The War on Poverty is Over! (reprise)

"The War on Poverty is over. All the poor people have surrendered." - Swami Beyondananda

[First posted 3 November 2008, reposted 27 June 2017 & 27 June 2020]

The Oil Spill and the Blood Spill (repost)

"I know, I know. I am proposing a sane world. I must be crazy." ~ Steve Bhaerman

Same Problem, Same Solution

By Steve Bhaerman

Sometimes it's just not funny.

There is nothing funny about oil hemorrhaging in the Gulf of Mexico, or blood flowing in the Mediterranean - just the sad joke that we humans are largely the cause of our own suffering. And we are largely clueless as to how and why.

For millennia, we have been under the spell of the lowest common dominator, the notion that it's a you-or-me world, that to survive we must dominate or be dominated. Never mind that at the root of every religion and ethical system is some version of the Golden Rule. We have as a species chosen to apply this law selectively to those in our own family, tribe or nation. When we feel threatened - not necessarily ARE threatened, but feel threatened - we very easily adopt a conveniently modified version of the rule: "Doo-doo unto others before they can doo-doo unto you."

So, for tribes or nations to be manipulated by a sociopathic few, all these misleaders need to do is convince their people of an external threat, and this protective mechanism is activated. While fight-or-flight is a necessary response to an immediate danger, the blood flow to the hindbrain has to come from somewhere. It comes from the forebrain, the place of creative thinking and discernment. In other words, when we are in fear we are less intelligent.

In places like the Middle East, the us-vs.-them story is well established, and each atrocity by the other builds the story one more story high. The one thing the Palestinian terrorists set to blow themselves up and the Israeli soldiers firing on civilians have in common is the belief, "We are the good guys."

It's this belief alone that turns good guys into bad guys. It's how America justified using atomic weapons on Japan, napalm on Vietnamese, and bombs on Iraqi and Afghan citizens. It's the cost of war, paid by the other guy - the bad guy.

From the Mideast ... to the Midwest

In order to bring this notion home, literally and figuratively, we need to take what is happening in the Mideast, and apply it in the Midwest. Just as surely as the Israelis and Palestinians are at war, we the people of America have been divided into two warring tribes, the Red Tribe Republicans and the Blue Tribe Democrats. The main difference between these two tribes is that the right wing understands there is a war going on; the left wing merely feels assaulted.

Here's why.


Whether you believe it's an actual conspiracy, or merely the out-picturing of our divided collective consciousness, the body politic has been split into left-brain and right-brain, masculine and feminine. The political left represents the values of novelty and nurturance; the right stands for structure and protection. Each of these tendencies - progressive and conservative - represents a healthy biological impulse. However, separately they are incapable of wise rule. Why? Well, imagine living your life using only half your intelligence, or worse yet with two parts of your psyche constantly in mortal combat.

Consequently, each political party represents a toxic distortion of a valuable asset. Put bluntly, the Republicans represent the abusive male, the Democrats the enabler female. All of the muscle is on one side; all of the compassion is on the other. Instead of working together, these two opposing impulses have inflicted a deadly autoimmune dysfunction on the body politic. Who benefits? Those who have the most to lose by these two divided forces uniting as an integrated, whole "we the people."

In a healthy, integrated, whole system the forces of protection protect life. Consider the eggshell. It is absolutely necessary to protect the egg during development. However, for a chicken to be born, the shell must break. Structure must yield to life.

In our distorted, divided system the structures designed for protection all too often protect the predator. That's why back in the 1930s, Gen. Smedley Butler, at the time America's most decorated Marine, wrote a booklet called War is a Racket, where he confessed that most of the defending he did during the early part of this century was for United Fruit and U.S. Rubber. In the nearly 80 years since Butler's pamphlet, we have seen the simple desire for defense and protection rigidify into a Military Industrial Complex, a structure largely in service of itself, in partnership with the American empire.

Interestingly, the more libertarian right represented by Ron Paul know about Smedley Butler and his assessment of war, whereas he is an unfamiliar figure to most on the left. That's because each political polarity has it's own information pipeline telling them the "truth." The left is told that the Ron Paul variety of populist - as represented currently by the Tea Parties - are backward racists and isolationists. Meanwhile, the right wing impropaganda machine bangs away at the notion that "liberals hate America," making them as much of an enemy as Al Qaeda is.

Progressives are outraged by the assaults of Limbaugh, Beck and the like, but cannot respond effectively or courageously. Why? Because all the martial energy has been marshaled over on the other side. The right, meanwhile, doesn't dare empathize with the downtrodden, lest we empower welfare cheats. In having their attention focused on the lowly criminal, they are conveniently distracted from the highly criminal.

We are a political house divided, a body politic afflicted with bi-polar insanity. Somewhere in the netherworld, Machiavelli is smiling, for his lesson of divide-and-conquer has been well learned by our misleaders. We the people have learned to identify so much with what divides us that we completely ignore the common virtues and values we share as non-sociopathic humans.

It's Either an Awakening ... Or a Wake

Which brings us to the oil spill.

The major missing piece in this web-of-life threatening tragedy is our ability to act in unison in a moment of crisis. The bi-polar political dysfunction has bred so much mutual distrust, that we've wasted valuable time and energy in obfuscation and blame. But the problem goes deeper than that, as deep as the subconscious programming of "survival of the fittest." We are so programmed with fear of not enough - Swami calls this "scare city" - that we spend our attention, intention, time and resource on protection and acquisition, at the expense of other healthy human "cellular souls."

The cost of this agreed-upon greed, goes beyond the trillions of dollars spent and the millions of lives lost. We now have a rupture in the web-of-life itself, as the fluid we value more than life gushes uselessly and harmfully into the ocean, unstoppable by the magic of technology. Like Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice, in our ignorance and innocence, we unleashed a power far too powerful for our Mickey Mouse consciousness.

