Does Western Medicine do more harm than good?

It would be difficult to find a more corrupt system 
such total lack of integrity and deep hypocrisy 
as the American medical system of "healthcare".
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In a nutshell:
1) has the profit motive so corrupted the medical system that effective, safe and cheap treatments have been deliberately ignored and suppressed, for example cancer treatments, and brutal, expensive and relatively ineffective treatments offered, often doing more harm than healing, all for the sake of making more money?

2) Do the egos of people in the medical establishment keep them from accepting new evidence and treatments which disprove theories they have built their careers on?
 
3a) Does Western allopathic medical theory have an accurate and relatively full understanding of how the human being really works, and the deeper, non technical causes of dis-ease, or is the theory so one dimensional that it renders the diagnosis and treatment much, much less effective than it could be, often doing more harm than healing. 

3b) is this deliberate, because the system has deliberately excluded any changes to the underlying theory because they might lose some of their obscene profits?
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Currently there is a big debate in this country about people having access to health care. A noble idea, but what good is access to health care if that care sucks? if it is based on maximizing profits, not health?

Most people unquestioningly accept Western Medicine without ever researching it.

People who do take the time to investigate often find themselves turning against allopathic medicine, on the fringes, becoming critics of not just the system but the very basic tenets of the medical establishment.
But few take the time to look into it.

We are surrounded and bombarded every day by a massive brainwashing propaganda machine touting Western medicine: drug ads everywhere, doctor heroes on TV, articles in magazines about the latest pill or treatment, public service billboards, etc, etc, etc.

But very few people ever question and look deeply into the details, which get more damning the deeper one looks. They may grumble about prices, but basically they do what they're told.
_____________________

• Is it safe? 

• Is it effective?

• Are the benefits greater than the risks? 

• Does it often do a lot more harm than good?

• Is it the only choice?

• Is it the best choice for your particular problem?

• Does Western medicine have a real understanding of the true causes and conditions of dis-ease, including energy and emotions, or is it like a lamp repairman who does not know that electricity is what makes the lamp work?

• Does the Western medical industry treat people in ways based on maximizing healing, or maximizing profits (at your expense, in health and money)?

• Have safe, effective and cheap treatments been deliberately ignored and even suppressed, because they threatened the profits of the pharmaceutical industry?

• Has the very research process itself been corrupted to the point that one can not even trust what is reported?
  _________________________

Most people think of the benefits of medical treatment. They acknowledge that there are some problems, but believe that the benefits outweigh the costs, that most of the time it works.
Is that true?

Based on all the research i have done, my impression is that for emergencies Western Medicine is great, but for illness is often the worst choice, often does more harm than good, and maybe %10 of the time a good choice. When you read books by health oriented, open minded doctors like Andrew Weil they ask these questions.

The basic training that medical schools, schools usually funded by drug companies, indoctrinate doctors with is the idea that drugs are necessary. Of course, these drugs have many harmful side effects, such as turning people into zombies or destroying their sex lives, but that is considered necessary.

If you go to a doctor, there is a good chance that you too will be turned into a drug addict, although people taking these "medications" are not considered drug addicts in the usual sense. This is what the schools trained doctors to do, drugs and surgery. Doctors are taught to look with contempt on alternative practitioners as qucks, and taught that they are failing their patients if they don't give them pills or surgery. Medical schools are basically there for training Drug Pushers (legal drugs of course).

Meanwhile, there has been a systematic suppression of alternatives, with the intent of leaving people no choice but to go a drug pushing doctor. A medical monopoly. Just go online and read the stories of the suppression of many alternative treatments.

How many people have suffered and died 

because they were deliberately denied access to, 

or even knowledge of cheap, safe and effective treatments? 

Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? More?

Ask yourself, is the incentive for drug companies and the medical establishment to come up with a pill that costs $10  and that you take one time, or is the incentive to give you just enough relief of symptoms to keep you coming back for more.

One of the biggest problems is that the basic scientific research itself can not be trusted.

who funds the experiments?

Who writes the protocols, which very often determine the results.
Who gets to publish their results.

*Very often the drug companies themselves write the research reports. Statistics are skewed (statistics can easily be made to lie simply by how you frame them).

*Experiments that produce results drug companies don't like are suppressed.

*Definitions of illness are changed so that more drugs are prescribed.

*how many times have you heard alternative treatments called unproven. That's because drug companies are not going to fund research which could reduce their obscene profits.
________________________

In short, you can't even believe that what a doctor believes is scientifically true, because the drug companies have systematically lied and corrupted research. See some of the links i provide below, or just google it. Tons of examples on the internet, including some very big names.

_________________________________

And the billing system-doctors and hospitals running up the bills at every chance they get. Just compare prices for treatments and drugs in the US to prices in other countries. and insurance companies dedicated to denying treatment using any excuse they can find.

is it any wonder people turn to "alternative" medicine.

