February 19, 2018
The Change the World Initiative was begun in February 2015 as a daily focus reminder for all of us to set our intentions in motion to Change the World we live in to a more balanced and humane perspective. (Please see Installment #92.)
Daily topics have been and will continue to be posted in our Call for Love group as well as in our sister, like-minded groups: Dancing the Dream, Michael’s Circle of Love, Daily Life with M.J. in Your Heart, and Major Love Prayer to encourage all members of these social media groups to take a moment each day to lift up the issues of the daily topics in prayer and meditation.
February of 2018 marks the beginning of the fourth year for the Change the World Initiative and I felt that we needed to “refresh” our purpose in order to avoid the topics becoming too stale and repeated by rote. As a result, I have decided to change the days around to reflect a more “filtering down” effect from a hierarchical perspective and add a brief meditation video to each day’s topic for those who wish to indulge in a moment of reflection, to refresh those who have been faithful to these daily prayers and meditations and, possibly, attract new followers to the Initiative who may not have been aware of it previously.
All of us have been inspired by the example of one man who, despite endless ridicule and never-ending persecution, did just that – he CHANGED THE WORLD. I know he changed MY world and I suspect that if you are reading these words he changed yours. Michael Jackson worked tirelessly to awaken the world to the many problems that we all face including environmental erosion, natural resource exploitation, animal cruelty, abuse and neglect of our children (especially the sick and dying), racial inequality and man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. He envisioned an entirely different approach to the care of the sick and elderly and showed through inviting children to his Neverland Valley Ranch and supporting them with love, that his approach, like Patch Adams’s, could really go a long way toward healing those ill children … with LOVE. With his songs, performances, films, interviews, and life he shone the light of LOVE on each of these issues and reminded us, always, that LOVE IS THE ANSWER. Therefore, this update and repetition of our daily focus topics is being referred to as “Awakening” and the term will be repeated throughout this update.
As Jesus left his disciples to complete his work, and Gandhi-ji left his followers to complete his mission; Michael Jackson has left us, his disciples, to complete his mission, which he articulated in song and performance the world over. “Can You Feel It,” “We Are Here to Change the World,” “We Are The World,” “Heal the World,” “Another Part of Me,” “Earth Song,” “Cry” … all of these songs, and many others, state his purpose quite clearly. There can be no doubt of what he considered his mission; and while some may scoff at what they call his “naiveté” and others degrade and ridicule, I don’t see any of his detractors doing half as much as he did to Change the World. We, his disciples, feel his purpose strongly.
“They’ll do it. They who? It’s us … or it will never be done.”
I want to express my sincere gratitude to all who have incorporated these daily focus topics into their individual spiritual practices with purpose and resolve. I so appreciate all of your comments and shares.
Monday – Religious Leaders and Institutions
As all of us are “spiritual beings having a human experience,” may we all awaken to the fact that we are all religious leaders, or, rather spiritual leaders. While we may not be particularly enamored of the “political” issues and power struggles of most organized religions, the new Science of Noetics and investigations into the Quantum sciences are proving that we influence the world around us with our observations, our judgments, and our actions. We are quantum events in physical form and we lead by the example we set for our parents, our siblings, our children, our extended families, our friends, our communities. Through our “Awakening,” we “Awaken” those around us. We have no choice in this; it is happening, whether we are conscious of it or not.
Our only choice is to consciously awaken ourselves and those we love by intention or to unconsciously awaken ourselves and our families and friends by default. It is our choice whether we awaken those in our inner circle to fear or love, despair or hope, service or personal aggrandizement. We choose by our focus, by what we give our attention to and place our energy in … our passions and how, and if, we express them.
If we are led by an absorption in our position in the physical, material world and the acquisition of wealth and power, those around us will also be led by the lust for power and wealth, ruled by logic and devoted to material acquisition.
If we are led by our faith in our spiritual oneness and focus on our spiritual connection with the others in our lives and our world, those around us may learn to question their own absorption in the physical, material world and hasten their own” Awakening” as a result.
