just be it Just Be It is a practice of presence that recognizes the limits of language. When aware of silence there is a state of inner still alertness. You are wholeheartedly present.

Just Be It, Inc., is an organization dedicated to participation in the healing of the planet through increased awareness to the power of “presence in the moment” and happiness as consequence for recognition of the gift of “belonging”.   All ‘practice’ comes from awareness to life’s affirmation with each breath in, followed with ‘thank you’ and consequent joy for each breath out.

Just Be It, Inc., functions from a perspective of nourishing the body, mind, and spirit to greater potential performance in participatory action to a more peaceful planet.  Upon ‘arrival’ to the moment, in gratitude for the opportunity to participate, Just Be It, Inc., points actions beyond notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, in recognition to the divine wisdom located within the hearts of all creatures, in recognition to the “non-duality” of the universe.

Current Project Focuses

A. Mindfulness Retreat Center: In recognition of the need for ‘space’ to nourish oneself to renewed freshness and clarity, Just Be It Retreats provide programs of practice aimed at more mindful living.  Through scheduled daily periods of mindful breathing, walking, meditation, eating, writing, speech and listening, and body sport activity, participants ‘stretch’ into deeper levels of life action aimed primarily to those activities the heart draws one to.  The participant’s decision to ‘make space’ for listening to the heart with clear intention to nourish the body, mind and spirit contributes to more sound life intention and solid direction in where one’s attention must go.  While these retreats deal with ‘spirit’, they are nonsectarian and they serve to deepen one’s understanding of any particular religious background.

B. Horns For Healing: In recognition that our response to this gift of ‘belonging’ must aim toward global peace, Horns For Peace is dedicated to ‘sounding the horn’ daily with intention to ‘conflict resolution’ and our full ‘arrival’ to peace.  In a time of increasing violence, where it’s more difficult to hear the dove’s cry, we come to recognize the need for increased volume in our ‘pleas to peace’.  Horns for Peace will contribute a conch shell to those classes willing to commit to ‘sounding the horn for peace’ each day.  Particularly in times of apparent growing conflict, we must hold our optimism by ‘seeing peace’.  This is best done through ‘toning’ since the more delicate sounds of the dove and bell seem to be lost in ever increasing distraction.  The ‘volume’ aiming to peace must be turned up if we’re to evolve from our adolescent methods to solving conflict.

C. Teaching “Thank You” As Source of Happiness:  Just Be It, Inc., will work to further understanding of the power of gratitude in one’s arrival to personal peace and happiness.  Currently, there is no apparent research directed to the importance of teaching children the use of ‘thank you’ as a source of ‘their’ happiness. The use of ‘thank you’ beyond mere etiquette function carries great power to heal the planet.  Educational programs will be created and research in this area will be supported to clearly show the improved sense of well-being found through an attitude of gratitude.

D. Consulting:  Success in life and business is becoming increasingly more dependent upon finding peace in these times of accelerating change.  Randy Johnson is available for consulting and speaking engagements for all organizations looking to increase awareness to ‘quality’ performance.  Johnson has directed speech and language clinics in the Canada and the US, taught Interpersonal Communication at Valparaiso University, and successfully founded and headed up one of the largest boardsports companies in the country, now in existence for more than twenty years.  Johnson’s main area of interest is in conflict resolution, creating genuine customer and employee loyalty through gratitude, and enhanced performance through mindfulness training.

E. Educational Materials and Events:  Just Be It, Inc., is dedicated to the acquisition and assembly of insight wisdom harvested from music, writing and speech.  In a time where it seems too few take the time to pause in reflection to ‘what works’, Just Be It, Inc., will aim to contribute to the collection and preservation of these insights for continued movement to humanity’s nourishment to peace.

F. Just Be It Apparel: Throughout the course of history we’ve used clothing to demonstrate our interests and ‘level of knowing’.  Those following a lifetime of spiritual pursuit wear a particular dress that tells others of their ‘practice’, whether it’s a monk’s robe or a nun’s way of dress.  Practitioners of the martial arts communicate their level of skill through the color of their belt.  The purpose of ‘Just Be It’ apparel is to serve as a means to communicate this mutual level of deep knowing in a particular area of interest.  It’s a way for one human being to communicate to another that their depth of knowing within this particular area has resulted in experiences beyond boundaries, experiences that have touched the divine.  It’s an invitation to others within this ‘community of mutual interest’ to initiate dialogue.   It’s a statement to others of our commitment to ‘heart’s pull’ within this area of intention and attention where understanding grows deeper day by day.  It’s clothing that designates deep commitment and discipline, in honor to a particular area of interest.

