Do We Go for ABunDance or Stay Stuck in ScareCity?
By Swami Beyondananda
Instead of ScareCity, we can go for ABunDance. That is when we get up off of our assets, move our buns, and dance together in rhythm and flow. Can it work? Well, consider what hasn’t worked.
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A great Yogi -- I think it was Yogi Berra -- once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Well, here we are at the junction of love and fear, and if we stay on the all-too-familiar path of ScareCity -- we’re totally forked. Yes, in a shrinking world that could definitely use a good shrink, we can do the same old same old and get the same old results, or ... we can try something different for a change. Instead of ScareCity, we can go for ABunDance. That is when we get up off of our assets, move our buns, and dance together in rhythm and flow. Can it work? Well, consider what hasn’t worked.
Goin’ to ScareCity Where It’s Two to One: Two Fears for Every Joy
ScareCity is the way it’s always been. The fear that there isn’t enough to go around has caused us to separate into “people like us” and “people who don’t like us.” No wonder we have nations at odds trying to get even, a dogma-eat-dogma world where misinterpreters have translated great spiritual teachings as “We’re going to heaven, and everyone else can go to hell.” But living at each other’s expense can be expensive. Huge defense budgets, not to mention all the waste and corruption hiding behind defense, are bankrupting the world, financially and morally.
And in a world terrorized by terrorism -- and, for that matter, anti-terrorism -- it’s important to understand that fear makes the body politic more susceptible to psychopathogens (i.e., opportunistic organisms with a poisonality disorder). And we all know that the fear-gnomes (little gnomes of gnawing fear) that the current Administration has injected into the mainstream are directly related to the serious bout of Mad Cowboy Disease that we haven’t been able to shake.
Now, of course, we don’t want to eliminate fear completely. That’s why we have clanging bells and flashing lights at railroad crossings. And badness knows, there is plenty of badness in the world. But when we use evil to fight evil -- well, I’m not a math whiz but it seems to me we’re increasing, not decreasing the evil in the world. And it’s not just the math, it’s the aftermath: A world stuck in greedlock, ruled not by the highest common denominator but the lowest common dominator.
In a world that seems dead-set on destruction, it’s no wonder so many people have looked heavenward for divine intervention. But lately, more and more people are waking up to the notion that we humans cannot expect to be fed intervenously forever. Maybe we have to actually live those spiritual teachings we’re willing to fight to the death for. After all, Jesus didn’t say, “Now don’t do a thing until I return,” did he?
Can I be blunt? Maybe it’s time for all of us children of God to become adults of God and finally grow up and take some responsibility. And if we’re going to evolve and overgrow the current dysfunction at the junction, we will have to transcend the old nation vs. nation and build the one nation we have in common -- imagination. Yes, in a world of scarcity, the one thing we have in abundance is imagination.
Time to Get Out of ScareCity and Declare ABunDance for All!
Here’s a wild idea: What if we applied our abundant imagination to find ways we can be fruitful and multiply -- instead of staying stuck in fruitless division? What if we came to our senses and declared the current system illegally insane, and committed ourselves to making the world a sane asylum? Sounds crazy? Well, what could be crazier than spending so much of our precious livelihood on weapons of deadlihood? Is it any wonder the ‘hood is so deadly?
Seriously. What if we used our religions wisely and taught those old dogmas some new tricks? What if we decided that we’re not here to earn God’s love, we’re here to spend it? Hey, even Republicans could relate to “supply-side spirituality,” right? What if we changed the game from survival to thrival? What if we went for heaven on earth -- just for the hell of it?
Now of course, this is all easier said than done. But if we want to do it, first we have to say it. So I say we declare a state of emerge ‘n see. Let’s emerge from our addiction to the old needy-greedy, and see that when we are all dancing together in rhythm and flow, there is no need for greed. So let us begin by using our imagination to imagine how we can create a world where we rise through the Golden Rule rather than fall to the rule of gold. What if we lifted our vision to see above the us vs. them mindset and said, “Wait a minute ... I think we’re all US!”
So it is time to ask each other, and ourselves what kind of world do we want to leave for our children and grandchildren? A world where we’re all in this together? Or a world where it’s every man for himself? (Hint: Jesus did not say, “Doodoo unto others before they can doodoo unto you.”)
As we stand at this crossroads, I say it’s time to make a stand and stand by our stand. Time to choose ABunDance, the only true pro-life choice. Now I know what you’re thinking -- no really, I do ... I didn’t take that Evelyn Wood Speed Mind-Reading Class for nothing -- you’re thinking, how can little ol’ me make a difference? Well, the world is made up of 6.5 billion little ol’ me’s, and each of us chooses every day with our words, deeds, intention and attention. What is out-pictured in the world s the sum total of 6.5 billion in-pictures. By choosing to not choose, you are still choosing, and if you’re already choosing why not choose to choose instead of not choose?
It’s either ABunDance or ScareCity, folks ... and if you’re still sitting on defense, ask yourself this: Which world do I want to live into?
ABunDance ScareCity
State of Emerge ‘n See State of Emergency
Live by the Golden Rule Live by the rule of gold
Holistic approach to problems Assaholistic approach to problems
One Spirit, many paths We’re going to heaven, you can go to hell
Rule of law Overrule of law
Concern for justice Concern for just us
Liberties given to all Liberties taken with our liberties
Wealth for the whole Wealth down the hole
A world growing in love A world shrinking in fear
Time to Weave a Web of Mass Construction
Sixty-something years ago, when we were battling Nazism, scientists from everywhere were brought together in the Manhattan Project to develop the first weapons of mass destruction, nuclear power. Today, the enemy is “Not-Seeism” -- that is where people still choose to not see that we all have the most to gain from a win-win scenario, and that a win-lose scenario is really a lose-lose scenario.
It all goes back to the feudal feuds, where we got into the habit of getting even. Even if you start out even, one goes one up, and then up goes the other in one-upsmanshhip, and it goes one up, and one up, and one up, and finally it’s, “Oh, yeah? Well one-up yours!”
That’s why I say, “Don’t get even -- get odd!” Let’s go for the odd solution that beats the heaven out of getting even. It is time now to bring scientists (and everyone else, for that matter) together in a new Man-Helpin’ Project to weave a web of mass construction and develop new clear power -- renewable, nonpolluting energy so abundant we don’t need armies to defend it. It’s time to abandon the old fission expedition, folks, and go for fusion instead.
Imagine -- a world-win campaign where the whole world can win. Time for all of us who choose ABunDance over ScareCity to address each other with deep reverence and respect and say, “May we have this ABunDance together?” Time to turn off the TV and tell a vision instead. Who needs reality TV when you have a reality game where everyone can play and everyone can win: Extreme Planetary Makeover.
Will we succeed? Well, that’s what we’re playing the game to find out. But even if we don’t win, one thing is for sure. “The World Game” is a heaven-of-a-lot more fun to play than the “end-of-the-world game.”
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.