Even Gandhi

"If I did not feel the presence of God within me, since I see so much of misery and disappointment every day, I would be a raving maniac." Gandhi, 1925.

Gandhi did such amazing work and he did it in the context of creating community. That is a life-long desire of mine. I'm beginning to see that we are all connected, all of creation, there is no real separation. It is expressed in the phrase "There is only One." That concept really keeps things clear.

Your spiritual presence is what we all need. We could start sharing with each other our individual connections to the divine however each one of us experiences that.

Make life a sacred sharing of laughter,stories of how we see spirit and how we are love in the world. I'm not talking about getting serious, just talking about directing our conversation through our sacred selves.

I woke up feeling disconnected today with my sense of direction skewed, but after centering my thought in "There is Only One," my peace returned and I am ready to discover the adventure of this day. Jude for Neighborhood UniverseCity.

Of Meteorites and Privately Owned Federal Reserve Banks

What I feel today after a week-end of watching the Zeitgeist Movie
and contemplating what might be happening at the meteor strike site in the mountains of Peru, I am thrown back to remembering my connection to everything through the one great god glue that holds us all together. It's not a concept or a dogma, just an inner knowing that communes and adores the love that created all of this, 13.7 billion years of galaxies, and a Universe that with the birth of humans can now be self-reflective. Humm. So that's what I'm here for, to see and be amazed and sing the praises of this beauty that wants to know itself so much, that she has risked the horror of humans. Oh what a blessing we could be. Movie makers, who are the self-consciousness of the Universe. Check out the work of physicist Brian Swimme .

What am I here for? To see the beauty of the Universe and praise. To speak the truth in love and rejoice at the freedom of living outside the "Spin." It's hard to know what the truth is in the swirl of so much mis-leading talk, talk talk. But deeper down in the recesses of what we have always know there is a part of each person that recognizes the ultimate truth of things. For now that is what I'm listening to. My ear to the ground my head in the clouds, my nose to the wind, I'm ready to know the TRUTH. Check out Neighborhood UniverseCity.

Thanks for listening. Jude

Thoughts

This quote came to me in a email today, which is why we don't have teachers at Neighborhood UniverseCity, but instead we have collaborators.

I have been asked many questions in my life about poetry, religion, life, and I have given precisely the same number of answers, but I have never, I repeat never, satisfied a single interlocutor. Why? Because all questioning is a way of avoiding the real answer, which Zen tells us, is really known already. Everyone is enlightened, but wishes they weren't. We all know we must love our enemies, and sell all we have and give to the poor, but we don't wish to know it. So we asks questions.
- R.H. Blyth

Collaborators participate in the learning, are learners themselves, not experts as if they held the keys, not everyone who attends. It's almost feels anti-American to refuse the idea of experts and embrace the notion that we all carry a rich enlightenment that only needs to come to our conscious mind.

I have found two other notions that keep me dis-empowered and fearful. One is that there is not enough to go around; two that I am separate and isolated. I don't believe either of those things, but they are very prevalent in western culture and have been re-enforced by the negative way that I see what happens around me.

When I stay conscious I know that my thoughts don't jive with my deep beliefs and I change my thought. Which takes me to the power of thought for creation. I don't know what the experts say, but in my experience what I think I'll get is what I get. It's that simple. I am a creator, born from an ever expanding creative Universe and I create with my thoughts. For me that means watching my thoughts and changing thoughts that are not consistent with what I know is true.

HOW'S THAT FOR A THOUGHT OF THE DAY? Later, Jude

Empowerment

President Bush and our military leaders want to keep risking so many of our children that it boggles the imagination. What kind of nation has killing as it's main foreign policy. Our children are the children of Iraq as well as American sons and daughters sent to kill.
What happens when our leaders pretend to listen, but are so severely corrupt that they can no longer hear our voices is that we begin to feel helpless. Lies and fear are the tactics, depression and despair are the results.
A big goal of Neighborhood UniverseCity is to empower each other with knowledge, passion and faith in ourselves and in the power of the Universe. We need to see the lies, but beyond that we need to know what gives us power to create the world we want to live in. Our dreams teach us in a universal language, indigenous groups maintain knowledge, methods and wisdom that can show us how to live in harmony, and thousands of people are beginning to learn how to cooperate with each other, the earth and all of creation.
The single most empowering message is that we are not alone, nor are we poor and powerless.
We are connected, full of creativity and power. Let our reconciliation with the rest of creation begin. Take heart. Jude from www.neighborhooduniversecity.com