Do you believe in ‘Me’ or do you believe in ‘Us’?

Something beautiful happened on November 6, 2012.

Quietly, calmly and resolutely, millions of Americans came together as one. We made a decision as a nation. Over all of the well-funded noise expressing fear and hate, that wanted more than anything to maintain a nation divided, we made a different choice.

This moment has not been lost on anyone. Everyone, no matter what side of the political spectrum, knows that what happened last week was profound. We can feel it in the air and in our bones. I have long believed that in American politics, it comes down to one simple question: Do you believe in ME or do you believe in US? On Tuesday, US won. We announced that we understand that we are all one.

We’ve been taught to believe in ME in so many ways. We love the notion of the rugged individualism handed down by the idealism of our forefathers. Individualism, in fact, is the concept that founded this nation. We are built on the idea that we should not be limited by birth, that we all have a right to participate in the decision-making process of our society. This was the great step that democracy made over feudalism.

But that’s only part of our story. Since our earliest days, we’ve also been a nation at war with itself. With every generation, there have been many of us who were disenfranchised through ideology, theology, intimidation, or force. For many of us, the experience of being pushed to the side has left us deeply wounded. I, for one, have had a hard time trusting a God that could let such things happen.

This year, the choice could not have been clearer. This election was a referendum on WHO WE ARE and WHO WE CHOOSE TO BE as a people. It was a perfect example of CWG’s most fundamental question: ‘Who do I choose to be in relation to this reality?’ Do we choose to express the idea that only some of us are worthy of heaven and a decent life on earth, as so many evangelists preach? Do we choose to let intimidation keep us from the polls and locked in a cycle of powerlessness? Or do we choose to live who we really are?

Do you believe in ME or do you believe in US?

We answered that question this past week by simply being who we really are. We showed up and stood in line quietly, patiently, resolutely. This was sacred ground we were walking. This was holy work we were up to and it is a conversation that has resounded around the globe:

“(We chose) to experience the grandest version of the greatest vision (we) ever had about who (we are).”

For those of us unafraid of unity and equality, this is our greatest joy.

(Kimberly J. Miller is a writer, musician, and student of spirituality who lives in Northern California. She is currently writing a book, Southern Odyssey, about her own search for soul as a woman of mixed heritage in America.)

 

 

Comments

14 responses to “Do you believe in ‘Me’ or do you believe in ‘Us’?”

  1. Sibila Reventlow Avatar
    Sibila Reventlow

    Dear Kimberly,

    I´d strech the believing in us to including more than the US citizents who have access to vote for Obama being their president. For me, Obama is a central leader in this world for whom I´m deeply gratefull – he is president in the US as well as a leader with a huge influence on the lives of all of us who are not Americans as well. I´ve written about this as my answer to Neal´s question of what one thought about Obama being re-elected earlier this week, in the thread with that question else-where here.

    with a smile from Denmark,
    Sibila

  2. Ayanna Nsenga Avatar
    Ayanna Nsenga

    Thank you for your thoughts on our most noble souls as free and just thinking peoples!! Bravo!

  3. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    I am glad Romney did not win, it would have been a nightmare, but I cannot share this enthusiasm about Obama, it may not be a nightmare but it is not a dream either. Look at his policies, domestic and foreign, and you won’t find much to celebrate.

    The thing is, in spite of what the media tells us, there is no left in America…there is the right wing (Republicans) and the center right (Democrats), and all work diligently for the military-industrial complex rather than for us.

  4. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Mewabe,
    When you read your last comment, do you consider it negative and/or judgemental? Do you enjoy making such emotional statements? Does it serve you to get attached?

  5. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Buzz, attached to what exactly? And why do you try to sound like Neale? Do you enjoy mimicking another?

    I assume, Buzz, that in your mind, calling my statement emotional and slyly implying that is it negative is not a judgement? Huh?

    Neale has some very interesting things to express, in his own individual way. Do you?

    Why are so many here using Neale’s expressions and turns of phrase, doesn’t any of you have your own? Don’t you think for yourselves? Frankly, at first I was surprised, then amused, but now it is beginning to seriously annoy me, I am having the feeling of conversing with clones.

