Open Letter To God: From a Leru

Dear God,

I know that some people say that you aren’t real and that you do not really exist, that you are just something people have made up in their minds like Santa Claus. I’m not one of them! I believe you are real. I also know that many other people believe in you too, but they all seem to be so confused about who you are so they argue, fight, and kill each other in your name, which doesn’t make much sense to me. That is part of the reason that I’m writing this letter to you, because there is so much arguing, fighting, and killing going on in the world that I’m really afraid for myself, my family, my friends, and really for all of us. I’m not so much afraid that you will become so disappointed in us and that you will punish us. What I really fear is what we are doing to ourselves and to this beautiful world that you created for us. My mother read the book Letters To U: From The Mysterious Dr. M. – The Handbook On Being Human, vol. I, and she read some of it to me and talked to me about it. When the Mysterious Dr. M. described the Leru, the Fearful members of the human family, I felt like he was describing me. He said, the Leru are humans who are so disturbed by the negative energy in human social interactions that they become frozen in fear, unable to pursue their dreams, and unable to share their gifts, insights, and talents with the world. That is exactly how I feel most of the time and I sometimes wish that you would just call me home to you so I could stop feeling so sad. But then I remember that I’m just a kid and that I still have time to make a difference and maybe change things. At least I hope I still have time!

People who say that you don’t exist say, how can there be a God? They say you don’t exist because there is so much pain and suffering in the world and that an All Powerful God would not allow all of the horrors that I see. I don’t think the pain, suffering, and horrors are your fault. I think they are because of the choices each of us make and because so many of us have been making very bad choices. When I was 6 years old, which wasn't that long ago, my dad showed me how to seed and grow a plant. After a few weeks the plant began to come out of the soil. That was really a wonderful thing to see. It was like I created life and I thought, Wow, I can only imagine how you must feel having given life to so many things. After a few months some of the leaves and flowers on my plant began to turn colors and then they fell off and died. My dad said that he wanted me to understand how life and death work together. He said that a few leaves and flowers had to die to make room for new leaves and flowers to come forth, and sure enough new leaves and flowers replaced the ones that had died. It was a pretty cool thing! It seemed really natural. I took care of my plant for a couple of years and I often thought about you while I was watering my plant. I imagined you taking care of all of the beautiful things that you have planted into existence and even helping me to take care of my little plant.

Then one day I came home from school and my plant looked kind of funny, like it was not as healthy as it was before. My mom said that the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth are a natural part of the life process. That was what my dad told me too. But she also said that plants could catch diseases and get sick and that sometimes the disease could be so bad that it could kill the plant. I continued to water my plant and even gave it some extra food that my parents bought for me from the plant place (I forgot what they call it) but after a few weeks it started to die. I was really sad and even when the plant was dead I kept it for a long time because it was just too hard to let it go, to say goodbye. It was like losing a friend. Then my dad said I could put the plant into the compost that he keeps to feed the garden and that my plant would live again when we returned it to the ground in the garden. He said my dead plant would become part of the new plants and herbs and flowers growing in our garden. That made me feel a little better but I still hated to see my plant die. I wondered if it suffered while it was dying. It was in the moment that I put my plant into the compost that I realized that you would not want to see any part of your creation suffer. Do you also feel sadness?

After that experience, my parents allowed me to work with them in our garden and I learned a lot about how you have designed your creation for things to work together and in harmony. Over the past couple of years I learned that people, and families, and communities, and nations, and really the whole world is like a garden and we are suppose to work together and in harmony. But I think we have caught some really bad disease and like my plant our world is dying and I’m afraid, sad, and feel so alone because so many people don’t seem to care or even to recognize what is happening. And I don’t know what to do. So I decided to write to you and see if you can offer any suggestions on how I can help save what you have created.

In the Handbook, the Mysterious Dr. M. and U were able to communicate with each other by writing into each other’s minds. I don’t have a mailing address for you but my parents said that if I sat down and wrote this letter to you that you would be able to know exactly what I wrote and exactly how I feel. They even helped me with my spelling and grammar so it wouldn’t be so hard for you to understand me. My parents said that you could also communicate with me in my dreams like the Mysterious Dr. M. and the Ero Enia (the Traveler People) in the Handbook. So I hope you will visit with me and help me to figure some things out. I don’t want our world to die. I don’t want to see the oceans and air polluted. I want to be able to swim in the ocean, to drink clean water, and to breath clean fresh air. I don’t want to see so many of your beautiful animals die because of our bad choices. And I’ve come to think of your wonderful plants and trees as relatives and friends who come with gifts of beauty, shade, nutrition, and healing. I want us to stop killing each other and to begin loving and caring for each other like we are all family, because we are all family. My parents told me that Dr. M. said that Creating Peaceful Space is a choice. They told me about the Prime Directive of the Human Family and it makes so much sense to me. I believe we all need to be reminded that each of us has to part to play in taking care of your creation. Would you help me make a difference?

