Category: Spirituality

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Spirituality

The Consciousness of Being

What is this existence we experience?

Energy and matter.

But not just energy and matter…

Energy passing through matter. 

Energy transforming matter. 

Energy enabling matter. 

Where does the energy end and the matter begin?

Is our consciousness matter? 

Yes. Matter empowered by energy. 

Like a ray of light passing through a clear prism, our consciousness illuminates the existence we experience. 

Yet our journey is not unique. 

Wherever energy empowers matter, there is consciousness. The only difference is the prism in which the light passes. 

To what end do we toil through this existence?

To gather the experience of finite conditions in order to gain perspective on our infinite journey. 

This is why every existence is in the service of us all.

Categories
Personal Growth Philosophy Social Evolution Spirituality

The Importance of Knowing Thyself

One truth I have come to realize is the prerequisite for personal fulfillment is to know thyself. As I have immersed in my personal exploration, I find the journey can be expressed as follows:

Who Am I? —> What Am I? —–> Why Am I?

Who Am I?

Who I am is how I and the world see me.

I am a human, biologically male, and descendant of Panamanian & African American lineage.

I was born 58 years ago in the Bronx, NY, which makes me an American.

I am college educated, a military veteran, who built a 25-year career in business banking but now works in Climate Risk Management and Sustainability.

I voted democratic for twenty years, republican for 5 years, and independent ever since.

I could go on but by now I hope you see the pattern.

Who I am shows only the uniforms I wear. 

Who I am is merely the upper layers of my being. To understand more, I must explore how I exist.

To exist, I need oxygen to breathe, water to drink, nutrient food to eat, clothes & shelter to protect my body from extreme weather, and so much more. Yet, I do not produce what I need to exist. Therefore, I exist as part of a greater reality.

How did I come to exist? How do I function as part of this greater reality?

I came to exist because my parents chose to have sex, producing a fertile egg that set off an energetic chain reaction of cell reproduction, which empowers me my whole life until the energy leaves my body at death. 

The thread that connects how I came to exist with how I live my life is Energy.

What Am I?

I am Energy having a human experience.

As a human, I am learning what it feels like to be mortal. 

This is important because Energy is immortal, therefore has no understanding of mortality.

What does Energy do? How does Energy function?

Energy flows until it collides with matter. 

When Energy collides with matter, the matter changes to something else. This change is called Creation.

The power revealed by my human experience is we are capable of directing energy.

I exercise my power through the choices I make. 

Accordingly, the reality of my human experience is defined by the myriad of choices made by all the participants in my life’s journey.

Why Am I?

As an energetic being having a human experience, I am empowered to direct energy to co-create the reality in which I live. 

Therefore, the ultimate Why I Am is to decide what reality do I want to co-create.

Categories
Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

Earth Critters

One truth I have realized is Mother is a word for all that give us life. Beyond my birth mother, I live because…

I have sunshine. 

Thank you Mother Sun…

I have water. 

Thank you Mother Ocean, River, Lake, Stream…

I have nutrient food. 

Thank you Mother Earth, Animals, Plants, Farmers, Harvest Workers, Food Distribution Workers, Grocers…

I have shelter.

Thank you Mother Trees, Mother Earth, Homebuilder, Construction Workers, Innovators, Electricians, Utility Workers…

I have biodiversity.

Thank you Mother Gut Critters that support my digestion, Mother Bees that facilitate pollination, Mother Nature that supports my ecology…

I have so many Mothers to be thankful for. 

Now imagine what Mother Sun sees when she looks at the Earth?

A beautiful blue marble housing trillions of Earth critters. 

We are all children of the Universe. 

Each sovereign because we are empowered to make choices and unified by our shared symbiotic existence.

Categories
Social Evolution Spirituality

Until we clean our lens

Reality is…regardless of how we see it.

The sun rises…and everything grows.

The blue sky resides above…regardless of the weather that passes below.

The blessing of every birth…is matched by the certainty of every death.

And so it is, in this thing called life.

How we see reality determines how we experience life. We are all partially filled vessels…divided by what we are and what we aspire to be.

