My understanding about beliefs shifted when I saw a picture of the beliefs like little walls going down into the ocean to keep us all separate. Those walls extend merely 1/4 inch into the ocean. The rest of the ocean is below. Therefore, when you start entering your inner depths, mind-based separations around having different beliefs becomes relatively inconsequential. Knowing replaces beliefs. Knowing does not divide. Inner clarity does not judge. It aligns, and it resonates.
Charles, after your last essay, I decided to host a Christmas gathering for people in my town who had nowhere to be during the holidays. I posted it on the Facebook group of my town and several strangers came into my home. It felt so aligning to do this.
After your last essay I changed my office situation, resolving a deep inner conflict. Your words gave context around some pieces of my inner healing journey. It cleared mental conflict around how I will hold a group I want to start, in person, in my town to explore inner connection. I realized it just doesn't align to hold it with masks on. And the office I had was in a medical facility that housed chiropractors that have a strict rule about masks. It isn't that your essay told me what to do and I went out and did it. It's more that it activated parts of me that were already there and helped me find my way to inner clarity and peace and out of confusion, and led to some big moments of healing.
I don't watch news or read actually anything similar to your essays so I somehow randomly subscribed, and I kept questioning why I don't unsubscribe, when I let go of so many other things that found their way into my inbox. Reading this last letter, now I know.
You're bringing your true work, authentically. That matters.
Ironically, my chiropractor is anti-vaccination and nobody wears a mask in the office. The vaccination debate has made strange bedfellows. Trump Republicans, fundamentalist patriots, and the holistic health people find themselves on the same side of the fence when it comes to vaccinations. The universe is not without a sense of irony.
True Jerry, it has been, for me, an uncomfortable alliance with the far right of both politics and religion and that is teaching me nicely about judgment
It's a difficult thing, participating in today's society; I agree "anything I put into the world might bear a seed of division." But at this point in time, the spectrum of beliefs and perspectives is so vast, one sentence can possibly be interpreted 1,000+ different ways, and that is a beautiful thing that should not be abandoned, simply because there will be those who weaponize those words for their own agendas or cognitive comfort.
I'm glad you have kept writing essays Charles, thank you for continuing to share your insight <3
We must be careful to not condemn 'division.' In our dualistic reality, division is natural and inevitable. Divisions are not the problem; self-righteous beliefs about them are. And behind every false self-righteous belief is ego, always ego. Ego separates us, divides us, both internally and externally. Ego is what separates from awareness of oneness.
If there is an ultimate foe to rail against, that would be ego.
BDev - your remark about division sparked in me a memory of listening to a Waldorf School teacher explain why the curriculum taught division before addition. And the reason had to do with the fact that life starts with division. I am also reminded of Pema Chodron's thoughts on war and peace: we seek peace and happiness by going to war. She says war begins when we harden our hearts and that we harden them easily. I think this parallels what is happening now in society as I notice it is hard not to feel pissed off when someone disagrees with our strongly felt views. Probably has something to do with our views feeling like our very identity. I wonder how I might come to understand division as natural rather than as a threat. But I do not see the value in railing against the ego. That seems like another type of war - against oneself.
Hi Tamra - I'm going to slightly edit your statement to make a point: "... feel pissed off when someone disagrees with [my] strongly [held beliefs]. Probably has something to do with [my beliefs] feeling like [my] very identity."
Exactly correct, I'd say. My beliefs ARE my identity. Conversely, if I have no beliefs, I have no identity... therefore nothing to defend... therefore nothing to get pissed about.
Having no attachment to beliefs (i.e. deactivating the internal egoic mechanism that causes 'attaching') is considered a huge spiritual milestone. Once free of past attachments and future attachments, I can 'see' again. The Present is revealed again.
Considering your reply, this morning I wrote this:
Avalanche of Beliefs
Beliefs, beliefs, beliefs. Mountains of beliefs. Everyone's got 'em, everyone loves 'em, everyone defends 'em... sometimes violently.
A fundamental premise and duty of personal spiritual work is the excavation, analysis and disintegration of false beliefs.
All of them.
The amygdala(e), two almond-shaped clusters of specialized nuclei deep in your brain, perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision making, and emotional responses (including fear, anxiety, and aggression).
It has been said that, "the amygdala in the brain reacts the same way to a challenge against your beliefs as it does to a physical attack." (thanks to whomever wrote this here on this chatboard!)
This is what you are up against in your personal spiritual work, as well as regular daily life. Your amygdala assists you in unearthing your false belief (memory), helps you summon up the courage to confront its falseness (decision making)... but then it fights you tooth and nail as you try to dissolve that false belief (fear, anxiety, aggression).
Not only is this what we are each up against with our own false beliefs, we each also face the onslaught of false beliefs implanted and held collectively in this contrived plandemic. Mainstream media constantly implanting beliefs aimed toward maintaining fear and encouraging its one world govt endgame as the only viable answer. People across the globe being subjected to constant propaganda… internalizing it and turning it into layer upon layer of false beliefs pretended to be real, defended as if real. Life or death false beliefs. Potentially democidal and genocidal false beliefs.
If you can push yourself through your whole process of multiple false belief confrontations, out the other side is a whole new reality... sans beliefs. A reality pregnant with potential and creative energy… energy no longer twisted, warped or detoured by conflicted beliefs.
Same process applies to our collective humanity.
**
Seems that a relative few are cut out to take on their false beliefs. Most others are content to explore them... and defend them... for a few lifetimes. Then to move on to the next set of life-defining beliefs.
This seems to correlate, more or less, to the awake vs the sheep.
Armed with the hard-won maturity gathered through lifetimes of living and exploring self-defining beliefs, the tipping point threshold is nearly reached. Energy is no longer spent acquiring and exploring beliefs; rather, all energy is now directed toward annihilating them.