And the good news is?

If we choose to use it as such, the oil spill may be the significant emotional event that bumps us out of the illusion of separation and into a healthier relationship with one another and the planet. What is called for is no less than a spontaneous spiritual evolution from children of God to adults of God, from victims and villains to aware, responsible co-creators. It's never happened before. But never before have we faced such a blatant and immediate human-caused disaster, one that calls into question our fitness as a species.

As many of us have seen in the "try this" or "try that" emails that have been circulating, there is no dearth of potential remedies or even solutions. We already have the worldwide network of communication to create an open-source approach to a situation that threatens every one of us. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention ... and intent is the father. What an opportunity for the people of this world to "gather under one big intent" to take the initiative to create a worldwide "we the people" authority to, for the first time, confront a species-wide threat as a species.

This would not be some top-down New World Order, but a bottom up, grassroots "new world ordering," where we access the heart-and-soul essence of who we are, an essence that has been lost through millennia of domination and programmed fear. It would mean gathering in intentionally diverse groups, and using existing polarities to stretch ourselves beyond the limited choices we currently perceive. It would mean calling forth the Sacred Masculine and the Sacred Feminine, to act in accord as dynamic duo dance partners. It would mean taking the obsolete political polarities of progressive and conservative, and turning them into healthy intentions by asking, "How do we wish to progress?" and "What do we choose to conserve?"

I know, I know. I am proposing a sane world. I must be crazy.

But the question to ask ourselves and one another is, how sane is the institutionalized, homicidal, suicidal insanity we have now? As the saying goes, if we keep on the same path, we will arrive at where we are going. Even if we are able to stanch the current oil flow, and we contain the damage to "just" one ocean, what will the next blow be? Will we be able to recover, or will it just be a matter of time before a human-made disaster kills us?

In our book Spontaneous Evolution, Bruce Lipton and I point out the phenomenon of "spontaneous remission," where an individual is told their condition is untreatable and terminal, and yet something mysterious and miraculous happens. They recover, and show no sign of the disease whatsoever. While we might imagine this some super-human miracle, when we look deeper we find that the recovery is preceded by a profound change of belief, and change of behavior.

In other words, a spontaneous remission is often the result of a "spontaneous remissioning." And so the choice is before us to collectively change our mission from "dominate or be dominated" to re-growing the Garden together.

This has been the wake up call we have been waiting for. And the snooze button is no longer working.


Steve Bhaerman is a writer and uncommontator who has written and performed comedy as Swami Beyondananda. He is also the co-author with Bruce Lipton of Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here (Hay House: 2009). He can be found online at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/ If you like what you read, and want to get more of it, subscribe to Notes From the Trail here.

[First posted 6 June 2010]

Steve Bhaerman on the Heart of Darkness (repost)

Heartland Security and the Heart of Darkness
By Steve Bhaerman

"The more the world crises come to a head, the greater the need for Humanity to come to a heart." ~ Swami Beyondananda

I was having dinner with a friend the other night, and he was reflecting on a reunion he had recently with fellow (and gal) participants in a well-known self-help seminar they all took some 30 years ago. He found these folks to be largely successful, intelligent, compassionate, and committed to a world of peace, justice and sustainability. And yet -

And yet, he told me, they hadn't a clue about what it would really take to have what Bucky Fuller called "a world that works for everyone." Why? Because their own belief in the "goodness of human nature" blinds them to our just-as-prevalent "inhuman nature" - to the evils humans are capable of perpetrating, and the even greater evils enabled by "good" people who refuse to look "the heart of darkness" squarely in the face, consequently allowing the dark forces to proceed unchecked.

The classic example, of course, are the "good Germans" who went along with Nazism because they couldn't believe their leaders were capable of exterminating an entire race of people. My wife Trudy, who was born in Germany, returned to visit as a teenager. When she asked her relatives if they knew about the death camps, the response was, "We were told that was American propaganda, and we believed it because frankly, the prospect of it being true was too horrible to contemplate."

Not even the Jewish community in pre-war Germany was willing to face what the Nazi government was capable of doing. Despite the shattering of illusion that happened on kristallnacht, many Jews continued with "business as usual" until they were rounded up.

Confronting Not-Seeism

Now fast forward from Nazi Germany to Not-See America, where we have a mass media that purposely protects us from seeing the gunk on the "underside of our karma" - and diverts our unspoken despair to focus on the lowly criminal, conveniently side-stepping the highly criminal. As the Irony Curtain shows signs of fraying, we are getting glimpses at the disturbing patterns of abusive power - the most recent being the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which legalizes indefinite detention of American citizens.

However, the letter I just received in response to my most recent posting, On Thrive and Thrival, posits a far darker prospect. By way of introduction, I attended a conference over 15 years ago that I immediately termed "the Paranoids Conference," because of some of the outlandish reports and theories. So dark and unspeakable were some of the things I heard there, I simply had no "place" to put them. One of the presenters was a woman who told of being a combination "human tape recorder and sex slave" for U.S. military intelligence. She said she was "programmed" to commit suicide at 30, but somehow evaded that part of the program. I had to face two conflicting questions: How is something like this possible? ... and ... Why would she make up such a story?

Then last year, a friend who I've known well for more than a dozen years confided some things about her own childhood. She was raised in a military family back in the 1960s, and as young children she and her brother would go off to "swimming lessons" with lots of other young military children. She now believes these were part of mind-control experiments conducted during that period. Later - when she and her brother were approaching puberty - they were instructed to go down to the basement of their home. Doing what her father instructed, she was to lay face down on the basement floor, wearing a short dress. Her brother was also there, face down. In walked a high-ranking military officer, who "chose" her brother, ostensibly for sexual gratification, but spared her. The brother later took his own life.

Is this real? Is this some movie fantasy augmented by a vivid imagination? What do we do with this information? And why should we do anything with it, particularly if we see no way to do anything about it?

