A Path With Heart – The Christmas Message

(My apologies to Jack Kornfield for borrowing the title to his best selling book - A Path With Heart)

Christmas is a hard time for many people. It is often made harder because there is this pressure to be 'happy' coming at us 24/7, it seems. It's hard when many of us are grieving lost friends and lost hopes. Why do we get this pressure; this pressure to be happy? And where does it come from, anyway?


kindness-of-strangers Michael Leunig

It is an odd kind of happy, isn't it? There doesn't seem to be any appeal to be kind to go along with it, as far as I can tell. It seems to be a 'happy' without a heart. And without any heart, how can there be any peace? And Peace is the Christmas Message, is it not. So I'm wondering, “what is going on”?

Christmas comes at the end of the year so there is a natural review and evaluation process going on with most people. A time to reflect on lessons learnt from so many losses and a few gains and then planning ahead for next year a little wiser as well as older, hopefully.

I think it is more than possible that the people who control our society would want to interfere with this process of year end review. They have been jerking us around since whenever and they have a limited playbook to work from. So asking ourselves the question, “How did that work out for us?” is not a desirable thing as far as they are concerned. But let's ask it anyway.

The continuing wars of choice around the globe are doing what for us? Bringing peace and security? How about prosperity? They aren't delivering on the promises. Where's the peace? Where's even the hope of peace? So I think we can safely say that this strategy is not working. It is definitely not working for the unfortunate people in these target countries.

What made us think that killing people we never had an argument with would bring us peace? Perhaps it was the fear the rulers peddled with their promises. Maybe it's time to do something different next year.

The economy. The bankers said, “Bail us out and we'll save you. If you let us sink, we'll take you with us”. They were bailed out yet we continue to sink. There was definitely fear there right along side their promises. Or were they threats? And what were we afraid of? Being left homeless and hungry? Being left homeless and hungry amongst plenty; amongst people we know and some of whom we love. There's something wrong here. In a traditional society, this would not even be contemplated. It would be an insane notion. An uncaring society would be an oxymoron.

Somehow many of us have become afraid to rely on our friends and family, never mind strangers. Worse, somehow many of us have become afraid to help our friends, family and especially strangers. To ward off these fears we have been told to get rich. To have superannuation and investments to provide for our future (because nobody else is going to be there for us).

I don't see any peace in this. Maybe this is why we are hearing so much about happiness without kindness to distract us from this lack of peace. Perhaps it is time to do something different next year.

Those that rule us, or would rule us, want us to be afraid not only of them and the foreign enemies they designate for us, but also to be afraid of our own friends and neighbours. They want us afraid because it takes away our security in ourselves and each other and we are more likely to buy into their destructive programs. These destructive programs such as war and depression economics destroy us and others that they aim our fear and anxiety at. What is noticeably absent to me is any mention of kindness; anything with heart in it. Maybe kindness undoes fear. Perhaps kindness gives courage.

It seems to me that any leaders amongst us that have promoted kindness, peace, a path with heart, have been killed or silenced in some way. From Jesus to Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr to John Lennon and Bob Marley. With nothing but their words, they must have been a major threat to the ruling powers, methinks. Their message of peace and kindness must have sounded like the harbingers of the end to these rulers and their plans. This points to this path being the way to go. But being a peace leader would seem to be a dangerous and short lived profession.

But do we need more leaders? Do we need to be the next leaders? We have their messages preserved for us in millions of books and plenty of videos and recordings. We know what this message is, after all; love one another. What more do we need?

Perhaps all that is needed is for us to become followers and to live out this message. So I'm wondering if we practised kindness towards our neighbours, friends, family and even strangers, whether we might experience what these leaders with heart gave their lives to tell us about.

If we weren't so worried about our futures and fearful of our fellow human beings, we might experience peace. We might experience giving and receiving love. We might respond with kindness instead of with fear and loathing in the face of the hardships that our rulers will do their best to bring down on us economically and in every other way they can. We might even find that a lot of the hardship becomes a blessing in disguise as the fear evaporates and we make more and more heart connections everyday. As we act out of kindness, we may become more and more secure in ourselves and in our neighbours. The more hardships we come across, the more opportunities we may find to bring security and connectedness into the lives of others and ourselves till our days become a walk down that path with heart.

Perhaps if we felt more kindly towards everybody on earth, we would have a security no one could take away from us and we would need a whole lot more convincing before we would agree to travel thousands of miles to kill families we don't even know or to act in any way contrary to our heart.

We and the world might be safer as a result. And it sure would be nice to go fishing instead.

