Bill Maher gives a monologue on why you should get healthy instead of turn to pharma drugs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHXXTCc-IVg

In the Surangama Sutra, twenty five indivivuals report on how they attained samadhi.

Three of the highest Bodhisattvas — Kuan Yin, Manjushri and Samantabhadra, extolled hearing or listening in one form or another as a way to enter into the Tao. When I asked my own teacher the best method for beings in this world, he also mentioned this entry way, as well as the use of breathing methods using the nose.

However, you can find countless other methods in the Surangama Sutra. One such meditation method was reported by Ucchushma to Buddha and his assembly when Buddha asked his great students what cultivation or meditation technique they had used to achieve samadhi. The record of Ucchushma’s report runs:

Ucchushma came before the Buddha, put his palms together, bowed at the Buddha’s feet, and said to the Buddha, “I can still remember how many kalpas ago I was filled with excessive greed and desire. There was a Buddha in the world named King of Emptiness. He said that people with too much desire turn into a raging mass of fire. He taught me to contemplate the coolness and warmth throughout my entire body.

“A spiritual light coalesced inside and transformed my thoughts of excessive lust into the fire of wisdom. After that, when any of the Buddhas summoned me, they used the name ‘fire-head.’ “From the strength of the fire-light samadhi, I accomplished Arhatship. I made a great vow that when each of the Buddhas accomplishes the way, I will be a powerful knight and in person subdue the demons’ hatred.

When each of the thousand Buddhas of the Worthy Aeon accomplishes the Way, I will be a powerful and great Vajra Lord – a big Dharma Protector – and tame all the demons and enemies.”

“The Buddha asks about perfect penetration. I used attentive contemplation of the effects of heat in my body and mind, until it became unobstructed and penetrating and all my outflows were consumed. I produced a blazing brilliance and ascended to enlightenment. This is the foremost method.”

Whenever anyone starts to really open the chi chi channels in the body from meditation practice and meditation techniques, especially from breathing exercises, they will begin to feel the uneven warm and cold chi currents in the  body. This is a stage of initial chi transformation, and that’s why there is an unevenness in feeling cold chi along with warm and hot chi. Eventually this transforms as the chi becomes purified, and chi transforms into shen.

As I point out in the free Stages download, when chi masses you will see a light within the body; when jing changes to chi like this you can enter into samadhi. Shakyamuni Buddha also recommended people watch the cool and warm breath as a meditation technique when doing breathing exercises, and he was talking about this experience of Ucchushma’s as well. Everyone goes through it. People think Buddha was talking about the coarse breath or external breathing of the lungs, but he was talking of the wind element within the body, the chi. Anyone who cultivates sufficiently quickly recognizes this, but those who haven’t opened up their chi channels yet think it’s all about the respiratory process.

Are you cultivating enough meditation that you can feel your chi yet? This is just the gong-fu results of the rudimentary stages of meditation practice. But you have to conserve your jing and meditate, and experience the massing of chi and the internal light being born within the body — the initiation of kundalini — to enter into the true spiritual way. Regardless of your religion, this is the pathway that must be travelled.

Are you working on that, or just reading articles?

 

These last few days I’ve read countless articles on antibiotic resistant staph infections. Dozens in fact … they’re only waking up to the severity now???

Duh! That’s why I wrote Staph Infection Help … because I knew that as time goes on, more and more infections will be resistant to antibiotics, and the pharmaceutical firms won’t be able to create new antibiotics that work anymore. This has to happen. The pharmaceutical approach, if you think it through, MUST decline in effectiveness and may even stop working altogether (except in simple infections or in places where they haven’t used the drugs before, such as in the amazon jungle, etc.).

Guess what’s happening? Just that. All it requires is some thinking to realize the medical paradigm of infection treatment MUST therefore change, and change quickly.  It’s simple thinking – you don’t need a PhD to do this and forge the correct research policy. All you need to do is THINK (Which is why I finally clapped when Bill Gates said he’s devoting money to curing malaria, because if you think about it you’ll realize that’s one of the key hinges to everything in malaria prevalent areas  - health, economics, etc.)  And all you need do is look around at what’s happening – You go into a hospital healthy and nearly everyone now comes out with an infection! It’s deadly to visit a hospital nowadays. It’s also deadly to get vaccinations at times too. Just CHECK and then think.    I always criticize legislators when they’re just swallowing the establishment line and not thinking anymore, and are ignoring the BIG issues like this that become GIGANTIC issues in time. Gosh, 5 minutes  on the internet can inform you of the pro and con on almost anything nowadays….ALWAYS look at all sides of an issue.

The only reasons drug companies keep researching antibiotics rather than the other methods that work, but which they can’t patent (but still will make money on) is because they can’t get a monopolistic patent. It’s about money, not helping people. Money. They are in business to make money. That’s one reason drug companies don’t focus on cures but on drugs to manage a disease — it’s one bottle of pills versus a monthly prescription that needs to be refilled forever. Get it? Not always, but there is a research tendency to go where the bigger dollars are.

So, my book on this is to help not just this nation, but ALL NATIONS and all people. No one else was doing it so I had to. There will come a time (probably in the next 50 years) when antibiotics won’t be working for MOST infections in general. And then they’ll have to use the other therapies I’ve mentioned — oxygen therapies, hydrogen peroxide, electrification of the blood, colloidal silver (or mercury) therapies, etc. A few doctors have written asking for the blood electrification chapter, etc. so it’s posted on the site somewhere.(There are LOTS of patents in that area, by the way).

I couldn’t put all these therapies in the Staph book, so just focused on one problem only and the solutions that may save lives.

What more can someone do? For those Gulf War vets who are exposed to depleted uranium, and for our citizens in case there ever was a nuclear plant accident or dirty bomb, potassium iodide stores won’t be enough and the hospitals won’t know what to do. That’s why, as my contribution, I wrote Radiation Detox as well.  It’s just like I said, we spend billions on nuclear weapons and studies but barely a cent on what to do if someone attacks us with those things, which is a good possibility if we keep insisting it’s OK to proactively attack a country with nuclear weapons while forgetting the fact that revenge is rarely forgotten EVEN AFTER DECADES, and  will likely prompt a counter response whenever it eventually becomes possible. 