As you read the letter below, here is the "take away" I hope you will take away. We CANNOT heal the body politic or approach the kind of world we know is possible without "truth and reconciliation." Truth is required, because without truth there is no trust. The primary reason for the Truth and Reconciliation program conducted in South Africa in the 1990s was to establish a common, trustworthy story ... so that future trust could be built. The "reconciliation" part reflects the evolutionary understanding that for most collective "crimes," reconciliation is more helpful than punishment. It allows us to collectively own our species' darkest tendencies, and to identify "sociopathogens" not just as "bad" individuals but as persistent institutionalized behaviors enabled by our silence.

The Heart of Darkness and the Light of Love

There is no "heartland security" without our facing the heart of darkness and the "heartless minds" that have stepped into the moral vacuum left when science and religion went their separate ways. As I have said many times, because we Americans have been divided into two rival cultural and political "tribes," we haven't until now been able to gather around the virtues and values we have in common and establish a moral "bottom line" as a foundation for our collective behavior.

So ... is there a way to "metabolize" these toxins in the body politic, so that we can indeed emerge to a healthy new order? I am reminded of something called the "3 A's" that I've seen from a number of different sources: Awareness, Acknowledgment and Acceptance. These simple three steps may hold the key to the spiritual / political transformation that is necessary for our species to graduate from surviving to thriving. But here is something very important. These three steps must not merely be intellectual understandings, but involve heartfelt experience. It requires "staying in the room" as we become aware of these perpetrations, acknowledge our entire system's compliance with them, and then accept that (and here is the challenge) these horrors are part of our species' learning process called "evolution."

That is, provided we learn from them. The joke is, history repeats itself because we keep flunking it and have to take it over. As soon as our species collectively gets the "lesson," future lessons in this regard are unnecessary, and we can move on to greater expressions of our human potential. And the "organ" best suited for transmuting the "residoodoo" created by thousands of years of rule by the lowest common dominator? The heart. Only through the presence of the light of love - characterized by Plato as "truth, beauty and goodness" - can we establish a field that can "overgrow" this past dysfunction, and create a new standard for relating to one another and the whole of Creation.

May 2012 be a year of truth, and may we gather enough love to face the music ... and dance together.

A Reader's Response to "On Thrive and Thrival"


Dear Steve, I hope you personally get to see this email. I've subscribed to your emails for quite a while now, because I am a person who is deeply spiritual (from the cradle up pretty much) AND because I have seen the writing on the wall in the USA and the world for a long time... my own wake up call was delving into 3 months of missing time from my USAF days in 1980, and a subsequent long trek down a very deep rabbit hole. Finally circumstances in the world compelled me to go public with this, even though I dug my heels in for many years and just wanted to live a "normal" - whatever that used to mean - life. But today, none of us can hope to live a normal life of liberty and pursuit of happiness if we do not act with conscience and discernment. 

I have watched through many many years a gradual convergence between what spiritual teachers and personal growth gurus of the world impart, and the "conspiracy theory" factions, as what has been happening on our world becomes harder and harder to ignore. For a long time, it seemed that the love & light, law of attraction folks were going to try and ignore the darker elements of what is happening on our world, I suspect out of fear of acknowledging the dark because it might undermine their intention-law of attraction process. How does one reconcile the dark with the light. I'm doing my best to reconcile the two in a book I'm writing that will be out in a couple of months.


I completely applaud Foster and Kimberly Gamble for the film they have created and especially for touching on the UFO material. It is just the very beginning of a vindication and validation for me of information I've had to carry around since I had hypnosis in 1994 to retrieve some chunks of my lost memories - of being taken out in the middle of the night while in the USAF, instructed to try and track extraterrestrial or back-engineered ET space craft, then later brutally worked over with drugs and sexual assault to get me to bury the memories through inducing trauma. I am far from being the only one this has happened to also.

Imagine what it is for people like me to see the disasters of the Gulf oil spill and the Fukushima nuclear "accident" visit such devastation on the people who live in the path of the destruction and to KNOW, down in my very bones, that such disasters never had to happen. That so much human and animal suffering never had to occur because free, clean energy is possible - if only the oil cartels and those who have commandeered so much economic power had not kept it secret and killed or harassed those who came up with such energy systems themselves. Yet they have, and We the People keep paying the price for their secret attempts to keep us all under their control. Thrive's commentary on the elite of this world being parasites on the larger host population of all of us regular folks is spot on.

David Icke

As to David Icke, I respect people's right to disagree with him on certain points. Yet, he was a groundbreaker on shadow governments and the New World Order long before it was in any way socially acceptable. He has relentlessly kept at it and now much of what he warned us about is established fact. He has done exhaustive and extensive research into his topics and they deserve serious attention and cross-checking by fearless and unbiased others. I know he discusses reptilians, and I do not doubt what he has to say, though I don't put too much of my focused attention on it. My philosophy is to keep a weather eye on what's wrong on Planet Earth, while keeping the majority of my attention on what I want to create in the world through love. And never to turn away from any disturbing information out of my own fear, but to face my fears and move through them, otherwise what I would like to envision, intend and create in this world will be undermined by that fear.

My own experience with reptilians: While investigating my 3 months of missing time, driven to find some answers, and before having my own hypnosis, I attended a lecture by another reptilian researcher, John Rhodes. Much of it was fascinating, but I just could not buy the reptilian idea - I walked out thinking this guy had watched too much scifi. Then, much later, my own hypnosis yielded up 2 reptilian encounters, minor ones, but there. One was passing a laboratory where a reptilian being was overseeing two other researchers, and one on a flying saucer. Under hypnosis, seeing them took my breath away, and it was hard to get it back. They looked terrifying to me.


