PROGRAMING

Spring is definitely here. A few days in the fifties has almost eliminated the snow. What a difference a week makes. The chickens are cranking out the eggs. We got a dozen yesterday. Soon we will be giving them away. The chickens aren't behaving well, though. I let them free range yesterday and thirteen of them decided to go to their old coop. I had to carry them back after dark. I guess I will just have to persist and expect them to learn.

We are One. Being one is truth. We are one in that we are all part of Source. We are all love. Being One does not mean conforming. It does not mean agreement. We are part of nature. Precise duplicates do not occur in nature. Like snowflakes, no two of us is the same.

Our ego is constantly seeking safety. It is the part of us that protects our separateness. Paradoxically, to protect our separateness, it tries to blend us into the crowd and therefore make us less vulnerable to attack.

We have a natural wish to belong, to family, to tribe, to nation, to any group we find ourselves in.

We have been programmed by our ego's need to be protective and our natural wish to belong. We are by creation, autonomous, sovereign beings. We have been programmed to have a herd mentality. We have been programmed to work hard and not expect much out of life. From the very beginnings of our life, on this planet, we are programmed to not expect much out of life. We are held out examples of success, like carrots on the end of a stick, but there is an underneath feeling that life is hard work drudgery and death. If we can avoid too many disasters we are lucky. Do you know what I mean by this pessimism about life? I have always been impressed with the negativity that exist in nursery rhymes and tales we teach our children. As a young father I did not want my children reading Hans Christian Anderson. However, most of the other tales had some negative programming, also.

Remember the story of the grasshopper and the ant. That always struck me as an example of programming, and yesterday, I read a blog where it was used as an example. The ant labors a way preparing for the future, why the grasshopper enjoys the moment, and basks in the Sun. When Winter comes the ant goes down into his underground home and enjoys the fruits of his labor and the grasshopper perishes in the cold.

Then there is the little red hen. She asks several of the animals around her to help her bake a cake and they all have better things to do. When the cake is out of the oven, they gather around and she reminds them, that since they wouldn't help here prepare it, they don't get any.

All through our life there are subtle variations on these themes. We need to prepare. We need to save for the future. We have to expect there will be rainy days. Where is the emphasis on enjoying the moment? Where is the reassurance that everything will be indeed Sunny. Well it is there, of course, we hear it it our music. In fact I am hearing a phrase from a song, "everything will be all right" or something like that.

Yes, we have a lot of  positive programming in our culture, especially in the arts. But we need to take a look at how much negative programming is placed in front of our children.

We need to become deprogrammed. Those of us who, think for ourselves and challenge or eschew the commonly held beliefs of our tribe [family, nation, religious group etc.] are punished one way or another.

We will never appreciate what Oneness means, as long as we are brainwashed into belonging, rather than really seeing our unity.

In our core being, we know everything we need to know. We know truth when we see it. We have been manipulated to seek belonging, in a way, that has obscured the truth. If we are liberal we have this set of beliefs, if we are conservative we have another, every religion has its own set. None of these group truths can be true. The test of truth is that it is true. The only test these group truths have, is agreement, and that one will be punished, by not going along.

I will say it again. We need to become deprogrammed! Check it out. Why do we believe, what we believe? Is it just because the group, we identify with, believes it?

We need to appreciate what being sovereign means. Belonging to a group doesn't mean giving up discernment.

We will learn to 'see' when we accept the fact, that the only thing we know for sure, is that love is real. Love, kindness, respect for each other, gentleness, acceptance of each others peculiarities; that is the mother lode we should be mining. Then perhaps we will begin to know something.

Love and Peace,  Gregg