Bill Sharon

The Law of Attraction

2009-06-29T05:01:00.001-07:00

If you live in a city and have little money you begin to discover the entertainment venues that cost little or nothing. One such place is the bookstore, Barnes and Noble. The plush seating was taken out years ago (just about the same time that the comfy chairs and couches were removed from Starbucks) but if you can endure the folding metal chairs that are set up for what seem to be daily book signings, you can read all the best-sellers you want. I found myself in such a place on a winter night a while back. Nearby was a stack of a small book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. I knew that it was a marketing phenomena, had generated staggering sales and that it was based on a film of the same name that had also been a blockbuster. Not my usual fare, but it looked like a quick read and I was mildly curious.

As I sat reading the book I went from being mildly irritated with the superficiality of its premise to becoming very angry. The Secret, it turns out, is based on an ancient principle called the Law of Attraction. The book is essentially an amalgamation of written sound bites that skim the surface of ancient texts and deliver the message that we can all have whatever we want – we can just manifest things into existence. It was like a two minute network news story purporting to explain quantum physics. Never mind that virtually all religions and metaphysical philosophies tell us that wisdom and the ripening of the soul are the result of facing the trials and tribulations of life. Not so say the band of self-help gurus Ms. Byrne has assembled; just think properly about that red car you want and it shall be yours.

As I sat there fuming I barely noticed that people were beginning to fill all the seats around me. By the time I put the book down there was a man seated at the table at the front of the room; there was no way for me to leave without being disruptive so I settled in to listen. The man’s name was David Isay and his book was called Listening is an Act of Love, the Storycorps Project. Unlike The Secret, I’d never heard of him or StoryCorps but I am grateful for the hour that I spent listening to him.

StoryCorps is the most ambitions oral history project ever undertaken in the US. Utilizing small recording booths in public places (there was one in Grand Central Station in New York City for a time), two people, one taking the role of the interviewer and the other the subject, told their stories. Sons brought fathers, husbands brought wives, friends brought each other. Using this process Mr. Isay has amassed over 50,000 stories across all 50 states. He told us that he began the project on a shoestring and it almost collapsed in the early days but was saved by a last minute grant. Instead of reading from his book he played some of the stories that had been recorded. All of them were evocative but one has stayed with me since that night.

It was the story of a man who had been a bus driver in New York city. He drove the City Island route in the Bronx and recalled one day in the middle of summer when a little old lady dressed in a fur coat got on his bus. As he went from stop to stop the bus emptied of passengers but the old lady just sat there peering out the window and looking more and more anxious. He asked her where she wanted to get off and she said that she really didn’t know. She was meeting her friends for lunch but had forgotten the name of the restaurant. His bus empty, the driver, in defiance of the rules, stopped outside the first of the many restaurants on City Island Avenue, went inside and asked if there were a group of women expecting a guest for lunch. It took about a half a dozen stops but he finally found the right place. He got back on the bus and took the old lady’s hand to help her out of her seat; it was surprisingly cold to the touch. She held on to him and thanked him for what he had done. She was dying of cancer, she explained, and this was to be her last meal with her friends. As he finished the story the bus driver wept and as I listened I did as well.

If what we read and hear in the mainstream media is to be believed we are all obsessed with material things. Not so long ago it was how much we had and how much we might get. Now it is more likely how much we have lost and what we might be able to hang on to. Listening to StoryCorp I’m not sure that that is the real story about who we are as a people. I’m reminded of a guy named Ray Anderson. He is featured in a movie called The Corporation and more recently gave a talk on TED.com. This is a guy who was an uber-entrepreneur his whole life. He started Interface carpet on a shoestring, nearly lost his shirt in the first year and then grew the company so that it now has a 40% marketshare. Sometime in the early 1990’s as he was preparing for the annual stockholder’s meeting he was advised that he needed to say something about sustainability. He recalls that he had only the vaguest notion of what the word meant but he took some time to understand exactly how his product was made – and was horrified at the waste and environmental damage. He set out to transform his company and his product into a 100% sustainable enterprise. He’s almost there. And he has made a boatload of money as a byproduct of his efforts. He could buy a dozen red cars but listening to him it seems doubtful that he would want them.

Ms. Byrne, on the other hand, is engaged in multiple lawsuits in which she is attempting to not pay the people who contributed to her success. It seems that she has quite a history of this kind of behavior as a television producer in Australia. Supposedly she is holed up in her expansive house in LA working on a sequel which, mercifully, has not appeared to date.