Being of a scientific inclination, I have researched and cross-checked and correlated my memories with other information and testimony over many years to try and understand what I re-experienced under hypnosis. This includes working to understand the political and social context in which such things could even occur - which led me to the same places that Foster and Kimberly Gamble have reached and put into their film Thrive. I know that some people regard hypnosis with suspicion. That's fine. But when the information together with my own experiences is checked and cross-checked and correlated - volumes of it - lead to the same place, and some people remember without hypnosis, then you have to give it serious consideration at the very least. I now conclude that reptilians exist. I respect Mr. Icke's research and knowledge on this subject while reserving the right to my own conclusions based in my own experiences and study.

Jacque Fresco's Utopia Town

UFO secrecy is free energy secrecy. Free energy secrecy is directly related to severely curtailing the freedom of people like you and me and the general population, because if people had free energy, the cost of producing goods and services and transporting them would fall to next to nothing and the economic empire that exists on a foundation of oil would collapse. People would then be truly free, to live, to breathe, to create, to love and build connection rather than be indoctrinated to divide and conquer each other. Greed would be unnecessary in a world where such freedom existed. As visionary and futurist Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project teaches, the environment shapes the people who live in it... how could people be shaped in a world where abundance is so plentiful that everyone thrives? What place would greed have in such a world? None. Greed and hoarding is only necessary when some want to control everyone and everything else.

I hope you see this message, and while it would be nice to get a response, none is required if you are too busy. I'm busy too, finishing my book! Stay well, stay joyful no matter what, and my deep gratitude and blessings to you for having the courage to see what is happening in the world and address it in your wonderful and unique way.


Very Warmly!
Niara Terela Isley


[First posted 21 January 2012, reposted 2 June 2014]

BRINGING DOWN THE 9/11 HOUSE OF LIES (reprise)

[In this blogpost I was going to summarize my years of research on the 9/11 atrocities, rounding up my personal campaign to expose the cynical masterminds behind the monumental sandiwara (which in Malay means a political Punch'n'Judy show); but my friend Dave Blackman just passed me a link to a superb article by Steve Bhaerman (aka Swami Beyondananda) which covers all the points I was going to make and much more - and does so scintillatingly! I can do no more than help the good Swami spread this cogent message by reproducing it here in full, complete with all the handy hyperlinks...]

BRINGING DOWN THE 9/11 HOUSE OF LIES ~ The Final 'Leg' Of The Journey
By Steve Bhaerman
16 April 2007

It's a bit of a mixed feeling to realize that millions and millions of people who didn't get this distinction two, four or six years ago now understand that the "political' issues we now face aren't about right and left, they're about right and wrong. On one hand, what took you so long? On the other, thank God and welcome aboard. Although the media has downplayed it - it doesn't fit with the general stupidization program of creating a lot of heat but very little light - more and more actual conservatives and even members of the religious right are coming to see the Bush-Cheney regime as a rogue administration and a thin cover for criminal enterprise. Such right wing stalwarts as former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr and Richard Viguerie (one of the architects of the far right wing) have formed an organization to protect our civil liberties from our own government. Chuck Baldwin, an associate of Jerry Falwell, has become an open advocate of impeachment and writes a very articulate column.

These folks are far bolder than the Democrats in this regard, and they will play a key role when impeachment happens - and it will. Now some of you reading this who have a deeper spiritual understanding of love, forgiveness and the ways in which we do indeed create our own reality might be wondering "Gee, this whole impeachment thing seems pretty 'anti'. Shouldn't we be focusing on what we want instead of what we don't want?" Indeed, the point can be made that the failure of the Democrats in 2004 - aside from the minor issue of voting fraud in Ohio and Florida - had to do with John Kerry's approach of "Vote for me, I'm not as bad as George Bush," and failure to articulate any compelling positive vision. However, the real issue goes much deeper.

Ending The American Hostage Crisis

It has nothing to do with loving or hating George Bush, whose policies have educated and awakened more Americans than all of the "progressive" leaders combined. It does have to do with what we need to recognize as the American Hostage Crisis. The American people - and particularly our soldiers in Iraq - are being held hostage by a ruthless criminal cadre (this is not hyperbolic invective; the definition of "criminal" is "one who commits crimes"). The people up until now have been blackmailed into supporting a war of choice with the cynical cry, "Support our troops." As if our troops sent themselves over there and now we have to rescue them.

The people of America are now at a crossroads that will determine whether the world continues hurtling down the highway to hell, or whether we change course in the direction of our true human potential, what Swami calls "humanifest destiny." I say the world because if the United States honors the intentions of our founders and accepts the evolutionary role of genuine self-governance, the entire world will cheer - and breathe a sigh of relief. Under the guise of true moral authority, we will be able to isolate the sociopathogens in the world and deal with them as criminals instead of what we're doing now - killing the people the criminal elements are holding hostage, and creating new converts for the criminals.

There is something positive to be built, but it cannot be built on a foundation of lies. That is why the so-called "surge" or any other policy to "stay the course" in Iraq will not succeed. The entire structure -- why we're there, what's been happening since we got there, what our future intentions are -- all lies. Those troops we are "supporting" are being sent in as surrogate targets for George Bush and the American empire, an empire that isn't even ours but belongs to a slew of multinational corporations that could care less whether America lives or dies. That's what American soldiers are discovering, sadly, that their most ardent "supporters" at home have been unwilling to face. Until now.

America's next step - and only step - that can take us forward is to bring the Bush-Cheney regime to justice. This isn't about vengeance, it isn't about punishment. It's about truth. That element that has been so lacking in our political environment that it has caused a spiritual, psychological and political heartsickness in the heartland. This basic lack of integrity - that even those who overtly believe the lies still feel deep down in their guts - is why we have the Don Imuses and the Ann Coulters. Those are the people who keep us occupied with weapons of mass-distraction, who help us aim our rage at the wrong targets.