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I want to make clear that my main criticism is of the drug companies and the medical schools, and secondarily of the doctors who close their minds to anything other than drugs and surgery. There are many fine individuals out there, doctors and especially nurses, working in the spirit of service, with the highest intentions, and i am appreciative and honoring of their efforts. My wish is that the means they have at their disposal are determined by effectiveness, not profitability.

Certainly many people have had the experience of being helped, the question is, 
*did people, did you,  receive the best care you could have, 
*were they/you denied treatments that could have helped, 
given treatments that were inferior to the treatments they/you were denied, 
*did they/you suffer horrible side effects that were unnecessary if they/you had been treated with "alternative" treatments (alternative only because ignored and suppressed), 
*did they/you pay enormous sums of money, sometimes losing everything, to pay for their/your medical care, and 
*was all this done for the sake of
maximizing profits instead of maximizing healing?

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here's a partial list of problems:

• 1 Misdiagnosis
• 
  
• 2 Side effects
• 
  
• 3 Illness picked up in hospitals, that people didn't have before they got there, 6th leading cause of death in the US
• 
  
• 4 The only treatments are strong drugs with many, many side effects, or drugs and surgery. Not much else. A sledgehammer approach. Created a nation of drug addicts. Very often doesn't cure illness, just keeps people hooked on taking heart medicine and blood pressure medicine
• 
  
• 5 The Placebo effect. In studies, people have had astonishing results from water injections and fake pills, just because they believed they were getting medicine. How much is this happening with regular medicines. Do they really work as much as we think?
• 
  
• 6 The natural tendency of the body is to heal. Medicine takes credit for every person who gets better. Speaking in terms of minor illnesses and accidents, most of them would have gotten better anyway. Did the pills do anything? Did they retard healing?
• 
  
• 7 Through overuse of antibiotics, many germs have progressively evolved to be resistant to treatments, a large long term cost.
• 
  
• 8 Western medicine is one dimensional, treating people like a hunk of meat. So much illness is the result of emotions. Medicating the body without treating the heart, the head, working with the causes of illness, is at best a temporary fix. 
• 
  
• 9 Western Medicine does not address the energetic body,  including EMF poisoning
• 
  
• 10 The emphasis is on treatment of disease after it occurs, rather than prevention
• 
  
• 11 Western Medicine refuses to address the toxicity of the environment, all the poisons in the land, water and air.
• 
  
• 12 Financial Incentives-is the incentive to come up with a pill that you take one time and costs 10 dollars, or to keep people hooked
• 
  
• 13 Is the research itself valid? Medical politics make US govt politics look tame. Can we trust what we're told, or was someones' reputation or job more important than health?
• 
  
• 14 Western medicine ignores significant lines of research. Two specific examples:
• a) There have been thousands and tens of thousands of cases of what medicine calls "spontaneous remission" of illness. In other words, diseases just went away, disappeared. Another word for this is miracle.
• b) In cases of multiple personality disorder, situations have been documented where one personality had illnesses, wore glasses, etc, and the other personality didn't. In other words, people's physiology changed drastically within the span of moments, as the change from one personality to another occurred.
• Rather than investigating how these things have happened, and how they can be encouraged to happen, medicine has ignored these lines of research, lines of research which could lead to amazing healings. Why?
  In fact, really accounting for spontaneous remission and MPD would mean that currently accepted medical theory would have to totally change, and so these amazing sources of insight are ignored. 
• 
  
• 15 Food.  Ignores the fact that you are what you eat; your body needs fresh, whole, living food with a lot of life force and the nutrients not processed out of it. A little lip service, but for the most part nutrition is not a part of medical diagnosis or treatment, in contrast to many "alternative" therapies, such as Gerson, macrobiotics and Wigmore, where it is the cornerstone.
• And, if you eat poison, you'll get sick; pesticides, herbicides, fungicides- the word cide means poison in latin, and if you got to a supermarket the factory farmed food there is loaded with poisons. 
• and now there's GMOs, a worldwide experiment in which you are the guinea pig.
  
  16 Emotions not accounted for as one of the primary causes of dis-ease
• ----------------

• My personal opinion is that 
• the Western Medical establishment represents the biggest betrayal of trust since Judas. 
• A system more thoroughly lacking in integrity would be hard to find, although there are many fine individuals who are doing what they think is right, meaning what they've been trained by the teaching institutions to do.
• 
  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/health/research/05ghost.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
• 
  
• https://www.google.com/search?q=Fishbein+AMA&aq=f&oq=Fishbein+AMA&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
• 
  
• this is a great one to read
  http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/medical-history.html
  
  https://www.google.com/search?q=drug+companies+%26+doctors+a+story+of+corruption&aq=0&oq=Drug+companies&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
• 
  
• https://www.google.com/search?q=drug+companies+%26+doctors+a+story+of+corruption&aq=0&oq=Drug+companies&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=definitions+of+disease+expanded+for+profit
  ------------------------------------------

I'm not saying to do nothing.
When we're sick, we need to take care of ourselves.

What IS the best way? I do think Western Medicine has some good to offer, is the best choice for some things, but with all the problems, you practically need to spend 10 years studying, and not at a medical institution, to know what is the best treatment for you.

