began to see what the group saw and stopped seeing some of the things that we were seeing.

But, and this is a big but, pull us out of a group, and we will have more nuance, flexibility, and doubt. We are not so sure anymore as individuals outside of our group, whereas in a group, we are convinced of what we say and do.

We probably don’t remember when or why we affiliated with a Party. But we probably are locked in now. Let’s explore that affiliation. Understanding the history of political parties is crucial to our political literacy. We didn’t have political parties when George Washington was President. I repeat, the Founders of the United States warned against political parties as they believed politics should be rational and collaborative, not competitive. Political parties gradually formed as we figured out what our fledgling country needed from Washington, D.C., such as a central bank and national policy.

Long before there were Republicans and Democrats, there were Federalists led by Alexander Hamilton and Anti-Federalists led by Thomas Jefferson. The Federalists became the first American political party in 1787. They were businessmen and merchants who wanted a strong central government to protect industry. The Anti-Federalists were primarily small farmers and planters who wished for a smaller government that wouldn’t interfere with their lives. They would later form a party called the Democratic-Republicans.

In 1828, the United States elected Andrew Jackson, a pro-slavery Southerner. He changed the Democratic-Republican Party’s name to the Democrats. His opponents changed the Federalist Party’s name to the Whig Party. Based on the constituency, the newly renamed Democratic Party was still full of Democratic-Republicans but it was ripe for its eventual splitting between North and South and did so during the 1860 Presidential election, whose results were a precursor to our Civil War.

Members of the Southern Democratic Party faction were pro-slavery and pro-states’ rights. The Northern Party faction was for popular sovereignty, which would allow the White people of each state to decide the issue of slavery.

Shortly after, the Whig Party quickly faded away and was replaced by Lincoln’s Republican Party. The 1860 presidential election was a historic moment in American politics, as it was a time of great division and turmoil in the country. The four parties that participated in the election were the Northern faction Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Constitutional Union Party, and the Southern faction Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party (Northern and Southern factions) was the dominant party at the time but was split over the issue of slavery. The southern faction supported the expansion of slavery into new territories, and another opposed it. As a result, the party nominated two candidates for president: Stephen A. Douglas, who represented the northern faction, and John C. Breckinridge, who represented the southern faction.

The Republican Party, which was a relatively new party formed in 1854, opposed the expansion of slavery and nominated Abraham Lincoln as its presidential candidate. Lincoln’s election platform was based on the idea that slavery was a moral wrong and should not be allowed to spread to new territories.

The Constitutional Union Party was formed by a group of former Whigs and Know-Nothings who opposed the sectionalism and extremism of the other parties. They nominated John Bell as their candidate, and their platform was based on preserving the Union and avoiding the issue of slavery altogether.

The Southern Democratic Party was formed by a group of Democrats who were unhappy with the nomination of Douglas and believed that he was not committed enough to the defense of slavery. They nominated Breckinridge as their candidate, and their platform was based on the idea of protecting the institution of slavery and the rights of slaveholders.

Lincoln won the election, receiving a majority of the electoral votes despite not appearing on the ballot in ten southern states. His victory was a major turning point in American history, leading to the secession of several southern states and the start of the American Civil War.

After the Civil War, the Republicans grew, and the Democrats shrunk. Republicans favored business interests and taxes on imports, while Democrats supported free trade and attracted farmers and immigrants. Democrats didn’t expand until 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt created economic relief and social security. They wanted the federal government to actively help those affected by the Depression, while Republicans, being more pro-business, preferred not to burden business with those costs.

Parties change. Affiliations change. Neither Party is your father’s or grandmother’s Party or even your Party any more even though most people refuse to recognize the changes or be aware of the history of changes.

Research that includes brain maps, gene pool analysis, and unconscious attitudes suggests that people who prefer a simple vision of good and evil, are cognitively inflexible, are fond of hierarchy, are inordinately uncomfortable with uncertainty, change, and death, and are unaware of their unconscious trepidation tend to vote Republican. Republicans want to spend on the military and the military-industrial complex. Conversely, people who are more open-minded, adaptable, and value equality tend to vote Democratic.

