Our task is essentially inquiry, raising issues so that you and I can examine our working assumptions about reality. If our story was reality, we would have peace on earth. Our story is a warp, a skew, a slant, a mimic, a counterfeit, a-poor-reflection-in-a-dirty-mirror view of reality. We are not realists. We wouldn't know reality if we saw it right in front of us, because our filtered dark glasses put a spin on everything we see.

Please join me in questioning everything you see. The map is not the territory. All we see is labels, symbols, representations, snapshots. The symbol is not the thing. The word €water€ is not wet. €God€ is not just a word, but a slanted word. A warped word. A false word. If you and knew what the word God€ meant we would be in absolute bliss. Our youth don't know that the word €God€ means bliss, or they wouldn't be looking for it in a bottle, in a racy car, in the top grade in class, in fashion genes, in rat music, in a substance, in a ski trip, or in someone's body.
Where do you think ecstasy is? That is the central question in life. Does it exist? Does it exist every moment? Does bliss depend on what I am doing, what I have or who I know?
What does bliss have to do with anxiety? We have tons of stress, don't we? Suppose there is an inevitable connection between stress and bliss? Wouldn't that be worth understanding? How to exchange ever-present stress for ever-elusive bliss? That is our task and challenge. But how?

Just suppose I am a conduit for bringing down the Infinite Good into this physical universe? Just suppose I am a radio transmitter through which the Music of the Spheres can be heard? Just suppose I am a computer which can download anything from the Infinite? Suppose I am an energy conductor between the polarities? We are hard-wired for oneness, or faith in and awareness of oneness and Eternity.

€Faith is an act, an intention, a project, something that makes you, in leaping into the future, go so far, far, far ahead that you shoot clean out of time and right into Eternity, which is not the end of time or a whole lot of time or unending time, but timelessness, the Eternal Now.€ --Joanna Russ

Most people would agree that the experience of faith is immeasurable. Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of "Why We Believe What We Believe," begs to differ. He's working on ways to track how the human brain processes religion and spirituality, all part of new field called neuro-theology. Newberg took brain-scanning technology and turned it toward the spiritual: Franciscan nuns, Tibetan Buddhists, and Pentecostal Christians. The results were surprising, says Newberg, "When we think of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, we see a tremendous similarity across practices and across traditions." The frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our attention in prayer and meditation. The parietal lobe, located near the backs of our skulls, is the seat of our sensory information; Newberg says it's involved in that feeling of becoming part of something greater than oneself. Take a moment to reflect on what you have faith in, and how it interacts with your experience of eternity. (Charity Focus)

The focus (charge or energy) that leads to bliss and immortality arises from thoughts, feelings, actions and perceptions that are shareable. Anything that is in conflict with itself or others is not shareable and bleeds our energy, love, attention, power and results. That is why anxiety is draining and an anti-life force, unless it is understood and transformed. Anxiety tells us that we have non-shareable attachments in our lives called stressful thoughts. But more importantly, it tells us that on another there is an awareness which is an absolutely shareable, absolutely life-sustaining, absolutely creative, absolutely blissful and absolutely immortal.
Our toxic habits (such as criticizing, complaining, nagging, blaming, threatening, punishing and bribing) are non-shareable and energy-bleeding unless, unless they are turned around. Criticism, for example, can become self-evaluation or expanded awareness. Blame can become an occasion for acceptance, understanding and reunion. What you don't like or want can be turned around and realized to be a hidden message about what you do want. Punishment can become an occasion for real discipline, which means learning. Punishment as infliction of pain is not shareable or growth-producing. Resistance, opposition and retaliation can be turned into release, flow, or harmony.

Shareable means that we are the same inside as outside, that there are no dirty little secrets, judgments, fears, or addictions which divide and bleed out energy. We are designed to be completely harmonious or coherent. We are designed to flow in spirals and vortexes like a rose, pine cone, stream, or galaxy. Everything in nature flows in compatible spirals. That is why we need to walk barefoot in forests, sit under old trees, stand near waterfalls or bubbling streams, do connected breathing, chant, sing, do yoga, listen to classical music, eat live foods, constantly give thanks in everything that happens, or hum a tone like Middle C.

When we make friends with all of our symptoms, especially anxiety, we transcend the conflicted energy of our inner and outer wars, and begin to flow again. In Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, demonstates that flow is another word for life itself. Flow occurs when there is shareability or harmony in our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions and actions.