My opinion is that, when you really look at the costs and benefits, "alternative" treatments are, 90% of the time, safer and more effective on deeper levels, and are gentler and cheaper.
-----

Most of us are surrounded every day by advertisements for medications and medicine.

TV shows regularly feature doctors as heroes, and have as long as TV has existed.
The underlying effect is the same as if a massive propaganda brainwashing campaign has been taking place, and maybe it has. It is very interesting to read, when one studies the history, that

• The reason alternative medicine is alternative, is because there was a deliberate creation of a Western Allopathic Medicine business monopoly in the early 1900s.

• Through the bribing of politicians, "Alternative" treatments, which had been the choice of many people, were, one by one, systematically made illegal, forcing people to have no other options than allopathic medicine, forcing them to spend their money on doctors, drugs and surgery, not on herbs or hydrotherapy.

• At the same time, the teaching institutions for doctors were taken over, in a devious way, by huge funding of medical schools, on the condition that the only thing they taught would be drugs and surgery.

• A one-two punch.

Just think of how no one is allowed to write or say anything about health without the words, "consult your doctor". Legally they have to say that, the medical monopoly in action.

Many doctors are kind people who truly care about their patients.
The question is, what were they taught?
In particular i want to mention cancer, a disease that 1 in 3 americans gets during their lifetime. I react whenever i hear an appeal to "help us do more research". Based on my studies, and people i have personally known, there are a number of safe, gentle and cheap ways to heal cancer, and they have been ignored and actively suppressed by the Medical Monopoly. For example,
did you know that

• in 1950 a Federal Court found the Hoxsey treatment an effective cure for cancer. The AMA got the FDA to drive it out of the country the following year.
• With actions like that, how much credibility can we accord the medical profession?

Watch the video below. I can also mention Macrobiotics and Wheatgrass Juice, and there are many more. Click the link for Recalled by Life, a book by a doctor who turned to Macrobiotics because he had no other choice, and then wrote this great book
Much of what you will read about health and alternative medicine is written by people who have come through the medical school machine. They were basically taught that everything except drugs and surgery is bullshit, that even mentioning it means they are failing their patients, and:
that is changing.

Please, do not take my word for anything!
Do your own research, come to your own conclusions.

Nothing original in this blog entry. Many people have said it all before, and well.

• There is a book called Sugar Blues, by William Dufty, that is basically a history of western medicine. you must read it.
• http://www.google.com/search?q=sugar+blues+william+dufty&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
  

• Also, watch Hoxsey, When Healing Becomes a crime. You can watch it free online. https://www.google.com/search?q=hoxsey+when+healing+becomes+a+crime&aq=f&oq=Ho&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

• Andrew Weil has stated most of this much better in his new book, why our health matters, which should have been named, The Medical Monopoly, America's National Disaster, How Allopathic Medicine has created a nation of drug addicts. Brutal Treatments, high prices, no real cures.
• http://www.amazon.com/Why-Our-Health-Matters-Transform/dp/1594630666

• http://www.amazon.com/Recalled-Life-Anthony-J-Sattilaro/dp/0395325242/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

• what doctors don't tell you http://www.wddty.com
• https://www.google.com/search?q=embrace+release+heal+by+leigh+fortson&aq=0&oq=embrace%2C+release%2C+heal&sugexp=chrome,mod=0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Let me summarize my core ideas quickly
1) The causes of dis-ease are primarily mental and emotional, secondarily lifestyle, diet, exercise, Modern medical treats people as biological machines; inherently this is inadequate and inacurate
2) Medicine has been corrupted by money (selling drugs) and ego (not being open to new ideas (for various reasons)), and consequently has ignored and even suppressed many useful treatments and lines of research.
3) Western medicine is good for emergencies, but for illness it is quite possible that Western Medicine does a lot more harm than good.

be well,
jay dancing bear

Manning, Snowden, Obama

Manning and Snowden most likely broke the laws on the books, but morally they upheld the basic principles the USA is based on. The people and practices they exposed undermine the soul of  America.

In Nazi Germany, hiding jews was a crime. A few brave souls broke the law and hid jews. In slavery days in America hiding an escaped slave was against the law; a few brave souls upheld a higher law. Today we honor those people as heroes. Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg, and all the other whistleblowers are the true patriots, people who uphold the moral laws and basic principles of America.

For these reasons, President Obama must pardon them.