Thanks for reading my letter. I’m hoping to hear from you really soon because the disease seems to be getting worst and I feel sadder everyday.

Your Creature

Filled with fear and sadness but holding on to hope!

Living in alignment with the Prime Directive

is a choice to which everyone should be invited!
You have been invited!

Create Peaceful Space! 
Trust Your Process!

Peace, Love, and Health!

Preview The Handbook On Being Human, vol. I 

Fasting for Peaceful Space, Part II

Most of the spiritual traditions of the world include some form of Fasting as a way of giving thanks, cleansing, and transcending the mundane concerns of everyday life. For millions of Muslims around the world, the month of Ramadan (on the Islamic lunar calendar) began this past week. Fasting the month of Ramadan is prescribed for the Muslims in their sacred text, the Holy Qur’an. During the month of Ramadan (which moves throughout the year based on lunar cycles) the believers are enjoined to fast from dawn in the morning until sunset. During this period the believer consumes neither food nor water. In fact, nothing passes the believer’s esophagus except what forms in the mouth. In Arizona, for example, fasting during our record-breaking heat wave like this August, 2010 is a great challenge. The summer that I arrived in Arizona, June 1980, the temperature reached 116 degrees during the first week of Ramadan, which began the first week of July that year. I can remember how attentive and appreciative I was at the end of the day to sit and drink a simple glass of water. Funny how fasting does that! It makes you appreciate the simple things in life!  During the Ramadan fast, the believer is also enjoined to avoid arguing, mischief of any kind, fighting, and also intimate relations during the daylight hours. The month is to be spent in mindfulness, meditation, prayer, reflection, and in Peaceful Space. At the end of the day the believers can eat and drink. The Ramadan fast is not simply for the individual believer. It is designed and enjoined to enhance the feeling of Peaceful Space among and between all elements of the larger community. Unfortunately, over the past several decades more and more acts of violence have occurred during the month of Ramadan, much of that violence being perpetrated by Muslims upon Muslims. In the Handbook, the Enia have suggested that this is a sign of the growing strength of the Oku Enia (the Corpse).

The key expression in beginning a fasting discipline is gradual process. Your body, mind, and spirit are designed to communicate with each other and to work together for your survival and well-being. If you pay attention and listen your body-mind-spirit will communicate to you what is working and when to make a change. If you currently eat three meals per day and stuff in-between you can begin by cutting out the stuff. Take the money that you would spend on stuff (munchies) each day or week and give it to a homeless person or someone else in need. That simple act adds positive energy to your actions and enhances your energy signature. Having eliminated the munchies, you can begin moving from three meals per day to two meals per day or two meal every other day or every three days. Start by replacing the morning meal with only fruit and then only an enhanced fruit juice blend like I described in my last Post. Over time you might begin moving your midday meal later and moving your evening meal earlier. The goal is for your midday, late afternoon meal to become your main meal of the day, and for your evening meal to become a lighter meal of the day. Your stomach will rebel and protest some of these changes and that is where gradual process and a nice cup of herbal tea come in. Over time the late meal can be eliminated and the late afternoon will be your one main meal of the day. Remember, this is not about one size fits all. It is about you getting in touch with yourself!

There are many possible paths to a fasting discipline. You can gradually replace your three meals with fruit so that you end up eating only vibrant color (fruit) one or two days per week. This is sometimes referred to as a cleansing fast. Abstinence is only one way of thinking about fasting. Actually, we sometimes give more to the body-mind by fasting than we do by feeding it. Eating is a labor-intensive process, not only for you in the preparation and consumption of the meal, but also for your body in carrying out the process of digestion and elimination. While you give your body-mind time to rejuvenate from this process you also give your spirit time to feed on the silence and the emptiness that accompany the fast. As the Enia believe, “Immortality exists in the space in-between events. Honor transition!”