Parties often seem to veer into strangeness and both major parties have done so. It’s good to have a two-party system to allow our votes to help them get on an acceptable path.

“The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system to remake it. There are a lot of persuadable voters in both Parties who just want to see things make sense. They don’t want to see crazy stuff.”

A former American President.

Let Go Choose Wisely

By Fred

On April 15, 2023

In Introspection

Let Go Choose Wisely

“No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself. No man is free who cannot command himself.” –Pythagoras

Please inhale deeply and hold your breath. So far so good, right?

Keep holding it — check your emotions — are you getting happier or more desperate?

Are you ready to let go of something that no longer serves you?

Now exhale completely and wait a few seconds before taking another breath.

Which part of the exercise was uncomfortable for you? Please repeat this exercise.

Do you remember the rings we used to swing on during our elementary school days? We would hold onto one ring and swing until we could grasp the next one. Once we felt that we had a good grip on the second ring, we would let go of the first one. However, if we lost our momentum, we couldn’t grab the next ring.

Trapeze artists release the first bar before seeing and grabbing the next, while soaring through the air with grace, all eyes on them.

If we imagine holding a ring, as a symbol of possession, and squeezing it in our hand, it is likely that we will capture the ring, but also the use of our hands.

Now, imagine holding a ring out in front of you with your palm down and loosening your grip. As the ring gets loose, we tend to squeeze our hands quickly, which is natural. However, some of us may feel threatened when the ring falls, and we may find ourselves wanting it more, beginning to squeeze it tighter. Grasping and squeezing something is an attempt to own it, and those who do this tend to want to keep things, even if they don’t like them. Giving up the freedom of one of our hands to squeeze something can be annoying, and it follows that those who tend to grasp and squeeze things may become annoying as well. This behavior can be indicative of lapses in ethics.

Now, imagine holding a ring in front of you with the palm of your hand facing up. Loosen your grip on the ring; you will notice that it doesn’t feel like it’s getting loose. You will feel the ring less as a possession and more as a symbol of your freedom. Open your hand, and the ring is still there.

With your imagination, allow the ring to transform into a beautiful butterfly resting peacefully and gently on the palm of your hand. Take a moment to enjoy this experience, and then watch as the butterfly floats into the sky, taking nourishment from you and sharing it wherever it goes.

Love with attachment is essentially fear in an emotional form. To expand on this idea, I offer you a quote by William Blake:

He who binds to himself a joy,

Does the winged life destroy;

He who kisses the Joy as it flies,

Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

Now, ask yourself, what are you holding onto too tightly? Is it a certain lifestyle, job, person, title, an old perspective, ego, anger, hostility, revenge, resentment, or prejudice?

Learning to live is learning to let go. When we learn to release, change becomes possible. Change often means letting go of something negative and replacing it with something positive. If we are completely full of something negative, we may not be able to make room for something positive until we release the negative. If we release something negative without having something positive to replace it, the void will be naturally filled with something else.

If our goal as humans is to evolve, then we need to think. We should incorporate our spirituality and responsibilities toward each other, ourselves, and our planet. We should be open to new information that can help us mentally, physically, materially, and spiritually. We should be balancing our lives materially and spiritually. We should be living our lives with love and without fear.

A grandfather was talking to his grandson about a negative experience he had early in his life. The grandfather was saying. “At the time, I had two bears growling inside of me. The first bear was filled with anger, hatred, bitterness, and revenge. The second bear inside me was filled with love, kindness, compassion, and mostly forgiveness.”

“Which bear wins”? The young boy inquired. The grandfather responded: “The one I feed.”

Deserving has more to do with what we send out in thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds than how smart we are. The energy we send out is the energy we get back. The energy we send out reflects what we feel.

It’s the feelings that create the energy we send out. Reality can be nothing more than how we have been flowing our energy. It only takes 16 seconds to link up vibrationally with negative or positive energy.

We can look at ourselves and others as campfires. When building a campfire or trying to get one restarted, we can pile on the firewood, stick a piece of paper or a few twigs under the larger pieces of wood, light the paper with a match, and hope to get a fire going. Usually, if we try to jump from the tiny to the large, the large never gets going, so it is with our campfire.