That’s a perfect example of leadership arrogance and the stupidity of NOT THINKING through the long term, blow back or cause-and-effect  (like antibiotics resistance and the doomed antibiotic approach forever), an instance of not understanding human behavior once again. What do we call this in cultivation – a lack of wisdom, and when bad things happen the excuse "We didn’t know it would happen. Who could have possibly expected that? etc. etc."  Their view of history isn’t long enough and understanding isn’t deep enough. I have to do all I can to protect my nation with my little contribution, despite the  ignorance of my leaders, and you should, too. All you can do is offer.

You can make the same sorts of contributions to the country. Pick a problem, research it, find the solutions, and put them together, like any good journalist does, in a book. For instance, it caught my eye that gonorrhea is becoming more prevalent and antibiotic resistant, but doctors in China cure it with a "poison attacks poison" TCM therapy. That’s the type of information that can save lives if publicized. I once read of a doctor in Vietnam who hooked himself on opium in order to see what would work to cure himself, because of all the suffering he saw in his country, and then traveled around for years trying every cure he could find. That type of info is extremely valuable. I once had a girlfriend  doctor who  actually saw a herbal concoction in Ethiopia which cured rabies. I didn’t believe it when I first heard it, but all these things should be published so someone can use the indications to make breakthroughs.

You can find all sorts of information like this on the internet now, which is basically for free. I had to do it the hard way –expensive books and lots of labor and time reading and researching. You can do it in hours. So pick a topic, in any field, and make a contribution.

For agriculture pick up a copy of ACRES magazine, and you’ll see there’s so much you can write about. For health, check out the PRICE POTTENGER FOUNDATION and the topics they’re discussing. I have favorite nexus points for economics, politics, military, statesmanship, education, creativity, meditation, social welfare, investments, and all sorts of other topics. If you want to become enlightened, or just helpful to society, you have to know these things. A Buddha knows about everything because he studies. Dig in!

As I always say, as a layman, meditation isn’t something you leave off, but you have to bring clear introspection into your daily world and examine what you are doing, especially moreso now that the world is more complicated, quicker, and people seem to be championing the wrong principles on  the airwaves. Turn it off a bit and start thinking for yourself. Examine history. Ask what you would want to happen to YOU…if you don’t want something to happen to you, then don’t do it to others. You cannot avoid the karma otherwise.

It’s pretty simple to figure out karmic consequences:

Confucius: "Do not do to (impose upon) others what you do not want done to you."
Jesus: "Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you."
Mencius: "Do not do what you would not do, and don’t desire what you would not desire. That is all."
Hinduism (Mahabharata): "Do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain."
Judaism (Talmud): "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary."
Buddhism (Udana-Varga): "Hurt not others with that which pains yourself."
Christianity (Gospel of Matthew): "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them: for this is the law and the prophets."

So give if you want to receive, offer if you want to help. But if you want to destroy yourself, then take, hurt, kill, destroy. You cannot escape karma, which in the geopolitical field is called tit-for-tat, blowback, consequences, cause-and-effect, polticial response or "unintended consequences". It might not be immediate, but karmic returns always rebound.

 P.S. By the way, if you’re a statesman forging national policy, and you know that antibiotics are destined over time to fail more and more, and that the drug companies are spending their research dollars on more antibiotic research which, in time, is also doomed to fail, what do you do? You support research(publicly funded)  on the non-antibiotic alternatives that may work but which the drug companies won’t pursue because they don’t  promise monopolistic profits  for companies.

That’s right – you designate government research dollars for investigating other things that may work and then finding the ways to make them works the BEST. The research stipulation is to "make this work" if you can. Otherwise, someone (for instance) studies 15 mg of vitamin E for some health condition and finds out it didn’t do anything….andthen says vitamin E is not effective.  Of course not — 15 mg won’t help anybody with anything. You fund research that is targeted inthis way, "find out if this helps at all, and then find out how to make this work to the maximum effectiveness possible." That’s how you discover how to make lightbulbs — first find out if you can make light, then figure out the best way to maximize it.

See what I mean? That’s what policy makers should be doing in the health field. Stop massive funding of drug research – let the companies do that themselves as they are very efficient at it and will use gov’t funded research to make monopolistic money at the public’s expense. So instead, fund research into natural alternatives (non patentable, so all will benefit) not just to see if there is an effect. but rather, the mandate should be "How can you make this more effective than drugs? What do you have to do? What dosage, type, what do you pair it with, etc. to make this the most effective for this condition?"

That’s working in the public’s interest. Fund research into what profit seeking companies will not fund because there is no profit in it for them, and yet there is public benefit GALORE.

I always tell people that if they want to stay informed in the world, you’re not going to do it by watching TV anymore. I read books and magazines to do so, and now I’m always checking out google video (youtube.com) too.

The best educational google videos are at the bottom of the videos page. Click on google, and at the left top of the google screen click on the word VIDEO. Now on that page, skip  down the following section to the last one on the bottom — EDUCATION:

Popular
Featured
Comedy
Fatured on AOL
Music
Movie Trailers
TV Shows
Sports
Education – this has all the best videos on 911 etc. which reveal the real stories, facts and news  they’re keeping from you

Of course, there’s entertainment there, too. When I want a quick pick-me-up, I watch this video which is the TOP SEEN COMEDY video of all timeon google and YouTube. Watch it — it’s fun:

 

Einstein had the opinion there were 5 ascending levels of intelligence.

Ready?

1. Smart

2. Intelligent

3. Brilliant

4. Genius

5. Simple

Yes, #5 was simple. In other words, WISDOM.

Wisdom thinking means simple thinking, globular thinking of causes and effects. It entails understanding that all events have a cause and effect relationship – blowback – and that events run their course via principles well catalogued by Taoism.  For instance, principles such as  yin turns into yang and yang into yin at extremes. That subsidizing or incentivizing  or advertising behavior produces more of it. 

There are all sorts of wisdom principles I could discuss like this, but all I wanted to do is make you understand that the highest wisdom involves simplicity. The I-Ching, for instance, is said to encode the highest knowledge of Chinese culture in its simple structure. As my teacher always pointed  out, the more advanced a civilization, the simpler its description of knowledge and wisdom.

And speaking of the I-Ching, I’m almost done with the new Karma Calculator fortune program, and wanted to see what it said about Al Gore since he won a Nobel Prize. Gore’s been pretty much ignored for the last several years, and I wanted to see if the Karma Calculator had any hints of worldwide recognition that comes with the Nobel Prize. I was just curious…it doesn’t tell everything but at times it reveals LOTS.