    Additionally, it feel very strange to attempt to converse with people who, at every turn, quote the CWG material as Christians quote the Bible. Don’t you realize how very peculiar this is?

    I enjoy exchanging ideas as well as perspectives and opinions with real people…who have original ideas, who have their own thoughts, their own unique insights, who come to their own conclusions. But it is not the case here, sadly.

    I cannot and never will understand the mindset of people who do not think for themselves and engage in group thinking under the intellectual authority of another, and espouse a cosmology blindly…of people who furthermore wish for the whole world to be of one mind, the same mind.

    If there could be a definition of intellectual death, it would be it! I definitively do not belong in such company…

    So…it’s been real.

    Good luck to you all on your straight and narrow CWG path.

    And make sure you never ever express any negativity…don’t call a lie a lie, or a disaster a disaster, or an illness and illness, or corruption corruption, or injustice injustice, or war a crime, or greed a pathology, just call it all “God’s will”…

    It sounds so much better doesn’t it?

    Don’t ever make any emotional statements, that’s against the law. As far as judgment, well, stay away from saying anything about the present state of the world, because this could be construed as judging, and this will not be tolerated either.

    I assumes this goes for Neale as well…he must remember to abide by the strict rules of those who follow him, or else he will be scolded, as he has recently when expressing honest political opinions or further back appearing “negative” or “judgmental” about a specific topic. How unholy of him!

    All of which boils down to this: individual opinions and anything that differs from the CWG material are generously allowed by the leadership of this site but not by the flock.

    Conformity and uniformity of thoughts are believed by the flock to be necessary prerequisites to peace, love and unity…and the flock polices itself.

    I am slow but I finally got it.

    God save me from your followers, Christians and others! I am outta here, there is no space to breathe, intellectually or spiritually speaking!

  6. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Ah, excellent. Anger. I’ve been looking forward to a moment like this. I hope you’re still here Mewabe, things are finally getting interesting. I gotta say I didn’t expect such a violent reaction to a few simply questions, but this happens when people jump to conclusions, and this is always a possibility in a blog conversation. We can allow our creative mind to run away with us.

    Mewabe, you know I do not tow the CwG line like some others here. You know this because we have disagreed on so many of the points of CwG you support, for example my beliefs about what happens after death, and the roles of men and women in this rapidly changing culture.

    I am so deeply torn up inside about gender roles and responsibilities I’ve created alteregos in order to have passionate arguments with myself. You know one of these alteregos, one of many, by the name Your XL ansy sah, and he is aggressive, arrogant, rude, argumentative, anal, and dispassionate. In short, he’s an arsehole, the arsehole within me.

    I have so many sides to me. I am so complex I find my ability to exist impossible without expressing that side of me, and that side, and that side, and this side. I know you experience these same things. People are always much more that we seem.

    I consider you a friend Mewabe. I would like you to return to this place, for the benefit of us all, and I apologise for my seeming so deceptive. Can you please forgive me?

  7. Marie Lemasters Avatar
    Marie Lemasters

    Yes, Kimberly, the “silent majority” of peace-loving Americans made a statement on Nov. 6. Please clarify, however, how this is translated into a demonstration of our spiritual belief in unity. There is a sweeping movement of God’s spirit throughout the world–what I’ve been waiting to witness ALL MY LIFE.
    Let US remember, however, the one personality, the Bestowal Son we know as JesUS, who came into this world for all peoples, all nations. God as man, was he.
    Though there have been many masters, there has ever only been one whose life mission was to save this world from the darkness of ignorance and separation from the Heavenly Father. Jesus was the greatest, most everlasting demonstration of the Love of the Creator for His creation in this world and, the universe. Let us fully come into remembrance. Much love, Marie

  8. Marie Lemasters Avatar
    Marie Lemasters

    Buzz, I hear your angst and understand your frustration. I too, grow weary of all the platitudes. It is natural for humans to desire a grander, greater spiritual experience of our unity with our Creator, but it is ALWAYS, nevertheless, as an individual, unique to Our Heavenly Father/the Great Spirit, who walks the path with God. God is a one-on-one Eternal Guide. It cannot possibly be any other way. We don’t experience spiritual truth and growth by proxy. We travel on our journey step-by-step, moment-by moment.