Ms. Byrne appeals to the fear that resides in all of us. How can we get through life without anything bad happening? How can we keep the fear of losing everything in a box under the bed? She would counsel us that we only need train our minds to think happy thoughts and we will acquire all the good stuff in life – with the emphasis on “stuff”. At the core of this misguided approach to life is a fundamental misinterpretation of the Law of Attraction. It’s not about getting – it’s about giving.

Dick Cheney

2009-06-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

Dick Cheney has been in the news a lot lately. Apparently he feels compelled to defend the use of torture in questioning suspected terrorists; so much so that he has made the pronouncement that if he had a chance to revisit the issue again, knowing what he knows now, he wouldn’t change a thing. His message is that we cannot give any quarter to those who we see as adversaries. Obama, he insists is putting us at risk through his rapprochement with our enemies, most notably Iran.

And yet this is a man who stands foursquare behind the right of gay and lesbian people to marry. He has not disowned his lesbian daughter. Instead he validates the right of human beings to find intimacy regardless of sexual orientation. It seems almost oxymoronic. It doesn’t fit the picture. And it reminds me of a story that Wayne Dwyer tells; I can only paraphrase it here:

There was a man who had a son who was severely physically disabled and he had spent a lifetime not only supporting him emotionally and physically but had also invested time in organizations that provided support to other families who had children with similar disabilities. One day he is given and award for his service at a dinner in his honor. He began his acceptance speech by saying “Every day of my life I asked God why he had given me a son with such terrible disabilities; every day I wondered how he could be so cruel; every day I wondered what was the purpose?” There was a shocked hush in the audience. But then the man went on to talk about the day he had taken his son to the park and they had seen a group of boys playing baseball. His son wanted to play as well but the father was embarrassed to ask. Finally, expecting to be turned away, he went up to the group of boys and asked if they would let his son play. The game was nearly over. The score was tied and the home team was down to its last out but the boys said that the man’s son could take a turn with the bat.

When it became clear that he would have trouble hitting the ball the pitcher moved in and the batter helped the boy swing the bat. He hit the ball and it rolled to the middle of the infield. They helped him run to 1st base and deliberately threw the ball past the baseman and helped him as he did his best to run on to 2nd base. And they repeated the errant throws as the boy ran to 3rd base and then home. The game was over. The boy had hit a home run and everyone cheered.

And that was the day, the man said, that he understood God’s purpose in giving him a son who was so severely disabled. The purpose was to provide an opportunity for others to show compassion.

We all have our purpose, our roles to play and, if you believe in the immortality of the soul, then you know that each one of us has been all things – murderer and saint, thief and scholar, drunkard and priest. That’s not an excuse for moral equivalency, quite the contrary. We play our roles and experience the consequences of our actions – that’s kind of the whole point. But it seems to me that we have come to a place where we are confronted with a choice between delusion and illusion.

Let’s say you ask a room full of people if they had ever seen the sun set. Probably everyone would raise their hand affirming that they had. Then you tell them that actually none of them has ever seen the sun set; they have seen the result of the earth turning on it’s axis as it circles the sun. There would likely be some laughter and lots of words to the effect of “I knew that”. But we live with the illusion of the sun setting. Not so many years ago in the course of human history the setting of the sun was a delusion – and you could loose your life for contradicting it.

It is difficult to hold on to the idea that we are all connected, that we are all manifestations of the same source of energy in a world filled with assertions to the contrary. After all, aside from a thankfully small minority, who wants to see themselves as connected to Dick Cheney? Many of us, myself included, are less concerned with the fate of those being tortured than we are of what happens to the people who are doing the torturing and what happens to a society who condones their actions. But we don’t get to choose who we are connected to and who we would like to segregate into some group of “others”.

In order to function we live in the world of the illusion of separateness. We can watch the sun set even though we know better. And knowing better we can seek that connection and see ourselves in each other.

Left Brain Love Affair

2009-05-23T08:59:00.001-07:00

I was reminded recently of a story I heard many years ago.

A patient goes to the doctor for his annual checkup. The doctor does the examination and does the usual tests. He goes and gets the results and when he returns to the examination room he asks the patient “Have you been under any stress lately?”

“Stress?” the patient says, “Stress would be a relief!”

That’s how it seems these days. The financial reality of the world’s economies defies comprehension. We have created a concept of wealth based on a delusional system. Derivatives, those contracts that guaranteed payment based on debts associated with underlying assets had a face value of $1,300 trillion, completely dwarfing the value of those underlying assets – and that was before the crash. We have a global population that is already in “overshoot” – it cannot be supported by the global ecosystem and it is projected to increase by 40% (6.6 billion to 9.2 billion) in a little over four decades.