G. A Study of Language. How we ‘language’ our world determines our approach to life.  Do we language through love or fear, connection or separation?  How do we language our notions of time and space?  Do we language to close learning with answers or deepen our knowledge through pushing the question further?  After journaling for many years, Johnson discovered a key language element that facilitated ‘presence’.  Much of the writing could be condensed down to three words…just be it.  If we could just connect the authority of our heart with our ‘doing’ we could align with our true nature.  Johnson hopes to ‘deepen’ the Nike ‘Just Do It’ campaign to an ‘awakening to our doing’ in peace with the divine authority of the heart.  Moving from the separation caused through language of the head brain to connection of all through the heart brain, we stand in ‘wonder’ at the level of performance.  At this level, outside the boundaries created through language, we find the space to ‘touch the rhythm and harmony of the universe’ like never before.  The combination of Johnson’s study of language, sport and music with the practice of Zen Buddhism has given him a keen insight to the thoughts we continually allow to impact our living.  Johnson is currently assembling years of writing in his upcoming book entitled Just Be It…Waking Up to What We Do.

H. Circle Process.  Johnson has collaborated with several approaches to the ancient format of circle process.  Intrigued with the dialog process and deeper listening, this format of moving from shallow to deeper conversation has provided a safe container to explore a greater awareness of topics of interest.  While the conversational agreements may vary a little, they generally involve the following elements as laid out by Conversational Cafe (www.conversationcafe.org)

Open-mindedness: listen to and respect all points of view

Acceptance: suspend judgment as best you can

Curiosity: seek to understand rather than persuade

Discovery: question old assumptions, look for new insights

Sincerity: speak for yourself about what has personal heart and meaning

Brevity: go for honesty and depth, but don’t go on and on

I. Health Care Freedom.  The old paradigm of ‘disease care’ simply doesn’t seem to work anymore.  A true ‘health care’ system will place the majority of its resource on working the population to healthy living.  This necessarily requires a dedicated ‘practice’ aiming to honor body/mind/spirit in the ‘wonder’ of all that goes right.  Johnson sees this ‘health care’ provided to all and looks forward to the day that we can reduce the billions of dollars spent during the last months of one’s life in exchange to educating one another to the benefits of mindful living.  Johnson believes this move to mindful living can occur when we truly accept the fact that we are only temporarily housed in these bodies rather than functioning from actions of harm to a body we ‘deceive ourselves into believing will last forever’.  This project works to strengthen the power of integrative medicine, education to the power of regular exercise, mindful consumption, meditation and community participation.  Having faced a terminal illness with his son and serious health deterioration with his father, Johnson is available to listen to others who may be facing these difficult experiences as they, too, travel into a land of deeper questions.

J. The Blues as Language to Peace. A truth of life is the knowledge that once we receive we ‘know’ the loss of what’s been given is inevitable since nothing is permanent.  On the flip side, those who’ve experienced these losses discover their healing through eventually finding the gift in what has changed. Etta James has capsulated life into ‘Life, Love and the Blues’, capturing blues as a language that helps us move from the pain of lost love.  Otis Spann has referred to the Blues, as ‘a doctor’ that sometimes heals, sometimes doesn’t, but its aim is to help one move through the pain of life.  For over thirty years Randy Johnson has developed his taste, appreciation and expression of the Blues through trumpet, vocals and harmonica and is always ready to participate in the party this great musical form creates as performer and audience meet as one in the glory of the human condition. The Blues is a very deep language of the heart that processes us through the deepest of wounds. Affiliated in Minnesota with the blues band, Ride, Johnson also performs solo for special occasions, from weddings and anniversaries, to funerals.

K. Multimedia Presentation. While nothing is permanent, do you really want to risk losing the photo images you now have on paper?  Randy’s father frequently reviewed a DVD that’s compiled a lifetime of photos.  While a rare form of dementia robbed his father of recent memory, the images of days gone by helped him maintain an appreciation of his full life spectrum.  Simply assemble the photos and video clips you’d like digitized in a movie format and Johnson can create a DVD you can share with friends and family.  During the recent series of natural disasters one of the more painful experiences was watching families crying over destroyed photo albums.  Whether for a special family gathering, a relative suffering memory loss, transferring your photos to a web page for all to see, or just the security of capturing your images before they fade on paper, digitizing makes sense.

A friend recently reported a strong unexpected physical reaction to the departure of student and fellow practitioner of a particular school of yoga.  Given the Law of Attraction, stating that which we give attention to grows stronger, it’s little wonder we feel a sense of loss when another’s energy diminishes through lack of physical presence.  Just as cells in the embryo cluster before they go off to make hands, feet, heart, lungs, etc., all life seems attracted to the similar, where the texture of life duplicates.  It seems that our ease in life is largely impacted by those we surround ourselves with.  As those with passions similar to ours nurture our spirits and deepen our passions, they also contribute to a felt pain and potential fear of entropy as we let them go.

