Holistic Networker

Do you wish that others could be more compassionate and understanding? How do we deal with hateful, violent people who seem to be intent on ruining our wonderful world?

Often, our first reaction is to condemn violence, to separate ourselves from it. Yet who among us hasn’t ever had an ill-intentioned thought or behaved in a hurtful manner towards another?

As Deepak Chopra, M.D. noted about the events of 9/11, “It is imperative that we pray and offer solace and help to each other. But if you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.”

We now have an opportunity to choose whether we radiate love and goodwill toward others or fall into the trap of fear and illusion. Turn off the television, create a quiet space to feel the feelings that are moving within you. We have found peace and comfort in doing the Compassion Exercise from the Avatar® ReSurfacing® workshop, which we have reprinted here.

We’ve also reprinted some Prayers for Peace and we invite you to share them with others.

May we extend an unconditional love that will be the light of our world,
Tony & Felicia
Publishers, The Holistic Networker
©2001, Holistic Networker, LLC

The following compassion exercise is reprinted (with permission) from ReSurfacing®: Techniques for Exploring Consciousness. It requires no special preparation. Enjoy. Consider exploring it as a small act of kindness for the world.

Compassion Exercise
Honesty with yourself leads to compassion for others.

Objective:
To increase the amount of compassion in the world.

Expected result:
A personal sense of peace.

Instructions:
This exercise can be done anywhere that people congregate (airports, malls, parks, beaches, etc). It should be done on strangers, unobtrusively and from some distance. Try to do all five steps on the same person.

Step 1: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for his / her life.”

Step 2: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his / her life.”

Step 3: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness, and despair.”

Step 4: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is seeking to fill his / her needs.”

Step 5: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is learning about life.”

Variations:

1. Done by couples to increase understanding of each other.

2. Done on old enemies and antagonists still present in your memories.

3. Done on alien life forms.

© Copyright 1994 by Star’s Edge Inc. All rights reserved. From the Avatar Materials.

Avatar® and ReSurfacing® are
registered trademarks of Star’s Edge, Inc.

Beliefs about health run rampant in our culture, and many of us unconsciously adopt the health-related beliefs of others, including well-meaning family, friends, and (especially) experts. Take aging: many experts will warn you to expect a decline in the abilities of your future body. Yet, none of their “hard facts” need to apply to you. As the Source of your beliefs and your reality you decide how your body will change over time. When you find yourself stating negative beliefs about your own aging process ask yourself, “Am I being truly deliberate about my health, or am I acting out a script that someone else has written?”

For instance, we recently chose to focus on the belief that “anything is possible.” We felt this
left ample space for miracles in our lives. A few months ago we acknowledged that it could be possible for an adult to grow taller. We started an exercise program that included the Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation (five simple Yoga toning and stretching exercises). After six months, we measured ourselves and noticed that we had both grown an inch taller!

In the same way, the beliefs we hold about life will have a profound effect on how we experience others in the world. If we envision life as a race to climb to a mountaintop, then we may try to win by pushing others out of our way. This behavior incites others to knock us down in retaliation (sound familiar?). In this worldview, few (if any) will finish the race and reach the top. On the other hand, if we envision life as a journey on a riverboat, we can enjoy each other’s company, share, and assist others along the way. When we act compassionately in the service of others we bring joy to others and ourselves—creating Heaven here on Earth. Neale Donald Walsch suggests in his book, Communion with God, that we abandon the game of right and wrong, of winners and losers and realize that we can all win. He writes that people often get caught in the “illusion of superiority”—when we find a way of life that works for us, we tend to regard all other ways as inferior. This illusion separates us from others and leads to competitive behavior.

Each of us has our own path and Walsch writes that we would do well to remember that, “Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.” (Think of how this simple statement could move us in the direction of world peace).

We’ve designed the Holistic Networker and the WellnessExpo to make you aware of a broad spectrum of health and lifestyle options. Use your intuitive guidance to choose what feels best for you. We intend to inspire you to live your life from the highest vision you can imagine for yourself and for the world.

Warm regards,

Tony & Felicia

Marc Gafni, author of Soul Prints: Your Path to Fulfillment, believes that we all have our own distinct “soul print” that is as unique as our fingerprint. By determining and embracing our spiritual signature —the essence of who we are—we discover purpose and meaning in our lives.