Well one section of the reading does indicate that Gore would receive some type of fantastic reward or recognition – an "imperial decree from heaven" delivered by a phoenix no less (the highest type of  fame and recognition).  So a 1000 year  old book used the words and imagery known in its time to correctly indicate  the highest type of recognition in the land for Gore for 2007. It also suggests he’s working hard on his image this year, or something else to get rid of blemishes.

Here’s a small excerpt from the full Al Gore  Karma Calculator fortune for the year, which runs about 3-4 pages, and you can see the I-Ching’s symbology for great recognition that came through the Nobel Prize.

As the Chinese maintain and as has been proved once again, the I-Ching does embody the height of simplicity and wisdom. You’ll have to wait till later to see the rest of these fortunes…

—–

Ha ha ha … it’s several hours later and someone just told me that the symbology of the burning fish represents global warming. So Gore is acting very holy or sanctimonious (like a monk) pointing out to future generations (the child) that the oceans are warming (the burning fish) but it’s not too late yet.

I’m just laughing and laughing and laughing because when I first posted this hours ago I didn’t realize what that sentence referred to, and now I know. That’s the metaphoric language of the I-Ching for you. Its simplicity has encoded the highest wisdom for explaining Gore’s fortune … and this is from nearly a thousand years ago. Of course this is just a tiny section of the Karma Calculator reading for this year of his life, whereas other sections reveal  lots of details in more direct language, but I didn’t want to publicly reveal them. As long as you have a fairly accurate birth time (to within two hours), you can have a Karma Calculator reading calculated.

 

The University of Chicago has produced another Nobel Prize winner. Congratulations. I will introduce, in a bit, a topic which I believe will be recognized as a Nobel years later — the fact that free trade isn’t always a good thing, especially when the job losses that result reach a certain level that outweighs the benefits of lower consumer prices.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if things are cheap if you have no money to buy them because you don’t have a job!

Correct?

Such is the current trajectory of the US free trade policy, based on the inherent idea that a nation can survive as a service economy (the history of trade route cities proves otherwise) rather tan a manufacturing economy and that importing low cost workers will help you stave off decline as this happens. Actually, it only exacerbates countless problems because of unfactored costs.

But enough of that…let’s talk about getting rich, really rich. How rich? Warren Buffet or Bill Gates rich…

Why is Warren Buffet rich? Well it’s his karma – you can say the causes are from this life, and try to emulate them, but I doubt you’ll get the same results. Why? A past karmic foundation must be there for the results to be so LARGE, no?

But there are two reasons among many conventional  ones, if we prod into that area, which I want to discuss.

One little known reason behind Buffet’s success: Rich people tend to have longer time frames than ordinary people. They think in terms of the long term, and delay current consumption for future consumption. Their decisions are made with a long view in mind. They act for the long term. They invest for the long term. They make decisions with the long term in mind.

If only our leaders would think that way, rather than "How do I vote to win votes?"

By thinking in terms of the long term, rather than in 4 month long quarters (as most corporations do), Buffet isn’t worried about what the stock market will do tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. When he buys, his heart is at rest because he’s made an investment in a company, not a trading opportunity. He’s thinking of the long term and uses a long term horizon for his investment decisions. He makes the RIGHT decision because he’s thinking long term.

Hmmmm …. statesmen should think that way as well.

There’s a second thing here — he thinks in terms of buying a whole company….being the sole owner. That changes your perspective as well as to what to buy and what to do;  it changes your perspective as to what you should do in terms of strategies and decisions, because once again the next few reporting quarters don’t matter. You’re the owner — the long term matters. Survival matters, not raping the firm or destroying it for short term gains.

When you make decisions as if you are the sole owner, you tend to protect your property a lot better than if you were just a temporary steward, who wants to therefore squeeze every dollar out of it he possibly can. I’ve seen it for myself in visiting Communist China that when you make decisions as if you are the sole owner of private property, everything runs better, too. When no one is the owner, boy oh boy is it a mess. (That’s just reason #8247 why Communism is the stupidist thing around). When you give KFC managers a stake in their little chicken outfit,  productivity and profits improve almost overnight in the very same location that was managed by the very same person.

As I always said, think with WISDOM and you’ll get it. Play with PhDs all day long with their theories and you won’t. The US education system has now, for the past 30 years as an example, played with all sorts of new theoretical ways to teach and the results are now worse off than ever… the same can be said for our medical system that was once the shining light of the world. So much for PhDs vs. common sense wisdom and management.

This is all important for our topic… which is how should the leader  of a country think?

The leader of a country, elected or not, should think as if he is the sole owner of the country and make decisions with the long term in mind, rather than what’s popular or unpopular to win him/her votes for the next election. He is a steward of long term decisions and consequences.

The short term type of thinking — to get votes for the next election — will sooner or later put the country in chaos and lead to many catastrophes, disasters and emergencies, or slow deteriorations rather than just 20 year crises, where everything could have been prevented. In order not to lose a vote, decisions that need to be made are never made. No one says anything important. No one wants to act until it’s too late.

That is the job description of the politician. Not the statesman.

A perfect example is the benefit of having one official  language for a country.

HISTORY shows, yes history shows that countries fracture across language lines. Time and again, across nations and across time, countries fracture across language lines. Go check it. Go prove it. Try to say "this time it’s different."

Countries that unify the language, on the other hand, cultivate an underlying framework for unity; those that don’t unify the language make it just that much harder to stay together over time. Witness China and India; India still has several dozen languages that are an impediment to national unity compared to the unity seen in China, which decided to institute one language and writing system ages ago.  No one says you should not permit multiple language usage in a country. History just shows you should make one official language for all government purposes. That forces a minimum level of conformity and a common standard. It’s a unifying force for the nation.

What about " free trade "… 

The economics behind free trade developed  during agricultural economies, not during industrial times of manufactured goods with high technology and huge firms that benefit from economies of scale.  It was developed  by countries that would benefit from the concept without being hurt by it.  They were  "special cases."

With globalization and free trade REALLY going international, countries are finding out that they really aren’t benefitting as they assumed they would according to the free trade dogma.  What it really means is that someone can come into your country and conquer you economically, which I’ve shown how to do in my book on Kuan Tzu.