If we harbor resentment or promote hatred and inequality based on difference of any kind that is the example we are setting for our children and it will lead us into war and racial, religious, gender, or national tension, with history repeating itself in every generation. In this way, the adage that the “sins of the father are visited upon the son” is true.
As Michael stated:
LOVE IS THE ANSWER
As we awaken to Love, we awaken to the truth that we are all ONE.
Each one of us has a personal responsibility to choose in every moment between the duality and division of the physical world and the spiritual knowledge of oneness each of us holds safely within our hearts. We can balance our inner and outer lives simply by re-aligning our focus.
Imagine, if you will, a large room with many men and women entering it. Some are dressed in garments that indicate their religious or national affiliation. Each of them finds a seat around a large, round table – a table with no head or foot, no primacy, no beginning, no end, each an equal part of the oneness of the circle. We see each person present being allowed to speak. Racial, religious, gender, and national differences are irrelevant to these discussions. Each representative is awakened to the goal of service to humanity.
As we take our seats around this table, let us each awaken to the fact that we are Love … a Quantum Event … expressed in physical form and let us bring that Love to the table and all of those seated around it. While we may disagree with something said by another representative or the way it is said, let us resolve to perceive each person around the table as Love expressed just like us. In this way, we awaken from our deep sleep of illusion to see past the difference that seeks to divide to the oneness that lies beneath.
Tuesday – Government Officials and Policy Makers
It is important for us to awaken to the fact that our governments and policy makers are a reflection of our own collective inner turmoil; they mirror our own insecurities, fears, and focus. Whether elected or not, they reflect those things upon which the society they represent places its attention. Unfortunately, too often, they reflect our collective fear and war and tyranny results; they reflect our intolerance and deep-seated feelings of superiority, our egotistical “us versus them” mentality, our lack of trust and their rhetoric reflects that intolerance. They “act out” on the world stage our own inner state of chaos, our lust for power or possessions. In return, we degrade them as “power mad,” “greedy” without ever looking within and realizing that we, too, have all of their faults on a smaller, individual scale. On a collective scale these faults are magnified and manifested with greater vigor.
We must awaken to the truth; we can teach ourselves to perceive the spark of Love that each and every one of us embodies, no matter how deeply buried beneath our veneers of hardness and callous disregard and disrespect, whether aware of it or not.
We are here to change the world, beginning with ourselves; as quantum events, by changing ourselves we cannot help but to change the world and the way we perceive it. We can awaken to the truth that we are all tiny sparks of a much bigger flame that burns but does not consume. And we can do it within these bodies. However,
“…it takes practice, practice, practice until you get it right
… and then practice some more until you get it beautiful.”
We need to practice seeing the divine in ourselves and, by extension, in all those we encounter; we need to practice peace, envision it, build it in our inner worlds brick by painstaking brick, and anchor it in our consciousness for it to be made manifest in our world. We need to awaken to our power, hidden for so long beneath dogma and intolerance of difference.
It’s our power to change the world our children live in.”
This was Michael Jackson’s consistent message to us. He lived it; he breathed it; he supported it in song, dance, and humanitarian outreach. Let us all awaken to his message and carry it forward every day in all that we think, do, and say.
Many of our most important modern spiritual authors and leaders have restated this adage:
“You’ll See It When You Believe It” – Wayne W. Dyer
“The Spontaneous Healing of Belief” – Gregg Braden
“Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life” – Wayne W. Dyer
“If you want to make this world a better place,
Take a look at yourself and MAKE THAT CHANGE.” – Michael Jackson
Imagine, if you will, that our governmental leaders and policy makers are now entering the room and taking their seats at the huge round table we introduced in yesterday’s meditation. Some are wearing suits and ties; others are wearing national attire. They are entering and taking a seat around our miraculous round table. We see them taking their seats in full and conscious awareness that they are here in this circular room to serve the greater good for all of their constituents. They are awakening to their prominent roles of respect for the differences represented around this round table. They are awakening to their roles of service to humanity.