In my experience, once the avalanche of dislodged beliefs starts tumbling, not only does that avalanche gain speed and volume, but other avalanches spontaneously start tumbling, too. A whole bunch of dis-integrated belief-material falls away, disgorging its stored kinetic energy. Then there is respite for awhile, thank goodness. Soon enough, though, more inner rumblings signal more avalanches on their way.
Layers after layers... Hundreds and hundreds of times the avalanches and respites cycle through.
Eventually the bulk of false belief material is gone; its elements scattered and settled at the bottom of the ravine. Now, however, what's left of the mountain are the core bedrock beliefs... the foundational self-defining beliefs... none of which are going to avalanche on their own.
This is the most brutal phase of the whole process. Now it is time for the spiritual warrior to appear. Cracking that bedrock paradoxically requires laser-focus commitment, insanely reckless courage and quietly profound surrender. Impossible to make sense of it logically, but you know it when each is required. No further progress is permitted unless and until one is willing to throw themselves totally into the maelstrom of the final avalanche... come what may... no matter what.
When it is done, 'me' is gone. It is then that it becomes clear: 'me' exactly equals the sum of all my previously held beliefs.
Wow! What a post...had me in goosebumps because I resonate will all of it...the subconscious programming that the great Dr Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief) has presented with his work in epigentics comes to mind as how to navigate the layers of self (ego) that limit true awareness...
Such a good wake up call on how much unlearning we have to do as a whole. Grateful for your wisdom to set a reminder for us all to keep exploring the way we react to the complex interactions with other “egos”. Thank you.
EB - Thx, and I'm very happy that you found it useful. Very few people are at the place in their journey where this ego-busting talk makes much sense. You seem ready for liftoff! You may find this interesting: https://bit.ly/3sMJQPt
Our battered and struggling planet needs all the enlightened minds it can get. I think it's going to take a lot of people with clear thinking and clear seeing to navigate out of the massive messes we've created.
I resonate completely! Division is a natural phenomenon. Othering is unlike division because is has the intent to say “I’m better than you”. When an action comes from the ego as you say it’s done for the sole pillar of self aggregation which results in division but it’s not the source. The source is the intent
Even “I’m better than you” isn’t a terrible threat of a thing if it is divorced from the desire to rule over the other...I’m content with separation and ignoring them utterly unless they encroach on my life
Hi Shelly - Thanks for providing me some clarity about this "Othering" meme. When you explained that the intent is basically to say, "I'm better than you," it clicked into place.
In my line of work, I am often calling out people and their false beliefs. Why? Because those false beliefs, and how the holder of the belief acts them out, are hurting people.
The next question, of course, is whether the hurtful action is done on purpose or out out of misinformation... yet done with good intentions. Most cases fall into the latter group, and once apprised of the miscue, most of those people immediately correct their wrong actions and reframe their beliefs.
The ones who act on purpose, however, not only need to be taken to task, they need to understand perfectly clearly that if it happens again, the hammer comes down.
In this contrived plandemic, there are a LOT of people who are doing great harm On Purpose. ALL of us need to be calling them out at every opportunity. And all of should be carrying a hammer in our back pocket.
Charles, your courage is like a flame that lights the path for many to better navigate by. Maybe, with this light, some will eventually recognize that these paths all converge into one, that we are all on a human journey where our mutual respect, compassion, and love are the powerful energies that burn away the illusion of division. Thank you for reminding and reassuring me that this is so. I read your words with tears because I can feel your pain and concern. We've all experienced it to some extent, the bad fruits of this trajectory towards dehumanization. I lost a dear friend of twenty years, a person of deep faith, who refuses to see me. It all seems like a bad dream. I look forward to your stories of hope, and I remain one small voice cheering from your balcony.
Your writing makes me want to be good. And yet I rail against the idea that I'm not. I have not visited any bad upon anyone. I got ill. I was scared for a short while, faced with my mortality. I got better. I was so happy my body pulled through for me. I had always known that this was the way I wanted it to be. Living with, and facing the pathogens that would challenge me. Honestly. With what I had. For not to do so is denying my body the skills and strength to face the next round. Cellular skills wrought over millennia. Bypassing that, is cheating - cheating the foe and cheating myself. There are no quick fixes. We either work with nature, or we work against her. One day, those little foes will win. I will grow older. Not be strong forever. I'm ok with that. I am resolved to look after my body for as long as it will have me. With minimal interventions. Certainly none that are inserted into my body to wreak havoc with my cells like mRNA bulls in a China shop. Jangling my cells and confusing them. Playing an inept Frankenstein god over my internal workings.
Despite this, others will not leave me be. They insist I have it wrong. That I am weak and in need of imposed intervention. That I embody the possibility of illness, and this must be rectified, at all costs. My ideas are contagion, which will somehow become actualised and infect them. They don't seem to believe in their own strength, or accept their own mortality, so seek rather to undermine my own. I already capitulated once, out of fear. Fear of loss. Of my job. Of my friends. Of my husband. And now I am stuck. That didn't help. It doesn't stop at one. And now I have lost myself. Betrayed my body. Betrayed my health. And I might still lose that which I feared I would lose anyway. Because they will not stop.
How should I feel towards these people? Hatred? I can't help it. I do. But I do not want to hate. Pity? That seems arrogant - an arrogance of the recovered. Yet I do understand the fear. Empathy? It's hard to meet the threat of violence with empathy. That is the hardest.
So instead, I just want to retreat and cut myself off. They must just leave me alone. Please let them leave me alone. I want to go and meld with the rocks and seep into the earth and be invisible. Yet they continue to bay and hound.
(I've just edited this to add this little bit in parentheses at the end, because I realise I just plunged straight in initially, and did my usual stream-of-consciousness blatting straight on the "page". But in doing so failed to address you by name and thank you, Charles! Your writing is kind and luminous. I am trying to be mindful that there are people at the fibre ends of each of my digital interactions - so easy to forget this. That we each have a name, and saying it affirms our existence. Perhaps this is part of where everything started going so wrong for all of us?)