Usually, we need to nourish the tiny flame, or we will find ourselves complaining about the stubborn large pieces that won’t cooperate or burn. We, too, end up with a little smoke, and it cost us a match, and we have to start all over again.

To get a campfire to burn, we need to build from tiny to small to medium to large, and it all starts with nourishing the tiny hot spot. We take a deep breath and blow on this tiny hot spot while we nourish it with twigs and then kindling. When the kindling starts to burn, we add pieces that are just a little larger, and we keep repeating this, making sure the little fire gets hotter by fanning it and feeding it. Eventually, we have a big campfire, and once we do, we can throw the big logs on it, and it will thrive even more. Meditation is like that.

Instead of mocking other campfires that can’t seem to get going, we should not be looking and seeing only the campfire and the wood that is not burning; we should be looking for and seeing the hot spot that we can help fan and feed with just a little fuel here and there. We are all-powerful, and we can help others get their fires burning. We can get our fires burning if we start with our hot spots and continuously nourish them with breath and appropriately sized fuel. If a log is thrown on too soon, it will not burn, and it could smother a campfire trying to get started.

To say another way, let’s think like race car drivers. They know the best way to get past cars and debris that have crashed in front of them. Instead of looking at the cars spinning out of control and piling up in front of them, they immediately look for an opening, put their entire attention upon this opening, and drive through it. Sometimes, the opening is small and not even obvious, but whatever opening seems to exist is where they look.

We have a choice: to focus on the crash or our safe passage. If we freeze our stare and concentrate on the collision, we add to it because that is all we see, pulling us in. If we can find that opening, that opportunity, fan and nourish that one hotspot, and put our entire attention and sight on it, we will zip past the crash. Those behind us can follow us into new opportunities or become part of the crash, and likewise, some will follow us into the crash if that is where we focus.

If a leader were to build a campfire that speaks of violence, hate, racism, anger, and fear, or one that mocks others or puts negative labels on opponents, there would be those that would be attracted to those flames and act out hidden and repressed feelings.

Observing the kind of campfire we build and nurture can teach us a lot about ourselves and others. We should ask ourselves if it brings us closer together, helps us calm our darkest selves, and brings out our brightest selves. So, while it feels that we have a clean conscious mind, a civilized conscious mind, that mind can be corrupted.

It is so important to be a leader that brings out the best of us and not the worst.

Love | Karma | Pain | Release

By Fred

On October 15, 2022

In Philosophy

Love | Karma | Pain | Release

“He who learns but does not think, is lost!
He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger” –Confucius

Love is what makes this world work. Without it, we would fall apart. The more we open to it, the more we are. We open to love by allowing ourselves to feel pain. If I feel pain over a friend’s or loved one’s departure, is it rooted in love or confused with love? Where is the love in that if I feel the pain of emptiness? If I am suffering the pain of ridicule, lambasting, and shame, where does my suffering to all this open me to love? And, if I feel the pain of being less than I want to be, what does love have to do with that?

Asking the question is a perfect start. Whatever we allow and accept becomes glued to us. If anything breaks free from that glue, we tend to replace it because we are magnets—we draw things to ourselves and allow what we draw to stick. They stick to us; they stick to each other. What adheres to us starves or feeds our potential. What is sticking to you?

Pain always wants to stick to us, and then the victim comes along and sticks to the pain. Anger loves pain and victim and attaches to the victim, sticking to the pain. Pain and victim and anger and revenge have found homes on many of us, starving our potential.

We want to attract the right things to us. Interestingly, our conscious mind naturally fears not being right. Subconsciously or emotionally, we naturally fear not being accepted. We naturally fear physical and emotional pain.

If love sticks to us, it is because love uniquely sticks to love. Power sticks to love, and force sticks to fear. If we attract other things like control, self-interest, fear, hate, jealousy, ownership, and the like, we feel pain as we go through life’s situations. The pain helps us understand what is sticking to us.

We need to recognize the pain and understand it. There are ways of doing this, but it starts with a decision to change, a decision with no grey areas, a pure black or white decision. So, write that decision with black ink on white paper so we can see it.

I am changing!

I am evolving!