Wednesday – Information Media
We must awaken to the fact that, once again, our media and broadcasters reflect our own collective prurient interests and magnify them so that we can see their effect on our own psyches and the world we live in. Catering to our desire to “know” as much as possible about our public figures – those we love — and those we hate — they burrow into the private lives of our superstars and government officials and parade our worst fears back to us in four inch headlines under the cover of the “public’s right to know.” They chase public figures through dark underpasses and take the “million dollar picture” of a dying woman under the guise of “investigative journalism.” They ignore and violate the human rights of their targets in their never-ending need to be “first” to “break the news.”
As a result, we need to awaken to the fact that our news is broken – biased, slanted, and often not even true. If they find nothing salacious enough to print and broadcast, they make it up to keep us on the “edge of our seats,” following their every word, pacified and apathetic to the many things in the world around us that should be receiving the majority of our attention.
If we don’t buy it, they can’t sell it and make their all-important profit. We must awaken to the fact that we have the power to re-educate our media and broadcasters simply by “not buying their garbage.” We have the power to speak out against “checkbook journalism” with our checkbooks. Most importantly, we have the power to investigate for ourselves and allow our truth to be felt within our own hearts. And we have the power with the technology available to us to BE the change we want to see take hold in our world.
“Just because you read it in a magazine
or see it on a TV screen
Don’t make it factual”
“To read it sanctifies it”
We have a choice. We can continue to allow our media to tell us what we want to read or we can tell it that we want truth. We’re tired of lies. As the above quotes from his music indicate, Michael Jackson was not shy when voicing his dissatisfaction with our media. He bore the brunt of rampant media speculation for over half of his fifty years on this planet.
“They’ve got to hear it from me
They’ve got to hear it from you
They’ve got to hear it from us
We can’t take it
We’ve already had enough.”
While one copy remaining on the checkout lane may not bring them down overnight, we do have a voice. One voice multiplied by a million can make a lot of noise.
“There’s nothing that can’t be done if we raise our voice as ONE.”
We are not powerless. We are just sleeping. We need to awaken and remember who we are and that we deserve better from our publishers and broadcasters, our movie directors and our television news anchors.
Imagine, if you will, that the media has been invited to cover the historic meeting taking place in the rotunda around the huge round table introduced in the two previous meditations. They enter the room, quietly setting up their cameras to record everything that happens during the meeting about to get underway accurately and with no editorial commentary. News anchors hold their microphones; cameramen position their cameras to get the best possible angle of all of those seated around the table. Representatives from major publishing corporations enter and take their seats around the table in full and conscious awareness that they are here to serve the greater good of all of humanity, those seated around the table as well as those at home. Truthful, honest, unbiased reports begin to flow out of the room to be disseminated throughout the world.
Thursday – Educators
Like our religious, governmental, and media institutions, our educational system is broken. We are teaching our children from a very early age to conform to society’s expectations – to be cogs in an Industrial Age society – to not stand out. While some schools are taking a more progressive approach to education by including individual learning modalities or meditation into the curriculum, the vast majority of the schools our children attend are operating on an outdated “outcome-based” model, with standardized tests that measure little more than a pupil’s ability to memorize and repeat by rote. Children who require more physical movement are drugged to make them more compliant with “the norm” and everything is geared toward the “average.” We are not teaching them how to excel, to follow the impulses of their own natural curiosity, to think for themselves, to be lifelong learners, to express their passions in creative ways, or to be balanced and well-rounded adults.
We need to awaken to the fact that we are all educators. Our children’s earliest and most important educational experience occurs in their homes and their most influential teachers are their parents and caregivers. Our society has made it nearly impossible to survive without two income families, meaning that both parents work full-time jobs … and sometimes two … when both parents are still present in the home. When they return from their work, tired and stressed parents just want to decompress from their day. They need some quiet time. Are we teaching our children that they are important and loved when we ask them to be quiet while we watch the 24-hour news cycle? Are we listening to their concerns or teaching them how to be concerned and loving parents?