Maybe treading a path with heart might be worth trying in 2012. It certainly would be doing something different. It would certainly guarantee that we would have a different result to ponder this time next year.

A happy and truly peaceful Christmas to everyone smiling

(newspaper article on kindness that accompanies the picture at the head of this post)

Comments

beautiful message

thank you James. this is an absolutely beautiful Christmas message.

Perhaps all that is needed is for us to become followers and to live out this message.

such an important point. people are always looking for the next leader, someone to show them the way. but we've already been shown the way. several times.

as they say in sports, just do it.

Thanks APea

Thanks APea smiling

btw i love that picture

perfect selection. it is brilliant.

Psycho Primates

One of my most profound "Aha!" moments was the one in which I blame all our troubles upon the use of fire by tribes of territorial apes sometime in the distant past.
As McLuhan said,'We shape our tools and then our tools shape us", also, "We ape our tools then our tools ape us.".
Without fire, metallurgy would be impossible, the discovery of nuclear energy would have been out of the question.
We are, however stuck with this particular genie being out of the bottle.
The modern age, with industrial methods, has destroyed our familial support groups as we are now individual pieces in an assembly line system of ever growing consumer products, or, more likely, weapons of war.
We are genetically predisposed to belong to tribal groups, with physical and psychological support from a broad range of tribal members, old, young, close blood relations and members of the tribe with skills and insights developed over thousands of years. This familial/tribal support system is long gone now, with isolation and tedious repetition being the lot of most members of "civilized" society.
The lack of social interaction is such that a huge segment of the populace live their lives through a teevee screen, acquiring the values of a gigantic machine which passes itself off as "entertainment" or "information". Nearly any sort of madness may be popularized by this manipulation, from Hitler to pet rocks. Most persons believe what they do without analysis, choosing their beliefs and then seeking out information which confirms these beliefs. Polititians know this and use it to advance their careers, whatever the facts may be, belief is stronger than logic, every time.
A great number of insight shifts will be needed to change this mechanical situation, breaking the chains of illusion as Marx said.
Freud is now regarded as quaint, most of his postulations about the psyche are discarded, however his declaration that dependent personalities will identify authority as a parent figure still seems valid to me, as I observe it in action every day.
The machine has checked the "better angels" of our nature to such a degree that the reptilian/territorial part of out brain now dominates, with sociopaths and psychotics in roles of leadership, disguising themselves as "leaders".
It is a puzzlement.

isolation in the crowd

Great comment, Don.
"This familial/tribal support system is long gone now, with isolation and tedious repetition being the lot of most members of "civilized" society."

I think that is a very accurate observation. And a sad one, of course.

McJ's picture

Thanks James - lovely message

Thanks James - lovely message and thanks for all your work keeping the blog going.

My very best wishes to everyone this Christmas. Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas McJ. And

Merry Christmas McJ. And thanks. And no worries!

James, a peaceful and calm

James, a peaceful and calm solstice to you and your friends and family.
"what is going on?" It's heresy of course! smiling to think that any happiness comes from outside. I think we smile too much, talk too much and feel too little. And if we feel the pressure to perform - happiness - what we should feel is joy - isn't the motive behind any pressure that to be good little mundanes and not spoil the party, raise the glass, toast the flag, god and country and get with the program. Deep contentment from giving aid support and comfort via our compassionate deeds seems to me the truth path. We have to begin with our communities until we know the world is our community. Parts of ourselves starving in whatever imaginary boundary called country are our worlds' children. I'm not saying we have to martyr ourselves, but no matter who we are, we can always do something, always. Until we understand that the other is not the other and is suffering we all will continue to suffer. too - and no amount of plastered on fake smiles will do anything but make us look the fool. it's true, without that connection we are single meaningless units of carbon, misplaced feelings and lost to ourselves, our divine selves having a coffee fix at Starbucks.

Thank you for the explanation of the monetary system. I just have a question and that is what does the effect of the gold or metal being 'real' have on the formula, and that it is finite? Would appreciate your wisdom.

Good tidings to you!
smiling jjane

well said, jjane

there is so much i was tempted to quote from your comment, Jane, but then i would have ended up repeating it all smiling

But this particularly stood out for me-
"I'm not saying we have to martyr ourselves, but no matter who we are, we can always do something, always. Until we understand that the other is not the other and is suffering we all will continue to suffer."

In our culture of the individual, we fail to appreciate this crucial point that you make. If we all understood this, we would cease to be exploited and would have a security we cannot imagine from our present circumstances.

I did have a peaceful and calm time.Thank you. I hope you did, too. smiling

I'll reply to your very good questions re gold on the other thread shortly.

