Tag Archives: compassionate

Cause of All Wars Questioned in Confederate Flag Controversy

by contoveros

     President Barack Obama may have raised an issue on all wars when he eulogized a fallen comrade on June 26, 2015, at the funeral for the pastor of the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

     While never detracting from the valor that Confederate Soldiers fought with in the Civil War, he offered a plain and simple truth.

The Cause they Fought For was Wrong.

     The cause their leaders created to secede from the union was wrong. Wanting to uphold slavery as the economic foundation for the South’s way of life was wrong.

     It was wrong hundreds of years ago in our nation, just as it was wrong thousands of years ago when Jews, Greeks, and other defeated people were enslaved by others. It was wrong in the time of the Moses as it was in the time of Lincoln.

wrong

Symbols like the Confederate flag, which support slavery, should be removed from all public places. They’re wrong to ever be displayed.

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What about other wars that leaders of powerful armies ordered their soldiers to fight in? Were any of them “wrong,” and can we as a God-fearing country ever admit to it?

I’m speaking about the Vietnam War in my time. I fought for what my leaders convinced our nation was the right thing to do. I never questioned their reasons or the basis for their belief.

But history has shown that they were wrong. The cause was wrong. And that the leaders of the resistance movement in Vietnam were right. Their cause was right. Admitting this does not detract from the bravery “our side” showed in the war. Nor does it prevent my prodigy from honoring my efforts in battle.

We can honor the veteran who placed himself in harm’s way at the same time we correct the mistaken belief the infallibility of a government, any government.

Just as we can honor the veterans of the Iraq War while agreeing that our reasons for the invasion and occupation of that land were wrong. Dead wrong.

It’s the right thing to do!

——-

(The Confederate flag flew for the last time at the South Carolina state grounds on July 10, 2015 when it was removed and placed in a museum following an order signed by the governor and passed by an overwhelming vote by the state senate and the legislature.)
(In addition, Mississippi became the last state in our nation to remove the Confederate emblem from its state flag in June 2020.)

Listen for the ‘Wisdom You’re Born With’

by contoveros

Listen to Yourself.

     Close your eyes and go within and listen to the Sounds of Silence. 

     Disregard the constant jabbering of the Monkey Mind that doesn’t seem to know when to shut up. Pay no heed to it, and it will dissipate like a cloud on a windy day.   

      Let yourself drift like a feather gently seeking its way to the ground without the help of anything or anybody.

     While softly settling in, focus on your breath. Feel it as it expands in the upper body area and then leaves through the inhalation of the nostrils. Be aware of the movement in the chest, the abdomen, or just in the cavity behind the nose, the mouth, and the eyes.

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Source of Goodness Is Within

     Use that breath as an anchor. Become so familiar with it so that you can gently nudge your attention back to it when your mind slips from the silent stillness and seeks to cling to a thought, an idea, or a concept.

Let Them All Go.

———-

     It is in this “Deep Silence” that you can discover the Source of Life. You’ll know it when you touch it. Like magic, you’ll realize that for a moment you have no worries and no desires. You will be exactly where you need to be and know that everything is just right — right now — now in the moment.

     By stilling the mind and touching the Source, you’ll be able to contact the Wisdom You Were Born With. It is the wisdom of love and compassion with an understanding that we are all one, all together in a universe that works in union with us and all other sentient beings. This wisdom offers unconditional love and acceptance and provides the creative spark your intuition can tap into once you seek its counsel and guidance.

     Got the message?

     Now try it again and again.

     Practice it daily and then share it with friends who are seeking to find their true selves. It will help you and me attain the happiness we’ve been yearning for all of our lives.

Lucid dream opens a new world to explore

by contoveros

     I dreamed a lucid dream for the first time in my life last night.

     I’ve tried to experience a lucid dream– one where you tell yourself in the dream that you are dreaming — for more than five years after reading about dream interpretations by Carl G. Jung, the eminent psychiatrist who studied with Sigmund Freud.  