The first step is recognizing that pain is our signal that we need to change something. We might still need to decide what to change, but we do know that our next step is to start exploring.

We might already consciously know what we need to do or think differently or we may need our subconscious minds to help us figure it out. There is so much power in our subconscious minds where there is unlimited information about us.

Our subconscious minds can tell us and show us what is sticking to us, and we can release what is not serving our highest good once we have been shown. Hypnosis can be used to help us explore our subconscious minds. A separate Chapter is devoted to hypnosis.

Some things stick to us that dog us, and we often do not even realize it. We have learned to live with the pain, and we no longer recognize it as pain; we get used to it, yet we are not happy, not as happy as we could be, for it is there lying hidden, perhaps sticking to something several layers away from our core magnet.

While I am sure that we determine what sticks to us by what we think and do, how we deal with situations we encounter are influenced by what sticks to us. It is like we are in a giant lab, and we are the rats. The tester wants to know what will stick to us and what will not, and in what situations will that hold.

Imagine that an energy form is introduced to our magnet, and we begin to react. One of us lab rats will notice the energy as if it were a light rain over the ocean that will soon evaporate and return to the tester. Another of us lab rats will feel that energy hang on us like a storm digging into and prying up the ocean, causing all sorts of havoc. And, there are lab rats that react in all ways in between.

We create our storms, and until we can figure out what we are doing that makes these storms, we continue to be tested upon, or said in another way, the more the System presents us with situations that allow us to figure out what we are doing wrong. We may see hail, lightning, and thunder if we overlook the cloudy day.

We can complain about being in this lab or participate in the science of reinventing ourselves. If it is a pain that we are experiencing, let’s look at it as a clue to finding our highest good.

Let’s return to the pain, victim, anger, and revenge circle that stick to some of us. The concept of karma would suggest that we have dues to pay. What goes around comes around; do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Philosophically, the East agrees with the West about payback; at least, they have ways of saying the same thing. So, for every time we were a victim or a savage, do we have an equal number of situations where there is payback?

Or is bad karma, not so much payback but self-induced pain from making repeated bad decisions derived from habit and instinct embedded in our subconscious minds and the cells of our bodies that cause us to be victims and savages again? Could our behavior be so strong in our subconscious that we cannot appreciate the perspective of someone different from ours? And do we repeat over and over again the pain until we find a way to release it?

Likewise, for good karma, the more we are loving souls providing service to others, the harder it is for us to make bad decisions and the less pain we have. But let’s face it, as long as we are in the body, we have not evolved to the point where we have subconsciously accepted that we are infinite, even if we have consciously done so, and we decay. (A Hindu concept expressed by Paramahansa Yogananda)

There are over 6 billion people/souls on Earth. They have been born into many different situations and conditions. Some of our souls are in bodies born into wealthy and perhaps very materialistic families, while others are born into poor but possibly spiritual families and everything in between. Some of our souls are in bodies born healthy, and some are born weak and deformed and everything in between. Some of our souls are in bodies born in a land of opportunity and hope, and others are born in the land of repression and famine and everything in between. Why?

Could there be a system that puts us where we can add to our subconscious minds a little more up when it is dominated with down, a little more support when it needs a little boost, and a little humility when it needs perspective? That does not sound like karma payback. That sounds like in a free-will planet, there is a system that helps us clean our magnets. If this were true, shouldn’t we spend more time finding out what might be in our closets and cleaning out what does not serve our highest good? Or do we want to let the System put us in situations that help us get fed up with our behaviors and sink to the low point if necessary so that the only direction we can go is up?

Why is it so essential to clean our subconscious? Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud tell us the contents of the subconscious perpetually seep into conscious awareness. Eventually, they realized that when rage, lust, revenge, etc., are denied access to the civilized conscious mind, they do not disappear but continue to live out an independent psychic existence in the subconscious. There, they drain away energy from the aware System, causing depression, anxiety, neurosis, phobias, etc., or else they erupt as physical symptoms, irrational moods, or slips of the tongue.

Both Jung and Freud concurred on this fundamental picture of the human psyche: that each of us carries within us a whole other world, shadowy and fantastic, to be sure, but teemingly alive with inner figures, melodramas, grievances, and fears, that are constantly exerting their influence over our every word and deed.