Their brand of free speech is what Caroline Casey calls a "toxic mimic" of the real thing. The freedom of speech and freedom of press the American revolutionaries risked life and fortune for wasn't so our "commonest" of commentators could sling invectives like "faggots" and "nappy-headed ho's" but to empower citizens by letting them know what's going on. In this regard, the record of our so-called "free press" is dismal, if not traitorous. Try initiating a real conversation about the unanswered questions and unquestioned answers regarding 9/11. There you will find a stone wall of silence, or loud screaming to drown out the truth. While up until now, very few have wanted to "go there," more and more people are awakening to the tragic truth that "there" has already come "here."


Cutting the Legs Out From Under Their Story

Just over two years ago, after what many of us realized was a stolen election (with Barbara Boxer the lone Senator to stand and raise the issue), I wrote a piece about the wall of lies. In the midst of the frustration and despair that many of us felt, I predicted the wall of lies would crumble. It wasn't a difficult prediction to make. In these times when the veil is being lifted everywhere, the "irony curtain" is no exception.

I wrote that the illegitimate "legitimacy" of the Bush-Cheney regime rested on a three-legged stool. The first leg was the belief they were fairly elected in 2000 and 2004. The second was the Iraq War and the reluctance of people to "change horse's asses in the middle of an extreme." The third was 9/11, and the official account of what happened that day.

At this writing, one leg is completely gone and another is severely splintered. More than two thirds of Americans now see the Iraq War as an unmitigated disaster, and a large portion of our armed forces are demoralized and angry. It is now being termed "an unpopular war," a phrase that begs the question, "And when exactly was the last 'popular war'?" Wait a minute ... I think I have it. The last popular war was the Battle of the Groups at the Brooklyn Fox Theater ... Dion and the Belmonts vs. the Drifters. I think it was 1960.

As for the legitimacy of the "elections", that issue broke through the soundless barrier a year ago when RFK, Jr. published his article in Rolling Stone. Timing is everything, and the timing of that article coincided with a general "upwising." Having seen mounting evidence of lying, cheating and stealing on the part of Rove and company, a critical mass of Americans (or at least Democrats) were able to accept the inconvenient likelihood that the Republicans cheated to win the election too. This awakened awareness and the voter mobilization that followed helped the Democrats win control of both Houses of Congress, despite any shenanigans. As lame as you may think the Democrats are, this was the first important step of restoring the balance of power and the rule of law. I contend it could not have happened without the widespread awareness that the Republicans were getting set to steal elections again.

So here we are. The "leg" called the Iraq War is gone. The "leg" called "these people were elected legitimately" is badly compromised. And yet, like the mad monk Rasputin, Bush and Cheney are still standing behind their stone wall. Subpoenas notwithstanding, they've entrenched and have no intention of giving in one iota. Because as soon as they do, the avalanche of revelations will cause their downfall. How long can this holding pattern go on? It can definitely go on indefinitely.




Unless we as a nation allow the 9/11 story to break through the soundless barrier. When this leg gets chopped off, Bush and Cheney will be gone.

More importantly, the truth will be revealed so that we can collectively "face the music" and set a new course. Never has any nation been in this position. Nazi Germany was forced to face their heart of darkness only by military defeat. Soviet Russia collapsed under the weight of its own unworkability. But now, for the "land of the free" to finally earn that name and claim our true inheritance, we must face what is perhaps the most profound betrayal in our 200 year history.

A Straussian Waltz Down a Slippery Slope

Although we would like to believe that the principles that guided America's founding fathers are still in operation, the sad truth is that the principles of truth, justice and transparency have been overridden by a new operating system called "neo-conservatism" which is neither "neo" nor conservative. The "neocon" is actually a very old con called "the end justifies the means." And that brings us to Leo Strauss, the man considered the "founding father" of neoconservatism.

Leo Strauss, who was born in Germany and who taught at the University of Chicago from 1949-69, brought Machiavelli into the machine age. He unabashedly believed in manipulation and deception, all of which he deemed necessary to rule the unruly masses. According to Shadia Drury, author of Leo Strauss and the American Right, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and there is only one natural right -- the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."

Strauss was a strong believer in religion - as a way of imposing "moral law" on the populace, who would otherwise be out of control. He would have agreed with Marx that religion was the "opiate of the masses," only he had no qualms about being a drug dealer. The rulers, of course, didn't have to live by the rules of religion. Says Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine: "Neoconservatives are pro-religion even though they themselves may not be believers."

In the tradition of Thomas Hobbes, Strauss believed humans are inherently evil and need strong external control - and an external enemy. As he once wrote, "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united - and they can only be united against other people."

According to Drury, Strauss believed that "if no external threat exists, one has to be manufactured." Interestingly enough, Strauss's neocon disciples William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle (along with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld) helped found a think tank called the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in the 1990s. A PNAC document, Rebuilding America's Defenses has been a guiding force for the Bush-Cheney White House. According to PNAC, the only way to assure America's safety in the 21st century is by being the only superpower on the block, what they referred to as Pax Americana. Of course, since the Iraq War many around the world are calling it a "Pox Americana."

Perhaps the most telling quote in the Rebuilding America's Defenses document refers to needing a "catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" to mobilize the masses for this undertaking (pun intended). The neocons insist this was an innocuous quote taken out of context. However, when seen in the context of Leo Strauss's core beliefs, it's easy to make the connection and see the 9/11 attacks as the "catalyzing event" that launched the so-called "war on terror." In fact, author and theologian David Ray Griffin called his sober account debunking the official 9/11 story The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11. Whether or not the attacks were an "inside job," they were certainly used in classic Straussian fashion to create national unity and control through perpetual war.

Griffin, a well-respected mainstream theologian who has written and edited 30 books, contends that the official 9/11 story has been given the "halo of religious mythology." Like the infallibility of the Pope in the Church or the primacy of matter in scientific materialism, questioning the official 9/11 story is taboo. Consequently, most people fail to see the red flags that are literally in plain sight:

The official story was in place within 48 hours of the event, before any investigation was undertaken.