     I tried dreaming following a Kabbalah teaching approach and then a Buddhist one. I set an intent so many times I got tired and fell asleep with nothing to show for my meager efforts except run-of-the-mill dreams mixed in with a few nightmares.

     And then I found myself chanting in the dream. I chanted the sounds of each vowel very slowly and ended the chant with the sound of “OM.”

     “Aa . . . Ee . . . Ii . . . Oo. . . Uu . .  OM.” I stretched the sounds of each letter using a full exhalation of my breath.

Chanting in Your Dream can be very Lucid

     I knew it was a lucid dream when I said to myself in the dream that I couldn’t wait to tell my teacher how I chanted in my dream

I'm dreaming this and I plan to have a lot of fun!

I’m dreaming this, and I plan to have a lot of fun!

     My teacher is Natalie Bliss, who is instructing a small group on how to balance our Chakras. She introduced the chant last week, and I tried it while in the sauna alone two days ago. Last night, I repeated it in a dream, and I feel that a  new world of dreams has finally opened to me.

     What does it all mean? I believe that I can now control a part of my dreams. I can influence whatever is causing thoughts and images to appear from my subconscious. I can redirect bad things and make them less bad and, hopefully, transform them into something good someday.

     That is what advanced Buddhist practitioners  have tried to do while dreaming. They try to change or alter their karma. They help to create good merit while dreaming. It’s kind of like developing grace through prayers from a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim background.

Work Off Bad Karma While Dreaming at Night

Just think, you can work off some of your bad karma and obtain a blessing from the Creator with your eyes closed and body slumbering away at night!

Now let’s see if I can open myself to messages from above. Let me address my better angels and set an intent to create peace and love in the world.

Who knows? I might even see you in one of the dreams. Yours or mine.

We’ll play like little kids and give each other gifts and promise to always be friends in this world, as well as any others we find ourselves awakening in. And then we’ll do it again in our next lifetime or in heaven, depending on your point of view, or however you want your dreams to come true!

I’ll be One when I finally let myself ‘Let Go’

by contoveros

      Could I ever be strong enough to let the more tender side of me take over and simply “Let Go“?

    We all know how tough it can be to let go of something we’ve been accustomed to all of our lives. You feel like you’re walking off a cliff or jumping out of a plane with no parachute when you consider “letting go.” You’re facing uncertainty, the unknown, the void of a black hole that’s never been explored before. Unexplored by you, that is.

Being ‘Reborn’ Without the Ego in Control

     What if there is no God to catch you in mid-flight? Must one die before being re-born without the ego being in control? 

     Perhaps that is what letting go is all about. Letting go of the thoughts, the beliefs, and the security, all of which are nothing but illusions the mind creates to keep us under wraps. Don’t be afraid to look for an answer outside of yourself, Michael J.

     Be Your “Self.”

     You don’t even know what it is, do you? You make up labels and believe yourself to be what your senses can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. You, the poor wretched man. Don’t you know that you’re far greater than the physical plane  you exist in? You are a Spiritual Being that can learn to fly, to live, and to love.

let-go-let-god

     You knew it as a child. You felt it a long, long time ago when you were one with the universe. You knew the Divine existed in everything and in everyone, but you forgot it as you reached the age of reason and ate fruit from the tree of knowledge and got expelled from paradise.

     By letting go, you can return to that peaceful loving place some call Nirvana. You can sneak back into those holy grounds and hide out with old friends who let their spirits rise above the world below. They’re the like-minded folks you’ve gotten back in touch with just as you saw the light.

‘Letting Go’ Will Provide the Answer

     They saw your light and beckoned you to join them.

     They let go. They fell back in love with the greatest love of their lives.

     You Can Too.

     Just close your eyes, feel that warmth, and let it wash over you, permeating every inch of your body, your soul, your true self. Let the Lower one go.

Surrender.

Submit.

Be One Again.