Do parents still tell their children, think about all the hungry children in the world and eat everything on your plate? I’m not sure if that ever really worked to solve the problems of hungry children around the world but perhaps it did help to establish some sense of interconnectedness in our minds. Taking a portion of the money you save by fasting and donating it to some worthy cause is a wonderful and tangible way of elevating your fast and strengthening your spirit. Life can feel so negative and overwhelming sometimes. We can feel helpless to do anything about the horrendous problems we see in the world. Too many fires to put out! As fast as one problem is dealt with two or three more erupt into blazing fury! The more we try to change things, the more things there are that seem to need changing. Thoughts like these are a sign that the left-brain, our logical, rational mind is at-its-wits-end. They are also an indication of the need to shift to a more balanced approach between the Masculine Principle of Mind and the Feminine Principle of Mind. If the direct, mechanical, objective, logical approach to problem solving isn’t working, why not shift to a spiritual, intuitive, quantum approach? Fasting is an alternate approach to problem solving, a different way of affecting the world. Fasting unlocks the powers of the Feminine Principle because it is a transcendent discipline. Remember the example that the Mysterious Dr. M. gave in the Handbook of the Effect of Meditation on Crime Rates in Washington D.C.? Fasting for a higher purpose can have that some kind of effect.

Fasting is a silent discipline. It moves through the Quantum Field like the sonar of whales moving through the depths of the oceans. In the Muslim community it is not considered appropriate to ask a believer if they are fasting. That fact is between the believer and the One who enjoined the Ramadan fast. Likewise, with your self-imposed fast, it is not something that you proclaim, boast, or brag about. It is your silent way of moving the Ase (Quantum Energies) and affecting change in the world through indirect, spiritual means. When a Muslim breaks their fast or is unable to fast it is not an occasion for shame or ridicule. Instead the believer is enjoined to feed a poor person the equivalent of what they feed themselves. There will be days when you will break your fast for one reason or another, although these will hopefully come to be rare occasions. When this happens, be like water! Go with the flow! Fasting is about silent and unselfish giving without the expectation of acknowledgment or reciprocity. Don’t use the discipline of fasting as another excuse to beat yourself up because you failed! . Fasting for the enhancement of Peaceful Space in our world is a silent and unselfish way of making a different in the world. When you fast, you are not simply abstaining from food. You are also mindfully abstaining from adding any more negative energy into the Quantum Field. You are denying the Oku Enia (the Corpse) the fuel that it needs to enter our world with all of its vengeance. During your Day of Fasting your Energy Signature will be more calm and radiant, and that calming radiance will have its positive affect on the people around you. You will feel insulated from the effects of their negative actions, interactions, and reactions. You will also feel better able to transform negative energy into positive energy through your conduct in the world, part of the Prime Directive of the Human Family.

Living in alignment with the Prime Directive

is a choice to which everyone should be invited!
You have been invited!

Create Peaceful Space! 
Trust Your Process!

Peace, Love, and Health!

Preview The Handbook On Being Human, vol. I 

Fasting for Peaceful Space

One of the questions I’m frequently asked is how to stay centered in Peaceful Space. For most, the difficulty is not in understanding the concept or in achieving the experience of Peaceful Space when you are in control of your environment. The challenge that we all face is maintaining our state of Peaceful Space when confronted with the negative and disturbing actions, interactions, and reactions of others.

Here are several things to remember!
(1) Your state of Peaceful Space must be a characteristic of your Quantum Personality. It must be genuine. You must be at peace with your own Path and Process.
(2) Peaceful Space is itinerant and goes where you go. It emerges from your attitude about your self and the world, it exudes from you, and it travels with you from place to place.
(3) The dynamic energies that make up your Quantum Personality and your Energy Signature are directly influenced by your thoughts and feelings. When you experience an emotion, anger or gratitude for example, your experience is reflected as a shift in your Energy Signature. Self-denial or self-deception will affect your Energy Signature and can be felt by others.
(4) Your ideal state of Peaceful Space requires that your body be a peaceful place for your mind to reside, that your mind be in a state of resolution about who you are, and that your body-mind is nurtured and continuously revitalized by a positive spirit.
(5) Peaceful Space is not a static state. It is more like a calm lake that once disturbed immediately seeks to return to its natural state of equilibrium. Total isolation is the only way to escape the disturbing experiences, trials, and tribulations of human social interaction. But our ability to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding are stifled through isolation. So you cannot hide from life and yet claim that you are living. Water yields and responds, absorbs and redirects the energies that disturb its calm without giving up or denying its essential nature. Water is true to itself. Be like water! As the Mysterious Dr. M. points out in the Handbook, both the positive and the negative aspects of human nature dwell within each of us. They must and can be managed!