To me, your final paragraph elicits the deepest yearning we each have: To reconnect most intimately with Nature and Earth. That is the only way to thoroughly satisfy and fulfill our soul. In this earthly incarnation, Nature and Earth is Home. When teaching students natural health care or overseeing fasting patients, I often like to remind them that "Nature Works. Always has and always will. There is no substitute; no alternate path. Nature has been working - creating and experimenting - for 1,000,000,000 years. She knows what She is doing. Infinite Consciousness of God flows through Her as it does through all Her creations, including you and me. Study and comprehend Nature - how and why She operates as She does. Re-Merge your nature with Her Nature. The results are wonderful beyond measure."
With re-merging into Nature comes connected awareness and intuitive insight. Nature enfolds, supports, informs, feeds, encourages growth. Nature heals from the ground, up. Nature becomes my guide in all things. Literally everything becomes easy, natural, flowing. Life continues with its ups and downs, but behind that is peace, security, conviction, confidence. Whether bountiful harvest or contrived pandemic 'disaster,' the beauty and surety of natural connection never waivers or falters.
**
Those who do not feel and know this connection are adrift. They cannot find Home, though they walk on it and in it every day. Instead, they lock onto their false gods like swimming pool life preservers, and as you say, they often feel impelled to force their allegiances onto you... whether you like it or not. Baying and hounding will inevitably soon turn into handcuffing, banning, shunning and worse. History is replete with factual evidence of democide and genocide. Though we can understand the causes of the illness driving their fears, their actions borne of those fears absolutely will not be tolerated.
Thank you, BDev. If there is one thing that I am eternally grateful for, arising out of this time, is my reorientating my life towards nature and, now, towards healing and a better way of living. I was shuffling through life, thinking that I would get back to that which I love most "at some stage". I have devoured information on permaculture, regeneration, soil, water management and have been planting, planting, planting. (Look up Bealtaine Cottage on YouTube - much as I have come to loathe YouTube, this is a gem to find there. Collette's maxim is "plant as though your life depends on it - because it does."). Am now learning to detox my body and reduce inflammation and to stop living a life of dis-ease. As well as learning to breathe properly again and getting back to yoga. Even trying cold showers! (although the last is a challenge 😄). Yes, we lose touch with nature at our peril.
"I am resolved to look after my body for as long as it will have me." So beautifully put. Thank you, Ann. I want them to leave you alone too. We're here for you if you ever want company. :-)
You speak with such eloquence and clarity, Ann. My hope is that there's a resolution around the corner and we just need to wait it out a little longer. I'm so sorry for the pressures you're under, from all sides. I feel that something better will come out of this, and there's a wisdom at work that knows more than we do. You already trust your body and you trust nature. I think there's a self-healing of the collective soul that's happening, but you're really taking the brunt of the difficult process to get there.
Thank you so much, Tereza. I will take heart from your optimism. It has also, of course, been a blessing to discover Charles' writing (thank you, Charles!). It has been an antidote to all of the poison and polarisation, and an invitation and challenge to us all to try and find middle ground and harmony.
I've been studying A Course in Miracles for 18 yrs and my reading yesterday included "What could be more unstable than a tightly organized delusional system?" I think the hostility and aggression we're seeing are actually signs of fragility and that the whole tightly woven structure is hanging by a thread. If you're seen as the one trying to cut that thread, you'll be blamed rather than the structure. My advice is meld into the rocks for while. Let that thread fray and snap on its own. It's going to unravel and you need to protect yourself to be part of the love and kindness that knits together a new reality in your own hyperlocalism (agreeing with UTobian).
I was just rewatching one of my YT videos called "What Emerges from the Emergency" and it occurred to me that you might like it. It talks about the end of 100 generations of patriarchy that served the ejaculations of men with children as an inconvenient byproduct, to be replaced by a feminine economy that puts home, family and community at the center. I also end with a recommendation to "stay with the stuckness," similar to what I've said here. It's a common theme in my videos that this is a time to stay in the womb and let what is to be take form. Look at it if you have spare time while merging with the rocks ;-)
I feel your pain Ann. I want to be loving. Not to be decisive. And certain people I want removed from this planet. I recently said on twitter: There are 4 ways we deal with cancer. Try to kill it off with something. Accept it and live the best we can with aliveness. Succumb to it, beaten and down trodden. Or lastly, cut it out. The cancer of the mind that is those who would dominate others, I wish to kill it or cut it out. It is far too toxic to remain in the body of humanity. I don't believe we have time to persuade it to stop before it exterminates the majority of us.
Thanks, Steve. I think I'm trying a hybrid of your second and fourth options. Living with where I'm at, but forming a strong mental protective shield that will not permit any further encroachment - so a cutting off for now. If I have to (which might be the case, if mandates are not dropped), I will be compelled to resist. Passive, yet firm. Failing that, I will have to consider options for retreat and contemplating a new life. It will mean upheaval, but I am preparing for that. Mentally, I'm already there, I think.
That looks like a fascinating book and concept, BDev. The concentration of money and power in the hands of so few is indeed dangerous. Especially if they are selfish or malevolent. It is becoming an imperative to try and depose them via any legal means possible - maybe it needs to start with the choices we make. A people-centric return to balance. If we didn't all shop online, the Amazons of the world wouldn't exist. If we looked after ourselves better, pharma wouldn't be so powerful. If we tried to live more analogue existences, the less hold the digital will have over us. We need to look carefully at the way we live and interact. Who we are giving the fruits of our labours to and how we are using our time. If we are more judicious about these choices, we can reduce these metastasised mega-tumours of commerce and release the hold that they have over our existence. Maybe these are pipe dreams or I'm just of the wrong time - but I can hope!
(UTobian is writing very interesting stuff on this, if you haven't been to his stack. He talks of "hyper-localism". He might be on to something.)
