Tag: Steve Taylor

The Healing Place 

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Here’s another poem by Steve Taylor, which very much speaks to me. I hope it also speaks to you.

The Healing Place 
 

There is a healing place inside you 
beneath your thoughts and feelings
beyond any concept of identity 
or any sense of separation – 
a reservoir of soul-force
radiant and pure 
infinitely deep and dense
like the nucleus inside an atom.

When your body needs to repair itself 
or your energies need replenishing 
or your restless mind needs calming 
let go of your life’s demands 
and sink into the healing place 
like a diver into warm still water.

Immerse yourself in its radiance. 
Let its healing force soak into you.
Let pure consciousness pervade the cells of your body
and shine through the space of your mind. 

The healing place lies outside space and time. 
It transcends matter, isn’t bound by the laws of physics.
It’s a supernatural place where miracles occur
as naturally as the wind blows. 

And so you will emerge from the healing place 
refreshed, even recreated 
miraculously transformed 
as if risen from the dead.

Featured image is on the Dee Estuary

I Only Need To Meet You Once

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I loved this recent poem by Steve Taylor. It’s about those people you meet, maybe only briefly, where you immediately feel a connection and a common understanding. But Steve expresses it so much better than I could!

I Only Need To Meet You Once

I only need to meet you once
to connect with you forever.
I catch your gaze across the room.
We recognise each other, though we’ve never met before
We have an invisible sign of allegiance;
the same shade of light shines through us.

We smile and draw together
and feel at ease straight away.
There’s no need to ask questions 
because we already know each other.

We don’t need to protect our personal space 
because we already share common ground.
Time stops as we stand together.
The room dissolves away 
as if a soft warm cloud has enveloped us. 

Soon we have to go our separate ways. 
We hug and walk away, still smiling. 
We don’t feel sad, but more fulfilled.
We feel no sense of loss 
because we’ve gained each other’s love.

Our connection transcends distance. 
Wherever we are, we’ll inform each other’s lives 
and softly touch each other’s souls
through a timeless spaceless bond.

I only need to meet you once
to know that I’ve always known you
and that I’ll always know you
even if we never meet again.

I only need to meet you once 
to know that we are one.

Featured image of cats by Panini!, via Wikimedia Commons

Extraordinary Awakenings

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Steve Taylor‘s book Extraordinary Awakenings: When Trauma Leads to Transformation documents a remarkable piece of research which takes a thorough look at the subject of spiritual awakening, which Steve describes:

“Spiritual awakening is simply a shift into a more intense and expansive state of awareness. In awakening, it’s as if the filters or boundaries that limit normal human awareness fall away. At the same time, awakening is a higher-functioning psychological state — a state of enhanced well-being and freedom from psychological discord, in which people live more authentically and creatively.”

Steve has explored the stories of many individuals who have gone through such awakenings driven by traumatic circumstances, in all of the following categories:

  • on the Battlefield 
  • through Incarceration
  • bereavement
  • facing Death
  • depression, stress, suicidal
  • addiction

Many examples are given, such as that of Sri Aurobindo, who was imprisoned for a year for political activism. When Aurobindo was released:

“His political colleagues expected him to continue to fight for their cause, but now he was a different person. Political issues no longer seemed important. It no longer seemed enough to help liberate his country. Now he wanted to serve the whole human race, to help liberate all human beings from psychological suffering. Most of all, he wanted to help manifest the next stage in the evolution of human consciousness. And he devoted the rest of his life to this goal.”

Steve quotes many examples across the above categories of ‘transformation through trauma’. The most important attitude to deal with them is acceptance. We often go into a mode of resistance, such as when we talk about fighting a disease or struggling to overcome obstacles. But doing so blocks transformation. When we shift to acceptance, surrendering to the situation, letting go, then transformation becomes possible.

It is important to recognise that we have a choice about is how to respond to suffering. This was one of the insights of psychologist Viktor Frankl, gained during his three years as an inmate of Nazi concentration camps. Frankl was one of the 10 percent of inmates who survived Auschwitz, and attributed his survival to his strong sense of purpose. He watched others give up hope, losing their sense of purpose, noticing that soon afterward they would fall ill and die. This sense of purpose is the freedom that circumstances cannot take away from us.