It was back in the 1960s when I was first introduced to the idea of Fasting. I read and listened to the comedian Dick Gregory who later became known as Amiri Baraka and became a guru of healthy eating and vegetarianism in the African American and larger community. My experiences in the traditional martial and healing arts, in studying Eastern philosophies and traditions, and in fasting the month of Ramadan, also helped to guide me into this discipline. I’ve spent perhaps half of my life fasting. Over the years I’ve eaten one meal per day, one meal every other day, and one meal every three days for years at a time. In my personal experience fasting is an excellent discipline for bringing the body, mind, and spirit into harmonious interaction and balance. Fasting brings health to the body, calm and discipline to the mind, and vitality to the spirit. As added benefits it will also eliminate any concerns about dieting and weight control, it will give you a greater appreciation for the foods you do eat, and it will save you money on your grocery bill.

Fasting requires a high level of discipline in this consumer culture that tempts you with foods, candies, and beverages at every corner and occasion. Food trays in the office, business luncheon meetings, free samples in the grocery stores, drive-thru for your convenience. We have been seduced into being the most obese population on the planet (approximately 1/3 of the U.S. population is obese) with health consequences that dwarf the negative impact of all of our wars (past and present). To be able to look those temptations in the face and turn away is very self-empowering. To dedicate your fast to a higher purpose is even more empowering and rewarding. Fasting is a way of affecting the world through a spiritual discipline.

For the past few years, I’ve dedicated my fast to creating more Peaceful Space in the world. Fasting is different than dieting. Dieting is like being a farmer. A person diets with a personal goal in mind and therefore has the expectation of timely and measured results. Like the farmer they are subject to failure and disappointment. Fasting for a higher purpose is more like being a sage who drops a seed here and there along the path of their journey with faith that in time, when the season and conditions are right, the seed will grow. If you’ve read the Handbook and understand the quantum nature of things as described by Dr. M. then you know that our every thought, intention, and action has its affect upon the Quantum Entity that surrounds and emanates from our planet. At the end of 2009 I invited a friend to join me in the fast and he enthusiastically agreed. We have fasted every other day for the past seven months of 2010 and intend to maintain our fasting discipline indefinitely. Each day of the fast we send each other a few words of encouragement. And now we want to invite you to take up the Discipline of Fasting for Peaceful Space as part of your personal way of making a difference in the world and in yourself.

You cannot and should not attempt to jump right into an every-other-day fast (one meal every 48 hours). It will take time for your body-mind to figure out what it is that you are asking it to do. Your body metabolism will need time to adjust. Your stomach will need time to accept the fact that it is no longer in charge. It will take time to alter your course from living-to-eat to eating-to-live. In fact, because of your unique chemistry, an every-other-day fast may not be the best thing for you. Maybe your ideal is fasting once every three days, or perhaps fasting one day out of the week, or once day every two weeks. You will need to experiment and discover what discipline really feels good and right for you.

Here is what a fasting discipline might look like using myself as an example. We eat every other day. On the days that we eat, I eat one meal of vibrant colors (fruits and vegetables), herbs and spices, grains, carbohydrates, and nuts. The meal is spread out over a one to two hour period in the late afternoon or early evening. Most components of the meal are organic, home grown, or carefully chosen. Each morning I have a drink-blend of fruit juices (for example, orange, mango, peach, white grape, blueberry pomegranate, and strawberry), raw fruit (for example, seedless grapes, nectarines, and kiwi), and supplements (for example, a tablespoon or so of wheat germ, flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, chia seeds, and protein powder). My juice blend is also enhanced with liquid vitamins and minerals. On the days that we don’t eat, I have only the juice blend in the morning and herbal teas and water throughout the rest of the day.

The Days of Fasting allow the digestive system to fully process the previous day’s meal, to completely extract and absorb the meal’s nutrients, and to eliminate the meal’s waste products. The Days of Fasting will also help you to calm and focus your mind, to connect with the higher spiritual aspects of your nature, and to exude the positive energy of Peaceful Space into your world.

In Part II of this Post, I’ll talk more about how to get started moving toward an every-other-day fasting discipline and how to gradually eliminate meals until you are at your desired discipline.

To be continued:

Living in alignment with the Prime Directive

is a choice to which everyone should be invited!
You have been invited!

Create Peaceful Space! 
Trust Your Process!

Peace, Love, and Health!

Preview The Handbook On Being Human, vol. I