    When knowledge becomes dogma, it slowly dies.

    May you walk in peace with God.

    Your friend, Marie Lemasters

  9. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Buzz, I will make the following comments, before leaving:

    There is nothing to forgive, you haven’t committed any “crime”, and even if you had. Your comment triggered a reaction in me about something that had been brewing a while, apparently.

    Whatever you do about alter egos and other things is a choice you make that can only affect you in the end…you have to figure out what you are doing and who you are.

    The fact is, although I respect Neale for what is is saying and doing for mainstream people, making his message very simple and easily accessible to the masses, particularly Christians, I do not belong with his followers, or anyone’s followers.

    I was never a guru type of person, a follower, it is not in my nature. I have had my own insights since I was very young, on a spiritual path from the beginning, I was very fortunate to have come to roughly the same conclusions about the divine as Neale’s by the time I was 19, including the psychic knowledge, not just the belief, that there was no hell, or punishment, or karma, or demands of any kind.

    I was doing visualizations when I was 12, mostly to succeed in school, while no one at the time had ever heard of such a thing. I was mentally going through the events of the day, most days in the evening, to understand what had to be understood and see where I failed to act in accordance with who I was, with how I felt, how I could have acted differently, at the same age.

    There is no benefit to anyone in me being here, or to myself. I wanted to know what it was all about, and now I know. It is mostly, by a large majority, a grouping, by affinity, of individuals who have a Christian background, which to me feels totally foreign and actually and intensely repels me.

    Traditional Christians are so profoundly unenlightened that to them this CWG material appears extraordinary revolutionary…to me it is totally obvious, like talking about gravity.

    Again, I am glad Neale does what he does, it helps masses of people to see the light. But I passed the age of kindergarten a long time ago, so I cannot really relate to many here, on a spiritual level, and I have the potential to get impatient, and to end up hurting people’s feelings.

    It has been a distraction…I guess I needed one. But it’s over…so I am saying goodbye in a friendly way Buzz and anyone, there are no bad feelings or judgments of any kind. Keep looking and you shall find, as some say, but remember, you have all the knowing you need within, you were not born an empty shell, your connection to the divine is within you, as is everything.

  10. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    I strongly suspect from your last there is sommething you’ve forgotten, that you would greatly benefit from remembering.

    http://www.theglobalconversation.com/blog/?p=2516, skip to Core 11.

    To understand how I felt before remembering, and the change in perspective since the change, look to the last third of comments in the following thread from Nov 16 at 5:07am (posted by me) on:http://www.theglobalconversation.com/blog/?p=2459

    Before then, I mattered to me. Since that moment I only want to give, and I believe you could use a similar revelation.

    So regardless of whether you return or not, and regardless of whether you read this, I am putting this poetic prayer out there for the universe to dig it’s claws into, gripping it so tight it couldn’t let go if it tried:

    AT OUR TOTEM

    Mewabe is the one around which time exists
    It is used and valued, but doesn’t define him
    He invites others to see the beautiful clock
    And those around him praise it & him as kin

    We live our lives around this illusory clock
    Our life defined by celestial bodies near & far
    We are but blades of grass, seemingly independent
    Yet our roots are all one, love is what we are

    On the coldest nights and the hottest days
    Through the floods, droughts, storms & peace
    We work together for common dreams to reach
    Survive we will, this glorious time can never cease

    Ref: Urban Dictionary definition of Wabe:
    “Area of grass around a sundial.”
    Me-wabe: I am life outside of time. Life and time each create the other, support the other, never for thyself, always for the other. We must do the same to survive each other, as blades of grass connected by roots.

