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CwG Weekly Bulletin #34: Remote Control

My Dear Friends:

Just moments ago I landed in the United States after spending the better part of the past week in South Korea where I delivered a keynote address at the second Humanities Conference sponsored by Dr. Ilchi Lee and the New International Graduate University of Peace.

I am dictating the message you are now reading from the airport lounge where I am waiting for a connecting flight to Arizona. Tomorrow, the date most of you will receive this, I will be beginning a 5-day intensive retreat called Recreating Yourself, which the Conversations with God Foundation will be producing in Sedona. We expect well over 100 people will be attending this 5-day retreat-people who see themselves as playing a key role in shifting their own personal consciousness, and the consciousness of the planet as well.

I want to report to you that the atmosphere in North Korea is one of unhappiness with the United States on the part of many people. Many of the other speakers of the Humanities Conference which I attended as a major presenter had words of criticism for America and the role it is now playing in international affairs. Former President of Costa Rica and Nobel Prize winner, Oscar Arias, opened the conference with a sparkling address that highlighted, from his viewpoint, some of the challenges facing the nations of the world today. He made it very clear that one of the biggest challenges was the foreign policy of the United States of America, and how to overcome the wayward direction it has taken under our current president.

This point of view was expressed in other ways by virtually every other major speaker at the conference. It is also the point of view being expressed by the major media in South Korea. Virtually every newspaper that I have read in the past five days has contained critical commentaries and editorials with regard to the U.S. policy as it relates both to Iraq and North Korea.

Significantly, I am hearing the same kinds of comments from people on the street. Whether in hotel elevators, restaurants, supermarkets or department stores, most people in South Korea feel that, while the United States has been a good and loyal friend, its most recent shift toward a unilateralist foreign policy is about to produce regrettable consequences and an undeniable shift in relationships with countries around the world, not the least of which is South Korea and all the peoples of the Korean peninsula.

What South Koreans want most of all from the United Sates right now is for our present government to allow South Korea to play the leading role in reuniting the Korean peninsula and in resolving the difficulties being presented on the world stage by North Korea's reactivation of its nuclear program. South Koreans move from mild resentment to unveiled anger directed towards the United States as a result of this country's insistence on playing the key role in interactions with North Korea regarding its current nuclear policies. People in South Korea are equally angry that, if the U. S. is going to play the leading role, it is playing so clumsily.

Most politicians, military leaders, members of the clergy, members of the academic establishment, and members of the media in South Korea believe that face-to-face dialogue with the North Korean government is the only way to resolve the issues that have been placed on the world stage in the past several months. If the U.S. is to play the leading role in resolving the North Korean conflict, it must engage in such direct dialogue, South Koreans strongly believe. Their first preference is for the U. S. to get off the stage and let the dialogue be led by more local interests-specifically the South Korean government, as well as the governments of Japan and China.

The Bush administration, as most of you must know, has staunchly refused to have any face-to-face dialogue with North Korea whatsoever. It said that it will not reward North Korea's bad behavior. But North Korea-and not a few South Koreans-see the Bush administration and the United States of America as badly behaving people. Those living on the Korean peninsula are not unaware that President Bush called North Korea part of an "axis of evil" shortly after he took office, and the new Bush policy of "preemptive strike" which is apparently now going to be used in Iraq poses a severe and very real threat to the North Koreans, given what America is now poised to do in the Middle East.

In order to understand North Korea's fear of the United States, one must understand a bit of the history of Korea. It is enough to say that Korea has been invaded by foreign powers over 1000 time in its history. I delivered my first public commentaries in Korea on March 1st, which was the most important national holiday celebrated by both North and South Korea simultaneously. It is the day of remembrance of the Independence Movement on the Korean peninsula, a citizen uprising that ultimately resulted in throwing off Japanese imperialist invasion forces. That uprising took place in 1919, and it wasn't until 1945 that those invasion forces were ultimately removed from the Korean peninsula. It was simply the latest in a long string of occupations by foreign troops and foreign powers.

The people of Korea, unlike the people of America, have experienced domination and control by other countries many, many, many times. Their fear is real, and their history shows that they have reason to be afraid. The Peninsula is a small place. Korea is a tiny nation relative to other countries around the world. So when George Bush calls North Korea part of an axis of evil, and when he then announces that he and the United States have the right to a preemptive strike of anybody with whom he disagrees or whom he feels threatened by, it is understandable that North Korea would ask for an immediate agreement from the United States-a non-aggression agreement.

George Bush has refused to even discuss such an agreement, and that is why North Korea has reactivated its nuclear program. Seen in this context, its actions are not belligerent at all, but really quite reasonable. For example, when you back an animal into a corner, the most vicious aspects of animal behavior will be exhibited. Survival instincts bring out the base behavior of human beings everywhere-not only in North Korea.

This is not to suggest for one minute that everything that North Korea has done over the past 50 years is appropriate by Western standards. It is to suggest that there are reasons for human behaviors which are more complicated than the simple, cowboy style shoot-from-the-hip declaration of the current residents of the White House.

I cannot return from the Korean peninsula without sharing these views with you. It is important for you to know what is going on in world affairs. It is important for you to understand why I have formed Humanity's Team. It is important for you to understand why I am urging all of you to join Humanity's Team right now.