Some academics have finally put a finger on it – Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests, by Ralph Gomory and William Baumol. They have been called the "Martin Luther" of the Free Trade Church of globalization because their economic arguments favor a reformation of the process which is now destroying countries, especially the US. Within 50 years the idea will be discredited because of "special cases", but by then it will be too late.

For example, there are indeed differences to the strength of your economy depending on what you export. If two nations export the same amount of goods, but one wholly in the form of pretzels and the other computer chips, one has more strategic strength than the other even though the dollar volume of exports is the same. 

Common sense, but classical models don’t allow for this …  nor do they allow for the fact that at some point the benefit of cheap goods is less important than an extreme of unemployment … and thus we see the decline of our most beneficial industries in return for the growth of shaky service based ones. This puts an economy at risks during times of crisis and extremes … and guess what? Extremes and crises seem to happen every 40-60 years or so!

To me the countries of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth are not the BIG security threats to the US. This is is the basis of it all – economic security. Job loss and related issues are THE NATIONAL THREAT, and this is what’s being ignored. See Freedom to Fascism for an eye-opening understanding.

The following is written on the tomb of an Anglican Bishop in Westminster Abby (1100 A.D):

"When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

"But it, too, seemed immovable.

"As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

"And now, as I lie on my deathbed, I suddenly realize: If I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

"From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country, and who knows, I may have even changed the world."

Well Confucius, the enlighened sage, beat him to the punch. Confucius said:

"The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

"Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy. " (The Great learning, http://classics.mit.edu/Confucius/learning.html)

"From the emperor down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of every thing besides." — The Great Learning, II: 130-2 (Loomis trans.)

So there you have it, as well as why I am always stressing to you  self-cultivation. It all starts with self-improvement, self-cultivation, personal cessation-contemplation and meditation practice. That’s the method. In my Socrates book I mentioned how THIS is what must be taught in schools.

It’s non-religious, and if you learn to watch your thoughts or  police your own mind through self-awareness and introspection, you’d have less and less of all the problems you see in the world. 

 

Common sense is not so common.  Take a look around you right now with what’s going on in the world. Is what is championed on the news or in public as the mainstream conclusion the right conclusion or course of action?

I’m talking about all sorts of topics…what we take for the common sense, conventional wisdom thing to do because talking heads said it’s smart….

Gardasil, that Merck vaccine I warned you about several blog posts back, has already been linked to 5 deaths and over 2000  adverse reactions, bringing the "known total" of such problems to an astronomical amount.

This is happening to  little girls, mind you, with no risk of cancer at that age — and they’re still pushing it. Duh? Who’s getting compensated that they pushed this so strongly in spite of the logica against it and who’s not thinking straight? Which legislators should lose office?

Conventional wisdom – You want to risk vaccinating 11-12 year old girls (with practically zero risk of cervical cancer at that age)  with an untested vaccine with no long term studies of effects (such as causing cancer itself, or even the possibility of induced sterility) … and you want to do this when only 4000 people per year (out of 150 million women) die of cervical cancer and this is the initial response rate ? 

â–ª 31 were life threatening. This is 1.4% of the girls reported.

â–ª 1385 required the girls be sent to the emergency room. That is 62.75% of the girls reported. What???????

â–ª 451 females at the time of this report had not recovered. That is 20.43% of the girls reported .

â–ª 51 females were disabled when these figures were filed. That is 2.31% of the girls reported .

â–ª 5 girls died. Their ages were 12, 15, 19 and two the age was unknown at the time of the report. This is a death rate of .23%.

Ok  let’s swich to other topics and show you more conventional wisdom thinking.

Mercury is unsafe in seafood we’re told, but all of a sudden it’s safe in vaccines and in dental amalgam fillings. How about cell phones are perfectly safe and don’t increase your chances of brain tumors? What about that old one — "there’s no evidence that smoking  causes cancer," something everyone knew to be false but championed for years.

I could just have easily pointed out a bunch of common sense opinions in the field of politics, foreign affairs, Iran/Iraq, the economy, medicine, science (global warming yes, but caused by CO2?) and so forth like the fact that "NAFTA will create jobs for the US" ( look at Ross Perot correct observation that you’d hear a giant sucking sound of job losses). 

You know what all these main stream, common sense ideas (that are wrong) have in common? Vested interests — big money behind them. So stop swallowing what people tout as conventional wisdom.

Think before you swallow this any longer.

And old story comes to mind …

King Wen [of Zhou] asked the grand duke [Lü Shang], “What about the lord who labors to elevate the wise but does not garner the effect, so that the disorder of the world increases to an extreme that becomes dangerous?” 

     The grand duke said, “He elevates the wise but does no use them.  This is because he elevates the names of the wise and does not get the reality of the wise. 

     King Wen said, “Where is the fault?” 

     The grand duke said, “The fault is in using what the worldly praise and not getting the really wise.” 

     King Wen said, “What is using what the worldly praise?” 

     The grand duke said, “To listen to the praise of the worldly is to take the unwise as the wise, to take the unintelligent as the intelligent, to take the disloyal as the loyal, to take the unfaithful as the faithful.  If the lord takes as wise and intelligent those praised by the worldly and takes as unworthy those reviled by the worldly, then the majority party will advance and the minority party will retreat.  Thus, when the wicked group together, they obscure the wise; the loyal ministers die without crime, and the wicked ministers seek court ranks with flattery.  Thus, the disorder of the world increases to an extreme, and as a result, the country cannot avoid peril.”  [From the early Chinese work of martial strategy, the Liu Tao (Six Strategies).]

SOURCE: http://www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/sztp3/translations/shobogenzo/translations/butsudo/translation.html

You can buy lots of wisdom books at http://www.asiapacbooks.com/category.asp?cid=43. I recommend:

THREE STRATEGIES OF HUANG SHI GONG

SIXTEEN STRATEGIES OF ZHUGE LIANG

THIRTY-SIX STRATAGEMS

SIX STRATEGIES FOR WAR

I have all the Asiapac books. If you have no time to read the original translations, just read these summaries. They are faster, and you’ll get the point about how to think and act with wisdom. People always ask me how to learn strategic thinking if you have no teacher and this is one of the ways … read the classic books on wisdom thinking and strategy.

 

The management consultant Peter Drucker is famous for saying, "Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center."