Gafni writes, “Your soul print fits you more perfectly than any tailored suit of clothes. To get up in the morning knowing that you are already clothed in your own uniqueness, that you are doing something in the world totally distinctive to you and you alone, which no one else in the world can do quite like you do—that is mere joy.”

Gafni discusses how we are driven in the world by our attempt to move from loneliness to a place of relationship, connection and loving. Confronting and acknowledging that isolation is the first step toward gaining a sense of our own soul print. Throughout his book he offers a series of “Soul Print Practices” designed to challenge readers to examine who they are from a new perspective.

We have found it to be helpful to take time to find out what your soul is being called to do. How you feel is the best indicator of whether or not you are on the right track. When you move in the direction of where your soul is wanting to go, you feel exceptionally good. Going in the opposite or a different direction feels uncomfortable or unpleasant. It helps if you believe in yourself. Have goals and write them down. It is hard to hit a target if you do not know what you are aiming for.

Don’t allow yourself to get discouraged! Remember that where you are now is not nearly as important as where you are going. Focusing on where you are now is likely to keep you stuck; focusing on where you are going will propel you forward toward your goal. Remember that you get whatever you put your attention on, whether it is positive or negative. Focus on problems and guess what will pop up—more problems! Focusing on opportunities will help us to discover a wealth of opportunity in the world.

The people in the Holistic Networker are here to help you to define and achieve your goals. It is part of our mission to help you to connect with them. They would like to work with you to enhance your emotional, physical, mental and/or spiritual well-being. We invite you to our Wellness Expo on April 28 and 29 where several of these practitioners will be speaking and giving demonstrations.

Come and be part of this shift in consciousness that is creating an enlightened planetary civilization.

Tony & Felicia

Do you greet each morning with excitement and enthusiasm? Is your life so rich that you cannot imagine changing any part of it? Are you living your dreams, or dreaming of a life?

These musings were sparked by an e-mail from friends of mine announcing their move from a beach home in Florida to a quaint farm house in France. They often venture from place to place and seem to find exactly what they need, when they need it. It’s no coincidence that these friends are also internationally-known personal-growth seminar leaders. Their total disregard for the way “life is supposed to be” and their clear intention to live their dreams fills me with inspiration.

Imagine living a life in tune with your natural rhythms and passions. Try it now: jot out a fantasy scenario of how you would like to recreate your life. Fill it with fantastic details and, just for fun, suspend all disbelief about what might be feasible. (Do it now. Yes…right now!) When your scenario is complete, review it and ask yourself what parts just might be possible. Do any feelings of doubt come up when you consider actually living this dream? Examine these doubt-feelings carefully: their breadth, depth, and texture. These feelings—not other people or events—keep you locked within your current personal reality. The courage to face and move beyond their doubt-feelings enables my carefree friends to live their dreams.

The next time you admire someone living their life deliberately, remember that the key to living your dreams is the ability to single-mindedly focus on exactly what you prefer and to let go of doubt. It sounds simple, and it can be—it just requires deliberate control of your mind. You do have control over your mind, don’t you? If your mind cannot: (1) become still, (2) concentrate, and (3) shift between viewpoints, then I recommend finding a spiritual counselor, a meditation group, an Avatar® Master or a yoga instructor to assist you.

Deliberate beings radiate a reality-shifting vibration throughout the world. By living their dreams and expressing the highest potential of their lives, they inspire others and dispel discouragement with loving examples of magic and infinite possibilities.

Warmly,

Tony

The rapid growth of the internet is a compelling and fascinating study for anyone interested in building a cooperative system that works. Today’s internet has its roots in a military project called Arpanet. The system was designed so that if any part of the network becomes disabled, the system adapts and still function as a whole. (Our brain works in a similar fashion.)

The value of this redundancy is illustrated in the journey your email takes as it hops across the internet to its destination.
Your email is sliced into small packets of information each packet tagged with the destination address. Your message packets are sent across the internet by cooperating internet routers and mail servers. If a packet is mishandled or lost at any point, it is resent automatically along another route. The intelligence and utility of the internet emerges from the cooperative abilities of these components.