Ann, I love your reliance on your body to do what it needs to do to keep you healthy. Don't forget it's done this over all the years you may have unknowingly ingested chemicals in processed foods or breathed in unseen chemicals from smokestacks. In the same way, can you consider the vax you had as just one more thing your body knows what to do with to keep you safe? Why give the vax more power because you fear the unknown in the letters mRNA? After watching Wim Hof purposely take injections that were "guaranteed" to make him sick, and they didn't, to prove his point in mind-body power, I choose to side with my own body's innate power. Another belief I'm going to hold onto is humans can choose oneness over separateness as a Prime Directive kind of thing...so I guess I'm not going to give up all beliefs as egoistic if I find some that include everyone rather than just some of us.
Wherever you are, there are people you can connect with. Please know you are not alone. I always think, if I feel some way, someone else must as well. Find your tribe.
I think our judgments and reactions to "good and bad" people are somewhat of a distraction from a deeper issue, which I believe is resonance. If a musical note doesn't match or harmonize with another note it's not good or bad, it's just chaotic. If it's true that a drop of water responds to loving or hateful speech with symmetric crystals or deformed chaos respectively (Masaru Emoto's water experiments) then all we're doing is learning how to organize our energy, speech and action to create harmony and displace chaos. There is a lot of chaos right now. Keep sounding the tuning fork like a homing beacon. I feel the resonance rising around the world. Let's not get too frustrated. Keep going Charles. You're holding the gate to Eden open. Thank you for your work.
I deeply appreciate your willingness to wonder out loud and to offer a constant bridge to compassion and connection rather than feeding the divisiveness. I know this has taken a toll... to be willing to stand in the vicious line of fire that these times of a feardemic have wrought, and I having only gratitude for your work. We cannot know the full power of our efforts we can only step as fully with the grace of what we see. Thank you!
Thank you Charles. You provide a space with your words for me to discover more powerful truths. By dancing on the edge. I don't normally have this space in my life with those closest to me. As I write this I realise that I have been able to have conversations with others that grows the edge to allow for deeper exploration. I ascribe much of this to reading your words.
So thank you for helping to create more space and quiet for deeper reflection. This seems more powerful than seeking truth, and more realistic in these times.
I hear you, Charles. Last night, as I pondered my attendance at a funeral in which many refused to go because there were “unvaccinated” in the crowd along with a variance of “mask wearers” and the “non- masked,” I thought about the absurdity of it all. After months of hearing “they aren’t thinking about others” with almost a self-righteous boast of how dare they or how stupid are those that are questioning the vaccine, I cannot get past my own gut feeling that something is really off about this narrative. I had to check-in with myself and make a conscious choice—do I ignore my gut, instinct, and innate feelings? Believing that we as humans have not been taught, in general, to follow our innate guidance, as well as a feeling of being coerced into thinking I’m being ignorant or not thinking of others, I choose to be okay with my questioning.
Thank you so much, Charles Eisenstein for your wonderful work. I love reading your articles and so appreciate the much needed sanity and words of compassion and wisdom they provide in these trying times. Thank you for staying strong, for continuing to write and for shining the light.
As it goes, your willingness to dig into your motives and courage to speak honestly/boldly/compassionately, inspires me to the do the same — to feel less alone and more hopeful. Your writing over 2021 has been encouraging, meaningful and important. Thank you.
Such deep gratitude. Your essays, letters, books, podcasts have each time felt like a port in a storm and have also inspired my courage to speak up and out with confidence knowing there are others.....
God bless you for your courage, Charles! I wrote the following poem on Monday as a cathartic exercise, leaning into my own way of coping, humor and satire. I hope you enjoy it, I enjoyed writing it!
Thank you for sharing your humanity, for weaving words into insights, curiosity, contemplation and wisdom. Thank you for continuing to show up despite all of the inner and outer voices that may pull you down and under at times. The cracks in our foundation are showing...everything is collapsing and new growth will emerge. We will continue to create beauty.
Charles, you have moved me to tears with this one, as you have many times before. More than anything else, our world needs people who not only see but also value and promote our common humanity, over and above the decisions we make as individuals, and our differing perceptions of truth and reality. Thank you for shining a much-needed light into the collective confusion and darkness.
your words awaken me, like a mother who sits aside you and plays with your hair until you open your eyes. thank you for spending the days of your life on this work Charles, i am overwhelmed with gratitude.
My understanding about beliefs shifted when I saw a picture of the beliefs like little walls going down into the ocean to keep us all separate. Those walls extend merely 1/4 inch into the ocean. The rest of the ocean is below. Therefore, when you start entering your inner depths, mind-based separations around having different beliefs becomes relatively inconsequential. Knowing replaces beliefs. Knowing does not divide. Inner clarity does not judge. It aligns, and it resonates.
Charles, after your last essay, I decided to host a Christmas gathering for people in my town who had nowhere to be during the holidays. I posted it on the Facebook group of my town and several strangers came into my home. It felt so aligning to do this.
After your last essay I changed my office situation, resolving a deep inner conflict. Your words gave context around some pieces of my inner healing journey. It cleared mental conflict around how I will hold a group I want to start, in person, in my town to explore inner connection. I realized it just doesn't align to hold it with masks on. And the office I had was in a medical facility that housed chiropractors that have a strict rule about masks. It isn't that your essay told me what to do and I went out and did it. It's more that it activated parts of me that were already there and helped me find my way to inner clarity and peace and out of confusion, and led to some big moments of healing.
I don't watch news or read actually anything similar to your essays so I somehow randomly subscribed, and I kept questioning why I don't unsubscribe, when I let go of so many other things that found their way into my inbox. Reading this last letter, now I know.
You're bringing your true work, authentically. That matters.
Ironically, my chiropractor is anti-vaccination and nobody wears a mask in the office. The vaccination debate has made strange bedfellows. Trump Republicans, fundamentalist patriots, and the holistic health people find themselves on the same side of the fence when it comes to vaccinations. The universe is not without a sense of irony.
True Jerry, it has been, for me, an uncomfortable alliance with the far right of both politics and religion and that is teaching me nicely about judgment
They want me excluded from society and dead for not taking a vaccine. They are not kin to me. Never.