We can see this in the inanimate world as well.  It’s more difficult to be a meadow on a mountain top than on the plains.  It’s more difficult to live as a wave in a pond than in an ocean.  It’s more challenging to be a mountain on its own (volcano) than one in a full mountain range.  With humans, we can see it’s more difficult to practice the laws of common sense when surrounded by extremists, more difficult to live in peace when surrounded by violence.  If you want your children to be close minded, steeped in a strong belief system, surround your children with closed minded people steeped in strong belief systems.  If you want your children open to receive new experience, surround them with people open to receive new experiences.  If you want children of fear, surround them with people of fear.  If you want courageous children, surround them with courageous people.  If you want to be angry, surround yourself with angry people, listen to angry radio and music, and watch angry TV.  If you want to appreciate the value in seeing the big through the small, be around people who appreciate seeing the big in the small.  If you want to erode your character and talents, be around those who erode their character and talents.  If you want to be sick, be around those who whine about their injury or sickness.  If you want to be strong, be around the strongest people who are able to be the hope and healing for those in suffering.

When looking at nature and fractals, with all the unique communities, can we see what we want to be around?  Is it a community that celebrates life, lives without fear in stewardship to the earth, one another, future generations, etc., in full joy and wonder for the mystery?  Do we want to be around awake people or those going to sleep?  The amount of joy or suffering we experience through life can very much be related to the energy we hang with.

Ready (Be Present), Reset (Empty), Be

We’re learning more and more about fractals and how repeating energy patterns work.  Ancient spiritual wisdom has directed us to release our attachment to the material if we’re to experience peace.  We’re directed to let go our identification with belief systems, achievements and accomplishments, and our accumulations.  And yet, this is a big leap.  More comforting is the notion of energy reset.  Essentially, is my practice deep enough to forever bring me back to the surprise of beginning?  Am I awake enough to forever touch the moment’s wonder, beyond notions of expectation and knowing?

My heart says loud and clear that everything is in everything.  I can smell the power of the infinite spiral over the mind’s tug from linear time.  And yet, who am I but the moment’s awareness, forever sensitive to the power of fractal energy.  In essence, my circle of belonging must never close.  Practice of the heart simply can’t process criticism, complaint and judgment.  Heart practice can’t rehearse.  It accepts what is, in all of its ‘that-ness’, forever connected in loving, positive energy.  Heart practice is driven from curiosity and authentic desire to learn and grow. Actions and intention move from the heart with the innate vow to not harm. 

As we move deeper in life we grow a deeper listening.  With a more awakened ‘doing’ from a felt deeper sense of connection to ‘all’, common sense forever leads us to decisions that are best for all with harm to none.  The notion of debate, persuasion, negotiation, selfish interest, selfish power at the expense of others, and our low form of politics and justice are obsolete to the effectiveness of dialog and circle communication process.  Moving forever from separation to joining, from wounding to healing, we become aware of the repeating patterns of harm vs. no harm.  Yes, my head brain lives from generations of those who’ve come before me.  It instructs me to be clever, to amass more stuff, and to strive for recognition for what I’ve done and what I have.  And my stomach brain forever pulls me to judgment of good and bad and a strong desire to fix things.  And my sex brain is wrestling with the dissolution of form and body change.  And how wonderful life balance is when authority over all these brains is given to the heart. No harm is done.

Interfaith endeavors drive from the heart.  Collaborative diplomacy works when it drives from the heart.  A deeper education ensues when it comes from heart’s passion and thirst to study with genuine curiosity.  Health care heals when the patient becomes actively involved in participatory wholeness.  Notions of helpee/victim vs. helper/power authority vanish as we forever ‘reset’ beyond what we identify with.

Here’s the trick.  We don’t disappear.  Energy patterns forever repeat.  Family most readily shows this as the passions of my father, mother, grandfather and grandmother, great grandfather and great grandmother, and on and on, forever live within the moment of this experience.  And now as I experience deeper awareness to my grandchildren, my heart explodes with joy in honoring them as ancestors of the future–the children who will in some way be recipients of this work of transformation and ‘reset’.

These children will move from head and stomach’s desire to fight and separate.  Real security will not come from guns, military, walls and fences, cognitive religious belief systems and power struggles.  It will come from our disciplined practice to pay attention with deep acceptance to what is, to ‘reset’ in wonder, gratitude, and surprise to the ‘arising moment’, and ultimately align with heart’s knowing that we are each other.

So next time, when things don’t happen as expected, ‘reset’!  This is great opportunity for gratitude practice.  Reset to zero, and all is gift.  Reset to zero doesn’t wipe out the felt energy of past experience.  That fractal energy pattern lives forever.  It simply lifts the weight of unconsciousness from us, providing the energy to once again touch the moment.

So next time you find yourself drawn to unconsciousness and separation, breath in a resounding affirmation to ‘this moment’.  Do you ‘reset’ awareness when watching TV, surfing the Internet, consuming food and beverage, rising from bed, making love, playing sport, going to bed, etc.?  The formula of Ready, Reset, Be provides great spiritual security in these rapidly changing times.  

I just wanted to jot down some thoughts I had about ‘big hope’, ‘wholeheartedness’, ‘confidence’ and ‘feeling’ in relation to another perspective of prayer.