In the final part of the book, Steve outlines a Four-Step Process of Responding to Challenges, aimed to help this transformatory process along, and help individuals in their process of response. First, it is essential to acknowledge your predicament, second is to acknowledge your negative thoughts and feelings about the situation, third is to explore them and how they are affecting you, and fourth is acknowledgement of your predicament and accepting and letting go of your own resistance. You’ll just have to read the book if you want to better understand this.

Steve then moves on to consider how this knowledge can help those of us not currently suffering from stress and trauma. The key message he draws out is that we should embrace challenge and expansion, also contemplate death and the change and dissolution of the body, a process that becomes inevitable as we age…

And we should cultivate non-attachment, through techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, letting go. Attachment is of the ego, and the spiritual path enjoins us to transcend our attachments to a state of greater involvement in the whole of life.

Steve’s book gives us the encouraging perspective, that whatever stress and trauma may occur in our lives, we can use this experience as a springboard to personal transformation, becoming more conscious and better human beings.

Our spiritual potential has always been real, and presaged by many wise forerunners. It is only in the material forgetfulness of the modern world that many are in denial of this fact.

The Messenger

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Readers of this blog will know that I occasionally post poems by Steve Taylor, from his regular newsletter. Steve has a knack of getting to the heart of things, such as in the following poem, essentially about learning to trust our intuition, which is very consonant with James Hillman’s ‘acorn theory’ of the daimon (see this post).

The Messenger

It’s not for you to decide
the direction of your life.

It’s not for you to determine
whether your life has meaning.

It’s not for you to deliberate
over whether you’re following the right path.

It’s not for you to doubt
whether your efforts are worthwhile
then grow despondent and give up.

It’s when you deliberate and doubt
that you overrule your intuition
and confuse your inner compass
and lose touch with your purpose.

You have to step aside
and trust the wisdom that is guiding you
even if you can’t comprehend it.

You have to step aside
and let your purpose flow through you
even if you can’t see where it’s heading.

You have to step aside
and leave your channel empty and open
so that your message is clear and unbroken.

Then you have to remain open
through indifference and admiration
through failure and success
until the whole of your message is delivered.

Then your message will make sense
and your meaning will be manifest.  
 

Never Enough

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Here’s another of Steve Taylor‘s poems, expressing aptly the accumulative tendency of the ego. The rich man never has enough money, always tries to make more; he wants the biggest yacht, or to get to Mars, or to control another company. The tyrant at the centre of Empire always wants more land, more people under his personal control. The espoused lover of freedom wants no obligation, no attachment to others, no rules, no common good. You know who you are, and who they are. But it will never be enough…

Steve’s poem expresses it so well.

Never Enough

All the possessions that you collect
and all the wealth that you accumulate 
will never be enough. 

All the success that you achieve
and all the attention that you attract
will never be enough. 

No matter how far your empire stretches 
no matter how absolute your power grows
it will never be enough.

Desires never sleep for long. 
Once they’re satisfied, they rise again, like waves,
faster and stronger than before. 

Every new desire is more difficult to meet
and brings more shallow, more short-lived fulfilment 
until eventually we become numb to happiness
and feel nothing but a raging frustration 
that consumes us inside and makes us hate the world. 

It will never be enough
until you give up the outer search for happiness 
and turn inside yourself. 

Beneath the restless surface of your mind
there is a natural harmony –
the radiance of pure consciousness 
softly vibrating, glowing with warm vitality 
like the freshness of a forest in spring. 

The harmony of your deep being 
never fades or slips out of reach. 
The more you attune to it, the more intense it grows.
The more you touch into it, the closer it moves. 

It can’t be exhausted because it’s immaterial
as intangible as air or light.
It can’t be exhausted because it’s eternal
and endlessly renews and refreshes itself.

Be still, and rest inside yourself.
Let your mind settle, and your thoughts slow down
until desires and fears dissolve away.

Then you’ll enter the deep space of being
and harmony will immerse you –
always present, and always enough.