A13's picture

Wonderfull words

HI James, That was an excellent post.
Those wonderfull words touched my heart and helped me to remember what humanity should be like..We crave it..being included and loved and loving and including others..the greatest gift is the true gift of the sprirt which resides in us all..
Merry Christmas to ALL here and thanks for this great site and all the high quality writting that is shared here smiling
Grp Hug

Merry Christmas and Peace to all.
A13

muchas gracias

Thanks A13! Those are some wonderful words of your own smiling
Merry Christmas to you and yours

of hearts and paths

This article has been popping up and it seems appropriate here is a link to one copy of it elsewhere and here it is copied and pasted for your enjoyment smiling

Recently, Neurophysicists have been astonished to discover that the Heart is more an organ of intelligence, than (merely) the bodies' main pumping station. More than half of the Heart is actually composed of neurons of the very same nature as those that make up the cerebral system. Joseph Chilton-Pearce, author of The Biology of Transcendence, calls it "the major biological apparatus within us and the seat of our greatest intelligence."

The Heart is also the source of the body's strongest electromagnetic field. Each heart cell is unique in that it not only pulsates in synchrony with all the other heart cells, but also produces an electromagnetic signal that radiates out beyond the cell. An EEG that measures brain waves shows that the electromagnetic signals from the heart are so much stronger than brain waves, that a reading of the heart's frequency spectrum can be taken from three feet away from the body...without placing electrodes on it!

The Heart's electromagnetic frequency arcs out from the Heart and back in the form of a torus field. The axis of this Heart torus extends from the pelvic floor to the top of the skull, and the whole field is holographic, meaning that information about it can be read from each and every point in the torus.

The Hearts' torus electromagnetic field is not the only source that emits this type of electromagnetic field. Every atom emits the same torus field. The Earth is also at the center of a torus, so is the solar system and even our galaxy...and all are holographic. Scientists believe there is a good possibility that there is only one universal torus encompassing an infinite number of interacting, holographic tori within its spectrum. Because electromagnetic torus fields are holographic, it is more than likely that the sum total of our Universe is present within the frequency spectrum of a single torus.

This means that each one of us is connected to the entire Universe and as such, can access all the information within it at any given moment. When we get quiet and access what we hold in our Hearts, we are literally connecting to the limitless supply and Wisdom of the Universe, thereby enabling what we perceive as "miracles" to enter into our lives.

When we disconnect and shut down the Heart's innate wisdom of Love-based thinking, the ego-based intellect takes over and operates independently of the Heart, and we revert to a survival mentality based on fear, greed, power, and control. In this way, we come to believe that we are separate, our perception of life shifts into one of limitation and scarcity, and one in which we must fight in order to survive. This amazing organ, that we often time ignore, neglect and build walls around, is where we can find our strength, our faith, our courage and our compassion, enabling our higher emotional intelligence that can, if we allow it, guide us through our lives.

We must now switch the gears out of the fear-based mental state that we have been taught to believe in, and move into Heart Centered living. For this transformation to take place, one must learn to meditate, "go into your Heart" and access the inner wisdom of the Universe. It is the only way, it is THE WAY. As each one of us begins this quiet revolution of living from the Heart, we will begin to see it reflected in our lives and in our World. This is how each one of us will create change in the world, create Peace, create Harmony and Balance, and in this way, will we all create the New World Paradigm of Heaven on Earth.

-njt

wow, NJT! On the one hand it

wow, NJT! On the one hand it is stunning news but on the other hand it is not surprising at all. Thanks for posting it.

Bruce Lipton says it is very likely that our body is our subconscious mind and that there must be another communication network apart from the nervous system because communication between cells often happens at far faster speeds than electric impulses are capable of. So the holographic nature of this energy cloud makes a lot of sense.

The maxim to 'follow your heart' makes a lot of sense given it is hooked into the universe.

The fractal nature of the universe makes sense too - everything repeating but at different scales.

I see the Douglas Credit site is back up. smiling

A13's picture

WOW!

Hi James and NJT..
I've just borrowed your comments here and links as they inspired me and have done a post on my blog based on this post and ensuing comments...Thanks so much for this inspiration at this time of year and all the best to you all here. Blue Thank You
Cheers A13

newjesustimes's picture

thanks A13

Glad my copying and pasting was well taken!

As a word of disclaimer, I have no idea whether this information is correct or from a reputable source, I just found it fascinating and I'm thrilled you found it so inspirational smiling

I enjoyed your post and have to get back for the vids in a bit when things quiet down.

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