Add to that the reality that the US economy, 60-70% of which is driven by consumer spending is in the greatest contraction in history (we will experience Great Depression numbers by the end of the year) and is going to be fundamentally changed and one begins to think that we are in for the worst experience imaginable in the next several years. And that may be. But it also may be that “thinking” is a fundamental source of the problem.

It is our left brain that “thinks”. The left brain is reality based. It uses logic and is detail oriented. Facts rule and it uses words and language to express comprehension and knowing. It forms strategies and it is practical and safe. We love the left brain; particularly those of us who are men although women more often than not give up their sense of the world to its seeming all knowing qualities.

The right brain, on the other hand is viewed with suspicion by us left brain devotees. While it is “big picture” oriented (‘big picture” is okay because, after all, it’s big) it relies on feelings and imagination. There’s some room for this; Steve Jobs comes to mind – Apple computers are great and their design is the result of his passion. We can accept a leader who is creative and probably mercurial and difficult but it would be far from acceptable if everyone behaved that way. Worse, the right brain is the origin of impetuousness and risk taking – not something that the left brain likes.

It may be useful to think of the left brain and the right brain in metaphysical terms. The Tarot tells us that self-consciousness or the male energy (the left brain) provides the suggestions to sub-consciousness or the female energy (the right brain). Let’s be clear that male and female energy is different than men and women – they each have both although one is likely predominant in each gender.

Sub-consciousness, metaphysics tells us, has no will of its own; it is amenable to suggestion. Whatever we put in via self-consciousness is manifested into sub-consciousness. To understand this in terms of a crude example, if we believe life sucks we are provided with a great abundance of experiences that demonstrate that life indeed sucks. On the other hand, if we believe that life is a wonderful mystery and filled with love and gratitude then we are provided with abundant experiences that that is the case. If you are anything like me you waffle between the two.

But what does this tell us about our current dilemmas? It would seem to me that the left brain has played out its hand. No doubt it has had some wonderful moments; no doubt it has made astonishing contributions. But the intuition that has provided those bursts of awareness is the only experience that provides me with any grounding these days. It is that intuition, that being reminded of what I already know that feels like the driving force in my life.

But there is another metaphysical aspect to our experience that I did not mention. It is called superconsciousness. It is that inexplicable force of expanding consciousness or awareness. There is a story I heard recently that provides a good metaphor; whether it is factually true I do not know:

When the sperm fertilizes the egg the cells split in two and then in four. They divide again to eight and then sixteen and the next division to thirty two cells forms a structure that is round, almost like an apple. These cells are the formation of the first and oldest organ – the heart. As the cells continue to divide they begin to form the next oldest organ – the tongue.

So it would seem that perhaps the way forward, although it does not have the comfort of logic and reason, is to speak from the heart.

The Purpose of Poop

2009-05-23T08:57:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I saw a documentary on public television about Intelligent Design. It had the usual proponents of the idea that evolution was an incorrect interpretation of the development of not only man but everything else in the world. It occurred to me that it was a specious argument. Of course God created everything in the world – he just does it through evolution.

But it was interesting to see the intellectual gymnastics on both sides of the argument. At one point in the film a group of scientists were sitting around trying to think up examples of living things where it could be shown that their design was flawed and therefore not intelligent. One of them settled on the rabbit. Rabbits, he pointed out, eat their poop. What could be less intelligent than that? Actually, they only eat some of their poop and only a particular kind which some people insist isn’t really poop at all even though it comes out of the same place, but as I sat there watching I was thinking that it was merely a design in progress. Once God got the rabbit to the point where it eats all its poop – that would be one helluva rabbit!

Which brings us to the subject of poop in general. For most of us, what happens in the lower tract of our bodies is not the subject of genteel conversation. Those of us over 50 are permitted some theatrical discourse about our colonoscopies but otherwise we’d generally prefer it if people would not regale us with descriptions of their bowel movements or lack thereof.

But metaphysics tells us a different story. The bowel is governed by the astrological sign Virgo whose planetary ruler is Mercury. Mercury is sometimes called the planet of dissolution. What happens in our intestinal tract is the transfer of the energy of the Sun into our bodies as well as the passing of cells that are no longer functional from our bodies. Those dead cells are who we used to be. They are the result of a change in consciousness that demands their replacement.

Transformation of a very important nature takes place in this unmentionable part of our physiology. Unseen by us it is managed by the subconscious mind. Unseen by us it is a truly magical process and it creates a substance that, since the beginning of time, has the capability to provide nutrients and sustenance for a whole class of living organisms. Unseen by us it is the engine of our own spiritual evolution.

Most of us probably have a hard time revering poop. It’s hard enough trying to keep our minds from running away with our souls as we take our own particular heroic journey through the valley of the shadow. It seems odd then that from a metaphorical perspective we seem intently engrossed in the cultural poop of our time. There is mess everywhere. The more aware we become the larger that mess seems to be; at times it can be overwhelming.