The Deep Self 

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Many today seem to have ‘forgotten’ the essential truth that, within us, behind the surface world of the ego, there is a deeper self that is connected to the whole – the essential spiritual approach to life, the source of our morality and creativity. Steve Taylor‘s recent poem expresses this beautifully.

The Deep Self

There is another self inside you –
not the restless self that always ruminates 
about the future and the past 
not the fragile self that craves for attention 
and is wounded so easily by disrespect
not the anxious self that can’t live inside itself 
and is always reaching outside for distractions. 

There is another self inside you 
that doesn’t consist of concepts 
that isn’t sustained by thought 
that isn’t enclosed inside your body 
and doesn’t feel separate to the world.

There is a deeper self that rests 
quietly, almost imperceptibly
behind the tumult of your thoughts 
like the still blue sky behind dense, swift-moving clouds. 

And your deep self is always ready to emerge 
whenever you release your attention from thoughts 
and let your awareness spread gently around you
opening your senses to the world. 

Then your surface self grows softer, more porous.
Spaces appear between thoughts 
and the deep self slowly seeps through
like sunlight through dissipating clouds.

As you become your deep self
you sense a shift of perspective 
as if dust is falling from your eyes 
and a landscape is becoming more distinct –
brighter, more spacious, less dangerous.

You feel relieved, as if you’ve woken from an anxious dream. 
The problems of your surface self
and the dramas of your surface life 
seem trivial, almost comical. 

Now you feel connected to the world –
not an observer, but a participant
as if your being is fluid and permeable
flowing back and forth between you and the world 
sharing the essence of everything you see. 

You’re no longer restless and anxious
now that natural harmony flows through you. 
You’re no longer fragile and incomplete
now that the wholeness of the world includes you. 

And you feel the joy of self-recognition 
of becoming who you always were  
since your deep self is not another self –
it is simply you.

All is well

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Those of us who reflect on the affairs of humanity can sometimes get the feeling that things are not going well at all, which can get a bit depressing. So here’s reminder from Steve Taylor (again) that here, in the present, the only place we can be, all is well.

All is well

You have to remember that all is well
even if you feel overwhelmed by the chaos of the world
and menacing dark thoughts swirl through your mind.  

You have to remember that all is well 
even if you feel encircled by enemies 
and your life seems a futile struggle.

You have to remember that all is well 
beneath the turbulence and confusion
like the deep stillness of the ocean
beneath roaring, surging waves. 

You have to remember that all is well.
Then your faith will sustain you. 
Your confidence will strengthen you.
    
Then the radiant stillness of your soul 
will calm the turmoil of your mind
and guide you through the darkness, like a compass. 

And soon the chaos and stress will subside.
You’ll return to natural harmony
with the deep inner knowing that all is well. 

Featured image is a sunset at Barmouth.

Psychological disorders, power and the future of humanity

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Steve Taylor has written a great post in Psychology Today on The Danger of Dark Triad Leaders: The link between psychological disorders and power. So what are dark triad leaders? Steve explains:

While some psychologists like to think in terms of specific disorders like psychopathy and narcissistic personality disorder, I prefer — like many psychologists nowadays — to think in terms of a “dark triad” of three personality traits that appear together: psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism. This makes sense because these traits almost always overlap and are difficult to distinguish from one another.

Dark triad personalities crave power and find powerful positions easy to attain, because of their ruthlessness and manipulative skills. Since they lack empathy and conscience, they have no qualms against deceiving and exploiting other people in their rise to the top. Since they are often charismatic and charming, they often gain the support of ordinary people, who are impressed by their apparent confidence and decisiveness.

Sounds familiar? This psychological abnormality attracts to itself others of similar mindset, forming a pathocracy:

Of course, such leaders don’t work alone. Once dark triad leaders gain power, moral and responsible people rapidly fall away, and other dark triad personalities collect around them. The government quickly becomes what the Polish psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski referred to as a “pathocracy” — a government made of individuals with personality disorders.

The history of the last 200 years shows too many examples of such pathocracies across the world; there are many today, with Putin’s Russia currently the most evident. There is an urgent need for the world to work out how to manage human affairs without such individuals and pathocracies gaining further hold. They bring out the worst in humanity, such as what is now happening in Ukraine. There will be little prospect for humanity for many thousands of years if one of these dysfunctonal cabals unleashes nuclear or biological terror across the world.