We all know how tough it can be

Contentment: Learning to be Content OK

by contoveros

     “Good Enough” is the lazy man’s way to enlightenment . . . There’s nothing more to do . . .  Your job is good enough . . . Your spouse is good enough . . .Your life  is good enough . . . Your meditation practice is good enough. . . You don’t need anything more, and what you now have is good enough. — This is all according to a young monk, – Ajahn Khemavaro, who spoke on Impermanence, in a 2008 presentation, “Everything Will Be alright.” Continue reading →

‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’t’s’ of Radiating Wisdom

by contoveros
 Today’s meditation showed us that we all have a profound and innate wisdom. How have you experienced this in your life? Write about a time that you spontaneously said the right thing at the right time to someone. What did that communication feel like for you? — Deepak & Oprah 21-day Meditation Experience.

Wisdom Flourishes from Deep Within

As I struggle to come up with a satisfactory answer for this question, let me focus instead on what Deepak had quoted William Blake as saying in reference to wisdom. Wisdom is “organized innocence.” What a concept! In order to have or to cultivate wisdom, I know that I must be in awe of something; I must see that thing with wonder, with the eyes of an innocent child.

It is only when I perceive it this way, that is, when I use what Zen Buddhists call my “beginner’s mind,” that I see the true writing on a wall I offered up for its clean slate to be imprinted upon.

Wisdom is not something confined to those growing old. Nor is it only for the professor-types in ivory towers, although we can revere what many tell us because of the learning they achieved and can pass on to us. No, wisdom is something that – I believe – we’re born with . . . We have it inside of us, and one of the few ways that we can tap into it is through meditation.

Very Wise to Experience Things from Within

In other words, I don’t have to have lots of experiences to be wise. I need only to experience things from within and be able to see things from the child’s point of view. Then I can feel the richness in witnessing.

Now, what was that question that I just dodged?

     “Write about a time that you spontaneously said the right thing at the right time to someone. What did that communication feel like for you?”

I told a young woman, Rita, that our relationship would have to come to an end, and that we had to enjoy it while we were together. We were both married at the time. I’m not proud of it, but we had an affair. I was twenty-three and she was twenty-one or twenty-two. We came together as troubles had developed in both of our relationships at our separate homes.

      We had fun and we grew, sharing ourselves in a way that we couldn’t with our spouses at that time. We both got divorces. She is much quicker than me. That angered her. I guess she felt that I should have joined her upon her break-up with her husband. I did not, for I was Catholic, and I knew instinctively that I would not.

That’s what I meant when I said our relationship was impermanent and that it would not last. Nothing does.

———–

     I guess another time that this occurred was more recently, but it feels like several lifetimes ago. I had predicted to a young woman whom I had fallen in love with that we would only be together for six months. I actually told her in June that we could learn from each other and then finish what we needed to do by December.

No Good in Trying to Cling to a Relationship

That’s exactly what happened too! But this time, I was the one who didn’t want to pay attention to my own advice. I wanted permanence. I wanted to cling to the relationship, to hold onto something that had already ended, but I couldn’t and didn’t want to see that my earlier premonition was correct.

In each case, I was prophetic with the wisdom.

Achieving wisdom and following it, however, are two things I have learned that don’t necessarily come together all the time . . .

Hope fills your presence and your future

by contoveros
We introduced a new understanding of hope today. We want to build a sense of hope that is a force of change that comes from a feeling of certainty and well-being within, rather than an anxious kind of hope that vaguely wishes for things to turn out well. Write about an experience you may have had with this stronger kind of hope. – Deepak Chopra (Day 6 — Feeling Hope) 
 (For more on meditation, see Chopra Center Meditation. Experience)

Hope can Help Guide Through All of Life

I don’t think you can have a future or any type of “end product” without hope. I see hope more as a process, a living force that flows from day-to-day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. We hope for something that will come into existence in some future time. Yet the feeling we get through the act of hope occurs in the present.

It’s like living. No, it is living, which is living in the present moment while expending energy in a real certainty that there will be answers for what we hope for tomorrow. For instance, I hope to publish a book. Actually, I have five books in which I hope to publish over the next several months. That’s ten hopeful wishes, so to speak. I am in the process of self-publishing, and I hope to obtain an end product sometime later this year.