The official "remedy," the so-called Patriot Act (a 342-page document that many legislators signed without reading), appeared as if by magic and was ratified in an atmosphere of panic - right on the heels of Democratic legislators receiving packets of deadly anthrax, a crime that has never been "solved."

No satisfactory explanation has ever been given as to how and why the world's most sophisticated air defense system "stood down" in the most deadly attacks ever on American soil. And no one was held accountable.

Transcripts of testimony released at the insistence of 9/11 families - from firefighters, police and eyewitnesses - mention over and over again a "series of explosions" and the towers coming down in their tracks, "just like a planned demolition."

When there finally was an investigation, only testimony supporting the official version of the story was allowed. Imagine, if you will, a court case where there was no conflicting evidence ... case closed.

Time to Face Our Own Not-Seeism

The fact that these blatant contradictions have never been officially addressed stands as stark testimony as to how well weapons of mass-distraction have been used to keep the official story in place. Yes, the mass media has been complicit in failing to present an alternative view, and in marginalizing anyone suggesting otherwise as a "conspiracy nut." But it goes far deeper than that. The persistent "invisible belief" in America's intrinsic goodness makes it incomprehensible that the government in the "land of the free" would perpetrate something that horrendous against its own citizens. Like the Germans who heard about the death camps and were told it was "American propaganda," most Americans won't question the official story because the horrendous implications are too awful to contemplate. But the "Not See" era is about to end.

I'm going to apologize in advance for using a distasteful metaphor that many of you will find repugnant. But since this is the image that keeps coming to mind, I'm going to have to risk it. Think back when you were in college. You were at a party and had a little too much to drink. You're feeling wobbly and a bit nauseous. You are on the teeter-totter of a decision - to throw up or not to throw up. Throwing up. Ugh. You don't want to do it, it's disgusting. But then you realize, you have to do it. It is something the body is telling you to do, and you also know that when you've expelled the mess you will feel so much better.

That is where our body politic is today. We've literally had it up to here. But we've been reluctant to expel the toxins for all to see. Last year at this time, I had contracted to write a story on David Ray Griffin called Unquestioned Answers: A Non-Conspiracy Theorist Takes Aim at the Official 9/11 Story for a local mainstream publication. In the six weeks from the time the editor reluctantly okayed the story until the time I handed it in, she had undergone a change of mind. She told me, "I have come to believe the American government did indeed have something to do with the attacks, and the very thought of it makes me sick to my stomach."

Having to swallow what we've been asked to swallow over the past several years, purging might be the very best cure. So now the question is, what to do and how to do it?

There seem to be two approaches to the 9/11 issue. One involves jumping into the details of the mystery itself and trying to figure out specifically what happened. The problem here is what has already occurred - squabbling about the details, one group of believers in one conspiracy theory accusing another of spreading disinformation.

The other approach is the one I took with the David Ray Griffin article I published last year. Focus on stepping outside the official story, removing its "halo" and asking if indeed, it is the likeliest story. Here's why. No amount of "evidence" will convince anybody unless they are open to the possibility of the premise. The breakthrough will occur when a critical mass of people begin to put it together for themselves.

What opened me to a premise I was - like David Ray Griffin - initially closed to was reading about the "false flag" operations done by NATO during the Cold War and those like Operation Northwoods that was proposed but not initiated here (you can read brief accounts about those in the above-linked article on David Ray Griffin). When I combined this information with the realization I'd already come to - that Bush, Cheney, Rove & Company were capable of anything they could get away with - I had bridged the gap.

Time to Cut Off the Tale That's Been Wagging the Dog

What we face right now is perhaps the greatest opportunity for freedom yet experienced in America. It is an invitation to become "political adults" and step outside the puppet show called electoral politics and take a look at the inner workings behind the "irony curtain." It is here - and only here - that transformational change can take place. It's as big a step as our Founding Fathers made "eleven score and eleven" years ago by declaring themselves sovereign and government a servant.

We do this by educating ourselves and taking heart that so many people are awakening a new field of understanding now. There are many sites but here is a good one to start with because it offers a surprising list of well-known people in all areas of endeavor who question the official tale that has been wagging the dog for the past five years. Another excellent educational site is Mark Robinowitz's Oil Empire site because he offers some very sharp distinctions for sniffing out the truth when there are many different stories.

Finally, we must address this undressing of the cloak of secrecy with healing intent. In other words, we must be able not just to picture but to "feel" what it will feel like to no longer have to fear our own government. We must allow ourselves to see those inside the military, government and intelligence services who have not been "ethically-cleansed" coming forward with the missing pieces of the true story. We must begin now to create a "container" for truth, reconciliation and healing.

Every indication is that there are individuals at all levels of government and influence who are waiting only for a critical mass of Americans to be able to "hold" the true story. Once there is a "listening" for the truth, the truth will out. We encourage the truth through our own courage, and by speaking about politics outside the box as matter-of-factly as the media speaks about politics inside the box.

The simple secret to bringing down the wall of lies is this. When enough people see through the wall, it will cease to exist.

May "Good" bless us all.


Swami Beyondananda © 2007

[First posted 17 April 2007, reposted 11 September 2014]

Pitching for the Swami (Again)

The person I most enjoy promoting when I'm not promoting myself is Swami Beyondananda aka Steve Bhaerman. He never fails to perk me up when I'm feeling blah. Let the good Swami show you how to activate your clown chakra...



Lose Weightiness Now!

"I lost weightiness ... ask me how!" ~ Swami Beyondananda

In these stressful times, it's easy to gain weightiness. Weightiness gain is not your fault!

Work ... the economy ... and now the election season ... and pretty soon ... yes, that's right. You've gained weightiness. Well, if gravity's got you down, let levity lift you up!