Photo of Himmler, Hitler et al: Newsweek

Pathocracy, psychopathy and narcissism

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In a fascinating article in Psychology Today on The problem of pathocracy, Steve Taylor reflects on the concept of pathocracy – which was defined by Andrzej Lobaczewski after observing Stalin’s government in Russia.

“pathocracy is a system of government ‘wherein a small pathological minority takes control over a society of normal people’… the transition to pathocracy begins when a disordered individual emerges as a leader figure. While some members of the ruling class are appalled by the brutality and irresponsibility of the leader and his acolytes, his disordered personality appeals to some psychologically normal individuals. They find him charismatic. His impulsiveness is mistaken for decisiveness; his narcissism for confidence; his recklessness for fearlessness.

Soon other people with psychopathic traits emerge and attach themselves to the pathocracy, sensing the opportunity to gain power and influence. At the same time, responsible and moral people gradually leave the government, either resigning or being ruthlessly ejected. In an inevitable process, soon the entire government is filled with people with a pathological lack of empathy and conscience. It has been infiltrated by members of the minority of people with personality disorders, who assume power over the majority of psychologically normal people… Soon the pathology of the government spreads amongst the general population… an epidemic of psychopathology in people who are not, essentially, psychopathic.”

Look at countries around the world and we see many plausible examples. Steve goes on

“there is a good deal of evidence that people with psychopathic and narcissistic traits (or people who are just ruthless and lacking in empathy and conscience)… are attracted to high status positions… ‘like moths to a flame’.”

Steve quotes evidence that suggests around 1% of the population have these traits, whereas 12% of corporate senior managers have them. My own personal observations during a period working in a large company would seem to confirm this. Interestingly, Machiavellian has been observed by psychologists as the third of a ‘dark triad’ of traits which are closely associated.

The real question Steve raises is how do societies and organisations protect themselves against these people, indeed how do democracies prevent themselves from being undermined by them. Lacking empathy, these people do not see the point of democracy; life is seen as a power struggle. This is of course reflected in the current dominant trends of thought in modern right wing Republicanism in US and Conservatism in UK.

There are no easy answers, and psychological vetting of candidates for power is unlikely to become ubiquitous. But, if we observe and ask the questions, that is progress in itself. The majority must protect itself against these pathologies. The quote attributed to Edmund Burke comes to mind:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”

Picture of Mao, Bulganin, Stalin, Ulbricht etc Moscow 1949, via Wikimedia Commons.

Your Restless Mind

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Steve Taylor writes very simple poems with a powerful message, reminding us of what is important. This recent one is about what others have called monkey mind.

Your Restless Mind

All is well
until your restless mind
wakes up and starts to wonder
whether all is well.  

Nothing is wrong 
until your restless mind 
stirs to life and starts to suspect 
that something might be wrong.

Like an overpaid manager trying to justify his role
your mind finds problems that never existed before 
and persuades you to make changes 
even though your life is running smoothly.

Like a detective who always suspects foul play 
your mind keeps questioning reality 
going over the evidence and the sequence of events 
until situations turn into crimes.

Like a soldier patrolling the streets at night
your mind is always in a state of vigilance 
scanning the darkness and silence 
for signs of unrest and danger.

But you can reassure your restless mind 
that life is only hard if you struggle against it 
that the world is only an enemy if you fight against it 
and that the natural state of life is peace.

Are we insane?

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It is difficult to argue with the suggestion that modern human beings are insane, as we trash the environment, poison our own air and water and our own food supplies, send countless species to extinction, indulge in numerous wars, even drive the global climate towards unpredictable extremes. Steve Taylor‘s 2012 book Back to Sanity addresses this issue. Yes we are insane, but we can get back onto a sane track.

Steve suggests that it was not always so, quoting a number of indigenous leaders and their perception of Europeans, who spread the madness across the globe, for example:

“Indian faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings…”

Chief Luther Standing Bear

Steve suggests that “we suffer from a basic psychological disorder that is the source of our dysfunctional behaviour, both as individuals and as a species.” He coins the term ‘humania’ or ‘ego-madness’ to describe the condition – a malfunctioning of the ego. The essential thesis is that humania is a surface condition, and within we always have access to harmony, sanity and connectedness.