In other words, for a company … and thus a national economy to grow … you have to create new products through innovation, and then sell them. For a country, you want to sell them overseas via exports. If you just sell them inside the country, you’re not attracting more money into the country but just redistributing money within the country, much as a casino does not create new wealth but just rearranges the ownership of it. But let’s leave aside the topic of exports for now.

How do you increase innovation at a firm? How do you teach people innovation?

One method I support is TRIZ -  Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. Part of my recommendations for  increasing innovation in a nation is making sure engineering students are intorduced to TRIZ.

What is it?

TRIZ was developed by the Russian engineer and researcher Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues starting in 1946. They believed that learning how to invent can be   reduced to a process that can be taught.

Think what that would do to the innovation pipeline of a country, and the effect on the economy! Think about it!

By examining a large database of patented inventions, Altshuller came to the conclusion that inventing is often the removal of a technical contradiction with the help of certain principles. He looked at hundeds of thousands of patents to come up with his principles for solving technical problems, or contradictions, and thereby formulating inventive engineering breakthroughs.

Whenever anyone looks at thousands, or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of anything to come up with basic principles, consistencies or conclusions, I pay attenton. To create a body of learning from this is to create a tremendous resource!

I’ve always felt that this was a key to rejuvenating the US engineering education, or at least making sure that US ingenuity keeps the country at the top of the economic heap since innovation is what’s holding the economy together right now while manufacturing declines. If innovation dies, the economy will soon die, too. So I was very disappointed recently to find out that the Carnegie Foundation rejected a grant to the TRIZ foundation to test the improvement of creativity and innovation in students after they have been exposed to some basic TRIZ knowledge. Very disappointed. When you look at an economy and all its complicated pieces, it’s easy to get lost without being able to identify some of the key joints upon which it swings, and the micro changes that can produce gargantuan changes. TRIZ falls into that category exactly.

I’m disappointed to no end, for our nation’s sake. It reminds me of ham radio popularization in Jordan … Wayne Green, founder of Byte and 73 magazine, helped introduce  ham radio into the country and because of the support of the King and his ministers, years later the country was awash with savvy, technically educated engineers all because of the wise sponsorship of a hobby. Foreign labor no longer needed to be imported and national security was enhanced all because they identified a little joint  upon which they could swing big doors, and oiled that tiny joint at virtually no cost to the country. As a statesmenen, that’s what you look for — low cost, zero cost changes with gigantic positive results. You can go  look up the story of amateur radio in Jordan at www.waynegreen.com.

As to marketing innovation, there are so many sources out there it’s ridiculous, but one Brainstorming video I like people to review is the one put out by Doug Hall’s Eureka Ranch. The process he uses to come up with new products, refined over the years, is exactly what’s need by large corporations who get too large and thereby lose their innovative juices because of all the bureaucracy that gets built in.

TRIZ … and brainstorming. Two things to learn for increased innovation. Improtant for a nation’s economy.

I believe in TRIZ so much that if I was a presidential candidate, I’d make sure this was introduced to schools and engineering colleages. You have to work on causes, not effects, and this is EXACTLY the way to proceed!

In the case of the Old testament prophet Elisha, we have the old story of the master Elijah looking for his successor … another man with samadhi attainments or the capability of quickly attaining samadhi attainments (because  of past life cultivation). You can find countless stories like this in Indian literature where a master or sadhu makes a trip and then asks for someone to become his student, or foretells that some child will become a future master.

How is this possible? Why is it done?

As to the how, it’s  the same method the Elijah used — a master can see the past life connections and capabilities of students. That in itself is a samadhi attainment. If you get religious and say that it’s "God’s handiwork" on the left side over here, then you have to be consistent and  say the same thing applies to the right side over there…especially when you find the same phenomenon over and over again in various cultivation schools.

Even the Zen school has stories of masters traveling the country looking for successors, who then stay with them for awhile until the great work is completed. Same with Hinduism and Taoism and Sufism. For instance the Fourth Zen Patriarch went out of his way into the mountains to find the Fifth Zen Patriarch and teach him the dharma, which is just one famous Zen story of a teacher looking for a good student to carry on the tradition. The famous Muslim poet -adept Rumi also had a teacher with such a close relationship. In fact, it’s probable that his teacher, although disliked, had the Tao whereas Rumi probably had just samadhi achievements, but you cannot say this for sure. In the Bible the prophet Daniel is one who may have had the Tao, but once again there is not enough information to tell for sure.

Why is this done – that a master seeks a disciple? So that the lineage does not die out, so that the lineage continues unbroken. Otherwise a people become spiritually lost. The history of every cultivation school – because of impermanence – is that they are all destined to die out over time. A master’s responsibility to his people and lineage is to find a successor and help him attain the Tao and hopefully a stage of attainment even higher than his own. That’s why Elisha asked Elijah for a double portion of his spirit.

Many traditions   have men of Tao which is why in the Bible we have the prophet Balaam. Though of a different tradition, he had the  power to curse the Israelites because of his samadhi, too. 

Now remember,  the samadhi attainments are universal, and you’re not a master if you don’t have them. Even higher up the scale are the enlightenment attainments classified by the Bodhisattva bhumis, but those are rare to be found in the line of Jewish prophets and in Christianity among its saints. In the world we have humans, then rich humans, then kings. Above them we have the asuras, then the Desire Realm heavenly beings. A first dhyana samadhi master ranks above ALL these, and second dhyana master above the first, and so on it goes. Above the samadhi masters come the enlightened masters in terms of spiritual attainments, which have ten ranks, and above them come the fully enlightened beings, called Buddhas (which is just a word and has nothing to do with Buddhism other than its that terminology we’re using). So when you spurn a real samadhi master – from whatever religion – and bow before the rich, or famous or some elected official – even the head of a country - actually you’ve got your head all mixed up as to the higher and lower.

Anyway, Elisha performed many miracles during his life, most of which you can once again find in Eastern stories as well. Why? Because they are the same old samadhi powers, not miracles from God. You, too, if you cultivate, can achieve them. It just depends upon your cultivation skills and efforts. Of course to control ignorant people and nations, or just to speak to the uneducated, you call them "acts of God" or other such things that will work to have the effect you desire. It’s like the President of a country putting a fancy name on some bill to get it passed. It’s all skillful means, of course.

One such story, to show  the commonality of samadhi powers we think unique, concerns the story of Elisha raising the son of the Shummanite woman.