“That situation (person becomes supreme person, who is melted into the universe) is unknowable with our consciousness. It’s impossible for me to express it in words. But maybe you can feel that it is true, that Buddha’s activity is something that could appear in your life in the future. If so, that feeling becomes a kind of prediction, foreknowledge, or hope. That is called big hope.” P. 145

“It is possible to make that foreknowledge become real. Hope comes up, you do something with full devotion, you forget yourself, and you change the structure of time and space. Then, even though you don’t see it, people feel that.” P. 146

“All at once the past swallows up the present and spits it out. Pop! At the pivot of nothingness the next moment unfolds and a new world appears.

“The past, the present, the future are beings, but they are interconnected right now.” P. 111

Quotes from Each Moment the Universe by Dainin Katagiri, edited by Andrea Martin

In The Isaiah Effect Greg Braden introduces a fifth mode of prayer that “allows us to merge our thoughts, feelings, and emotions into a single, potent force of creation.” There’s a stepping from time, where we offer gratitude for what already exists, rather than expressing lack and asking for something to be answered.

Express by a SW Native American:

“When I was young our elders passed on to me the secret of prayer. The secret is that when we ask for something, we acknowledge what we do not have. Continuing to ask only gives power to what has never come to pass.”

“The path between man and the forces of this world begins in our hearts. It is here that our feeling world is married to our thinking world. In my prayer, I began the feeling of gratitude for all that is and all that has come to pass. I gave thanks for the desert wind, the heat, and the drought, for that is the way of it, until now. It is not good. It is not bad. It has been our medicine.

“Then I chose a new medicine. I began to have the feeling of what rain feels like. I felt the feeling of rain upon my body. Standing in the stone circle, I imagined that I was in the plaza of our village, barefoot in the rain. I felt the feeling of wet earth oozing between my naked toes. I smelled the smell of rain on the straw-and-mud walls of our village after the storms. I felt what it feels like to walk through fields of corn growing up to my chest because the rains have been so plentiful. The old ones remind us that this is how we choose our path in this world. We must first have the feelings of what we wish to experience. This is how we plant the seeds of a new way. From that point forward, our prayer becomes a prayer of thanks. (not a prayer of thanks for what we’ve created, because creation is already complete) Our prayer becomes a prayer of thanks for the opportunity to choose which creation we experience. Through our thanks, we honor all possibilities and bring the ones we choose into this world.”

Neville, The Power of Awareness

“make our future dream a present fact by assuming the feeling if our desire fulfilled”

(stepping from time, restlessness gone)

Johnson, This Precious Moment…Just Be It.

“As we launch into action, we often continue to carry our notions of separation of body from the event (subject/object). Yet at the highest levels of performance we surrender in full confidence to the insight that nothing is in our control but our willingness to give it up in full gratitude for the opportunity to participate. As we come to respect our core being-ness, we come to still the mind in full attention to the precious present moment. There’s consequent happiness from gratitude for the gift of belonging. At this moment, we step beyond pride, fear, judgment, and comparison, with the map surrendered, touching the territory outside notions of time and space.”

Michael Beckwith “We must stand in full gratitude for what is so room is given for new to come in”

Brother David Steindl Rast “Harmonious living requires making space always to find the gift in the given”. Happiness is a necessary consequence of gratitude. You ask, “Gratitude for what?” For opportunity…opportunity to participate.”

I can relate to my “change of prayer” as a youngster and how it played out 15 years ago with my two boys, relating a sense of ‘feeling’, ‘gratitude for gift given outside of time’, ‘confidence’, and ‘big hope’….touching the field of intuition.

Nothing separates…it’s always connected. Only energy dissipates, arising and dissipating….growing where attention is put, entropy where it’s not. This sense of connection is felt through the heart, thus “wholehearted” living and action. Cognition is separating and it’s why it’s so important to study the power of “feeling”.

Thich Knat Hahn speaks of our storehouse of feelings….positive and negative. Mindful living waters the seeds of positive, connecting feelings and brings them into the living room. We aim to leave the negative feelings of separation in the basement, and have confidence that they change and can dissipate just through observation.

In many respects, we can see we do the most harm when moving from our head with a sense of “I know that”, rather than moving from awareness to heart (wholehearted action) in our deepening to the play of impermanence and interdependent co-origination.

“Seeing the total functioning of time and space simultaneously gives you a deep appreciation toward human life. That is wonderful inspiration.”