The book is in two parts. Part I examines the psychological dissorder and its effects, how humania gives rise to pathological human behaviours. Part II examines how we can practically transcend this psychological discord, and attain a real state of sanity, which is of course a theme of sages across the ages.

Steve is a psychologist, and his practical suggestions are well founded; many of which you will have come across elsewhere, for example: learning the habit of resting in our own mental space without needing distraction, seeking help to resolve past trauma, learning to dis-identify with thoughts, challenging our own negative scripts, practising service and mindfulness, meditation or meditative activity, periods of quiet.

Steve suggests that our only way forward as a species is for enough people to transcend humania; the alternative is too grim to contemplate, but we see the first intimations in today’s increasingly common extreme climate events.

This is one of now-many books on similar themes, a sure indication that people are beginning to change. Will it be fast enough? Who knows, but that is no reason not to try.

Steve’s book provides good diagnosis and guidance on the most pressing issue of our times.

None of this is now

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Another great poem from Steve Taylor this week, reminding us that all the fears, guilt, imaginations, projections, bitterness… are inventions of our minds; when only what is happening here and now is of importance.

None of this is now

None of this is now:
your fears about the future
your guilt and bitterness about the past.

None of this is now: 
the obstacles that seem to lie ahead 
and the failures that seem to stretch behind.

Only this is now:
your moment-to-moment experience
of the world and of your being in the world
and of the other beings who share your world.

And only the now is real. 
An unreal past can’t hurt you 
as a shadow can’t burn the ground. 
An unreal future can’t hurt you 
as a reflection can’t break the still surface of a lake.

Only your mind can hurt you
when it wanders away from now
and loses itself in restless thoughts
of unreal times and places. 

Spiritual science

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Can science and spirituality be reconciled? Is there a way of looking at things that brings them into alignment? Of course, the answer is ‘yes’. In his book Spiritual Science, published 2018, Steve Taylor gives a convincing answer. His subtitle is ‘why science needs spirituality to make sense of the world’. Steve gives the reasons and, from my perspective, comprehensively demolishes the arguments for the recently dominant paradigms of materialism and scientism.

Steve looks at the origins of materialism. Science originally developed alongside religion through pioneers such as Descartes, Kepler and Newton. They were not seen as incompatible. it was around the second half of the 19C that Darwin’s theory of evolution came to put into question whether the biblical stories could actually be true; there came a theory that religion was not necessary to explain the world. TH Huxley was a leading proponent of what became the materialistic viewpoint. The inner content of experience and consciousness itself were mysterious elided. After the world wars further discredited religions, materialism gradually took hold, and there came about a new faith that materialism could explain everything. As Steve points out this has denigrated the experience of the spiritual/religious life, and indeed has become a new religion. The result has become increasingly clear as humanity in the large degrades the natural world, and even imperils its own existence.

Steve then goes on to ask the simple question ‘What if the primary reality of the universe is not matter? What if there is another quality, which is so fundamental that it actually pervades matter, and matter is actually a manifestation of it? What if this othe quality also pervades living beings, and all non-living things, so that they are always interconnected?’ Of course, this sort of idea has been adopted by many cultures in history, and is similar to the perspective of the ageless wisdom propagated by Helena Blavatsky. Steve refers back to the ancient Greek philosophy, to the world’s religions, to indigenous cultures, all of whihc had similar viewpoints. It is the modern materialism that is the aberration.

Steve’s panspiritism, and the similar panpsychism, have much greater explanatory power than materialism, which tends to reject the numerous phenomena that it cannot explain, not least the question of consciousness itself, which tends to be ‘explained away’ from the materialist viewpoint (the ‘hard problem’). In the panspiritist vew, consciousness exists everywhere and in everything, and the brain acts as some sort of receiver which channels it. And of course this view allows for the possibility of ‘spiritual experiences’, which are well understood and documented.