Tell the President that

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

In the realm of hungry ghosts, a protest poem

IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS

In the realm of hungry ghosts

bellies the size of beach balls

throats the size of a small straw

never able to get enough

always wanting more

constantly remodeling their houses

buying bigger houses

newer cars

bigger TVs

the latest electronic toys,

cell phones, computers, and all the rest

always in their heads

their only sensations in their bodies

food and sex

otherwise, only pain

reminds them that they have

arms, legs, fingers, toes

and lots of skin

Success is not success

if it takes you away from

your birthright as a living being

to be fully alive in your body

A sociopathic, ecocidal society

where the only value put on the land

is to develop it

with constantly rising prices, where

even those who are not hungry ghosts

have to struggle just to survive

in the realm of hungry ghosts

-----------------

here's an older poem on the same themes

NAKED PAGAN

A naked pagan
dancing with the sky
i am alien in your world

Your houses, factories, TV sets
It is difficult for me to understand
how can you live this way?
but you do

I need trees, grass, sky
rushing rivers and willing consorts
fresh strawberries picked from the ground

You tell me of vaccines, hospitals
guaranteed food supply
heat in the winter

Yes, these are good things
when enjoyed properly
but why give up

the joy of feeling
the sun on your heart
the waves on your flesh
trances
the companionship of spirit

Why do you seem to lack
joy, contentment, fulfillment
serenity, and
integrity

You sell yourself to the highest bidder and
live in fear of not selling yourself
why can you not find a way to have it all?

If this technology is so wonderful
why are so many unhappy
sick at heart
filled with all manner of diseased emotions and
homeless in the streets

I don't understand

The gifts i offer
you think worthless

I offer the sand, the sea
compassion, and
deep feelings

What you want from me is to be a robot
For that i may earn enough to buy food and pay rent
since you have set a price on every inch of the earth
by what right do you control this land?

I don't understand
but, after all
I am only

A naked pagan

Full Disclosure

God knows why i am writing this now and posting it, but anyway...

Somewhere, i believe in some past life, i lost the sense that i could count on anything on earth to last, and that's been the underlying substratum of my whole life. Money can be lost, people can die or just leave you, or almost worse, your feelings change, houses can  burn down, fame is fickle...

I"m 57: i don't have much income, no home of my own, no girlfriend, not much public recognition in my field of music (other than a person here or a person there).
But there have been times in my life when i did have a girlfriend, and often i was still unhappy.
Times i made money, often still unhappy
etc.
When i get into moods of "poor me", i remember those times, and i realize that what i am really looking for is a feeling of peace and joy, and seeking that feeling from external stimuli is ultimately fruitless, an up and down seesaw.

Not that i don't want home, girlfriend, money, success, i do, and at times acutely feel the lack. Not that i diminish the importance of having a happy and healthy physical life, i want those too, but what i really want is an unbreakable sense of happiness,  a sense of happiness that's not just the effect of and dependent on external causes, which are not reliable. Meditation and yoga are the things that have brought me the most peace and happiness, and they are not mutually exclusive with a happy human life.

I've had no real desire for kids or to own a home or a lot of stuff, and that has allowed me a lot of choice. I understand that doing karma yoga in the world, job and kids, householder, is a very valid path, which i may be entering on, but up to now my path has been to withdraw from the world, to keep myself as protected as possible, safe from the overstimulation and unrelenting busyness i see so many people caught up in, 1000 Facebook notifications/10 thousand emails/500 cell phone messages a day.
I've lived in tents a lot, probably a total of 4 and 1/2 years of my life, in Big Sur and Mt. Shasta and some other places, and i have to say that, generally speaking i sleep and feel better in nature, and my ideal situation was when i had full access to kitchen and indoors and had the tent as an extra bedroom, so i'm not totally a nature boy, i like some comforts. Still, while it's nice to have power and a refrigerator, it's just too easy to get sucked into hours each day on the computer, and i don't like all the EMFs of modern life.

What i really want is to truly feel myself as spirit incarnate, as tat tvam asi, as the hindu scriptures and the western teacher Joel Goldsmith, and so many others,  speak of. (go buy any book by Joel Goldsmith, they all say one thing). I can't say i've done that yet, but what i can say is that living a life with lots of free time, much of it in nature, relatively free of busyness and overstimulation, with as nearly constant mindfulness as i can manage, gives me occasional glimpses, and i'm at the point where it's time to re-enter the world and participate.

I've found so much truth in the saying "attitude is everything" and in the buddhist teachings, which basically amount to learning how to be happy and methods to accomplish that. I started out adulthood, like so many of us, as a wounded, damaged person. I've spent years healing, to the point where, despite my lack of externals, i don't feel wounded anymore. If i die tomorrow, it was time well spent, and, i want to fulfill my humanity and have a good human existence, and give something back, especially my music.

So, today, i got into the headspace of "i need this, i need that". Maybe i'm just writing this to remind myself of what i really need, maybe i'm writing this because it pains me to see people who are looking for peace and happiness from externals, and suffering much in the process, especially people i know. Maybe i just don't have enough wisdom yet to accept that.