Dogen says: see something with wholeheartedness; hear something with wholeheartedness. Without this actual practice, you can not make illumination alive in your life.

p. 84

Where are you on your thoughts of creation? This seems to be the core of much of our global malcontent. The neo Darwinists carry a belief in survival of the fittest. On the other end of the spectrum, those believing in creationism and intelligent design hold that a God ‘out there’ made man in final form in a ‘likeness to God’. Both extremes are dualistic in nature and encourage collaboration as long as we believe what they believe. Yet, today we find our advances in science evidencing our interconnection with everything. Our current global economic crisis is dramatically highlighting the fallacy in thinking the most wealthy and famous will always be the most fit to survive. Wall Street is collapsing from years of pushing for higher short term quarterly profits at the expense of a moral conscience. As we face radical adjustments in our felt sense of security, our basic belief systems become more and more challenged. Do I raise my fear from a perspective of others coming to get my stuff? Do I lose my sense of worth when I lose my job? In effect, how do I language my thoughts and speech through this rapidly increased change in our understanding and experience of the world? Who and what do I trust? Those holding to a strong religious belief carry a ‘survival of the fittest’ attitude in their belief in second hand information about ‘making it to the promised land’. There’s a linear thought system that has worked well for the churches of different religions. It says that if you ‘do this’ and ‘believe that’ you’ll be rewarded in eternity, unlike those who miss this golden opportunity and continue suffering through eternity. It carries a strong notion of being right, judging others, and often carries a command to get others to think and believe the same things without any first hand experience. Again, who do you trust?

We’re now facing a massive paradigm shift in our thinking. Notions of superiority, of being the ‘good guy’, and offering help to fix things when help has not been asked are being turned upside down. The neoconservatives of the Bush administration repeatedly implemented policies from a sense of ‘rightness’ at the expense of curiosity. Unfortunately, a strong sense of ‘knowing’ kills the cooperative/collaborative experience. This resulted in massive military expenditures on false information that now contribute to a failing economy. The failure to transparently ask deeper questions about the nature of preemptive unilateral war, violations of our humanitarian treatment of prisoners, refusal to dialog and mediate with other countries, and a continued religious belief agenda permeating our legal system dramatically reduced our progress to cooperation/collaboration.

After 9/11, we had a rich opportunity for global cooperation/collaboration in our attempts to step beyond the toxicity of religious dogma. Unfortunately, we stepped up the battle on whose God is the ‘right’ one as fundamentalist Christians battle fundamental Islamic peoples in ever increasing numbers. We just endured our most expensive political election with all parties claiming a strong Christian belief system. While we made major strides in breaking intellectual, gender, age and racial prejudice, will it take another forty years to break religious prejudice? Will it be too late before we start cooperating/collaborating in slowing global warming? Will our justice system and political system crumble from our lack of cooperation/collaboration? Will our health care and education system continue to entropy as we cling to our fixed notions of us vs. them? Will we continue to suffer immensely from our current global economic correction? Or will we use this as a rich opportunity to once again touch the ancient spiritual commands to cooperate and collaborate?

Some questions to ponder?

Is the dramatic increase in gun sales the last frontier in our transformation to love, gratitude and forgiveness?

What concrete steps are we making to simplify our lives, reducing the harm we cause others, things and our planet? (In travel, diet, general consumption, relationships, etc.)

In the face of crisis, of rapid change, am I moving more and more to appreciation of the present moment and sharing my resources or further from the moment in anticipation of increased suffering in the future, hoarding what I have and mourning my loss of recognition for past achievements? In effect, am I ‘feeling’ harmony and rhythm with life’s interconnection, or am I disharmonic, numb to what ‘is’. Am I moving from compassion or fear? Am I moving from a desire to fix and be recognized or a desire to connect and collaborate?

Are my comments from curiosity and increased desire to listen or from ego’s desire to persuade? Is my language and presence energy gaining or energy draining? Am I free from complaint, in gratitude for the opportunity to participate in what ‘is’, making room for more new to come in? Am I filled with anxiety, complaint, and fear about losing my ‘stuff’ and my approval from others for what I’ve done and what I’ve accumulated?

Am I burying my head in the sand, just hoping things will get better? Am I increasing my awareness to what is through increased stewardship to body, mind, family, community, nation and planet?

Who and what can I trust? Where is God? Who am ‘I’? What do I really, really, really want? What do I really, really need? What commitments must I make to move in this direction?

Science has substantiated the mystery of our interconnectedness. Ancient spiritual texts from most religions and indigenous cultures have commanded us ‘to do what’s best for all with harm to none’ in stewardship to our healthy evolution. How can I minimize harm with mindful, energy gaining speech, curious listening from the heart, watered seeds of positive thought and emotion, and ever increased ‘felt’ sense of our oneness?

Can I surrender my notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in deep curiosity to explore the mystery further? Can I hold love for my perceived enemy, in full allowance to their different life journey, free from my need to ‘change’ them? Can I serve as one who connects, who is an energy enhancer, practicing movement to a higher vibration? Am I practicing movement to a higher thought of cooperation and collaboration?

Am I sharing my background and resource from the heart, free from ego’s desire to be recognized? Am I strong enough to weather the storm of silence when others decline my assistance? Can I hold humility to the gifts of my life experience and training, offering my willingness to participate only when others have consented to my contribution?

Am I forever willing to drill deeper into the question or have I stopped the exploration in notions of my correctness?