The world needs another political force. A force that transcends all boundaries, all nations, all cultures, all religions, all social and ethnic groups. A political force that derives its power from its highest spiritual understandings, not from the limited political viewpoints of nations whose policies smack of hegemony and defy logical reasoning in too many instances.

If the United States insists on putting the new Bush policy on preemptive strike into action in Iraq, it must listen carefully to the words of North Korean leaders who say, "The U. S. is not the only country in the world that can claim preemptive strike."

That is the problem with the United States, as seen by people throughout Europe and East Asia. We are rapidly gaining a reputation as a nation which says, "Do as I say, not as I do." We want to be able to do whatever we choose to do, but other nations who want to do the same thing are not allowed to do it. This is the behavior of the big bully on the block. It is inappropriate for a nation of our stature, of our greatness, and of our honorable past.

I deeply regret the foreign policy initiatives undertaken in these past months by the Bush administration. President Bush's refusal to honor our treaty obligations with regard to the environment or ballistic missiles have cast shame upon the honor of our name when it is placed upon international treaties.

But most importantly, the administration's current policy of declaring that is appropriate to launch a preemptive strike against any nation by whom we feel threatened, for whatever reason, whether the threat is real or not, whether the threat is instant or long-term, is the single most dangerous foreign policy manifesto ever put into place on the world stage. Nations around the world, both their governments and their people, are not seeing the United States in a very good light these days. And it is not unpatriotic for Americans to point this out. We need to rethink who we are in the world. We need to rethink what humanity truly seeks and truly desires. We need to think and rethink what the best way would be to achieve what it is we seek to experience.

Please go to www.HumanitysTeam.com and see if there is a role that you can play as a spiritual activist on the earth. The time is running short, and all of humanity needs everyone to understand what is at stake.

I will be reporting to you again next week with my thoughts following the 5-day intensive with the 100 people who will be joining us in Sedona who see themselves as playing a key role in the co-creation of our collective tomorrows.

Now let's take a look at what else is included in this week's CwG weekly bulletin

1) Remote Control by Joanne Gabriel

2) The Question of the Week from a CwG Reader: "I Was Murdered...What Does this Mean?"

3) The Product of the Week: a special selection from our CwG Store offered, for this week only, at a discount price.

4) Who Do You Want to BE?

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1) Remote Control By Joanne Gabriel

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I don't know about you, but there are moments these days when I don't want to read or hear another word about Iraq, Korea, weapons of mass destruction, the terror alert, etc, etc, etc. I reach for the remote control to change the channel, but it seems to continue to be there...just different voices and words, but the same message...trouble...big trouble...

Remote control...

I have noticed that the dance from moment to moment is getting more interesting all the time. Where do I place my focus? What is my responsibility? How do I show up as a conscious, responsible, spiritual being having a human experience?

CwG says that politics is spirituality demonstrated...but I don't like politics...it's the least real thing I can think of. It all feels like posturing and bullying and lying to me. In fact, if I'm looking for a group of people who seem the least "spiritual" on the planet...I'd look at the politicians first!

So how can I reconcile all of this? What's the opportunity here? I know that there's always an opportunity for growth in every moment, within every experience...what can I "see" in all of this?

Where is my "remote control?" Have you had the experience of when there is finally something you want to watch on TV and you can't find the remote control to get to the channel and you're digging through the stack of papers and reaching down into the cushions...where is that thing?

I am realizing that my own "remote control" is becoming more and more important these days. This is because where I put my focus is what grows.

We are powerful beings of creation and re-creation. What we give our attention to, grows, flourishes and expands. And it doesn't matter what it is...if we put our attention on love, love grows, flourishes and expands in our lives. If we put our attention on lack, lack grows, flourishes and expands in our lives. Focus is a powerful tool of creation.

Wherever we point the remote control, the screen of our experience becomes the expression of our focus.

So does this mean we just keep finding a way to change the channel, or our focus away from all this bad news? I don't think that is the answer, or the point.

The opportunity is to remember Who We Are...who we are in truth, and then look at the concerns in the world from that place.

The "remote control" is then, operating from the truth of me...I am God in expression...I am Love...I am Peace...I cannot be harmed...I am One with You...There Is Enough...

And it is from this inner knowing that I then look out at our world and see it in a new way...and that is what is meant by: politics is spirituality demonstrated...making choices from this inner knowing...relating to one another from this place of truth...governing from the awareness of what is the truth of us...all of us. It changes everything.

As our awareness of who we truly are grows, the opportunities to demonstrate that truth are increasing as well. Hmmmm......

So it's not about how big of a mess can we make, but how willing are we to demonstrate who and what we know ourselves to be?

And if you and I continue to focus on the truth of us and on demonstrating from that inner knowing, since we are all one, do we at the same time begin to call that truth forth in all of us? If the reflections out there don't fit anymore, do they change? Hmmmm...... So you and I really can change the world...right from our remote controls, or where we place our focus? And we can support each other in this process? Wow!

I'm feeling better already!

Blessings!

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From the Internet...

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An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life...

He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf is evil--- he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.

The other is good--- he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."

They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

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