When Elisha reached the house, he found the boy lying dead.
He went in, closed the door on them both, and prayed to the LORD.
Then he lay upon the child on the bed, placing his mouth upon the child’s mouth, his eyes upon the eyes, and his hands upon the hands. As Elisha stretched himself over the child, the body became warm.
He arose, paced up and down the room, and then once more lay down upon the boy, who now sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.
Elisha summoned Gehazi and said, "Call the Shunammite." She came at his call, and Elisha said to her, "Take your son."
She came in and fell at his feet in gratitude; then she took her son and left the room. [New American Bible, 2 Kings, Chapter 4]

Is this unique? No. We can go to Tibet where we find the female adept Yeshe Tsogyel who did something similar for a youth who had died. Yeshe Tsogyel actually reached the second of the Bodhisattva bhumis, and  if you want to read her story you can pick up a copy of Sky Dancer by Keith Dowman. There are lots of reasons she reached a higher stage of attainment than Elisha or Elijah, but we cannot go into that here.

The relevant story? …

At this time there was a war in progress in Nepal, and amongst the citizens of Bhaktapur there was a man of incalculable wealth, a merchant called Dana Ayu whose twenty-year old son called Naga had been killed in the fighting. His parents had brought his body home where they paid it inordinate homage. They were bowed with grief, vowing that they would immolate themselves on the same pyre as their son. I felt unbearable compassion for them, and approaching them I said, ‘There is no cause for so much grief. In this city lives a youth called Atsara Sale, and if you will give me a large sum of gold that I need to release him from service, I will restore your son to life.’

The couple were overjoyed. ‘If you can bring our son back to life we will even ransom a prince for you. But is it really possible?’
After they had agreed to give me whatever gold was required for Sale’s ransom in return for resurrecting their son, I took a large white silk cloth, and folding it in half and half again, I covered the corpse up to the chin. …

Pointing my finger at the heart of the corpse, it began to glow with increasing intensity, and letting a drop of saliva fall into the dead man’s mouth from my own, in his ear I intoned, ‘AYU JNANA BHRUM!’ Then I anointed his deep knife wounds with my hands, and his body was made entirely whole again. The youth’s awareness became clearer and clearer, until, finally, he was fully conscious. In delighted astonishment all who were witness to this miracle prostrated before me. The parents in their joy embraced and wept over their son restored to his original strength [Sky Dancer, Keith Dowman, pp. 53-54]

I could pick countless stories and show you the same wonders in the East as in Western traditions. Why is this possible? Once again, because it’s from cultivating meditation techniques and attaining samadhi. You’re prejudiced or just ignorant and uniformed if you say the Eastern stories are fake and Biblical are real, or one is heathen and one is because of God.

When you study the stages of cultivation, the commonality of cultivation methods, the universality of the process, expedient means and so forth, you’ll find each religion trying to call itself supreme when all that matters is that people cultivate and reach these stages themselves. They all involve empty mind, stainless mind, a mind free of thought — and THAT STATE is non-denominational. Think about it….how could it not be? All samadhi powers originate from cultivating the chi and mai, shen and empty mind. Dwell on this. Think about this deeply. It’s all SCIENCE.

So next time you hear the word "prophet" in the Bible, think "samadhi master," and then think of the masters of the East as well and their clear teachings on how to cultivate samadhi and the Tao. And oh yes, the Christian saints were not really saints unless they had cultivated samadhi; you can elect to call someone a "saint" but you can’t elect them to have had samadhi attainments if they did not, and that’s the only thing that truly qualifies them for the title.

Then you’ll really be in line with the spirit and calling of the Bible for you to cultivate and draw nearer to the Source.

When I was young, I often read the Biblical stories of the prophets, including the prophet Elijah. Elijah appears in the Christian Bible, Old Testament Hebrew Bible, Talmud, Mishnah and even the Koran. Why? Because he was a samadhi master and performed many demonstrations of samadhi powers which the uninformed (ignorant) call miracles or works of God. Elijah is famous for raising the dead, bringing fire down from the sky and ascending into heaven in a chariot of fire.

None of these events are unique in the history of spiritual cultivation. In fact, many have been repeated elsewhere, so if you accept them HERE you have to open the door to accepting them THERE. That’s the first mistake most people make. These deeds are not the province of just Elijah, or the Jews or the Biblical line of masters, or Christians or however limited you want to make your claims. That’s another mistake people make who just don’t know enough about spiritual cultivation and its stages.

Elijah’s miracles were the result of cultivation, nothing more and nothing less, and you can read all sorts of accounts from all sorts of spiritual streams describing not only the same sort of events, but telling you how to cultivate them. In this case we don’t know which methods Elijah used, and that’s another reason why the Jewish line of samadhi masters (Prophets) has died out. The Rabbis need to start cultivating samadhi if they want to re-establish it.

If you cultivate, then you can perform these feats as well. The India yoga schools and tantric schools have catalogs of such powers you can cultivate even if you DON’T achieve full samadhi — it just takes practice, which is why I won’t speak of certain feats you can perform since a smart person  upon hearing of them can recognize how to cultivate them and will do harm to himself and others. That’s why my own teacher has showed me or mentioned to me various methods on how to kill ghosts, open up this or that chakra, or advanced deadly martial arts that he never discusses publicly. Very few people can understand these things, but a smart person can in one second at least understand the theory, and from that go on to cultivate various forms of gong-fu WITHOUT  samadhi…though the result might take years of efforts.

Anyway, Elijah’s miracles are the results of samadhi powers, and have nothing to do with "God" (though that’s what you proclaim to your audience who can’t understand because they lack any attainment,s or when you want to deflect questions or change the trajectory of events or for whatever reason) but with personal efforts at self-cultivation. They are not the province of any one religion, nor is any religion SUPREME because they have this sort of demonstration in their history. Where there are samadhi masters there are superpowers, so you’ll find this sort of thing everywhere there are saints, sages, gurus, masters, adepts, initiates,  etc. 

In fact, when spiritual streams  battled with one another in the past, usually these powers were publicly demonstrated by cultivation adepts on both sides in a type of contest to see whose stages of cultivation were higher than the other. You can read countless stories of this — Christianity’s Saint Patrick vs. the Pagans, Tibetan Buddhists vs. Bon magicians, Judaism’s Elijah vs. the priests of Baal, Moses vs. the Egyptian priests, Chinese Buddhist Adepts vs. Taoist priests, various Hindu masters vs. Muslim masters, Sufi masters vs. orthodox Muslim scholars, and so forth.