Everything is energy. We are energy. Energy is vibration. We are vibration. Energy dissipates. We dissipate. Everything dissipates. Energy doesn’t disappear. We don’t disappear. Nothing disappears. The dissipation of energy can be slowed by putting greater attention to it. We can increase our chances of slowing entropy by “taking care”. As energy, we slow our entropy by ‘taking care’, by following the common sense rules of stewardship.

Perhaps our greatest lesson is practicing movement to a higher vibration. The low vibration of anger, fear, greed and mindless consumption appear to speed our entropy. Our evolution to a higher vibration through compassion, gratitude and forgiveness seems to slow our entropy. Our life practice is to forever move to a higher vibration through the practice of “no complaint, no complaint”. The higher vibration releases grudges from the past, finds deep gratitude for the gift in what is at the moment given, and forever “feels” the interconnection of all things. The higher vibration is a positive energy field that recognizes the seeds of negative emotion, but refuses to let them grow their toxicity. The higher vibration waters the seeds of loving kindness, forever touching the “arising moment” in mystery and wonder.

In times of deep wounding, the connecting vibration energy can be severely thrown from harmony. Oftentimes, these events are followed by prolonged silence as we travel deeply to once again touch our interconnection. At some moment, sound can be introduced as we once again find vibration alignment. This can be through tones, eventually moving to more complicated harmony and rhythm, eventually opening the window for words.

In deep wounding “the wholeness” has been ripped apart. The source of ‘to heal’ is ‘to make whole’. Our sense of separateness, our ego, continually pushes from the felt sense of interconnection, tempting us to dualistic battle. We are then more tempted to speak than to listen. Yet, our reconnection to energy and vibration is served best through deep listening.

Our energy increases as we go to a higher vibration that’s free from judgment. Our energy increases with our commitment to not harm others through our thoughts, emotions, speech and actions. Our energy increases through our fearlessness and courage in drilling deeper into life’s mystery through active listening.

This awareness of vibration energy is work. It requires moment to moment practice as we continually correct ourselves to a more evolved ‘being’. Good food for this practice consists of meditation, exercise of the body, the food of practicing one’s passions in contribution to universal connection, frequent communication in nature, dialog with friends and family, conscious nourishment of the body with foods that gain rather than drain energy, adequate rest, etc. Our life contribution to a higher vibration is all we can ask…a life of authentic being that’s forever increasing in ‘felt’ awareness of our interconnecting energy.

Our key to peace and health necessarily lies in our deeper understanding of the abstraction of time. Whether it’s a fantasy of winning the lottery, retiring, arriving in heaven, achieving fame, etc., there’s a projection to the future that robs our arrival to this present moment. We’ve carried a notion that Never, Never Land is a place where all conflict is resolved, all suffering gone. Yet when we look at it grammatically, we can always touch this peace in the present moment. In A Course in Miracles, we have an eloquent description of how we must forget the past in order to become whole. Our capacity to re-member our original oneness is presented in the chapter called The Function of Time:

The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.

“Now” has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. Chapter 13, Section IV, #4

The key to touching our being-ness stands in our willingness to step outside of time. Our re-connection, in contrast to ego, commands our surrender into the virgin quality of the present moment. Our return to light commands our acceptance that time is merely a mental abstraction. Our notions of linear continuity only imprison our capacity to just be.

The First Noble Truth in Buddhism states that all suffering arises from attachment. We’re then instructed to release from this imprisonment. The Christian tradition commands us to forgive our enemy, to treat them as we would be treated. The wisdom from most ancient spiritual traditions states that the road to peace comes through forgiveness and compassion. It comes through our waking to the present moment, in full arrival to the glory of Never Never Land. As stated in A Course in Miracles, “Now is the release of time.” Chapter 13, Section VI, #8

The use of the phrase just be it is for the purpose of stimulating a felt experience that moves past thought.  Recognizing that thought is based on linguistic constructs, our own personal creations from past or anticipated events, we can see that a 100% present response must necessarily step from the linguistic intellectual experience to that of “no thought” or what some have called “no mind”.  This distinction can be made with any action, once we’ve come to a level of proficiency where full surrender to the unknown occurs.  There’s a sense of faith so strong that the individual gives thanks for the entry to oneness, in complete peace it’s occurred, outside notions of time and space, before the actions undertaken.  This has been referred to as “peak experience”, “flow”, and other names designating that point where all distinction between the actor and that which is acted on is broken down into the unified experience.  We can also see this in our distinctions between religious dogma (the realm of intellectual, thought, belief) and that of the spiritual (the ‘felt’ sense of unity with all).  Again, there’s a deep faith that all is well within the present moment, as is captured in A Course in Miracles:

The savior’s vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself.  It sees no past in anyone at all.  And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts, and prepared to look on only what the present holds.  It cannot judge because it does not know.  And recognizing this, it merely asks, “What is the meaning of what I behold?”  Then is the answer given.  And the door held open for the face of Christ to shine upon the one who asks, in innocence, to see beyond the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear against the vision of the Christ in you. 

Chapter 31, VII, V13.