So, while it feels that we have a clean conscious mind, a civilized conscious mind, that mind can be corrupted just like data on a computer, and this usually becomes visible under stress. A sports car might handle nicely until it is pushed to its limits and spins out. Occasionally, we may get out of control and right back in control.

Sometimes, we act out because of what is seeping into our conscious minds that is still a part of our subconscious minds. And, if we find ourselves in more stressful situations, we might see that our civilized conscious minds do not stay civilized as whatever is in our subconscious mind begins to flow instead of seep. When that happens, we add more dirt to our closets. We must clean our closets while we are in our civilized conscious minds. As the advertisement goes, what’s in your wallet (closet)?

There are ways to clean our closets. Be warned, though, from this quote from Edgar Cayce: “…There are no individuals who haven’t at some time been warned as respecting that that may arise in their daily or physical existence! Have they heeded? Do they heed that as may be given as advice? No! It must be experienced!”

If we want to be better friends, spouses, supervisors, parents, leaders, managers, artists, or whatever we want to be, we need to look inward and clean our closets before we can truly reach our potential. Then, what creeps into our conscious minds from our subconscious minds nourishes our potential instead of starving it.

Norman Vincent Peale declared, “Change your thoughts, and you change your world.” Caroline Myss, medical intuitive, states, “Every choice we make, every thought and feeling we have, is an act of power that has biological, environmental, social, personal and global consequences.” Wayne Dyer states, “We are responsible for everything in our lives, including whether the chemistry in our body works or doesn’t work.”

Norman Vincent Peale, Caroline Myss, and Wayne Dyer have written that our choices, thoughts, and feelings are an act of power and that we continue to be responsible and are in control of our health. What we choose to say and think today creates our tomorrow.

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says matter and energy are interchangeable. Mass is nothing but a form of energy. Matter is slowed down or crystallized energy. Our bodies are energy.

Love and fear are two core emotions; all others can be called sub-emotions. When we fill our cells, our entire being, our magnets, and our closets with love, we automatically approve of ourselves and believe in the divine power to provide for us. Then fear cannot take our peace nor prevent joy from filling our lives. The more love we accumulate on our magnets, the harder it will be for illness and uncomfortable experiences to find a place to stick.

The material consciousness must move toward our spiritual consciousness to have peace within oneself. When the gap is closed, when the material consciousness becomes one with the soul consciousness, our closets stop collecting clutter. We can do this by using our free will. Our free will is often buried in our habits and instincts, which can perpetuate and justify our existence in the material consciousness. If our deeds and thoughts are negative, it will not be until our will, if ever, is strong enough to recognize them as bad habits or behavior and stop.

Eventually, we are all going to evolve—some faster than others—some willingly—some kicking and screaming, but evolve, we will. For those bodies and minds that are hooked on drugs, alcohol, sex, power, greed, ego, hate, and fear or are starving, wet, cold, diseased—evolving is most difficult. Just surviving another day is the challenge. So we have a world where people are advancing spiritually and pulling others up and declining spiritually and pulling others down.

If we choose to be ruled by our choice rather than habit, every such choice is liberating. Each broadens our understanding and strengthens our willpower and ability to live in harmony with ourselves and others.

Each time we refuse to give in to some temptation against our highest good, we resurrect our original soul consciousness from controlling the desire-bound body and mind and closing the gap correctly. Whenever we resist the inclination to retaliate when misunderstood or set aside a personal desire to benefit someone else, we reach beyond the confines of self toward our true soul consciousness and correctly close the gap.

With all the free will, absent-minded habits, and instincts running around this planet, paying attention to material aspects of life, we would all have to live with our gaps. Let’s look at that pain thing again. Pain has been made available to us to help us see greater wisdom and joy outside the material world. If we don’t realize a spiritual world exists, and we find ways to cope with the material world, we go along with the motto that if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Many of us do not recognize the roots of our pain, but we see the material results and wonder, why not me, or why them? For those who cannot connect the misfortune to their or others’ situations, the System is invisible.

So what is the System?

It is to love God, eschew evil, and love thy neighbor as thyself.

