A New Earth - There's More!

There's a kingpin in every machine, a tiny place no bigger than the size of your hand - even in a machine the size of a warehouse. In this tiny place, if you insert anything foreign to the process of this machine - something even as small as a toothpick - you will stop this mammoth mechanism in its tracks.

What is the kingpin for humanity? What is the missing clue that will stop suffering - and our perpetuation and encouragement of it - in its tracks?

Are you overwhelmed by the global - or even the local - news? Does the crime, 'natural' disasters, and even the reporting of the weather get you down? Does the state of the world plummet you into a quicksand pit of despair? Do you sometimes wonder if humanity will ever stop fighting? If we will ever enlist our Will to the true cessation of famine, poverty, homelessness, and suicide? What about the growing epidemic of depression, anticipated to become even more prevalent than heart attacks and strokes in cutting short human lives? Does this get you down?

And in the privacy of your own personal life … Do you ever feel like your past has you by the throat, choking the NOW life out of you? Do you get caught in downward spirals - seemingly relentless personal tornadoes - of fear, anxiety, confusion, self-criticism, and hopelessness? How often is the sun obliterated by clouds in your experience of life?

As a species, we are becoming rapidly more and more de-sensitized - more and more like a great machine. The images on the 'news' of suffering and disasters around the world - 'reporting' which became increasingly fear based in the late 1980's - has so overwhelmed us that we take suffering for granted. Images and characterizations of violence and violent people as 'heroes' in movies, video games and television programs has made us 'tough' outside … so tough that we are becoming increasingly desensitized.

When we 'step back' and observe this trend from an observer's vantage, what do we see? What are the effects of the trends that we are allowing to sweep our species, unchecked?

With a trillion dollars exchanging hands around this planet each and every day, how is it that we tolerate poverty and living on the razor's edge of survival - for us and / or for the billions of people around the world who daily eke out a meager living? How is it that we complacently tolerate this? What's gone wrong?

With thousands of people in villages and communities around the world living well into their hundreds, hundred and twenties, and even hundred and forties, why is it that we increasingly assume, sheepishly, that disease is a natural cause of death? What ever happened to dying from 'old age', robust and content with our life's journey - at peace?

With six and a half billion people on this planet - and rising - how is it that any of us are lonely? How is it that we can experience such incredible isolation, as if we haven't any kin?

With millions of people experiencing true satisfaction and inspiration in their lives, eager to get up each morning to live a new day of fulfillment, service, creativity and discovery, how is it that any of us are bored? How is it that we settle for dead-end jobs, under-challenging and even denegrading work environments? And how is it that we tolerate knowing that many of the products we buy are created on the backs of sweat shop workers, farmers unprotected from lethal pesticides, and other atrocities of modern 'technology'?

How can this be?

It can be because we have become so desensitized. We are like the frog in the glass beaker that sits trustingly as the water boils - until it explodes. We adapt. We normalize unspeakable conditions, our ego mind convincing us that they're alright.

What is the cost of this? What if we were to pull out a calculator right now, and with the most brilliant mathematical minds in the world leading this project, we were to take an inventory of all the areas of human life that are affected by our adapting to appalling circumstances, protocols and behaviors? What 'price' would we tally?

Take a breath - a deep breath.

All of this can stop, now. We know where to put the toothpick in the machine. We know how to stop this insanity in its tracks.

It's about stillness. And being present.

It's about re-sensitizing ourselves to the world around us and within us.

It's about standing up in our internal power and discovering that we each are far more capable than we've been raised to believe we are.

There isn't a single problem or challenge in our midst that is devoid of a matching solution. To see this - to know this - we must become sensitive to what is. And we absolutely must stand in our true power.

Think of Atlas, the Greek God who carries the planet on his back. He is doing this not out of suffering, or out of martyrdom. He is doing this out of pure strength. When we are strong work is not an effort. Challenges are not obstacles. The toothpick stops the machine with utmost ease.

Does this inspire you? Does it frighten you? Does it evoke your curiosity? Do you feel hot inside, as if your body is preparing to rise to an exciting challenge?

If you feel your senses whetted by what you are reading here - this is a sign that you're ready to rise into clarity, empowerment, and freedom from misery - yours and humanity's.

All of the great teachers throughout the ages have shared a common vision with their earthly students: That suffering is not a necessity.

There is a path out of suffering.

A path - by its very nature - is a guided route. It is a route that already has been traveled - at least by the person leading it. Jesus taught as he walked this path. He 'shone the light of his consciousness' upon it and led the way for those who believed it could be true. Buddha taught as he walked this path. Mohammed taught as he walked this path. Lao Tzu taught as he walked this path. Gandhi taught as he walked this path. Martin Luther King Jr. taught as he walked this path. The list goes on …

This path is not a religious path. Religions have evolved out of the teachings of great masters. The great masters did not proclaim a religion. Religion 'followed' them.

You can be a simple mortal and walk this path.

And you can do this NOW.

Take stock of your suffering. In what areas of your life do you suffer? How? Do you suffer just in your own personal life? Do you witness suffering around you? In your immediate community? In the world at large?

How much would it be worth to you to reduce this suffering?

What if there was a clear and simple 'Map'?

Breathe again. Take a deep, long, slow breath.

It is here, now.

The 'Map'.