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Death of Poverty

What to do When Money Starts Pouring In

As beings in the world, money and finances are aspects of our life that need some exploration and clarification. Our relationship to money is anything but simple – psychologically it’s moe loaded than a super duper Las Vegas slot machine.

I’ve purchased a few lotto tickets over the years and spent more than a few hours in mental la la land spinning “what if?” dreams. Over the years, I’ve also involved myself in a few get rich quicker than others schemes. As I think about, I might be rich if I had invested all that time, energy and money into something other than other people’s pockets or a Bernie Madoff ponzi scam.

I have no regrets. In fact, I’ve enjoyed most of it – in retrospect. Like most people on the planet, I’ve had my tough times and challenges, but overall, life has been good. Recently I notice that life is beyond good, it is very, very sweet.

Somewhere along the line, something/s seem to have shifted. As 59 approaches, I find myself more engaged and more enthralled with everyday life – it’s all so wild, wonderful and sublime.

Strange that at this time I find myself on the brink of the death of poverty. It’s interesting to note, that my worries and concerns around money and financial security seemed to have been subsummed into a recognition of the richness, wealth and generosity of life.

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April 2
Missing My Pocket Parents

Critical Bitching from Pocket Parents

Years ago, when visiting friends in Boston, I wandered into a toy store and found a set of “pocket parents.” Each pocket parent was about the size of a pack of cigarettes and came with five buttons, but no battery.

With the battery installed, I could push a button on “Mom” and hear “You’ll put your eye out with that!” in a screeching voice reminiscent of George Castanza’s mother. Or I could pull out “Dad” and hear “I’ll give you something to cry about!”

Each parent had four bitches most of us heard thousands of times in childhood. If I really wanted a blast from the past, I could push the 5th button and get a litany of reprimands.

I purchased those pocket parents to use as teaching aids in some of the work I do with the superego. A little levity can go a long way in making a point while keeping things from becoming too heavy and depressing – an easy rut to fall into when working with the inner critic.

A quick search on Google failed to lead me to replacements for my vanished pocket parents – I think they missed the move to California from Utah a couple of years ago.

If you happen to locate a set of pocket parents, let me know – I’d love another set.

Disengaging from the superego is some of the most beneficial work we can do. How’s your superego work going?

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March 23
Survivor: Berkeley California

Survival Instinct Explored in Berkeley, CA

This past weekend, I attended A.H. Almaas’ winter retreat in Berkeley. The retreat focused on the survival instinct and most agreed it was a timely presentation.

Two years ago we worked on the social instinct and last year we explored the sexual instinct. Almass explores the instinctual drives in relationship to the Enlightenment Drive – the dynamic quality of the soul that impels it toward awareness of its true nature and freedom from limitation and the past.

The way we’re approaching the question of instincts and their drives is not a question of being free from them, it is a question of freeing them to be what they can be, and evolve and develop in a way that can become part of our realization, support for our realization. – A.H. Almaas

Almaas sees nothing wrong with the survival drive or the other instinctual drives. They are natural components of animal existence and evolution. The challenge for human beings, who have the capacity to muck up the natural functioning of the drives, is how to help the drive do its job most effectively.

Our capacity for reflective consciousness brings with it the capacity for projection and distortion of what is really happening. The past gets projected onto the present situation and, the drive which can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined, kicks into gear with its fight or flight response.

The current economic situation is raising a lot of safety and security concerns in people. Recessions, property, money and wealth are really not the types of dangers our instinctual drives evolved to engage. We’re hardwired to respond to actual immediate physical threat, not the imagined consequences of Bernie Madoff ripping us off or the consequences of job loss or a dwindling 401K.

We have become so identified with our possessions, that we connect them very strongly to our survival. Survival now has a strong connection to money – and it’s partly true, but mostly not. A downgrade in lifestyle or having to eat beans instead of beef is not about survival. It’s about comfort, preference and self-image. The self-image is what becomes threatened – and – since the hard wiring can’t tell the difference between the body and the self-image, fear, anxiety, worry and even terror result.

The direct connection to money is something we all need to explore – what it is, what does it stand for, what it means personally, how to work with it and relate to it. This holds true for all of our possessions. This type of exploration will help to reveal the distortions that are interfering with the free functioning of the drives and thus the potential of the consciousness aligning them with the drive for enlightenment.