Here are just some of the serious problems that can be caused by overweightiness:

* Irregularhilarity.
* Humorrhoids.
* Irony deficiency.
* Truth decay.

Absolutely FREE here is Swami's 5 step program to lose weightiness now!

1. Take a vow of levity! Remember, levity will help you rise above whatever is bringing you down. In a toxic situation? Laughter will keep you from taking it poisonally. Feel the levitational pull uplifting the corners of your mouth into a smile. You want to uplift humankind? Uplift your face first! Here is the levity vow: "All for fun ... and fun for all!"

2. Don't Get Even - Get Odd. Instead of staying stuck in dueling dualities, use your one-of-a-kindness to find the odd solution that beats the heck out of getting even.

3. When You See a Sacred Cow Milk It For All It's Worth. When our sacred cows give the milk of human kindness, we are fortified to take the bull by the horns.

4. Enlighten Your Load. Is your life stuffed with stuff? Unstuff it! Stuff is a major cause of weightiness. You'll be surprised that the more liquid you get, the more solid you will feel.

5. Wake Up Laughing, and Wise Up Loving. Time to wake up. You'll never lose weightiness if you keep hitting snooze. Wake up with a laugh, and end the day with an embrace, and if you are alone ... embrace yourself, and immerse yourself in a warm solution of love.

And in addition to these five steps toward fool-realization, a vital laugh force, and fully opened clown chakra, here are four things you can do every day!

Daily Weightiness Loss Exercise Plan.

1. Wake up laughing. As Swami says, "If you wake up with a funny feeling ... go with it." If you don't immediately laugh upon rising, then rise and start laughing. Nothing funny? Go look in the bathroom mirror. If you're still not laughing, pretend you're looking at someone else. Do that, and you'll laugh.

2. Do Ha-Ha-Ha Breaths. Very important to move the laugh force early in the day to insure regularhilarity. So, we use the vowel sounds, and we put a h- in front of it ... so we begin way up here at the top of our heads with a hee-hee-hee. Then we move down to the throat and we chuckle a heh-heh-heh. Next, down to the heart for some hearty laughter, ha-ha-ha, and now the belly laugh ho-ho-ho. and way down to the bottom hoo-hoo-hoo ... and now move the vowel sounds back up hoo-hoo-hoo, ho-ho-ho, ha-ha-ha, heh-heh-heh, hee-hee-hee ... ah, nothing like a good vowel movement early in the day.

3. Enlighten Up the News. You want to know where most weightiness gain occurs? In the morning, eating breakfast and watching the news or reading the paper. Why? All the studies are conclusive: The news puts on weightiness, and is a major factor in truth decay. That's why we recommend using mental floss after every serving of mainstream media. Just put your thumb and forefinger about six inches from each ear. Ready? Then, with a gentle back and forth motion, dislodge all the illogical logic, all the petrified bullshit, and every dysfunctional belief masquerading as reality. Ahhh ... you will feel so much better. Your synapses will start synapping again.

4. Play at Work, Work at Play. You know what the secret of a happy life is? To be able to answer yes to the question, "From this you make a living?" If you aren't doing what you love - or at least loving what you do - you are slathering on pounds of excess weightiness! So ... if you can't be with the work you love, love the work you're with. And if you hate the work you're with, love hating it. Invent a hilarious character, and use that character to complain loudly about everything you hate. Then laugh.

Note: If you begin feeling lightheaded due to sudden weightiness loss, simply surrender to the levitational pull. If symptoms of ascension continue, consult your metaphysician.

Help Others Lose Weightiness Too!

During this contentious election season where it's hard to escape barking dogmas and dueling dualities - not to mention feud poisoning - it's so very important to maintain regularhilarity. That's why we've extended Swami's Cosmic Comedy Specials throughout our upcoming Wake Up Laughing Wise Up Loving Tour.

First of all, you can order the Fool Enchilada Special for the very special price of just $59 (includes U.S. shipping) and get $112 value! That's more laughs per penny than the high-priced laughsitive!

And ... if you want to go audio only, you can order all four of Swami's hilarious CDs for just $39 (includes U.S. shipping).

If you want to immerse yourself in the what's, how's and why's of creating cosmic comedy, there is the Wake Up Laughing e-book, AND a four hour teleclass A Course In Laughter available for download for just $15.

And ... if you're in a really generous mood, you can be part of our Buddysattva program and get the Wake Up Laughing e-book for a dozen of your friends. Hey, that hole in the Bozone Layer that has compromised our planet's clown chakra can't heal without your help!

And remember, when it comes to laughter what goes around, comes around. The laugh you save may be your own!

Check out Swami Beyondanda's Ompage!

[First posted 1 October 2010]

Swami Beyondananda’s State of the Universe 2015

Cosmic Comic Pundit Swami Beyondananda Calls for Evolutionary Upwising

“Either we will have an awakening, or there will be a wake.”  ~ Swami Beyondananda

Greetings, Mirthlings!

Welcome to the state of the Universe — which is of course, everchanging, same as always.

Here we are once again in the here and now, just like last year at this time.

So … are you finally ready to live in the now?

Good.  We have been waiting for you.  What took you so long?

With time rapidly becoming a thing of the past (the calendar’s days are numbered, you know) people are living in the now like never before. Listen, I know. I was a futurist in a past life. But now, I have no time for time. I am living all the time in the Timeless Now. I think they call that All-Timers.

Meanwhile, here on Earth — or as it is known throughout the galaxies, the Comedy Channel — a critical mass of the heretofore uncritical masses are awakening to a serious truth.  There’s something funny going on.

Take politics — please.

America’s two political parties spent $4 billion on the last election and it worked — the American people were soundly defeated.  Once again the Golden Rule was overruled by the rule of gold, and the Constitution overrun by the prostitution.  The result is government in greedlock and rule by a one-party system where we the people haven’t been invited to the party.