What about our children? Do we abandon them because they don't know right from wrong.......yet?
It's a difficult thing, participating in today's society; I agree "anything I put into the world might bear a seed of division." But at this point in time, the spectrum of beliefs and perspectives is so vast, one sentence can possibly be interpreted 1,000+ different ways, and that is a beautiful thing that should not be abandoned, simply because there will be those who weaponize those words for their own agendas or cognitive comfort.
I'm glad you have kept writing essays Charles, thank you for continuing to share your insight <3
We must be careful to not condemn 'division.' In our dualistic reality, division is natural and inevitable. Divisions are not the problem; self-righteous beliefs about them are. And behind every false self-righteous belief is ego, always ego. Ego separates us, divides us, both internally and externally. Ego is what separates from awareness of oneness.
If there is an ultimate foe to rail against, that would be ego.
BDev - your remark about division sparked in me a memory of listening to a Waldorf School teacher explain why the curriculum taught division before addition. And the reason had to do with the fact that life starts with division. I am also reminded of Pema Chodron's thoughts on war and peace: we seek peace and happiness by going to war. She says war begins when we harden our hearts and that we harden them easily. I think this parallels what is happening now in society as I notice it is hard not to feel pissed off when someone disagrees with our strongly felt views. Probably has something to do with our views feeling like our very identity. I wonder how I might come to understand division as natural rather than as a threat. But I do not see the value in railing against the ego. That seems like another type of war - against oneself.
Hi Tamra - I'm going to slightly edit your statement to make a point: "... feel pissed off when someone disagrees with [my] strongly [held beliefs]. Probably has something to do with [my beliefs] feeling like [my] very identity."
Exactly correct, I'd say. My beliefs ARE my identity. Conversely, if I have no beliefs, I have no identity... therefore nothing to defend... therefore nothing to get pissed about.
Having no attachment to beliefs (i.e. deactivating the internal egoic mechanism that causes 'attaching') is considered a huge spiritual milestone. Once free of past attachments and future attachments, I can 'see' again. The Present is revealed again.
Considering your reply, this morning I wrote this:
Avalanche of Beliefs
Beliefs, beliefs, beliefs. Mountains of beliefs. Everyone's got 'em, everyone loves 'em, everyone defends 'em... sometimes violently.
A fundamental premise and duty of personal spiritual work is the excavation, analysis and disintegration of false beliefs.
All of them.
The amygdala(e), two almond-shaped clusters of specialized nuclei deep in your brain, perform a primary role in the processing of memory, decision making, and emotional responses (including fear, anxiety, and aggression).
It has been said that, "the amygdala in the brain reacts the same way to a challenge against your beliefs as it does to a physical attack." (thanks to whomever wrote this here on this chatboard!)
This is what you are up against in your personal spiritual work, as well as regular daily life. Your amygdala assists you in unearthing your false belief (memory), helps you summon up the courage to confront its falseness (decision making)... but then it fights you tooth and nail as you try to dissolve that false belief (fear, anxiety, aggression).
Not only is this what we are each up against with our own false beliefs, we each also face the onslaught of false beliefs implanted and held collectively in this contrived plandemic. Mainstream media constantly implanting beliefs aimed toward maintaining fear and encouraging its one world govt endgame as the only viable answer. People across the globe being subjected to constant propaganda… internalizing it and turning it into layer upon layer of false beliefs pretended to be real, defended as if real. Life or death false beliefs. Potentially democidal and genocidal false beliefs.
If you can push yourself through your whole process of multiple false belief confrontations, out the other side is a whole new reality... sans beliefs. A reality pregnant with potential and creative energy… energy no longer twisted, warped or detoured by conflicted beliefs.
Same process applies to our collective humanity.
**
Seems that a relative few are cut out to take on their false beliefs. Most others are content to explore them... and defend them... for a few lifetimes. Then to move on to the next set of life-defining beliefs.
This seems to correlate, more or less, to the awake vs the sheep.
Armed with the hard-won maturity gathered through lifetimes of living and exploring self-defining beliefs, the tipping point threshold is nearly reached. Energy is no longer spent acquiring and exploring beliefs; rather, all energy is now directed toward annihilating them.
In my experience, once the avalanche of dislodged beliefs starts tumbling, not only does that avalanche gain speed and volume, but other avalanches spontaneously start tumbling, too. A whole bunch of dis-integrated belief-material falls away, disgorging its stored kinetic energy. Then there is respite for awhile, thank goodness. Soon enough, though, more inner rumblings signal more avalanches on their way.
Layers after layers... Hundreds and hundreds of times the avalanches and respites cycle through.
Eventually the bulk of false belief material is gone; its elements scattered and settled at the bottom of the ravine. Now, however, what's left of the mountain are the core bedrock beliefs... the foundational self-defining beliefs... none of which are going to avalanche on their own.
This is the most brutal phase of the whole process. Now it is time for the spiritual warrior to appear. Cracking that bedrock paradoxically requires laser-focus commitment, insanely reckless courage and quietly profound surrender. Impossible to make sense of it logically, but you know it when each is required. No further progress is permitted unless and until one is willing to throw themselves totally into the maelstrom of the final avalanche... come what may... no matter what.
When it is done, 'me' is gone. It is then that it becomes clear: 'me' exactly equals the sum of all my previously held beliefs.
Beliefs gone = 'me' gone.
Wow! What a post...had me in goosebumps because I resonate will all of it...the subconscious programming that the great Dr Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief) has presented with his work in epigentics comes to mind as how to navigate the layers of self (ego) that limit true awareness...
Such a good wake up call on how much unlearning we have to do as a whole. Grateful for your wisdom to set a reminder for us all to keep exploring the way we react to the complex interactions with other “egos”. Thank you.