So, i've written 700 songs, many of which nobody but me has heard, many of them not played in years.
I do Watsu and massage and energy work, i teach guitar, i can be very loving, nurturing and giving in relationship, and i am officially declaring that i am open for business as a human being, not a dis-embodied mind.
Amin

Personal and political

Petsitting in the Bay Area for month of July. Just got back from 2 months in Cambria, Big Sur and Monterey, mostly camping. I sleep so well in a tent, away from a lot of electronics, especially in Big Sur. It's so somatically rich. Lying on the ground looking up at redwoods during the day, going to bed more or less with the sun at night.
On a physical level, the best i ever felt was when i lived at Harbin, my tent right by a stream, full use of kitchen and showers and hot springs, leave for the winter, come back in the spring. And, while somatically rich, there's more to life, and i've learned and grown so much since those days.
Even in Big Sur this trip, it was great, and after a while i needed more societal interactions. Maybe some day i'll be ready to go out to pasture, but not yet.
---------------
On this trip i met a lot of homeless people. Not down and out San Francisco types, just regular folks who had lost their job or place or had a health issue, and were trying the best they could to keep their heads up in the face of difficult circumstances. A number of them had a real sense of community.

What i saw, in political terms, was what a sham the American dream has become for people who don't have skills, especially computer skills, at least in California. To think that someone, starting from zero, can a) get a job in the first place, especially if they don't even have money to pay their cell phone, and b) even if they get a job, how can they get a place making minimum wage, $8/hr, and apartments are $800 month and up, not to mention utilities, etc., is a joke. Anybody who can add 2 + 2 can do the math, and it doesn't add up. These are the people i met.

Anybody who says "fine, go someplace else", well, where's the money to get there, knowing nobody, where to stay, etc. In short, not so simple.

For myself, i don't have a place of my own, mostly because i seem to travel endlessly, haven't had much money, but do have skills, prospects and practices, more of an old fashioned drifter, although today that distinction seems to be getting lost. To some extent i could relate to what these folks were going through, on the other hand i felt a bit above it all, even though at times my bank account was down to $120 and i did get a bit nervous, but i always have miracles in my life. I've learned to expect and count on them and this time was no exception.

Still, i do have a strong sense of "there, but for the grace of god, go i". Every time i think of getting a place, i look at the rents, and i see the effects on me personally of a system that encourages exploitation.   i have some advantages; educated, frugal, skills, good with money, white (let's tell the truth), strong spiritual grounding.
What about the people who don't have those going for them?
-----------------
So, personally, i'm in a great place petsitting, looking to get my own life together, and i expect i will... and i think about all the people who were pushed over the edge, they didn't fall over the edge, they were pushed, by a social/economic system that empowers greed and exploitation, an ethic of "i got mine, screw you", the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, I win, you lose, "the very thing that makes you rich makes me poor" (a song title from a Ry Cooder album)-------the greed of all the executives who downsized and moved jobs wherever they could pay desperate people almost nothing, just so they and the people at the top, the %.01 (it's really not 1%, it's the %.01 could add millions and tens of millions of dollars to their own pockets, while millions and tens of millions of blue collar folks lost everything. Sure, it's everybody's responsibility to make the best of whatever happens, and i don't deny that many people are just as much victims of themselves as of a corrupt and exploitive system, but i would at least like to see the system set up for average people, not just the smartest and most ambitious,  to live a decent life, and it all comes down to the basic values of individuals and the society collectively, the most basic one being compassion for everyone. Instead, America, to a large extent, at least the laws governing money, functions on dog eat dog, i win, you lose, tough shit.

Especially as someone who has followed my calling as an artist, rather than maximizing my income, i see how, despite cute PBS programs, the underlying pressures in the society are for people to sacrifice their integrity and their dreams to the necessity of making MONEY, wasting their lives as wage slaves, often in useless and ecologically destructive ways, and then i see how the people who do that so often seem stressed and unhappy, hardly enough time for themselves to pee.

I always struggle with the fact that, in metaphysical terms, i really do believe in divine justice and that it's all perfect, and the struggles are to learn from, but when i meet and hang out with people i like and have good conversations with, people who, on one level, are getting fucked over by the system, it's a lot harder for me to be so philosophical about it.
----------------------------

I add three links from Barbara Ehrenreich, who has written compellingly and beautifully on this topic
http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/thislandistheirland.htm
http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/nickelanddimed.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Fear-Falling-Inner-Middle-Class/dp/0060973331

some more links
David Cay Johnston Perfectly legal
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/05/numbers-racket
http://www.nationalmemo.com/wages-fall-at-record-pace

I've done other posts on this blog on similar topics, just check the politics tag.

Fuckup, again (new poem)

When I eat too much late at night I don't sleep well. This poem is the result of my latest .
------


FUCKUP, AGAIN

Yeah, you fucked up, again
It would have been better if you hadn't
done what you did, said what you said,
but you did
again

All you can do is start where you are
again

You can lie there in the dust,
kicking yourself in the head,
again
for having fucked up
again

or you can re-apply yourself
again
to the job of fixing whatever broken parts there are inside yourself
Rebuilding your own engine
Replacing your own dysfunctional gears,
mostly dysfunctional thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, cravings and aversions,
that don't mesh with health and happiness
Replacing them with healthy, functional parts
Useful, functional thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, equanimity
that work to create health and happiness

All you can do is start where you are
again
every moment of your life
-------

Healthy Practices, Unhealthy Beliefs

here is the latest installment of my personal growth manual
----------------------------------
Certainly yoga, organic food, etc. are healthy practices, yet so many people seem to have unhealthy beliefs and attitudes underlying them. For example:
if you have the underlying belief that you are the victim of toxins in the environment, and that you must live really healthy just to counteract that, and perhaps the further belief that even then it may not be enough, and perhaps the belief that these poisons in the environment, which are affecting YOU!, were put there by other, unconscious people, often bad, selfish people motivated only by making money, who don't care who they hurt
(notice all the judgments and assumptions)
well, although you may be minimizing the physical toxins you are directly taking in, you are certainly creating a lot of poisons in your mind, poisons which will impact your body as the result of stress, if nothing else.