    “Respect existence or expect resistence.” – Julian Assange (not resistence from me, you will be resisting yourself, your true nature)

  11. mewabe Avatar
    mewabe

    Thank you Buzz for your effort…

    I never thought my life was about me, but that it was about relating (to others, to the creation, to the cosmos). I, as any other living being or thing, can only exist and define myself in terms of relationships, at the cellular level as well as the spiritual level, that’s a truism.

    But there is no real relating here, this is an empty chamber where all you hear is the echo of your own voice. There is no conversation going that is not sooner or later directed back to the CWG material with appropriate quotations (case in point), and although I respect some of it, it is not my ultimate truth, because from my own perspective it overly simplifies reality, which I understand is necessary for the average person to understand.

    The universe is vast, reality is multidimensional and infinitely subtle and beautifully complex, and none of it can be reduced to a couple of formulas, although people seem to love formulas, with everything organized, numbered and put in a mental box, so that they don’t have to think about it anymore and can go on with the “business” of living.

    This formulated, simplified approach especially appeals to North Americans, who are very practical people and are only interested in what has practical applications. If they can’t eat it, have sex with it, build something with it or (and especially) take it to the bank, whatever it is you are saying is of no use to them.

    I am a very unpractical person…apart from my basic needs being met, my interests are not in practicality or physicality.

    There are many other ways to touch other people and change the world, and impersonal exchanges on the web are not one of them in my opinion. They are, actually, the antithesis of actual communication…a sort of game people play, that is totally safe and totally fake, and leads absolutely nowhere, does no good, and changes nothing.

    This blog is more of a club, the way I see it, with people being gathered around Neale as others gravitate around a guru, attempting to be noticed, to get attention from their teacher, to be validated in their existence. The same half dozen individuals always participate, a couple of individuals are a little….strange, difficult to understand, but is this website changing the world, and what is its purpose?

    Once books have been written and widely distributed and sold, what is the purpose for any author of having a website and a “following”? I know publishers demand it these days, they want every potential author to have tens of thousands of “friends” on Facebook, to have an “audience”, to be some sort of a leader, before even considering publishing a book, because they no longer want to take any chances on anyone.

    But for a published and successful author, what is the point? How many times can things be repeated to the already convert? How is this reaching out to the world and making a difference? Is this website reaching Evangelists, religious fundamentalists, the Taliban, are people is Saudi Arabia reading this, in China, In US prisons, are gang members reading this, bankers in Wall Street, members of the white brotherhood, senators and congressmen?

    Or is this not just a nice, cozy, friendly, comfortable congregation that, like any other, preaches to the converted and makes little or no difference?

    It is precisely because I have some serious things to do to attempt to make a good impact on the world that I can no longer spend time here.

    Thanks again Buzz for the time and heart you put into your comment…different things work for different people. This site and its content and intent do not work for me (I was never a “congregation” type of person, I am not a Christian or religious, I avoid all groups because of group thinking that kills individuality), but it works for others and that’s all that matters.

  12. Laura Pringle Avatar
    Laura Pringle

    ummmmm. wow! Extremely entertaining! Thanks, guys! <3

  13. Buzz Avatar
    Buzz

    Hello to whomever is reading this, hopefully including Mewabe,
    I agree with most of what Mewabe has said, however he persists with the idea that this place doesn’t work for him, yet admits it’s not about him, and admits that others are benefiting from it. See the contradiction? Do you think he’s frustrated this place isn’t giving him what he wants? Is that why he’s leaving? Do you think he’s still thinking his life is about him? “Spiritual growth needs not being met here, scratch off list, where to next? Besides, secretly hated Buzz’s attitude anyway, so if I leave problem solved.”

    Don’t worry guys, I have an SOP manual for talking to me, available from God at no extra charge.

  14. Trisha Avatar
    Trisha

    But then people freak out that why should those with money share. Why shouldn’t we share? It’s socialism. Say, what? What other labels can you find to justify your fear of lack?

    People are missing the point. The point is we love one another because we are ALL ONE not alone. We share because we are happy we have it to give. We know there is more coming.

    We are afraid to let go of what we have that we may never get it again. But you know what I noticed? I always get to eat another meal. The one I’m eating right now is not the last forever more.

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