Steve goes on to explore the correlates between mind, brain and body, near-death and awakening (spiritual) experiences, psychic phenomena, an alternative view of evolution, the puzzle of altruism, and the problems of quantum physics, which has long been known to be inconsistent with simple materialism. Finally he outlines key tenets of panspiritism and the significance of the expansion of consciousness in the evolution of our universe. This is what it’s all about!

Steve’s book is a genuine tour de force, expressed in language that is not deeply technical. Well worth reading.

Everything Comes from your Depths

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From time to time I include on this blog a poem by Steve Taylor from his latest newsletter. This one reminds us about the source of what is really important, rather than what is on the surface – listening to the intuition, as opposed to the instant reaction of emotions or monkey mind…

Everything Comes from your Depths

Nothing real or valuable 
comes from the surface of your mind –
only the most trivial thoughts,
the most mundane impressions
and the most selfish desires.   

Everything real and valuable 
comes from the depths of your being –
the intuitions that guide your life 
as surely as a compass
the creative flow that carries you 
to places you never knew existed 
the inspiration that lifts you 
to peaks you never knew you could reach
the insights that are shared with you
like whispered secrets from a stranger.  

So let your the mind be soft and clear 
free of assumptions and beliefs 
and of dense swirling mists of thought 
so that there is no barrier
between you and your mysterious soul
and so that the endless riches of your depths
keep rising to your surface.

The Fall

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Most of us are familiar with the biblical story of the fall, when Adam and Eve were thrown out of paradise after an incident with a serpent and a piece of fruit. I remember it from Sunday School at the local Methodist Chapel. Why did our ancestors place so much emphasis on this story? It comes in Genesis 2, in verse 8, just after the creation of heaven and earth.

And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man…

God creates Adam and then Eve and by the end of Chapter 4 (verse 23), because Eve partook of the fruit of a forbidden tree (it was clearly the woman’s fault):

…the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth…

This was obviously highly significant to the men (well they probably were of that gender) who set down the Old Testament. Why? Well, Steve Taylor’s book The Fall has an answer to this question, not only for the scribes of that era, but also for ourselves and future human beings.

It’s taken me a while to get around to reading this book – first published in 2005 and highly recommended by many reviewers. I guess I sort of thought I knew the story, but it was not with the wonderful vision encompassed by this book. Steve is a psychologist, so his story is imbued with a deep understanding of human psychology, but he has also clearly researched and understood many disciplines to produce a work of this scope. This is a history of the fall and a vision of our potential return to paradise.

Read More »

Nationalism is a psychological aberration

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Nationalism is a psychological abberation, driven by insecurity. This is the message of this excellent article by Steve Taylor in Psychology Today, which I recommend reading. Nations are artificial constructs, which lead to pathological effects such as wars. The basic psychology of human beings is co-operative with their fellow human beings. The problems we now face, such as the covid19, climate breakdown, species extinction transcend national boundaries. The only future for humanity is one of global co-operation.

The impulse behind Brexit, of ‘making the UK great again’, and the similar impulse behind the Trump presidency, have been going in precisely the wrong direction, driven by the insecurity of their former working populations who have been driven to feel insecure by the economic system. The US appears to have a ‘get out of jail’ card in a Joe Biden presidency, but only if he addresses that failed economic system. The UK has got itself into a more permanent mess with Brexit, but can emerge if the co-operation engendered by a fair ‘deal’ is brought to fruition. A ‘no deal’ will be a psychological disaster for not just UK, but the whole of Europe. The insecurity generated can only lead to more problems.

Of course, nations will still need to exist in some form to organise human affairs, but only within the context of the larger groupings of which they are a part. History tells us that these are largely geographically based – China, India, various European empires, USA… or more global such as the Spanish, British and French colonial expansions. And the context of the United Nations or equivalent organisation is vital.

The charismatic and the populist leader are most suspect in this whole context. I suspect they automatically come to prominence as the collective sense of insecurity rises.

As Steve says,

Nationalism is a psychological aberration, and we owe it to our ancestors, and to our descendants — and to the other species, and to the Earth itself — to move beyond it.

Making the Human Race Whole

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Steve Taylor writes some wonderful poems that really strike a chord. This one is from his latest newsletter, and his latest book The Clear Light. It brings the universal down to the personal.

