POINTS OF VIEW

The cool air returned. It is a glorious Morning. There is nothing like a hot, humid week to help one welcome Autumn.

I have a large [over six foot], variegated leaved, Ficus, in front of the North facing window in this room. The other day I glanced over and saw what looked like a blade of grass growing out of the pot. I checked it out. It was a two inch, green, needle like, spike. Then I remembered! I was eating some supposedly pitted dates about a month ago and I bit into a pit. Not wanting to waste a perfectly good seed, I stuck it in the dirt alongside the Ficus. Now I have a date palm growing with my Ficus tree! If it grows I will transplant it to its own pot. Can I grow a date palm, in the house, in Minnesota?

I had an awareness this last weekend. I didn't learn something, I didn't know already. However, I saw it with a clarity that I had missed before. I realized that we should not insist, others, see our point of view. If we are correct. The truth will be known. Insisting we are correct is an ego trap we don't want to be in. Do I know anything for sure? Insisting, that someone, sees our point of view, invariably means, we are not fully listening to theirs. And why are we so insisting, on them, seeing ours?

It is an aspect of our ego, that insist, everyone sees things the a way we do. We don't know if we are right. Besides it is not a matter of right or wrong. Perhaps, we are all right. The biggest problem, in insisting on others seeing our point of view, is that we miss out on learning. We are learning from each other vary rapidly. We need to listen to each other. We can't fully appreciate what the other is saying when we are preparing our response. And, we don't need to respond. We may question and clarify, in an effort to have a better understanding, of the person's opinion, there is no need to introduce our own opinion. We can't hear each other, when we are dedicated, to getting our own point of view across.

When people are ready to learn, what we have to teach, they will ask. They will especially want to know what we think if we radiate love, peace, happiness, competence, worthiness or other attributes of a person comfortable in their own skin.

We are been marinating in this illusion of fear for eons. We are up to our necks in dreck and we are heading into chaos. Most of us agree that the theme of our entrapment has been fear that we are not adequate or worthy. Our institutions, especially religion, taught us we are bad. Because of our feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness we have been very easy to manipulate. We believe all kinds of nonsense that was promoted for the purpose of control. We are not sure we can know truth from fabrication.

We all want out of this illusion. How do we do it? We are up to our neck in poop; we can barely peer over the top. How do we get out? We recognize that if we loved ourselves we would not be in this dilemma in the first place. We would not have allowed anybody to manipulate us and we would not have fallen for all the ego traps, our controllers have presented us with. When low self esteem is rampant it is easy to manipulate people by subtly appealing to their wish to be better [than they are or someone else]. Just join this group. Take this medication. Believe this. Be a conservative. Be a liberal. We all have our vulnerability. We all want to feel better about ourselves.

We want to live in a world created by love. We don't want to do this any longer. How do we have the world we want? We need to listen to each other. Some will feel we need to understand exactly how we fell for all these ego traps in the first place. They need to examine the horror of the illusion, until they see, how we can get out, and stay out. They reason, we can't avoid being manipulated, until we see just how manipulated we have been. There are others who want to approach, the low self esteem of people, by healing and nurturing one person at a time. There are teachers, therapist, nurses and caring people of all persuasions who are doing just that. There are many points of view. We need them all!

If we are going to get out of this mess, we need to listen to everyone. We need to resist the idea that our point of view, needs to be the one, that everybody hears. That kind of ego thinking is how we got trapped in the first place.

We are raising our consciousness together. Some of us have the gift of analysis. Some of us are teachers. Some of us are healers. Some of us are artist. Our gifts are endless and we need them all. We should not be wasting our time and energy trying to get others to see things our way. It is far better, to make sure, we see things the way our neighbor sees them. We need to LISTEN to each other.

For myself, I like the direct approach. I like to tune into the love that I see around me. I want to know myself as a loving being. I want to be free of judgement and love everybody. I always think, one should be able to sidestep, out of this illusion, into the Sunshine. I haven't been able to do it yet. I need to listen more. I need to see the light shining from every heart. I need to put my own opinions, on the back of the stove, and listen with my heart and mind to everyone. And to the universe.

Of course, you will keep hearing from me.

Happy Labor day!

Love and Peace,  Gregg