We have all heard the phrase: The truth shall set you free. But free of what–Of enforcement? Yes, but better put would be: from our subconscious minds and primitive parts of our brains.

Our original soul consciousnesses want to give charity to all, love to all, find fault with none, be patient with all, showing brotherly love and brotherly kindness. Doing these in thought, purpose, and intent will set us free from the creep from our subconscious minds—from the negative things that would cling to our magnets, free from the clutter that otherwise would collect in our closets.

Is there order in our life, or is there chaos? Is there order in this world, or is there chaos? Is there some chaos? Compliance with our original soul consciousnesses brings order to our lives and the world. Being out of compliance, disregarding or not recognizing our soul-conscious desires, brings chaos and destructive forces into our lives.

If our lives are disturbing, if we have sad hearts or have pain in our bodies, we are creating our gaps or living with the gap-created cluttered closets, perhaps from prior lives or other dimensions that have yet to be fully recognized or corrected.

We can all do better, and we are blessed when we, let’s repeat this, get a friendly nudge or even a hard poke. Is it not better to recognize the social nudges and act upon them rather than requiring the hard pokes to make changes in our thinking, purpose, and intent? We should not think of the body as a haphazard machine or that things that happen to us are chance. It is all part of living with gaps or having allowed them to close by moving our original soul consciousness toward our material consciousness!

What is the power behind our thinking, purpose, and intent? Let’s put it this way: according to Edgar Cayce, “That which comes or begins first is conceived in spirit, grows in the mental, manifests in the material.” We must develop our original spiritual consciousness and use it.

If something will come about materially, let’s let it be from the seed of original spiritual consciousness. We must explore our spiritual consciousness if we prefer to avoid our current material situations. We can ask ourselves why, but only if we ask what this nudge or situation I find myself in might be all about. If we are to have more noble things come our way, not that we have all the wisdom needed to discern which things are the most noble, we need to be introspective and wake up.

When we develop our intuition, we allow ourselves to be guided through our spiritual consciousness. We must distinguish intuition derived through spiritual guidance from habit derived through our subconscious mind. If we have yet to take care of what we have chosen to do and think about consciously, our intuition isn’t intuition; instead, it is habit and instinct and, as such, could guide us wrong. Yogananda, Jung, Freud, and others have told us: “Once repeated thoughts and deeds stick in our subconscious mind, we might have to live with them repeatedly and compulsively as a habit or instinct.”

We need to read. We need to learn. We need to allow ourselves to open to the spiritual world not defined by our five senses. Start by reading without judgment. Allow new ideas to sit off to the side until we are ready to be open to them, to explore them with a more evolved mind that evolves through persistence and openness and stagnates with quick judgments.

When we sincerely seek to be led by our spiritual consciousness and are willing to be led by our souls, we are guided and begin to notice our guidance. In receiving this guidance, we must concentrate and attune ourselves to those spiritual forces.

We still have others because we might only use one consciousness, our material consciousness. We gain insight and feel into these multiple planes as we open to those various spheres of understanding. Once we have access to a new plane, we will use it and attain the next plane of evolvement, potential, and consciousness. Use it or lose it.

We have all had restless moments where we felt we needed to get out and do something. Some will say they need a good stiff drink or a double cheeseburger, fries, and a shake during these times. Some may feel the urge to run or brisk walk, work out, or climb a rock. Some might experience anxiety for the first time and be scared by it. There is a good chance we are reacting to the gap. For those who feel anxious, don’t just sit there and be frightened; start doing some yogi breathing.

There are two gap triggers. If we are moving along with our evolvement and something has entered into our lives that we have reacted to in a way that our spirit consciousness truly wanted to handle differently, we get a gap trigger. Also, we get a gap trigger when we make a significant jump in our evolvement, and our spirit consciousness more consistently directs our lives and reactions to events, people, and circumstances. We will always be temporarily out of our comfort zone when we change, for the good or the bad.

Where do we begin in our commitment to regain our original spiritual consciousness? We start by reading, and we spend time in nature. When we can escape to the peaceful quiet of beautiful nature, we are where the Spirit of Creation emanates. It is in nature that we need to attune our minds to the divine that is within us all.