EB - Thx, and I'm very happy that you found it useful. Very few people are at the place in their journey where this ego-busting talk makes much sense. You seem ready for liftoff! You may find this interesting: https://bit.ly/3sMJQPt
Our battered and struggling planet needs all the enlightened minds it can get. I think it's going to take a lot of people with clear thinking and clear seeing to navigate out of the massive messes we've created.
Division from those who would do you harm isn’t a threat...it’s self preservation
I resonate completely! Division is a natural phenomenon. Othering is unlike division because is has the intent to say “I’m better than you”. When an action comes from the ego as you say it’s done for the sole pillar of self aggregation which results in division but it’s not the source. The source is the intent
Even “I’m better than you” isn’t a terrible threat of a thing if it is divorced from the desire to rule over the other...I’m content with separation and ignoring them utterly unless they encroach on my life
Hi Shelly - Thanks for providing me some clarity about this "Othering" meme. When you explained that the intent is basically to say, "I'm better than you," it clicked into place.
In my line of work, I am often calling out people and their false beliefs. Why? Because those false beliefs, and how the holder of the belief acts them out, are hurting people.
The next question, of course, is whether the hurtful action is done on purpose or out out of misinformation... yet done with good intentions. Most cases fall into the latter group, and once apprised of the miscue, most of those people immediately correct their wrong actions and reframe their beliefs.
The ones who act on purpose, however, not only need to be taken to task, they need to understand perfectly clearly that if it happens again, the hammer comes down.
In this contrived plandemic, there are a LOT of people who are doing great harm On Purpose. ALL of us need to be calling them out at every opportunity. And all of should be carrying a hammer in our back pocket.
Charles, your courage is like a flame that lights the path for many to better navigate by. Maybe, with this light, some will eventually recognize that these paths all converge into one, that we are all on a human journey where our mutual respect, compassion, and love are the powerful energies that burn away the illusion of division. Thank you for reminding and reassuring me that this is so. I read your words with tears because I can feel your pain and concern. We've all experienced it to some extent, the bad fruits of this trajectory towards dehumanization. I lost a dear friend of twenty years, a person of deep faith, who refuses to see me. It all seems like a bad dream. I look forward to your stories of hope, and I remain one small voice cheering from your balcony.
Your writing makes me want to be good. And yet I rail against the idea that I'm not. I have not visited any bad upon anyone. I got ill. I was scared for a short while, faced with my mortality. I got better. I was so happy my body pulled through for me. I had always known that this was the way I wanted it to be. Living with, and facing the pathogens that would challenge me. Honestly. With what I had. For not to do so is denying my body the skills and strength to face the next round. Cellular skills wrought over millennia. Bypassing that, is cheating - cheating the foe and cheating myself. There are no quick fixes. We either work with nature, or we work against her. One day, those little foes will win. I will grow older. Not be strong forever. I'm ok with that. I am resolved to look after my body for as long as it will have me. With minimal interventions. Certainly none that are inserted into my body to wreak havoc with my cells like mRNA bulls in a China shop. Jangling my cells and confusing them. Playing an inept Frankenstein god over my internal workings.
Despite this, others will not leave me be. They insist I have it wrong. That I am weak and in need of imposed intervention. That I embody the possibility of illness, and this must be rectified, at all costs. My ideas are contagion, which will somehow become actualised and infect them. They don't seem to believe in their own strength, or accept their own mortality, so seek rather to undermine my own. I already capitulated once, out of fear. Fear of loss. Of my job. Of my friends. Of my husband. And now I am stuck. That didn't help. It doesn't stop at one. And now I have lost myself. Betrayed my body. Betrayed my health. And I might still lose that which I feared I would lose anyway. Because they will not stop.
How should I feel towards these people? Hatred? I can't help it. I do. But I do not want to hate. Pity? That seems arrogant - an arrogance of the recovered. Yet I do understand the fear. Empathy? It's hard to meet the threat of violence with empathy. That is the hardest.
So instead, I just want to retreat and cut myself off. They must just leave me alone. Please let them leave me alone. I want to go and meld with the rocks and seep into the earth and be invisible. Yet they continue to bay and hound.
(I've just edited this to add this little bit in parentheses at the end, because I realise I just plunged straight in initially, and did my usual stream-of-consciousness blatting straight on the "page". But in doing so failed to address you by name and thank you, Charles! Your writing is kind and luminous. I am trying to be mindful that there are people at the fibre ends of each of my digital interactions - so easy to forget this. That we each have a name, and saying it affirms our existence. Perhaps this is part of where everything started going so wrong for all of us?)
Beautiful, Ann. Thx.
To me, your final paragraph elicits the deepest yearning we each have: To reconnect most intimately with Nature and Earth. That is the only way to thoroughly satisfy and fulfill our soul. In this earthly incarnation, Nature and Earth is Home. When teaching students natural health care or overseeing fasting patients, I often like to remind them that "Nature Works. Always has and always will. There is no substitute; no alternate path. Nature has been working - creating and experimenting - for 1,000,000,000 years. She knows what She is doing. Infinite Consciousness of God flows through Her as it does through all Her creations, including you and me. Study and comprehend Nature - how and why She operates as She does. Re-Merge your nature with Her Nature. The results are wonderful beyond measure."
With re-merging into Nature comes connected awareness and intuitive insight. Nature enfolds, supports, informs, feeds, encourages growth. Nature heals from the ground, up. Nature becomes my guide in all things. Literally everything becomes easy, natural, flowing. Life continues with its ups and downs, but behind that is peace, security, conviction, confidence. Whether bountiful harvest or contrived pandemic 'disaster,' the beauty and surety of natural connection never waivers or falters.
**
Those who do not feel and know this connection are adrift. They cannot find Home, though they walk on it and in it every day. Instead, they lock onto their false gods like swimming pool life preservers, and as you say, they often feel impelled to force their allegiances onto you... whether you like it or not. Baying and hounding will inevitably soon turn into handcuffing, banning, shunning and worse. History is replete with factual evidence of democide and genocide. Though we can understand the causes of the illness driving their fears, their actions borne of those fears absolutely will not be tolerated.