Further, if you have an attitude such as "i'm better than other people because i do this stuff", that attitude itself is also a poison, creating a sense of alienation in yourself, poisoning your relationships, because people can sense your judgment and condescension, and, perhaps worst of all, that attitude keeps you in the illusion of separateness, cutting you off from the higher, some would say highest, spiritual truth, which is that we are all One.

Another example:
if your unconscious programming, self images and beliefs about yourself, perhaps picked up in childhood, is that you are
--bad, weak, unhealthy, undisciplined, damaged or wounded. Do you deserve to be happy,
seor whatever your negative programming is--
then you may find yourself constantly fighting a losing battle against the unseen foe of your unconscious/subconscious negative self images and beliefs.

If you are trying to change or accomplish anything in your life, you need to look inside at what your self images and beliefs are. The most important part of positive change and accomplishment,  is releasing the dis-empowering self images and beliefs and replacing them with empowering self images and beliefs. At the minimum, the belief that you CAN change and grow, and if you can, add easily.

Can you tell that i am writing from personal experience. I wish that i were the only person that this applies to, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Furthermore, what are your less personal beliefs. For example
*What are your metaphysical beliefs, the framework, the lens through which you view everything, about the nature of the universe. the rules of the game, so to speak, and about other people and "humanity".
Is the universe inherently a loving, hostile, or neutral place. is there enough for everybody, or not"
Is there some sort of God, Great Spirit, or whatever. What are your beliefs regarding that, and how it affects your everyday life.
Do you "create your own reality", and to what extent. How much, or how little, ultimate control do you believe that you have over your own life. Are you totally at the mercy of greater forces, such as the unemployment rate, or do you have some input into your own situation, and how much.

*What are your beliefs about people and the society you find yourself in. This is a big one.
Are people inherently good, bad, or whatever. Inherently selfish or unselfish, conscious or unconscious?
Are you at the mercy of your genes?
Etc.

All these deeper beliefs really do affect, in a big way, your experience and your possibilities in your life.

Personal Growth

Personal Growth-A Work in Progress

A few years ago i started writing a personal growth manual, which is still very much unfinished. Here are my latest additions, which at some point i will integrate into the main file.
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BECOMING MORE CONSCIOUS
The path of personal growth eventually becomes the path of spiritual growth. We start by working on healing our healing our wounded human selves, which starts by simply becoming conscious of the wounded parts of ourselves, and sooner or later, this lifetime or another, we journey on to becoming aware of our higher selves, the Self, as it is called in the East. Joel Goldsmith (1892-1964), a great modern American mystic, speaks of this in all his books.

Plan of Action
We become aware of, through paying conscious attention to:
1) Our bodies, our somatic selves. Awareness of sensations in all the different parts of our body. Our left big toe, right ankle, skin of the upper back, etc. This is not just awareness of the body; it is said that our consciousness is not just in our brains, but in fact is spread all through our bodies. It is also said that we have memories, emotions, traumas locked into different parts of the body. This is one of the reasons why, when getting a massage, people often go through emotions or have memories come up.

2) Our thought-awareness of thoughts, control of thoughts is one of the key practices of the East, and also of much of what is called the new age.

3) Awareness of our emotions. At every moment, we are experiencing some e-motion, yet how many people are aware of what their emotion is at the moment.

How many people are fully aware of all this? I'm certainly not, though this has become my life's work, to be as fully conscious at all times as i can.

My belief, based on some minor experience, is that as we become more conscious we begin to experience ourselves as part of a greater whole, as a kidney cell might, at some point, become conscious of itself as a part of Dick or Jane.

The journey is from the small self, the selfish me i got mine who cares about you self, to the Self, which ultimately knows in the deepest sense that we are all One, and acts accordingly.
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SOLVING OUR PROBLEMS

Are our problems just problems, or lessons and opportunities to learn and grow from? The answer we give to that question makes a huge difference in our experience of our lives.

Everybody wants the same things.
A short, general list
Love and good relationships of all sorts; connection with others
Health
Prosperity
Pleasure
Success in one's chosen profession
A sense of meaning and purpose
Self Expression
Home

Who doesn't want those things?
So we all do what we can to get them: work, exercise, go out on dates, etc.
We believe that
happiness=getting what we want,from external stimuli
but does it?
Some people get what they want and still aren't happy. Some don't get, and are happy. Getting what you want does not guarantee happiness.
Distinguish between pleasure, ego gratification, happiness and joy.