It would be a great book to collect all these stories just to show you how both sides cultivated such powers, and how the battles   first involved a contest of logic and rhetoric to see whose teachings or dogma was supreme, and then a battle to see whose realization and gong-fu was   higher. That was a debate. So today if you challenge someone from another religion to some sort of debate, if your own knowledge isn’t far reaching and you don’t even have any gong-fu or wisdom attainments, you aren’t even qualified. It’s not a matter of intellect, but accomplishment….and yet that accomplishment must also illustrate an understanding of the spiritual path.

In just one random instance of a gong-fu battle (most you can find in India) held in China, two Buddhist monks (Kashyapa Matanga and Gobharana) publicly ascended into empty space and manifested the eighteen transformations of an Arhat during a dharma battle with some Taoists. The upper part of their bodies emitted water, the lower part of their bodies emitted fire; the upper part of their bodies emitted fire, the lower part of their bodies emitted water; they walked about in empty space; they lay down and went to sleep in empty space, and so forth. 

That’s what I wanted to bring your attention to – this control over the five elements in dharma battles because Elijah exhibited the same thing.

Many people have written that Elijah’s departure in a  chariot of fire (the Biblical description of his passign away) was a primitive people’s account of a UFO. Nope….it was actually just an uneducated people’s attempt to describe one of these "eighteen transformations of an Arhat," well known in countless Indian, Tibetan, Buddhist and Chinese stories, and just described.

That’s the purpose of this blog post — to teach you about the eighteen transformations of an Arhat:

Therefore, the arhats, who have achieved the highest attainment of the Hinayana, know beforehand when their earthly life is over. When ready to pass away they manifest wonders, "reduce their bodies to ashes and extinguish their knowledge," saying of themselves, "My life is over, my pure conduct is established, my task is done, and I will not experience any further becoming."
 … the state of dhyana, as Shakyamuni also said, are a kind of common phenomenon; that is, they are not the monopoly of Buddhism. As long as they deeply understand the principles and diligently cultivate realization, ordinary worldly people and those of other religions can all attain similar states of concentration, but none of them are the ultimate complete teaching. [The Story of Chinese Zen, pp. 44-47]

For instance Ananda, the attendant of Buddha, had finally reached the stage of Arhatship upon the teaching of Master Mahakasyapa, the successor of Shakyamuni Buddha. He was crossing the river Ganga when King Ajatashatru of one country arrived  and begged him to come to his side, while the people of the city of Vaishali  started gathering on the other banks of the River Ganga to welcome him across and begged Ananda to come to their side.

In order to avoid disappointment to both parties and possible conflict, and knowing that his time to depart this world had come, Ananda displayed his superpowers by rising  into the air and disappearing into a ball of fire. His ashes fell on both the banks of the river where the relics were enshrined. He basically demonstrated upon his death, as an Arhat typically does, his siddhi power over the fire element just like Elijah. It was exactly the same thing — many Arhats choose to leave the world in this very same method and it is recoutned countless times in Tibetan, Chinese and Indian sources.

That is exactly what Elijah did. He had samadhi capabilities, for sure. The evidence in unmistakable. But by no means was it unique or supreme. He definitely was not enlightened either, but did reach the samadhi realms in his cultivation and upon his death, rose into the air, performed the fire transformation, and departed.

No, it wasn’t a UFO… it was just an Arhat saying Farewell.  

Those poor UFO folks unfortunately know too little about cultivation to have even made the connection. They might want to read a book like the stories of the 84 Siddhas in Masters of Mahamudra, by Dowman.

Too bad that too few know anything at all about spiritual cultivation and meditation techniques. Of course UFO books sell, cultivation and meditation books don’t.

 

 

Pop Quiz: What form of government is the United States?

If you answered a "democracy" – Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. 

Technically speaking, the USA was founded as a "Constitutional Republic." However, it uses democratic elections/means to ELECT OFFICIALS who must act according to constitutional law that limits governmental powers over the people. That’s a big difference. A democracy, on the other hand, is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner!!!

The USA is a Constitutional Republic wherein your rights, as an individual, are protected against being taken away by the government or anyone else. They are protected or enshrined in a Bill of Rights. Otherwise, people can vote away your rights just because they’re a majority. On the receiving end, that’s called "persecution," isn’t it?

Think about it. Yes, in a pure democracy, your rights can be voted away or taken away, and thus a majority can control or suppress a minority. If you’re that minority, by definition you are not free. Who said you’re "free" in a democracy if someone just took away your rights? 

Big distinction. That’s why people have to break the Pavlovian habit opf saying "Democracry, Democracy" and substitute for it "CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC."

The Founding Fathers of the US hated  democracy as the worst form of government you can have because in a democracy  the majority rules, and the 51% majority can be a tyrant over the other 49% stripping them of everything in the name of "democracy – majority rules." So don’t get this wrong in the future. Stop repeating "Demopcracy" and start saying "Constitutional Republic with a Bill of Rights." Remember what Benjamin Franklin said so that you always get it right: "A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner."

Get it? Democracy is not synomous with freedom. Protected individual rights are synonomous with freedom ….

In a  democracy (not a Constitutional Republic, mind you), if  the majority of 51% (or the government saying it’s "acting for the common good") decides to deprive you of some rights, then you’re out of luck. You can lose your freedom of speech, property, the right to protect and defend yourself and so forth. That’s what people are presently worried about, because it is happening. 

Democracies are tyrannies, so thought our Founding Fathers, but  Constitutional Republics protect you from tyrannies. However, to elect candidates to office, yes you use democratic elections….elections without voter fraud because of electronic counting machines that are rigged to choose pre-selected winners.

Why do most people get this wrong?  Watch the Aaron Russo video and learn a bit as to what’s going on. Really it’s worth your time. It’s really, really, really that good. Stay with it to the end because it takes a while to get into the meat.