Thank you, BDev. If there is one thing that I am eternally grateful for, arising out of this time, is my reorientating my life towards nature and, now, towards healing and a better way of living. I was shuffling through life, thinking that I would get back to that which I love most "at some stage". I have devoured information on permaculture, regeneration, soil, water management and have been planting, planting, planting. (Look up Bealtaine Cottage on YouTube - much as I have come to loathe YouTube, this is a gem to find there. Collette's maxim is "plant as though your life depends on it - because it does."). Am now learning to detox my body and reduce inflammation and to stop living a life of dis-ease. As well as learning to breathe properly again and getting back to yoga. Even trying cold showers! (although the last is a challenge 😄). Yes, we lose touch with nature at our peril.
Absolutely. Anywhere you like.
"I am resolved to look after my body for as long as it will have me." So beautifully put. Thank you, Ann. I want them to leave you alone too. We're here for you if you ever want company. :-)
Thank you so much, Brooke. You are very kind.
You speak with such eloquence and clarity, Ann. My hope is that there's a resolution around the corner and we just need to wait it out a little longer. I'm so sorry for the pressures you're under, from all sides. I feel that something better will come out of this, and there's a wisdom at work that knows more than we do. You already trust your body and you trust nature. I think there's a self-healing of the collective soul that's happening, but you're really taking the brunt of the difficult process to get there.
Thank you so much, Tereza. I will take heart from your optimism. It has also, of course, been a blessing to discover Charles' writing (thank you, Charles!). It has been an antidote to all of the poison and polarisation, and an invitation and challenge to us all to try and find middle ground and harmony.
I've been studying A Course in Miracles for 18 yrs and my reading yesterday included "What could be more unstable than a tightly organized delusional system?" I think the hostility and aggression we're seeing are actually signs of fragility and that the whole tightly woven structure is hanging by a thread. If you're seen as the one trying to cut that thread, you'll be blamed rather than the structure. My advice is meld into the rocks for while. Let that thread fray and snap on its own. It's going to unravel and you need to protect yourself to be part of the love and kindness that knits together a new reality in your own hyperlocalism (agreeing with UTobian).
That is very sound advice, thank you, Tereza. I will take it to heart, and hope the unravelling gathers pace.
I was just rewatching one of my YT videos called "What Emerges from the Emergency" and it occurred to me that you might like it. It talks about the end of 100 generations of patriarchy that served the ejaculations of men with children as an inconvenient byproduct, to be replaced by a feminine economy that puts home, family and community at the center. I also end with a recommendation to "stay with the stuckness," similar to what I've said here. It's a common theme in my videos that this is a time to stay in the womb and let what is to be take form. Look at it if you have spare time while merging with the rocks ;-)
Just had to say I love the “meld into the rocks for a while” take.
I feel your pain Ann. I want to be loving. Not to be decisive. And certain people I want removed from this planet. I recently said on twitter: There are 4 ways we deal with cancer. Try to kill it off with something. Accept it and live the best we can with aliveness. Succumb to it, beaten and down trodden. Or lastly, cut it out. The cancer of the mind that is those who would dominate others, I wish to kill it or cut it out. It is far too toxic to remain in the body of humanity. I don't believe we have time to persuade it to stop before it exterminates the majority of us.
Thanks, Steve. I think I'm trying a hybrid of your second and fourth options. Living with where I'm at, but forming a strong mental protective shield that will not permit any further encroachment - so a cutting off for now. If I have to (which might be the case, if mandates are not dropped), I will be compelled to resist. Passive, yet firm. Failing that, I will have to consider options for retreat and contemplating a new life. It will mean upheaval, but I am preparing for that. Mentally, I'm already there, I think.
Serious spiritual work requires many periods of solo time, down time.
I'm fairly certain that most people here are aware that most mega-corporations and institutions across the planet are run by psychopaths.
There is no persuasion, therapy or treatment that will work with psychopaths.
They are irremediable. They are wholly toxic to the body politic and to the planet.
The only solution is as you say, Steven - kill it or cut it out.
Doing so will re-center remaining humanity into a far more workable state of balance.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=political+ponerology&t=ffsb&ia=web
That looks like a fascinating book and concept, BDev. The concentration of money and power in the hands of so few is indeed dangerous. Especially if they are selfish or malevolent. It is becoming an imperative to try and depose them via any legal means possible - maybe it needs to start with the choices we make. A people-centric return to balance. If we didn't all shop online, the Amazons of the world wouldn't exist. If we looked after ourselves better, pharma wouldn't be so powerful. If we tried to live more analogue existences, the less hold the digital will have over us. We need to look carefully at the way we live and interact. Who we are giving the fruits of our labours to and how we are using our time. If we are more judicious about these choices, we can reduce these metastasised mega-tumours of commerce and release the hold that they have over our existence. Maybe these are pipe dreams or I'm just of the wrong time - but I can hope!
(UTobian is writing very interesting stuff on this, if you haven't been to his stack. He talks of "hyper-localism". He might be on to something.)
Why give a pathology, a human construct, so much power? Could we put more energy into removing the incentive for the trait to exist?
"Could we put more energy into removing the incentive for the trait to exist?"
Absolutely. The power of proper incentive is HUGE. I'm with you.
How do you suggest we do it?
Ah...Grasshoppah...I have no answer other than to keep my own energy and actions from adding to the incentive that rewards such pathology.
Ah... so you'll stand on the sidelines for now...
Maybe you'll be ready, when we need you to.... Hmmm... What is it you can do to help, exactly?
Ann, I love your reliance on your body to do what it needs to do to keep you healthy. Don't forget it's done this over all the years you may have unknowingly ingested chemicals in processed foods or breathed in unseen chemicals from smokestacks. In the same way, can you consider the vax you had as just one more thing your body knows what to do with to keep you safe? Why give the vax more power because you fear the unknown in the letters mRNA? After watching Wim Hof purposely take injections that were "guaranteed" to make him sick, and they didn't, to prove his point in mind-body power, I choose to side with my own body's innate power. Another belief I'm going to hold onto is humans can choose oneness over separateness as a Prime Directive kind of thing...so I guess I'm not going to give up all beliefs as egoistic if I find some that include everyone rather than just some of us.