How much of our unhappiness is based on the belief we have that "I can't be happy without ____", rather than the actual experience of our lives (not speaking of survival needs).
What if happiness is a state of consciousness, perhaps a state resulting from clear energy flows in the body, that has nothing necessarily to do with external stimuli, even though it seems it does.

What if
our levels of happiness and our sets of problems are the results of our level of consciousness,
including the openness and condition of our chakras and our meridians, the level of our intentions and aspirations, and the degree to which we have cleansed ourselves of psychic poisons such as fear and hatred and have healthy self images and beliefs, and at the highest level, the degree to which we have realized the Self?

Each level of consciousness has a different set of problems that go with it, just as children have different sets of developmental problems at each age. What if raising our consciousness would result in problems solving themselves, and of course the new level of consciousness would have a new set of issues to solve.

What if states of consciousness are like frequencies on a radio dial, and through practices and releasing internal static we develop the ability to tune in to higher frequencies, frequencies with progressively more happiness and less suffering?

A basic part of raising our consciousness is clearing the garbage and negative programming out of our psyches and replacing it with healthy material.

According to (in my understanding) NLP (neuro linguistic programming) and Louise Hay and other teachers, our unconscious self images and beliefs run our lives. If we have negative unconscious/subconscious self images and beliefs of ourselves such as- i am damaged, wounded, weak, bad, undeserving, etc., then as much as we may struggle and work  on the conscious level, it's going to be very, very hard to get results. Some people have unconscious fears of having what they want, for example women who are overweight very often have fears of the negative attention they would receive if they were more attractive, perhaps a fear of being attacked. Often the fears are much more complex.

So much of our lives are based on thoughts of the future, "when i get (this or that)", but the only time we ever live is now. It's always now, and if happiness is an experience, the only time we can have that experience is now.

I am not saying be a hedonist, not saying don't make plans and work towards goals, not saying don't live in the world and have sex and make money. I am very much saying that don't just think achieving your goals will make you happy. You will almost certainly get a momentary rush, but real happiness is a state of consciousness, an energetic experience, not a winning scorecard.
You expect at work that if you work the hours you will get a paycheck of money. Well, if you work the hours of personal/spiritual growth you will get a paycheck of higher consciousness.

I would like to mention a point that Goldsmith stresses very much in his writings, a point made in the Eastern traditions:  If you are seeking to realize the Self just for purposes of health, pleasure and prosperity, you will never realize the Self, never experience the real thing. Desiring/needing consciousness keeps you from the highest. It's an apparent contradiction, because as human beings how could we not want health, relationship, pleasure and prosperity. My best understanding at this time is that we usually have mixed motives, and it is important that ones' primary motive be to experience the Self, not the worldly goods, that it's a long journey, and we start where we are.
Motive is something that can't be faked. I think that probably, over time, ones' motives get purified through doing the work. To me this is maybe the toughest question of all, that of motive. We can work, meditate, do yoga, and all the other practices, but how to purify motives and intentions is not so clear to me, yet in my own life it has just gradually happened, not that i'm so fucking pure, but a lot more than i used to be.

People put lots of hours into making money and working out, but how much time do most people put into working on themselves, the effort which would produce the greatest results?

some reading, a  very short starter list
NLP-the new technology of achievement
Louise Hay-You Can Heal Your Life
Joel Goldsmith-Practicing the Presence (or any other title by him)
Marie Manuchehri-Intuitive Self Healing (about the Chakras)
Bhagavad Gita
Aldous Huxley-The Perennial Philosophy

Recommended Reading

Dhammapada

Upanishads

Bhagavad Gita

Tao Te ChingHafiz (persian poet)

There are so many great books, because there are so many great teachers. I am well aware that there are many, many titles not on this list.

Every book contains information. The question is, will the book serve to help our transformation to a higher level of consciousness.

A book is a transmission of spirit from the author to the reader. The books I list here have served me well as textbooks for a lifelong course in higher consciousness. Most of them I have read and reread a number of times. My wish is that this list serves you in raising your own consciousness. Not everyone will resonate with every book. Just take a look, either in a bookstore or on the internet, and see if you feel drawn to any particular author or title.

Marshall Rosenberg  Non Violent Communication
Louise Hay            You Can Heal Your Life
The Dalai Lama    The Art of Happiness

          Joel Goldsmith-any title you find by him

Most of these folks have lots of other great works out there in addition to the titles I mention.

Ram Dass     Be Here Now
Aldous Huxley     The Perennial Philosophy
Emmanuel     Emmanuel’s Book  
Thich Nhat Hanh     The Miracle of Mindfulness
Jacob Needleman     Money and the Meaning of Life
Carolyn Myss     Anatomy of the Spirit
Emmet Fox    The Sermon on the Mount
Bernard Gunther      Energy Ecstasy
Christian Science Testimonials of Healing

THE MIND

NLP The New Technology of Achievement
Meeting the Shadow a collection of essays

Reincarnation

Gladys V. Jones     The Flowering Tree
Gina Cerminara     Many Mansions

PHYSICAL  body and food

Stephen Chang     Internal Exercises
Thomas Hanna     Somatics
Macrobiotics-lots of books out there
Yoga- pick the style that suits you
William Dufty     Sugar Blues
Bob Anderson     Stretching
50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth

This is cut and pasted from my website. I'm not computer literate enough to know how to reformat, and i'm not ready to retype the whole thing (i'm a very slow typist), but the books are worth reading. I've just listed a few, trying for a manageable set of basics, rather than an exhaustive list.