So the US is a Constitutional Republic, but there are cycles of history (see Schlesinger’s Cycles of American History as one such synopsis) wherein there is an ebb and flow of affairs, and in particular, there are always moves to strip away the rights of people bit by bit without their knowing. England has turned into a virtual police state because of this, and the US is following suit. That’s why people hope they have a free and independent judicial system that follows the rule of law, and if it doesn’t, the people have the option of

(1) jury nullification and

(2) instituting laws for judicial accountability wherein judges and prosecutors can be brought up on charges for not following the law.

I think it’s time to look at both of these again. Look at that District Attorney  Mike Nifong , for instance, who kept pursing the innocent Duke lacrosse players (Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans ) on rape charges when some were not even at the scene of the incident, proven by video cameras of banking activities and so forth.

Frankly, most people don’t care about any of this. As my teacher used to say, most people just want to have a chance in life, want to be able to get along with their lives (jobs need to be available) with very little interference from the state and have access to justice when they need it. True, true. As I point out in my book on Kuan Tzu, today everyone shouts DEMOCRACY as supposedly the cure-all for the world. In earlier times this was Christianity, Industrialization, Capitalism and other things in turn … each of which ultimately proved lacking as the "savior of the world."

The problem is, there are always people behind the scene who crave power and control, or believe they know what’s best for social engineering (see Intellectuals, by Paul Johnson) and want to warp things this way or that. These are people who because of their wealth or position, believe that they now have the wisdom conferred on them to be able to make conclusions in these areas, or the rights to so order them. Just because they’re rich they now think they’re wise…or entitled to call the shots for others.

Galbraith even wrote about this saying the newly found rich, because of their newly found wealth, often start assuming that because of their financial success they possess a degree of wisdom and intelligence extending to all sorts of affairs of which they know nothing. Their cultivation and study, I dare say, is quite lacking. As my Teacher once said about the Chinese who wanted to change the Chinese writing system, only after you were already a master of many forms of Chinese  writing through the dynasties, and understood the ins and outs, only then you might be a little qualified to discuss matters.

A related issue I often see – some people mistakenly try to correct every little thing in the world when sometimes it’s better to leave well enough alone, despite the slippage of injustice here and there. As Taoism says,  water must circulate freely  and its flow should not unduly be obstructed. Where would you be if you had to fill out a Form 1040 for giving the neighbor’s kid $20 for mowing the lawn to help him out some  Saturday weekend? Pleasssssse – give me a break. The more legalistic you get, the more the black market will grow as a necessity because it MUST exist, it is always there just as there is always a certain minimum amount of unempoyment. History has shown this time and again.

Neveretheless, people without wisdom but with good intentions want laws to proliferate here and there to the extent, as was shown in the Legalism period of Chinese history and in certain Roman periods,  that everyone becomes guilty of something just by virtue of living – everyone becomes an unindicted felon. In ancient Assyria, I believe it was,  the eventual size of the government  bureaucracy necessary to collect taxes and institute the laws became so overhwelming that this burden  destroyed the Empire.

This proliferation of laws allows for three major things to happen:

1. Useless and burdensome government bureacracy, oversight and control grows and Grows and GROWS

2. Everyone loses respect for the law (since everyone must break the law to survive), which is the worst possible thing to happen because in effect it now means you have NO LAWS because no one’s following them (everyone is a criminal, so why bother anymore) — you’ve wrecked the whole system — the extreme of yang becomes yin and vica versa … see China as a modern example

3. It allows for the arbitrary exercise of government power via selective prosecution – the government can come and get you anytime they want (it reminds me of the story by Jimmy Rogers in Investment Biker where he needs the local currency of some country for some transaction, the government official directs him to the black market as the only means available, and then tries to arrest him for the transaction afterwards in order to shake him down for a bribe – LOL)

That’s why I don’t believe we should try to legislate everything "bad" out of existence. Some things are just best left alone – the appendage of the word "hate" onto crimes being just another such category subject to abuse. I really despise this one, and know the secret design behind the move. Just ask yourself — are not the laws good enough that if you are caught for buglarizing or killing someone you will be punished for it?   The appendage of "hate" is redundant…and people without wisdom thinking don’t see what it’s being set up to be eventually used for.

Frankly, I agree with Aaron Russo that if I don’t commit violence, theft or fraud against another human being, I should be able to live my life as I wish making all the mistakes I must in the quest for self-improvement. Otherwise, the road of cultviation will eventually be curtailed, too, as it makes you an independent being free of the system. I don’t need someone else telling me how to live my life, or how I must go about healing myself if I’m sick, or what I’m not allowed to eat (raw milk illegal? we’ve drunk it for thousands of years). I don’t want to be under Communism, and not under Socialism either.

What about you? 

I remember reading Ernst Gombecht’s The Story of Art, or one of his other works, and his talking to friends who worked in the Nazi bureaucracy. Gombrecht asked them if they believed in all the things done and they aid, "Well no, of course,  but you know we have families to support. You know how it is" That’s how and why people go along with the evil in the world. It seems so ordinary, but people almost always do go along with wrong things saying, "Well, we’re civil servants and we all have families to support." That’s why you need a Bill of Rights, a Constitutional Republic, free and independent juries,   the ability to issue citizen  arrests, jury nullification, whistleblowers need to be protected and so forth…

If you can find the quote then let me know…I surrounded by so many books here that I couldn’t find either of my copies of his books.

That’s how it happens. People don’t have the courage to stand up and say "No, this is wrong." They don’t realize that they will have to pay the karmic price either way – the karma of refusing, painful as it may be, is actually far less than doing what they know is wrong because they will reap that result themselves directly when the time comes due.

You may look at things with only the short term consequencs in mind, but you cannot escape karma. That’s why sages refuse to do what is wrong, even upon penalty of death. You can kill him (be forewarned that you  reap terrible karma for killing, persecuting, or jailing a sage, as Buddha warned), but you cannot force a sage to do anything.

Socrates refused to arrest a man named Leon of Salimis, though ordered by the Thirty Tyrants. Socrates went home while the others obeyed the order, and went home when given the orders even though he knew it might mean his death. He simply refused to do evil, but the ruling democracy was making all the leaders of Athens perform these illegal arrests so that everyone was thus guilty of some blame.  You have your own choices in life. Think about it. Socrates said, "I refused to do what I knew to be wrong, even thoug it might cost me my life."

Once again, think about it. Like wathcing the actor Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, that IS the true fiber of the American Republic.

Moral: Stop shouting "Democracy, Democracy" and start shouting, "Constitutional Republic. Protect our Rights!"