For those of us consumed by our aspirations, we hardly notice the abundance we enjoy. Instead, we are immersed in the mythology of our dreams…constantly reminded of what we lack. Reaching…striving…seeking for the next shiny bauble of our vivid imaginations.

All the while paying little attention to the bounty of gifts we receive that empowers us to take the next breath.

None of us produce the air we breathe…

…the water we drink

…the food we eat

…the clothes we wear

…the shelter that protects us

…the weather that sustains us

…the atmosphere that supports us

…the language we speak, think, and dream

…the knowledge that informs us

…or even the love we receive.

Once we remember the abundance that empowers us, our hearts will overflow with gratitude and the deep desire to give as richly as we receive.

This is the symbiotic relationship that defines our connection with each other and the natural environment that sustains us.

Yet we will never know until we clean our lens.

Categories
Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

When I Meet a Stranger…

…what I see is a person who:

may be the next best friend I ever had,

may be the lover I need in my life right now,

may teach me the next important lesson I needed to know,

may offer the simple gesture that makes my day,

may be one of many people who produce the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the car I drive, and support the life I live.

What do I see when I meet a stranger?

I see a part of me I did not yet know.

Categories
Personal Growth Spirituality

What is intended for me…

I was raised to think excellence required working the hardest. So as I grew up, I entered my career prepared to power through any mountain that appeared in my path.

Time passed, and I started to notice all those moved mountains did not lead me to the promised land.

The hard road simply led to more hard road.

Finally, I realized the resistance that stood in my way was not a sign to work harder.

The resistance was the guardrail on the path of my highest purpose…

The demarcation line between what is intended for me and everything else.

Categories
Personal Growth Spirituality

What I want…

I want to celebrate my sovereignty within the context of our universal oneness…

In alignment…

In balance…

In sustainable perpetual abundance.

Why?

Because this is the Truth about who we are.

Categories
Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

Breadcrumbs

Truth is the pattern of how things work.

What is true has always been true.

There is truth and everything else that is not true. The difference is only truth is eternal.

Truth is realized through our understanding, but our understanding is not limited to truth. As such, truth can only be found inside you.

Consider your opinion, which changes as you learn new information. The quality of your opinion is a function of its proximity to truth. Once you learn truth your opinion evolves into knowledge.

Knowledge is power because it serves as a breadcrumb to remind you who you are.

Wisdom occurs once you remember.

Categories
Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

Anatomy of Purpose

Existence is comprised of energy manipulating matter.

Balance is the necessary condition for flow to occur.

Flow is the essential function of energy.

Love is the unimpeded flow of energy.

Wellness is the balance of food, water, rest, and exercise.

Sustainability is the balance of giving and receiving.

Alignment is the balance of experience with wisdom.

Fulfillment is the alignment of sustainable love with wellness.

Purpose is the fulfillment of our existence.

Categories
Personal Growth Philosophy Spirituality

A Virtuous Cycle…

Red blood cells deliver oxygen to all parts of our body allowing us to function, which provides the environment red blood cells need to survive.

When we exhale, we release carbon dioxide into the air. Trees absorb the carbon and use it for photo-synthesis, which produces food as it cleans the air we breathe.

For over 10,000 years, global average temperature stabilized to within 1 degree Celsius. Stable temperature produced predictable weather that allowed humanity to evolve beyond hunter-gatherer, nomadic communities to develop farming, produce surplus food & products for trade, and create modern civilization. This period that cultivated extraordinary human development is called the Holocene.

In our modern society, each of us contribute our most marketable skill in exchange for money, which we use to purchase all the goods and services we need to sustain ourselves.

This is the pattern of existence in Nature…

A virtuous cycle of interdependence and mutual fulfillment.

Yet since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (1850), human productivity has raised global average temperatures beyond 1 degree Celsius. As human activities pushed our ecology out of the Holocene, the impact on biodiversity has been catastrophic with species extinctions exceeding a thousand times the normal rate.

Today, we are within one average lifespan of depleting our soil of essential nutrients, savannization of tropical forests, ocean acidification, and melting of the polar icecaps.

The virtuous cycle has been broken.

We now face a choice: innovate a modern economic system that supports ecological sustainability, or participate in the sixth mass extinction event.