Making the Human Race Whole

Make as many connections as you can 
so that this broken world can become whole again.  

It’s your responsibility 
to radiate benevolence to everyone you meet
to be reckless with your friendliness
and surprise strangers with your openness 
on behalf of the whole human race.  

It’s your responsibility 
to turn suspicion to trust, hostility to sympathy 
to expose the absurdity of prejudice
to return hatred with implacable good will
until your enemies have no choice but to love you
on behalf of the whole human race.  

It’s your responsibility 
to free yourself from bitterness
and harness the healing power of forgiveness
to repair connections and re-establish bonds 
that were broken by resentment years ago
on behalf of the whole human race.  

It’s your responsibility 
to make as many connections as you can
to open up channels of empathy 
through which compassion can flow 
until there are so many connections
across so many different networks
that finally, like the cells of a body, 
billions of human beings will fuse together, 
sensing their common sources 
and their common core.  

Then a new identity will emerge, an overriding oneness,
a human race that is truly whole, at last.

Pettiness

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Another great poem by Steve Taylor, from his latest newsletter. We’ve all been through this, it’s part of growing up. Many soaps and political cultures, including the current US presidency, are full of it.

The World of Pettiness

Keep outside the world of pettiness, if you can.

If you step into the world of pettiness
you may never get out again.

The world of pettiness is like a soap opera
where people act out endless episodes
of falling out and reconciling
of resenting and retaliating
of comparing and competing
with their minds full of judgement and prejudice.

In the world of pettiness
life is a tournament, and every day is a game
where people show off their skills
and compete for each other’s respect.
They’re always ready to take offence and to take revenge
if they feel slighted or devalued.

The world of pettiness may even seem exciting
full of drama and stimulation
like the center of a city at rush hour.

But if you step inside the world of pettiness
you’ll lose yourself in the noise and stress.
You’ll lose touch with your essence
and lose sight of your purpose.

So live quietly and simply, away from the crazy city.
Be still and self-sufficient
so that your ego doesn’t hanker for attention
or feel wounded by disrespect

Keep your mind above the madness around you.
Let other people think you’re aloof.
Let them hate you if they will.
But only give them love in return.

The featured quote is by Frederick Nietsche, via Goodreads.

Acceptance

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Here’s the concluding part of another insightful poem from Steve Taylor.

Life can be frustrating and full of obstacles
with desires for a different life constantly disturbing your mind
or life can be fulfilling, full of opportunities
with a constant flow of gratitude for the gifts you have

and the only difference between them is acceptance.

Old age may be a process of decay
that withers your body and mind
and poisons you with bitterness
as you yearn for the freshness of youth
Or old age may be a process of liberation
that enriches you with wisdom
and makes you more present as the future recedes
and lightens your soul as you let go of attachments.

And the only difference between them is acceptance.

Death may be a cold, black emptiness
that mercilessly devours your ego
and makes everything you own seem valueless
and everything you’ve achieved seem meaningless
Or death may be a perfect culmination
a soft twilight at the end of a long summer’s day
when you’re filled with heavy tiredness and ready to sleep
and know that you will wake up again to a bright new dawn.

And the only difference between them is acceptance.

Presence

barryh1 Comment

Another great poem by Steve Taylor in his newsletter, deserves sharing:

Your Being Belongs to the Present

Your ego-mind belongs to the past.
Like a museum, everything in it comes from the past –
beliefs that were handed down from your parents
ideas you absorbed from your culture
thought patterns that formed when you were young
old traces of trauma that still cause you pain
and random memories that keep replaying.

And your thoughts keep dragging you back to the past
like old friends who are jealous of your new life
and keep making you revisit
the haunts you’ve left behind
and the habits you’ve long outgrown.

But your being belongs to the present.
It has never known anything but the present.
It only knows the past and future as ideas
that pass through its nowness, like clouds through the sky.

So untangle yourself from thoughts and concepts.
Give your full attention to your experience
until the structures of your mind grow soft
and you feel the calm wholeness of being
seeping through your inner space
and bringing you back to presence.

Slip outside your ego-mind
and leave the past behind.
Then your life will be an adventure –
an exhilarating voyage of discovery
through the endless spacious freshness of presence.