A very interesting three days.

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March 9
Eckhart Tolle and PBS

PBS Disappoints with Their Choice of Eckhart Tolle Experts

Last night, by accident, I caught PBS’s segment with Eckhart Tolle. It was delightful, as always, to watch Tolle and listen to his simple and profound wisdom. Tolle is such a wonderful example of a real human being.

In my opinion, PBS really dropped the ball with their choice of experts to comment on Tolle’s work. Dr. Betty Sue Flowers demonstrated quite clearly that she has little more than a conceptual understanding of Tolle’s work. This is the continuation of an age-old delimma – intellectuals interpreting and commenting on the mystical.

Though Dr. Flowers is obviously sincere in her appreciation of Tolle and his work, her explanation of Tolle’s work and his experience reveals her understanding to not be based on experiential knowledge – and that is the rub with intellectuals. Her explanation of Tolle’s transformative experience totally missed the heart of his experience – that his understanding was not the result of conceptual conclusion, but a revelation from being in the NOW.

Though, I found their commentary lacking, PBS did a fine job on selcting content. The segments of Tolle were excellent. It’s wonderful to see PBS broadcasting material like this. All-in-All I’d give the show 4 out of 5 stars if I was a rating kind of guy.

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March 4
Ego Math Quantum Soul

Ego Mind Functions in Cause and Effect

When it comes to life, the ego mind has ideas. Many of us spend most of our lives trying to get a life, we’re constantly busy trying to put it all together. Ego mind, functioning from the past, is always trying to add things up to get the perfect life:

1+ 3 + 1 + 2 +5 + 9 =

My Perfect Life

And what are the components? Money? Attention? Love? Celebrity? Good Job?

This mental orientation to an ego ideal (which includes our spiritual ideal) helps to sell a lot of books. Books like The Secret, The Science of Getting Rich, in fact, the whole self-help field works this ego mind thread. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t see this as a bad thing or a wrong thing – it is simply the way this mind functions.

On the other hand, we have the quantum physics of the soul which can be reflected as 0 or 1 – depending on how true nature is orienting it in the moment.

The soul isn’t trying to get a life, it is life. Developing the ability and capacity to reside in the nature of the soul – presence – means we are the life. There is no life to get, no formula needed for fulfillment, contentment, satisfaction, completeness, and meaning.

Life unfolds in an organic way – with its challenges and pimples. It’s all good, it’s all you, it’s life happening – it’s a wonder!

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February 25
New Heart Designs for Valentine’s Day

The Pomegranate Heart

My friend Cathleen Bunt has done it again – the Pomegranate Heart for Valentine’s Day. You may recall my past post on Cathleen’s Buddha Pendants.

Here’s what Cathleen has to say about her latest knock-out pendant:

The name pomegranate derives from the Latin words pomum “apple” and granatus “seeded”. With its bulging red seeds, orb like shape and crown like calyx, this fruit has captured attention throughout the ages and become an enduring symbol.

In my design I have merged the pomegranate with the heart to create a symbol of passionate and abundant love. Some Jewish scholars believe the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden was actually a pomegranate rather than an apple. Perhaps you’d like to tempt your sweetheart with this exquisite delight.

Pomegranates are often seen in religious paintings like this one by Sandro Botticelli.

The fruit, in the hands of the infant Jesus, symbolizes Christ’s heart, while the calyx represents a crown and the seeds, the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom.

In the Judaism, the pomegranate is a symbol of righteousness, because it is said to have 613 seeds which correspond to the 613 commandments of the Torah.

In Greece it is a symbol of abundance, fertility and good luck. It is traditional to break a pomegranate on the ground at weddings and on New Years.

My Pomegranate Heart – is richly seeded with red rubies, exposed by a heart shaped opening in the rind.

The locket-like form of this piece, has 3 layers. The top rind in 18k gold, the inside layer – an 18k plate set w/ .70ct of fine red rubies and a back plate (shown below) with a pierced design.

The chain cleverly passes through an opening between the leaf and the stem.

Whatever the pomegranate represents to you, with its many seeds, it is undeniably a symbol of fruitfulness.

Here you see the back of my pomegranate heart with a pierced design I like to call, ‘planting the seeds of love’.

Why not plant a seed in your loved one’s heart this Valentines Day?

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February 10