Cooperative systems in nature, like the beehive and ant colony, work in the same way. You won’t find a worker ant that insists that he alone bring coordinates of some juicy food to the “boss” ant. He broadcasts the message to every ant he meets. In this way, if some ants don’t survive the journey home, the message will still get through.

Does your business work this way? Is information freely and unselfishly shared or is it hoarded for individual benefit? In the industrial age, competitive behavior was the primary model for business. A belief in scarcity gave rise to competition as the primary operative model. Trade secrets and proprietary systems ruled the day. As our world economy becomes more interconnected, cooperative behavior becomes more critical. If your system won’t talk to others in the network, you will find yourself missing all the value gained by open communications and shared information and knowledge.

A movement to create software cooperatively has taken the world by surprise. This model, called open source, yields robust results because continous enhancements, contributed by the community of developers, are folded back into the software system. How might this open model of communication and cooperation change your business? How might it change the way we build automobiles, airplanes, or sattelite launch systems? I foresee a future where our technologies becomes too important to be entrusted to proprietary interests.

I believe we’re on a path towards a more sustainable, sane future. While we have trashed our planet to an embarrassing level during our industrial age. We have a chance to begin a new way cooperating and cocreating a future. This new shift toward interconnectivity and openness is breaking down proprietary systems that no longer work. I see this trend towards open communication as a signal of the wonderful things to come in the next millennium.

Warmly,

Tony

The release of Star Wars: Episode I introduces the phrase “May the Force be with you” to a new audience of young people. Why is George Lucas’ story-telling so popular? Lucas will tell you that he’s not telling a new story—rather, he is simply retelling very old stories in a way that we can best enjoy, appreciate, and feel them. In Episode I, Lucas reintroduces Anakin Skywalker as a cherubic, unselfish young boy. Young Skywalker sharply contrasts with his future self, the evil Darth Vader of Episodes IV-VI.

While Lucas creates grandiose battles between good and evil, he always suggests that the true battle lies within us. Anakin’s training as a Jedi Knight will take him to the core of his consciousness introducing him to the Force that permeates all living things. A Jedi Knight aligned with the Force (call it the Tao if you wish) can operate within reality in ways that appear magical. He understands that creating magic is as simple as being in the present moment.
“Be here, now.” It’s easy to say, but we know how challenging it can be when our mind is filled with future concerns and past resentments. Coming to a deeper understanding of the present moment is not an intellectual task. In fact, the intellect can be safely and profitably left out of the undertaking. The present moment exists in the time/space between thoughts…in the space between the inhale and the exhale of every breath you take. Sometimes the present moment captures us during a particularly beautiful sunset, or on a star-filled night. For most of us, deliberately living in the present moment, requires training: martial arts, Avatar®, meditation, yoga are a few such paths—there are others.

Once awakened, the experience of the present moment becomes a backdrop (a multi-dimensional viewpoint) upon which we can be in the world, but not of it. Paradoxically, the further we go inward, the more connected we become with others. Differences become manifest as creations of our mind, which forever seeks to classify and categorize. Behind it all you watch with a child’s innocent eyes, amazed at the colors and the vividness of the world. Words, you discover, are shadows cast by the light of what is real. In this silent place you begin to understand the Source of poetry, music, the arts. They are simply the artist’s attempts to open a window on an indescribable reality that appears when we let our chattering mind rest.

I encourage you to take a few moments everyday to enjoy the present moment in whatever way calls to you. You are much greater than you know. It’s no accident that you are here, now. Rediscover your own guidance system and open yourself to the possibility of a lighter, more expansive life.
May the Force be with you,

Tony Cecala,
Publisher

Our mainstream media do a thorough job of indoctrinating fear of strangers into our world-view. Secure in our locked homes, we watch atrocities on television and wonder how our world has become so insane. Our response to these fears is to construct walls, fences, borders, and prisons to keep away anyone who isn’t quite like us.

The one meaning of the word “alien” is simply “other.” When we add judgment to our perception of others we create a separation between ourselves and these other people in our own minds. Rather than perceive clearly, our judgement becomes a convenient stand-in or representation for what actually IS. How many times have we judged someone based on appearance and later discovered that they were really very different?