We don’t exactly have a name for this new system, although I think Futilism describes it pretty well.  Thanks to government for hire, voting has devolved into an act of futility.  Whether we vote Democratic or Republican, we seem to end up with Dempublicrats running things.

Now some mystics — pessimystics they are called — would look at this shituation and see a glass 95% empty.  As an optimystic I take the exact opposite position. I see a glass 5% full.

Yes, there is good news.

An evolutionary upwising is afoot, and left and right are coming front-and-center around a new common sense consensus.

In Colorado and now two other states, this has meant legalizing cannabis.  So what does this mean, other than in the Mile High State you can now legally get a mile higher?  For one thing it means a blooming economy selling transcendental medication.  Science is now finding that humans have THC receptors in the part of the brain called the “hippiecampus”.  When this area is stimulated, people see farce fields and laugh at invisible jokes.

There’s an old saying — and I know it because I myself made it up many lifetimes ago — the truth shall upset you free.  Once again in 2014, inconvenient truths exposed convenient lies. For example, now everyone knows our government is spying on us, and Public Enemy Number One appears to be none other than — the public.  Maybe the NSA needs to be balanced out by another three-letter organization, the ICU — Independent Citizens United, where citizens who intensively care about the rule of law can say, “I see you” and begin to oversee what we have until now chosen to overlook.

From Monotheism to Stereotheism, and a REAL Conspiracy

There was another sign of the upwising in 2014.  Pope Francis took a stand for social justice, making the Catholic Church more non-dominational.  And boy, are those purebred dogma breeders upset!  It just goes to show that maybe you CAN teach an old dogma, new tricks.

Maybe monotheism is evolving into stereotheism, where the same truth comes from multiple speakers, in many different languages, and some with no language at all.

After all, there is no harm in harmony, and no sin in synergy.  And in the end, every dogma must answer to the same Master.  Maybe if religions evolve in this way, John Lennon could imagine “no religion too” becoming “all religions true.”

And for those of us who want peace in the Middle East?

Let us first try peace in the Middle West.  A first step is to quiet our own barking dogmas, and listen to the silence.  Instead of just following the herd, follow the unheard … right into your own heart.  Imagine, Americans from all tribes coming into the same space of silence, and breathing together.  Now that would be a REAL conspiracy, and could expose and help us overgrow the con’s piracy we have now.

The evolutionary upwising calls on people everywhere to rise above the identity issues that each side serves up as dogma chow, and instead focus on the identical issues we face now — like being passengers and crew on Spaceship Earth, citizens and denizens of Gaia.

So, come on you Gaians!

Time to show your species’ pride.  And time to evolve from children of God to adults of Good.  Yes, I know.  We are collectively in this awkward tween phase called addled-essence.  Our essence has been addled by obsolete myth-conceptions.

A Three-Step Plan to Launch the Upwising

So, how do we un-addle our essence?  How do we launch this upwising to turn the funk into function, and leave the junk at the junction?

I’m glad I asked that question.

I have created a three-step program that is mathematically proven to work four times faster than 12-step.

If we want to have an upwising, we must wake up … wise up … and show up.

We must wake up to the awful truth and the awesome opportunity.  Yes the world is in serious condition, largely due to our conditioning to be serious.  Seriously.

And if the problem is serious, then the solution has to be humorous, right?  So we wake up laughing as we recognize that we’ve been running around in circles, chasing our tales.  These tales usually tell us that happiness is somewhere “out there”. It’s a sure sign of the upwising when those who’ve been in hot pursuit of happiness get struck by enlightening and realize, “Gee, I must have run right past it.”

And in this moment of fool-realization, we fully realize our foolishness and laugh in our own face.  This is called self-facing laughter, and it helps us illuminate our world from the inside out.  People ask me all the time, “How can I uplift humanity?” I take one look at their doomy and gloomy expressions and I say, “You can begin by uplifting the corners of your mouth in a smile.” When you feel the levitational pull giving you a natural face-lift, you are literally overcoming gravity.

Hearty laughter brings us from the static of the head to the ecstatic of the heart, and we take the second step to upwising — we wise up loving.  It has been said that the more we expand our hearts the less we will need to shrink our heads.  Beliefs lie in our head, love lives in our heart.  So … are you going to believe those lies?  Or live that love?  When you sacrifice being happy for being right, you know what they call it?  Smartyrdom.

With laughter and love helping us wise to the occasion, we take the third step.  We show up, living and giving.  Each of us has been given a special gift, just for entering.  So you are already a winner.  We are all here to let our light fully shine — the enlightened ones call this full-filament.  It is true that the unexamined life is not worth living, and equally true that the unlived life is not worth examining.  To “show up” means to live life fully, and foolly, laughing all the way.  Make a bucket list of all the undertakings you wish to undertake before being overtaken by the undertaker.  Express your unique love in the world, and make your life a work of heart.

Bring your gift to the party, and show up for the greatest show on earth — REALITY!  You know, reality.  That’s reality TV without the TV.  What a movie we’re in!  A cast of 7 billion, and all of humanity is in the hero’s role.  And the whole world is on the edge of its seat.  Will we achieve critical mass before we reach critical massacre?  Will there be an awakening, or a wake?

As the great baseball player / philosopher Willie Mays once said, “That’s what we’re going to play the game to find out.”

I end this 2015 State of the Universe with good news.  When it comes to transformation, we have all the time in the world. And that time is now.

May we wake up laughing and leave laughter in our wake.

© Copyright 2015 Steve Bhaerman.  All rights reserved.

If you’d like to wake up laughing, why not enroll in the Wake Up Laughing class?

Swami Beyondananda is a noted social uncommontator and spiritual political pundit (If anyone punned it, Swami punned it first) and is the alter ego and brainchild of author and humorist Steve Bhaerman.  Steve and Swami can be found at www.wakeuplaughing.com and on Twitter @swamibe.