Hope that Writing will Inspire Others

My hope is that the books will be well-received and, more importantly, that someone reads them. I hope that they will inspire others and reveal truths that I’ve learned through a mystical journey I started some six years ago. That’s when I retired from “regular” work, and I found my true passion in writing. I like to say that I traded in a legal career to return to a writing one, this time, not as a newspaper reporter, but a reporter on and about life!

Since September 2009, I had hoped that I could offer as much compassion and love as the monsignor did at my Uncle Dominick‘s funeral. Uncle Dom was the last surviving blood relative from either of my parents’ sides. He was the baby of the family and had babysat me when I was sent to my grandmother’s house to avoid any harm. My mother, Dom’s half-sister, had suffered from postpartum depression, and I was shipped off to Mays Landing, NJ, from Philadelphia, PA, to prevent any danger to me and to provide the much-needed help for my frail and sickly mother.

Grandmother Provides Unconditional Love

     Did someone see some hope in me? I like to think that Grandma Hagel did. Whenever someone asked me if I knew who provided me with unconditional love, I automatically think of her. Yet, I remember very little about her. I guess there was (is) a feeling about the times I had contact with her that lends itself to such an impression.

     Uncle Dom was the quiet type. He served in the navy during World War II and “inherited” Grandma’s house after he got married and began raising his own children. He married one of the toughest women I have ever encountered, Aunt Frances. She was the bossy type who always seems to control every situation. And if she couldn’t control it, she found a way to influence it by getting to the guy or girl in charge!

Spiritual Path Provides Hope for the Future

I got hope for my spiritual path when the cleric at Uncle Dom’s funeral butchered Aunt Frances’ name. No one messed with Aunt Frances, and I took it as a sign for a drastic change in my life. I figured that I was as spiritual as that priest, and that I could prove it.

Of course, I had meditated for more than a year, having learned mindfulness meditation in a Veterans Administration clinic and at a weekly meditation session with a Zen teacher. Hope infused in me after I prayed for Uncle Dom, meditated, and rose to the standing position with the others in the church. We stood to exit the pew where we had been either seated or were kneeling. It was time to receive Holy Communion.

— Hope for us Fallen Catholics —

Communion is something I can’t receive anymore. You see, I got married “outside” the church, and I would have to get a dispensation from the pope or get remarried “in” the church to take on that sacrament. It is one of the worst sins the Catholic Church has imposed on its faithful, and I’m sure it has driven out — and is still keeping out — many Catholics who are good people. These are people like me who had simply met other good folks of different religious backgrounds and agreed to accept the spouse’s choice of where to get married.

I got married in a Presbyterian Church by a Methodist minister named Michele Wright Bartlow, the sister of my soon-to-be wife, the former Wendy Wright.

I hope that someday a pope like Pope Francis will grant a blanket absolution for those of us who chose to say our marriage vows somewhere other than in a Catholic church. I’d “go back” to the church if he waved a magic wand and said all was forgiven. I would be able to receive communion again and not have to pretend like I did during the funeral for Uncle Dom.

Fake It ‘Til You Make It Works Spiritually

  •      What I did was to fake it. I stood up in church, made my way to the center aisle, but instead of walking forward, I went backward.  Persons with an untrained eye who saw me walking backward believed I was without a mortal sin. In the Catholic faith, you can’t receive Holy Communion with a mortal sin “on your soul.” You can if you only have venial sins, according to church doctrine which I believe has not changed since I was an altar boy in the 1960s…

————–

So, I marched backward and then made my way around the church, checking out some of the statues on display at various sections of the House of God. My hope was that no one would take offense, and from what I noticed, no one did. No one has ever commented about it, and I guess my hope helped to create a happy ending of sorts.

I became more spiritual and have not really looked back except to reflect on how far along this path a sinner like me has been able to travel. See, there is hope for everybody if they seek it out. It freed me up to write, and I haven’t stopped since that fateful day.

     Stay tuned for more hope in tomorrow’s post. That’s when I’ll try to “wright a wrong“, so to speak. Or just click the post at right below.)