We choose how we perceive the world. When choosing to perceive separation, we project resisted aspects of our own consciousness into the world. One step on the path to integrating and creating an enlightened planetary civilization is to let go of judgement and perceive the divine in every person. Some people radiate an unconditional love into the world, these people are easy to admire. Others keep their divinity wrapped within many layers of hatred, bigotry, and nationalism. It is these others that can benefit most from our understanding and compassion. On this page you’ll find an exercise from the Avatar Materials designed to increase the amount of compassion in the world. Enjoy.

Warmly,

Tony

—–

The Compassion Exercise

Honesty with one’s self leads to compassion for others.

Objective: To increase the amount of compassion in the world.

Expected result: Increase in understanding and a personal sense of peace.

Instructions: This exercise can be done anywhere that people congregate (airports, events, beaches, etc). It should be done on strangers, unobtrusively and from some distance. Try to do all five steps on the same person.

1: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for his/her life.”

2: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his/her life.”

3: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness, and despair.”

4: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is seeking to fulfill his/her needs.”

5: With your attention on the person, repeat to yourself: “Just like me, this person is learning about life.”

Variations of the Just Like Me process:

1. May be done by couples and family members to increase understanding of each other.
2. May be done on old enemies and antagonists still present in your memories.
3. May be done on other life forms.

This is one of thirty exercises that can be found in
ReSurfacing®: Techniques for Exploring Consciousness by Harry Palmer. Excerpted with permission. ©1994, 2010 Avatar® and ReSurfacing® are registered trademarks of Star’s Edge, Inc. All rights reserved.

Have you ever been in just the right place at just the right time? Do you ever feel unseen hands guiding events for you? These rare experiences of good fortune are examples of “synchronicity.” Carl Jung defines synchronicity as “a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved.” I prefer to think of synchronicity as an alignment between your will and a higher cosmic power. The mechanics of bringing about these rare coincidences are beyond our imagination and our rational thinking. That said, how then can we increase the likelihood of synchronistic events in our lives? The answer, it seems, is not in what we do, but in who we define ourselves to be. Our beingness in the world, our receptivity towards alternate possibilities creates a ripple in the unified field of possible realities.

In the moment we experience a synchronicity, the magic of the event brings our awareness back to the Divine order of the universe in a profound way. I believe that these events are increasing in frequency as each person on the planet opens to a level of consciousness that transcends the Newtonian cause-effect model of the physical universe. We are beginning to operate in a realm where the dimensions of space and time are more flexible than the old model of a predetermined billiard table in the sky.

Joseph Jaworski, in Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership, writes a fascinating tale of how his life has been miraculously shaped by synchronistic events. Jaworski reveals how individuals and corporations can create events, rather than react to them. He describes how magical opportunities open up for an individual whose mental model is of a world “pregnant with possibility” and how a cause-effect world model will limit one’s experience of the miraculous.

Jaworski’s sense of being “in the flow” brings remarkable people into his life at just the right moment. His quest for discovering the principles of how we create our reality bring him in contact with scientists and world leaders on the same path. We learn with Jaworski how the universe is composed of an implicate order (a unified field), and an explicate order (the visible physical world) as he recounts his remarkable conversations with David Bohm, the world-class physicist and student of Einstein.

The effect this shift is having in the world is the subject of over 2000 years of prophecy. Gregg Braden’s research shows that these “end times” are predicted by many civilizations around the globe. Yet, no clear picture of life after this time period (2000-2010) is ever presented. Braden suggests that no “future” can be sensed because it has yet to be created in the mass consciousness. It’s as if we suddenly emerge from our collective infancy whose possible futures ranged from soiling our diapers to soiling our crib. Our next step is more uncertain and more exciting than any in our collective history because we have the opportunity to embrace our higher power, our intuitive wisdom, our shamanic power, our god-selves (whatever label you prefer). In doing so, we have the ability to create a magical world of continual synchronistic events.