This felt experience of the divine holds back judgment, in complete faith to the awe and wonder of the unfolding present moment.  Released from the chains of thought and complex mental processing, we enter the core of being.  In his book The Translucent Revolution,  Arjuna Ardagh describes it as follows:

When translucents are presented with a new situation, a spontaneous, unresisted response arises that is not questioned.  When we can see the world without the filter of belief, it becomes perfectly obvious what to do in each moment.  Since we are not resisting anything, life itself keeps asking us to play, to dance beyond our habits.  To resist this playful invitation would itself be to cling to a point of view.

We know what to do, not from weighing pros and cons, or making lists or asking people, but from an open clarity, where there is no belief for or against anything.  There is just quietness and a capacity to respond spontaneously to the present moment.  Life is doing itself through you, and there is no need to interfere. P. 103-4.

This inspired arrival to the present moment can be viewed as our deepest arrival to Being.  A Hawaiian kahuna, Uncle Less, has threatened to open a school for this, with a sign above the door stating “No BS”, the “bs” standing for “belief system”.

Whether at the preverbal level of the seven to nine month old child, the peak performance of a master, or that brief discovery of “no thought” that most have experienced in moments of wonder and awe, this arrival home to the core of being can be stimulated through the linguistic response of just be or just be it.

I’ve just witnessed the inauguration of our 44^th President Obama. While his campaign captured our need to go for higher ground in eliminating racial, gender, age and economic prejudice, the ceremony today finally made some very distinctive moves that take us to higher thought from a deeper heart. The invocation by Rick Warren moved us to find God in each other and all things, a plea to honor our interconnectedness rather than our secular selfishness. Obama made a plea to those of all religious backgrounds to work in common sense for the common good. He recognized the need for inclusion, particularly from those of Islamic faith. Can we challenge ourselves to someday move beyond our religious prejudice to welcome a president of Islamic or Buddhist faith?  Or how about a president who makes no claim to a specific religion?  Will it take another forty years to move to complete inter faith tolerance?  He challenged us to go beyond the shallow debate of big government vs. small government to the more important question of efficacy. Is it a government that works? Perhaps the greatest leap was to invite all countries of the world to unite in respect to one another lest we all fall. He eloquently took us past the nationalistic pride that’s lead us to force our values on other nations. In short, the ceremony beautifully took us to that divine place where we challenge our racial, gender, economic, age, religious, and nationalistic prejudice.  This was revolutionary, yet most TV commentaries I reviewed had tunnel vision on the racial prejedice breakthrough.

The theme of today’s ceremony challenged us to expand our sense of belonging. It challenged us to participate in the stewardship and healing of ourselves, family, state, nation and planet. It recognized the need for us to seek to understand. We were asked to see how violence comes from forcing others to our belief system. It took us to the ancient wisdom found in the power of listening and diplomacy over military force.

From Aretha Franklin’s tear jerking rendition of My Country ‘tis of Thee, to the invocation, swearing in and benediction, this event has re-birthed my faith and confidence in the underlying foundations of the human species. It was a day to honor all, no matter what our differences. It was a day to stay from judgment of others, to aim to see the good and dismiss the negative. it was a day to move from victim thinking to participant thinking. As the poet Elisabeth Alexander so eloquently put us in touch with the now, with our present moment authenticity, far from our mental illusions feeding violence and separation, we once again came back to the core question, “Have I loved well?”  Yes, it seems the message was, “We are One”.

I’m writing to you from a perspective of shared knowledge. We all have our life journey and it seems our success is directly related to our capacity to mindfully take nourishing food/actions or mindlessly take foods that leave us less than what we were before.

I want you to go to a very deep place. Just sit in silence for awhile, touching where you were before your parents were born in 1976 and 1981. Better yet, touch that place you were before Jane and I were born, 1950. It’s an empty space, but one that’s very whole. Breathe in, then breathe out. Do this several times, and feel deeply the ancestors riding on your shoulders. You can always do this. This is good, because you know you’re never alone. You always have the full support of our very big family riding with you. You also must know that there are no secrets. When you think no one is watching, think again.

I’m so lucky to get to meet you in your first life months. You both came with such courage. These times are changing so fast and it will be important for you to be very attentive to what you let into your mind and body. There are so many that want you to loose this attentiveness so they can capture your attention for their own benefit. This will make your journey more difficult, possibly slowing it down for many years. Never forget that you came into your body complete. You came in whole, healed to the beautiful interconnection of all things. It’s a natural process to separate, to develop a sense of identity, to feel good about what you can accomplish. Yet, I want you to know that your life journey will be about the speed you come back to wholeness…to the felt sense of connection with God in and of all things. This awareness will help you face any situation with composure that will be a shining light for others.