But we might want to consider that collectively we are expelling what doesn’t work. The divisive political arguments seem tired and stale and hardly worth the effort it takes to repeat them. The pundits who insist that there are “green shoots” in our financial system appear to be trying to convince themselves as much as anyone else. The more our media conveys these messages the less they are believed.

When is it going to end? What a funny questions to ask. It is as though we are all cranky children in the back seat who cannot see that the journey is the whole point. We want to hold our noses and wait until someone takes the bad smell away. We want some rest and some peace. We want the world to seem less insane.

But the piles of poop are necessary to fertilize that new reality. Peace and rest will come but only after we have broken down and digested everything that no longer works. It is difficult at times but less difficult than denying the awareness that is growing in all of us. This poop comes from the holiest of places and its stink incites our senses and is the source of our salvation.

Santa Claus

2009-05-23T08:37:00.000-07:00

I remember the day I learned that there really wasn’t a Santa Claus. I was in the backseat of the family car with my sister; she was two years older than me and had started to go to school. In the middle of explaining to me why I would be a lesser being until I managed to get to kindergarten she casually blurted out that Santa was not real and that only little kids believed in him. My protests withered in the face of her certainty. Soon I was calling to my mother who was driving the car “Is it true? Is it true?” After a lengthy pause and a mild rebuke to my sister she told me that yes indeed, it was true. There was no Santa Claus.

I suppose that rite of passage for many children is the beginning of banishing magic and mystery from their lives. It is part of the initiation into what we adults call the real world. You cannot wish upon a star. That is a child’s view of the world that doesn’t work.

But there was a more immediate reaction that I had that day. Everyone knew something that I didn’t. They had all lied to me, for whatever reason and I felt humiliated. How could I have been so stupid to have believed? And then, what else did other people know that they weren’t telling me? Distrust replaced belief; I vowed not to be fooled again.

It is a similar form of that rage that I think we are seeing in our civil society; it is in many ways a global event. We are beginning to understand that we have been living in a fantasy land in which debt was called leverage and credit and putting money to work became more important than putting people to work. But the reaction to that news has been, for the most part, discouraging. In the Midwest people put tea bags on their heads and staged demonstrations against their fellow citizens receiving any help to stay in their homes. Bus tours have been scheduled in Connecticut to stop outside the houses of AIG executives and read angry letters. It is as though we have decided that if there is no Santa Claus then our primary goal should be that no one gets any presents.

It’s a dangerous time. More and more people don’t have jobs. More and more people are loosing their homes. There is an increase in Internet pundits who claim absolute certainty in their own analysis of the situation. They use the “scientific method” based on facts. Their analysis of the history of our monetary system is sometimes very accurate, the conclusions they draw are designed to feed the anger. We need to blame somebody. Indict somebody. Expose the system for what it is.

In this environment it is becoming increasingly difficult to focus on how the system is collapsing. While there is no doubt that the banks, the Federal Reserve and the government are continuing to do everything they can do to preserve the status quo there is also no doubt that it is simply not going to work. It will fail not because of mass marches or government committee hearings or even a few brave souls in the mainstream press who are tiptoeing around the edges of describing the fundamentals of a debt-based monetary system. It will not succeed because it is a myth whose time has passed. More and more of us don’t believe in it any more.

So we are on the cusp of a choice. Do we rage against the machine and ignite ourselves as we try to burn it down or do we acknowledge that the form is dying so that a new one can be born.

Which brings us back to the real nature of Santa Claus, wishing on a star and all of those other childhood myths for which we have so little time as adults. Whenever I become overwhelmed with the content of the latest crisis and fatigued by the pretzel logic of the latest institutional explanations I wait until nightfall and go outside and look up – or rather out. Somehow the vastness of the universe helps to put things in perspective. It reaffirms for me that this chattering about the organization of the means of exchange is a very narrow definition of our existence. It reminds me that ‘of myself I do nothing”.

Well, you may say, that’s all well and good but we have some real issues to address and we can’t all sit around and stare off into space. There is some truth to that idea, but only some. I would suggest that regardless of whatever financial system this evolves into, regardless of whatever regulations are implemented, regardless of who goes to jail; all those events won’t matter at all without the context of understanding what we are all doing here in the first place. There are many paths to that understanding. There is not one way, one book, one set of rules. But unless we frame what we do in the coming weeks with the ancient knowledge that has always been in plain sight – that we are all manifestations of something much greater, that we are all connected through bonds much stronger than a monetary system – then we will have to go through the cycle all over again and there really isn’t the time for that.