Awake and Aware

William S. Burroughs by artist Verboten.

William S. Burroughs once said that he realized he needed to write to save his own life. Sometimes I feel the same but not for the same reasons. When I examine my feelings, on a day to day basis, to recognize a high degree of sadness, although I’m far from being a negative or depressed person, and thankfully enjoyed over a half century of joy filled living. It’s struck me in the past 5 years especially hard, that something in our world was dreadfully wrong and rapidly getting worse.

The global financial crisis of 2007 sparked an awakening and prompted of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which created an awareness in the collective consciousness on the planet, of a malignant conspiracy that had corrupted the global central banking systems. As an editor of financial information (CommodityTrader.com and InvestOffshore.com), this knowledge of fraud caused me to reflect deeply on my complicity, premeditated or not. There are a dozen cliches like “Be the change”, or “are you part of the solution?” etc…. However, the one idea the continued to resonate with me about my being awake and aware, was that: to do nothing, was not an option.

As a web publisher, what should a person do, about making the world a better place, using ideas and information? What I learned from my own exploration of what is euphemistically called “the rabbit hole”, by researching conspiracy theories, has saddened me profoundly. There’s that word (sad) again. It says somewhere in the Bible, according to Jesus, that with knowledge comes sorrow (another word for sad). And although I agree that everyone should know the truth, regardless of how it makes them feel but I refuse to be the publisher who regurgitates that information.

I want to inspire people to transcend the negative by using the power of the mind. Become aware of thought patterns and strive towards clarity. Become better at practising how to be one with the universe, as corny as that may sound. It can be done, and that’s what transcendence is. Everyone can do it.

Love is the temple (U2 lyric) is so much more than a verse of a song. We all know what and where it is, as well as how to get there. If something we’re doing is not taking us in that direction then we need to cease and change course. Love is the “one” place we all share, so there can be nothing wrong about thinking about it, writing about it, talking about it, or practising it.

So what is the “it” we call Love?

To describe love we could use the words; patience, understanding, tolerance and peace, just to choose a few common keywords but it’s much more about compassion which brings us to a feeling, and very often back to the word “sad”. Especially if you live as awake and aware of the world around us.

To combat sadness I recommend art or music and action. Get inspired by art and then feel it, think about it, make a plan, then make something good happen. Turn that sequence into a daily habit. Everyone has something good in them that wants to be shared to encourage others. We can all improve, every day, at making some one (or many) happy/glad, if even for a moment, that they matter and we care.

One
ARTIST: U2
LYRICS
Source: http://www.u2.com/discography/lyrics/lyric/song/97

Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you, now you got someone to blame?
You say one love, one life, when it’s one need in the night.
One love, we get to share it
Leaves you baby if you don’t care for it.

Did I disappoint you or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love and you want me to go without.
Well, it’s too late tonight to drag the past out into the light.
We’re one, but we’re not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other… one

Have you come here for forgiveness,
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head
Did I ask too much, more than a lot
You gave me nothing, now it’s all I got.
We’re one, but we’re not the same.
Well, we hurt each other, then we do it again.

You say love is a temple, love a higher law
Love is a temple, love the higher law.
You ask me to enter, but then you make me crawl
And I can’t be holding on to what you got, when all you got is hurt.

One love, one blood, one life, you got to do what you should.
One life with each other: sisters, brothers.
One life, but we’re not the same.
We get to carry each other, carry each other.
One, one.