The test of correct action and thought is how you feel “after” it. For example, if you eat a sugar filled candy bar, it’s pleasurable in the mouth, but when it hits the belly it may not feel so good. It’s also hard on your teeth, disrupts your natural metabolism, and may add unwanted weight to your body. So pay great attention to whether or not the action/thought nourishes or weakens you. Most actions taken primarily for pleasure may feel good at the moment, but inevitably leave an unwanted consequence. This doesn’t mean we can’t be happy. When we consume a food or event with a deeper sense of appreciation, respecting how it takes us to a deeper, more authentic living, we live a life of stewardship. You’re mindfully consuming/acting from a sense of stewardship to those who came before you and those yet to come.

More and more commercials will hit you claiming you can’t be happy without this or that product or service. Mindful living will hold you in that space where you have all you need right now. Many will try to tell you that you aren’t enough. So many people miss their life journey because they think they’re not enough. They’re always trying to figure out how they can be sufficient. This thinking is bad medicine. It doesn’t nourish your body/mind and greatly hinders your spiritual path. Your mind/body has been given to you as a great honor. Very few get to manifest as human beings and the very least we can do is forever hold deep appreciation for this gift. Always fill the day with gratitude…for your eyes, legs, feet, nose, mobility, stomach, etc. You can never meet the limit of gratitude for what God has given you. Our job is to find the space to uncover the gift in what’s given, no matter what. Some days will be hard. You can hold onto the pain and grow misery, or you can move through the pain, grow, appreciate and return to joy.

We never know when we’ll leave these bodies, so take nothing for granted. Make your appointment with life, always challenging your body/mind to new ground. This is good food. Wasting time on entertainments and pleasures is quick fix joy, but again, once out of the moment of pleasure, it doesn’t feel good. Our job is to feel good. Smile as much as you can, even when you’re sad. And if you can’t, dedicate yourself to finding a pleasant memory or something to be grateful for. Happiness will return.

I like to look at gratitude for my body, my home, my relationships and my work. You chose your parents for very sacred reasons. They are to be always honored and respected by you. They will always be there to support you on your journey, even though some days it may not seem this way. You’ll sometimes find yourself in anger. Save it for another day, and I can assure you that that day simply won’t come.

Love your body always, no matter what. Love your home always, no matter what. Love your relationships always, from a perspective of best for all with harm to none. This can be especially difficult when others seem to want to hurt us. It may feel good to fight and defend, but when it’s over, looking back on the bigger effect, it never works. It’s not good food that nourishes. We are each other, so when I hurt someone else, I’m hurting myself. When I love someone else, I love myself. Dogs seem to understand this better than humans. I suspect you’ll have your fights. Just pay attention to how you feel after the event. It’s just like a good meal or a bad meal. The short term, sugar buzz high we get from attacking someone simply doesn’t last. The love we send to those who would harm us is very nourishing food.

We all have negative and positive emotion seeds. We’ll grow what we feed and a happy life always feeds positive emotions. If we’re not feeling positive it’s time to look at what we’re feeding those negative emotion seeds. If we’re positive, in love with our interconnection, we’re whole…healed. If we’re negative, in fear and separation, we’re dis-eased. Our biggest work is staying positive in our body, home, relationships and work. This is big work. Many work to get us to fear and conflict for their benefit. A great movie that shows how simple happiness can be is The Wizard of Oz. All Dorothy had to do was click her heals and she was home. Each breath in, that’s all you need to do…simply arrive to this moment, in gratitude. You’ll be happy.

Do challenge yourself, always. Aspire and grace is given. Meditate often. This is necessary so you can align yourself with your deepest intentions which may have existed before you entered this body of yours. Don’t get caught on notions of fixing what’s wrong, but do express yourself fully on projects that come from your inner knowing. This won’t be easy. It can be very frustrating at first, but always notice what attracts you and move to it. Reach out to others that resonate with your internal pull. Then, take action with that energy. Aspire and God’s grace will pour down upon you. The more you feel you’re expressing that which is going through you, and the more you say “yes” to it, the freer you’ll feel.

Living backwards is a good test of stewardship. Plan your day, always. Live each action in reverse, developing your faith and wisdom in correct speech and action. Would you do it the same if you had it to do over? If yes, this is a good test that you’re on a nourishing growth path. Again, living in joy, in mindful thought and action, moves from the heart with intention to what’s best for all with harm to none.

Your Great Grandfather Galen lived a life of “no complaint, no complaint”. This is an admirable life. Complaint and criticism may taste good in the moment, but always leave a bad aftertaste. Stay connected to hope. It’s the only antidote to cynicism, fear, and apathy. Mindful consumption is always moderate consumption. Galen also carried this wisdom, knowing that relationships are more difficult when living a life of excess.

Many will try to give you answers. The most dangerous words in our language are, “I know that”. Hold the mystery; always go deeper into the question. When you meditate, pray, practice affirmation and move in trust and curiosity, flexible and patient, magic doorways will open.

Hold the mystery, eat your food backwards, love your friends and family backwards, live your work backwards, and you’ll have a rich nourishing life. Aim to comfort, notions of material security and pleasure and your journey may be poisoned. Be authentic, do wholeheartedly, and you will have.