Wherever you are, there are people you can connect with. Please know you are not alone. I always think, if I feel some way, someone else must as well. Find your tribe.
I think our judgments and reactions to "good and bad" people are somewhat of a distraction from a deeper issue, which I believe is resonance. If a musical note doesn't match or harmonize with another note it's not good or bad, it's just chaotic. If it's true that a drop of water responds to loving or hateful speech with symmetric crystals or deformed chaos respectively (Masaru Emoto's water experiments) then all we're doing is learning how to organize our energy, speech and action to create harmony and displace chaos. There is a lot of chaos right now. Keep sounding the tuning fork like a homing beacon. I feel the resonance rising around the world. Let's not get too frustrated. Keep going Charles. You're holding the gate to Eden open. Thank you for your work.
I deeply appreciate your willingness to wonder out loud and to offer a constant bridge to compassion and connection rather than feeding the divisiveness. I know this has taken a toll... to be willing to stand in the vicious line of fire that these times of a feardemic have wrought, and I having only gratitude for your work. We cannot know the full power of our efforts we can only step as fully with the grace of what we see. Thank you!
Thankyou for sharing your thoughts It means a lot to those who cannot vocalize them easily to others for all the above reasons....
Thank you Charles. You provide a space with your words for me to discover more powerful truths. By dancing on the edge. I don't normally have this space in my life with those closest to me. As I write this I realise that I have been able to have conversations with others that grows the edge to allow for deeper exploration. I ascribe much of this to reading your words.
So thank you for helping to create more space and quiet for deeper reflection. This seems more powerful than seeking truth, and more realistic in these times.
I hear you, Charles. Last night, as I pondered my attendance at a funeral in which many refused to go because there were “unvaccinated” in the crowd along with a variance of “mask wearers” and the “non- masked,” I thought about the absurdity of it all. After months of hearing “they aren’t thinking about others” with almost a self-righteous boast of how dare they or how stupid are those that are questioning the vaccine, I cannot get past my own gut feeling that something is really off about this narrative. I had to check-in with myself and make a conscious choice—do I ignore my gut, instinct, and innate feelings? Believing that we as humans have not been taught, in general, to follow our innate guidance, as well as a feeling of being coerced into thinking I’m being ignorant or not thinking of others, I choose to be okay with my questioning.
Thank you so much, Charles Eisenstein for your wonderful work. I love reading your articles and so appreciate the much needed sanity and words of compassion and wisdom they provide in these trying times. Thank you for staying strong, for continuing to write and for shining the light.
As it goes, your willingness to dig into your motives and courage to speak honestly/boldly/compassionately, inspires me to the do the same — to feel less alone and more hopeful. Your writing over 2021 has been encouraging, meaningful and important. Thank you.
Such deep gratitude. Your essays, letters, books, podcasts have each time felt like a port in a storm and have also inspired my courage to speak up and out with confidence knowing there are others.....
God bless you for your courage, Charles! I wrote the following poem on Monday as a cathartic exercise, leaning into my own way of coping, humor and satire. I hope you enjoy it, I enjoyed writing it!
Beyond the Singularity
‘Twas nigh before the Great Reset,
When all through the land,
Not a soul was full solvent,
But for the ‘invisible hand’ ,
When out on the lawn,
There arose such a clatter,
Sycophants and Toadies fawn,
O’er Ol’ Joe, the Mad Hatter,
He declared a new mandate for a sickness unseen,
The only known treatment?
An experimental vaccine,
This, Death Jab for Cooties,
Was known to have risk,
A heart prone to spasm,
At exercise brisk!
On Delta! On Omicron!
On variants yet seen,
We’ll conquer them all,
With mutant spike protein!
A modern germ 🦠 warfare!
Declared Tony Fauci!
The natives were restless 😬
The patriots grouchy!
If we just roll over,
In prostrate obedience,
We can return to normal,
With swiftest expedience!
The patriots arose,
Their sabers a’rattlin’ ,
They polished their guns 💪🏽
And prepared for battlin’ !
Just one Gol’ Darn second,
Shouted Patriot Nugent,
To line up like sheep 🐑
Just wouldn’t be prudent!
The right and the left,
Aligned in defiance,
Our true path to liberty 🗽
Is through non-compliance!
When amid the dissonance,
A voice could be heard,
Though faint was persistent,
It could not be deterred!
A More Beautiful World is Possible!
We must be assured,
Though the masses are sleeping 😴
Their spirits inured!
We will rise again,
Come Hell or High Water ✊🏽
Every Man, Every Woman,
Every Son, Every Daughter,
Will witness the birth,
A nascent revival,
To know our True Worth,
Not merely survival!
And so mote it be,
Our prayers and our dirges,
Remain to assuage us,
‘Til all torment purges!
A new Dawn, it beckons,
Arise and awaken,
A new Love ❤️ it reckons,
We Be Not Forsaken!
~ Antonio Marxuach
Love this, Antonio! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Antonio. Nice! ❤️
Thanks 🙏🏽
Thank you for sharing your humanity, for weaving words into insights, curiosity, contemplation and wisdom. Thank you for continuing to show up despite all of the inner and outer voices that may pull you down and under at times. The cracks in our foundation are showing...everything is collapsing and new growth will emerge. We will continue to create beauty.
Charles, you have moved me to tears with this one, as you have many times before. More than anything else, our world needs people who not only see but also value and promote our common humanity, over and above the decisions we make as individuals, and our differing perceptions of truth and reality. Thank you for shining a much-needed light into the collective confusion and darkness.
your words awaken me, like a mother who sits aside you and plays with your hair until you open your eyes. thank you for spending the days of your life on this work Charles, i am overwhelmed with gratitude.