There’s a beautiful scene in the movie, “Star Trek: Insurrection” that speaks to this power within us. Captain Picard is told by Anij, an elder of a simple race, that they abandoned their quest for technology in order to experience “the universe in the present moment.” Picard understands and recalls the experience of transcendant timelessness the first time he saw planet Earth from space. Anij shifts Picard’s awareness as they sit in a garden and the moment magically expands — they watch a hummingbird’s wings flap in apparent slow-motion. Picard later learns that he does have this ability to deliberately experience transcendant perception. A new book by Mikela Tarlow called Navigating the Future is a guidebook to accessing these powers within. See my review on page 50 for more details.

When my friends ask me what life will be like after the coming shift in consciousness I feel that our experience of synchronicity will become a daily occurrence, that the magic we experience so rarely will be commonplace. We will meet the right people, at the right time, to accomplish just the right task. In doing so, we begin to operate from a more integrated mode, not unlike honeybees whose hive-mind knows more than the sum of the parts. You see, from the perspective of the individual bee, it seems pretty magical that each bee knows exactly what to do and how to it. Yet from the perspective of the hive, each part is simply in the right place at the right time–no magic–just standard operating procedure.

Tony

All parents hope their children will grow up to be responsible adults. Do you ever consider what the word “responsible” actually means? My favorite definition is “the ability to respond.” Most people are able to respond to challenges at home, at work, and in their community. Broaden the domain, and the picture gets fuzzy. Are you a responsible Texan? American? Earthling? Is it enough to vote regularly and hope that the powers that be are looking out for you, your family, and your descendants? I think not.
To whom are we entrusting the stewardship of this planet?

Look carefully at the fabric of our civilization and you’ll notice how easily we transfer responsibility for the basic essentials of life to third parties. Thanks to technological progress, life has become especially convenient for anyone with a checkbook or credit card. Take inventory of your basic needs: food, water, healthcare, education. How many of these do you personally provide for your family? As little as three generations ago, your ancestors dug a well, harvested food, applied basic health remedies, and taught their children. They were directly responsible for the quality of their life.

Thanks to a vast technological infrastructure (factories, trains, planes, computers, and modems) most North Americans live a life far more luxurious than royalty of the 19th century. However, this infrastructure may experience a disruption on January 1, 2000 by a computer bug called the “year 2000 problem” (millions of programs that cannot calculate dates after “1999”). This situation brings to light our critical dependency on countless microprocessors, software, and programmers. At this time it’s too early to know what will happen, but observe your own reaction to discussion of the topic. Do you feel that it’s “much ado about nothing”? Are you researching the situation? Are you packing up for the country? Your response to the year 2000 problem is simply an indicator of your level of responsibility —your “ability to respond” to a unique situation.

We entrust our city with water service, the media with our information needs, and a vast chain of unknown suppliers for the very food we eat. (By the way, did you know you’re already eating genetically-engineered food?) We entrust critical health decisions to committees of experts and government agencies. We listen to the “experts,” the talking heads on TV, and convince ourselves that everything is OK in our world. We feel that most problems are “somewhere else.” When we respond to a situation it’s often only to rally our neighbors to ensure nimby (not-in-my-back-yard). Just a few months ago it became clear to me that nimby does not work on our small planet. Smoke from fires in Mexico blanketed our sky and forced many people indoors. If a problem exists on the planet, then it potentially affects every one of us, directly or indirectly.

Our world is riddled with pollution, disease, famine, overpopulation, conflict, and injustice — problems that require real solutions. Do you feel uncomfortable leaving these problems to the “experts?” Are you unsure if “someone out there” is working on solutions? Do you wonder if corporate interests will undermine what’s best for the environment and your health? Entertain these questions and you can begin to feel powerless in the face of looming crises—align yourself with other concerned beings and you’ll find the strength you’ll need to enact positive change.

Overcoming the current crises and evolving into an enlightened civilization will take alignment, determination, and most importantly — a shared belief that it’s possible. Our society is in its collective adolescence. The first step toward adulthood is to expand our sphere of responsibility to include the entire planet and its residents. It begins with a change of heart—in the words of Dannion Brinkley, “know that you are a powerful spiritual being.” Get in touch with your life mission and carry it out with enthusiasm. There is no greater gift you can give the world. Your parents would be proud.

Tony Cecala,
Publisher, The Holistic Networker

©1998, Tony Cecala