Film Review-Karmeggedon, a film about Bhagavan Das

So why am i writing this, when i never do stuff like this on my blog? Because i think that this movie ultimately amounts to a hit piece on someone i used to know a little bit. That, and, i fear that this movie will just stoke the public cynicism towards "spirituality". We need spirituality in our lives. There are a lot of quick buck gurus out there. Bhagavan is not one of them. His truth is far, far more complicated.

http://karmageddonthemovie.com/
http://www.bhagavandas.com/home.html
http://login.ramdass.org/WP/

Quick background: Bhagavan Das, born Kermit Michael Riggs, was one of the first Americans to go to India in the 60s, and was the person to introduce Ram Dass to Neem Karoli Baba. BD came back to the US after 7 years and became a sort of Rock star, drugs, sex, the whole bit. Google if you want to know more biography.

Jeff Brown is a Canadian lawyer who wanted to pursue his spirituality. So far, so good. He latched onto Bhagavan Das as a guru. Now the problems arise.

Bhagavan is both saint and sinner in one man. His spiritual kirtans and devotion are %150 sincere; he also has a large ego, likes food and drugs, loves sex with 18 year old girls, likes money and shopping, and talks in very plain, vulgar language. In short, a very earthy man, but one whose sins are venal and egotistic, not large and brutal, whose sins are more harmful to himself than anyone else, and whose spiritual practice has brought great light to many, many people. My testimonial: He taught me one of the greatest lessons of my spiritual life, which is that one can be a flawed human being and still be deeply, deeply spiritual.

For many people it is difficult to accept both the darkness and the light existing simultaneously. They usually feel the need to judge one way or the other. This movie focuses very much on the sinner side of Bhagavan. The saint gets little air time.

There is a phrase "when a pickpocket meets a saint, he sees only the pockets". My perception is that Jeff Brown simply was not spiritually mature enough to make this movie, but that his ego could not recognize this. The cynical, scared mind made this movie too soon, too quickly, not enough depth of practice to see more clearly a deeply complicated man.

A good example of this is the interview with Ram Das. Jeff does most of the talking, Ram Das gets in a word or two here and there. Why bother interviewing the man, if all you are going to do is repeat your own opinions. Maybe Ram Das did say a lot more and just got edited out, while Jeff Brown got edited in. I was really interested in what Ram Das had to say. I felt cheated, thought it was bullshit, a hatchet job. That may have been the point where i lost faith in this movie and the film maker.

In this movie Bhagavan really does display and talk about a lot of bad behaviour; ultimately i was left wondering if he was just trying to get Brown's goat, and i'm not going to defend or make excuses for bad behaviour, for example not honoring a contract he had signed to record some CDs.

I used to know Bhagavan at Harbin in the mid 90s when he was the kirtanwalla in residence. He was a totally no bullshit guy, anyone could talk to him, he made no pretenses about hiding his appetites. Didn't know him well, was not one of his inner circle, did play a dozen or so kirtans with him. One time, after the kirtan, i asked if i could hold his ektar (instrument). I literally got stoned and couldn't speak for about 15 minutes, just from holding the ektar for about a minute.
i loved his kirtans. I would lose interest after the kirtan was over when he started talking and playing guru, it just sounded to me like his ego took over. But in the kirtans, he really sounded as if he would die if god didn't come to him now. Very powerful, very real. I've never witnessed that degree of self surrender and self abnegation anywhere else. The lotus and the mud.

Another time i hitched a ride with Bhagavan from the front gate of Harbin to Santa Rosa (about 40 miles). He was driving this old total piece of junk someone had given him, and in about a mile the thing started to hesitate and grab. i totally expected the car to break down. Meanwhile, from the moment i had gotten in, i had heard Bhagavan doing his mantra. I jabbered away, he was polite enough to make some response, but basically he was into repeating his mantra, and this was not for my benefit. Anyway, the car keeps going, although i was sure that it was going to break down. We get to Calistoga, about halfway, Bhagavan pulls up to the coffee shop and says "i'm a scorpio, i need strong stimulation" (or something like that. Gets a coffee, offers to buy me one, we get to Santa Rosa a little later.

This movie was made 10 years after i knew Bhagavan. He's clearly changed, not just physically, and i did detect more negativity in him than i remembered- and, most people try to hide their flaws. Bhagavan is totally honest and sooner or later his seeds will be cooked and he will find peace in this world, not just in the world of spirit. i think that this will very much involve finding peace with his childhood with his mother, because even spiritual people have psychological issues.
I wish him nothing but good things.
Namaste
Jay Dancing Bear