Swami Beyondananda’s alter ego weighs in on the state of current politics.
by Steve Bhaerman
The best antidote to global warming is global heartwarming.
-Swami Beyondananda
To paraphrase Tom Paine, these are soul-trying times. In this shrinking world that could use a good shrink, we see evidence daily that we’ve reached the limits of our current operating system. Whether we call this obsolete paradigm “lowest common dominator” or “might makes right” or “every cell for himself,” a critical mass of us are coming to realize that a new level of organization is called for. We also recognize that this new paradigm cannot be imposed from the top down, but must be realized and activated from the grassroots up.
Much of this growing awareness has been in recognizing the problems we face. This is good and necessary-up to a point. My friend Kevin Danaher puts it this way: Imagine you are on the Titanic, and you’ve just hit the iceberg (not difficult to imagine in these times of global crisis). What do you do? Do you spend your time complaining to the captain and protesting that the iceberg has been hit? Do you pretend that all is well, and rearrange the proverbial deck chairs? Or, as Kevin playfully suggests, do you build a parallel “party lifeboat” and build a bridge for the other passengers to walk across to join the party?
Lifeboats, anyone?
Well, here is your chance to build the new ark, because we’re in for a spell of “weather.” To actually build this new ship, we must build a new “relation-ship” with all our relations. That means, before we can deal with planetary climate change, we need to create political climate change-what Swami calls “global heartwarming.”
Welcome to the Department of Heartland Security. While the name is an obvious play on the more ominous “homeland security,” it is a reminder that we find true security in the land of the heart. Meaning-we’ve been inundated with enough beliefs and ideologies to make our heads spin. Indeed, much of what we think is true is merely distorted interpretations of age-old fears. It’s as if dead people are operating us by remote. The good news is, when we descend from these thought-forms that separate us and find communion in the land of the heart, we access a much, much larger truth. This is the truth that shall set us free.
The Law of 75
Now you may be thinking, well, this is a splendid ideal, but what about the nitty-gritty real deal? Love is a great sentiment, but in practical reality how can it work? Here’s an example that led me to devise what I call “The Law of 75.”
Years ago, my friend Patricia Sun was giving a talk at a new age bookstore. Outside were four fundamentalist Christians picketing the store. “I’m going to go out and talk with them,” Patricia told the store owner.
“No, you can’t reason with those people,” the store owner told her. “Don’t waste your time.”
But Patricia went and did it anyway. Within minutes, three of the four had put down their picket signs and hugged her. “You’re saying just what Jesus said,” said one. The fourth protester, however, kept his vigil.
From there, I made up the Law of 75. Given the presence of authentic love, three-quarters of us are susceptible. Isn’t it interesting that to modify the U.S. Constitution, the amendment must be approved by 3/4 of the states? There’s something about 75% consensus that goes way beyond a mere majority imposing their will on everyone else. It brings us closer to a foundational “agreement” about reality.
At a time when the dueling dualities of materialistic science and fundamentalist religion are engaged in a duel to the death, maybe there is a third and more functional way that can unite us around what is perhaps the most underutilized tool in our human tool chest-the power of love. Again, this power is tangible and measurable. The folks at the HeartMath Institute have shown that our hearts tend to entrain with one another, just the way pendulums do. Dr. Leonard Laskow, author of “Healing With Love,” has demonstrated that the feelings of love and acceptance can actually shrink cancer cells.
At this time of crisis, we have very little to lose and a world to gain. Think of it this way. Science tells us that we only use a very, very small percentage of our brains. Makes you wonder, what percentage of the love in our hearts do we use?
Time to declare a state of emerge ‘n see
We purposely chose the date 9/11 for our pre-launch of Heartland Security to offer a powerful reframe of the fear we’ve allowed to take hold and manipulate us over the past seven years. It’s not that there are no dangers in the world. Quite the opposite. However, the most effective way to face those dangers is the way our bodies’ own immune system does it-by surrounding and isolating the “sociopathogens” and destroying as few healthy cells as possible.
On January 11, 2009, we are declaring a new day that will transform the state of emergency to a state of emerge ‘n see. On the date that represents our Oneness-One One One-we will declare our “interdependence.” We will take a cue from the highly-successful and highly-functional community of 50 trillion cells under our skin, emerge from fear and separation and see we are each and all cells in the body of humanity.
Unlike some totalitarian “new world order,” this interdependence is the key to our next level of freedom-the freedom from individual and collective limiting programming, and the freedom for each of us to express fully what only each of us uniquely can.
There is an awakening taking place in America and on the planet. While the media focuses on the creepy, crawly caterpillar organism that is deconstructing before our very eyes, there is a butterfly being born that is not yet on the radar.
That’s where the Department of Heartland Security-and you-come in.
All across America and throughout the world, millions if not billions of individuals and hundreds of thousands of organizations are already designing and “living into” a new butterfly reality. This is not hype or wishful thinking. Paul Hawken has identified hundreds of thousands of organizations dedicated to promoting the evolutionary credo, “We’re all in this together.”
The “spontaneous evolution” at hand is no tyrannical “new world order” imposed from the top down, but rather an awareness arising from each individual human. The good news, paradoxical as it may seem, is that the more we humans connect at the heart level, the more individual freedom we have to be exactly who we are and do exactly what we were meant to do on this planet. Or, as Swami Beyondananda says, “To re-grow the Garden from the grassroots up and have a heaven of a time doing it. u
Steve Bhaerman is also known as Swami Beyondananda. Visit them at wakeuplaughing.com.
Visit the Department of Heartland Security’s recently launched website: www.departmentofheartlandsecurity.org.