Do we teach them that their spiritual lives and physical lives are one and the same or are we teaching them that they are separate – their spiritual lives practiced for an hour or two on Sunday morning with the remainder of the week devoted to advancing in the competitive environment of school, sports, and social life? How do we reconcile the imbalances and bridge the gap between the competition they encounter in their physical lives and their spiritual lives.
Our children are much more influenced by our example than by our words. When we judge others because they don’t measure up to our standards of behavior, our children learn to judge others. When we employ name calling when cut off in traffic, our children learn to belittle others based on disappointed expectations. When children witness or experience emotional, verbal, or physical abuse, they learn to bully their peers and react violently to others. When we practice hatred based on difference of any kind, our children learn to feel superior to their peers based on race, gender, religious, or national affiliation. When we focus all of our energy on making money, getting ahead, acquiring possessions, our children learn to be acquisition-oriented.
We need to awaken to a new kind of educational model – one that provides fulfillment for both the teacher and the pupil, one that encourages our young people to explore the wonderful possibilities born when they practice engaging their own natural curiosities and passions, one that provides for individual learning needs and integrates both the spiritual and physical lives of its students, and one that involves parents and teachers in a balanced and shared goal of developing each student’s fullest possible potential.
Imagine, if you will, our round table filling to almost its fullest capacity with new entrants representing the educational system and parents. Each new entrant is welcomed around the table with respect for his or her unique perspective. No job is more important around this table of equality. There is no hierarchy within this room; only equality is practiced here within this massive congregation. Each representative is fully aware of his or her place in the goal of service to the greater good of all present. Each is awakened to the fact that each plays an important and equal role in these discussions for all of humanity.
Friday – Youth and Youth Leaders
Is it any wonder why our youth are confused, resulting in bullying, school violence, and suicide? As we have examined throughout this week, all of our institutions are seriously broken; none of them are currently serving the purpose for which they were created and all of them are sending mixed messages to our young people.
Religious leaders and institutions, founded on the basis of love and compassion in almost every case, have become major corporations generating billions of dollars every year and exercising power over millions of adherents. As a result, they are more concerned with protecting their power and financial structures and interests than in enhancing adherent’s spiritual balance. Intolerance based on gender or orientation is openly preached from pulpits the world over, adding to our feelings of separation and division rather than unifying us under the banner of love, which is the purpose for which all of our religious institutions were founded.
Government officials and policy makers, placed in office to serve the greater good, often are more obligated to the special interest groups whose financial support allowed them to be elected. Power and personal advancement have become more important than service to the greater good of humanity.
Communication media reports focus on the sensational and news broadcasts and movies are filled with violence, making heroes out of the most aggressive action personalities and glorifying war. Even their games and music are filled with violent images while we try to tell them that violence toward themselves or others is wrong and unjustified.
Their educational system does not teach them to excel or engage their passions. They are pigeonholed into narrow points of view and graded on how well they fit into the “norm.” Creativity goes unrewarded … and sometimes punished.
We must awaken to the fact that our youth reflect our own societal faults, our own fears and biases, our own intolerance of difference.
“Are we blind to the fact that our children
Are raging against the indifference –
Crying out against the abandonment –
Thundering against the neglect?”
From this excerpt from his “Heal the Kids” speech at Carnegie Hall, we know that our mentor, Michael Jackson, was fully aware that if we want to change the world we live in we need to change the way our children are being parented, taught, governed and informed. The only way to do that is to awaken to our responsibility to change the way we see ourselves and our parts in the greater play of LIFE.
Imagine, if you will, a great noise approaches our rotunda as the door bursts open and the room is flooded with children of every ethnic and national origin. These children encircle our huge round table, standing behind the seated religious leaders, governmental officials and policy makers, media representatives, and educators.
Imagine, if you will, that they are welcomed into the discussions, each representative acknowledging their right to be present, to have their voices heard. In this exchange of views, we learn from each other, respect each other, support each other. We learn to approach our discussions with a child’s heart … and our children learn that they are an important and integral part of the change we wish to see in our world.
Now, let’s go out and CHANGE THE WORLD!
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