Listen

How well do you communicate?

When I asked that question did you think about getting your message across to others?  Or did you consider whether or not you really take in the messages others are trying to get across to you?

Effective communication requires both, but especially the latter.  Most of us are too focussed on the former (but still don't get that right) and almost completely ignore the latter.

It has been said many times that there is a reason God gave us two ears but only one mouth!

The most effective communicators listen carefully to what those around them are saying.  If you DO listen carefully you may be surprised at what you sometimes hear.  Not necessarily what is said outwardly, although that too, but especially the often partially hidden inner message.

Listening to what others are saying, and the frequently different inner meaning, doesn't mean you have to agree with them.  But once you know where they are coming from it is a lot easier to know how to get across to them what YOU want them to hear and understand.  Or to realize that you might be wasting your time trying to do so with this particular person and be better off finding someone more likely to be open to what you are saying.

Listening is also important, of course, for its own sake, not simply as a means for targeting your own messages more effectively.  Everyone has needs, and some of those needs are ones you can answer.  Maybe you can answer them with very little effort or cost to yourself, but help another person achieve great things as a result.  If so, then don't be humble, don't keep thinking that you can be of little help.  Do what you can and you may be very surprised by the result.  Try to do so selflessly, but at the same time always remember that one way or another what you do comes back to you.  Help others and you will find good things ultimately come to you as a direct or indirect result.  As Qoheleth (who was probably King Solomon) said in Ecclesiastes 11: "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days".  There are many quite different interpretations of this, but I certainly feel one meaning is that the good things you do will come back to you and help you long after you do them.

In any relationship listening is especially important.  Do not be that person who sits watching television and responds to everything his or her spouse says with comments like "yes, dear!" but actually is not really listening at all.  Have a proper conversation.  Really listen closely to what is being said, and perhaps even more to what is NOT being said!  Doing this can completely turn your relationship around, in a really good way!

This doesn't apply just in relationships of course.  From now on try to listen to and understand what people are saying and what they are not saying.

When nations insist on trumpeting their own beliefs and needs, and stop listening entirely to the beliefs and needs of other nations around them, this is often a pre-cursor to war.  We all need to listen more.  To understand the feelings and the needs of those around us.  What we do when we do reach this understanding is up to us.  Maybe it won't change the way we feel and the actions we are going to take, or maybe it will.  But even if there is no change we will at least be acting from a much stronger and much better informed position.

Take a decision right now that you are going to listen much harder, that you are going to try much harder to understand what it is that those around you want.  Again, I should remind you that I am not saying you should necessarily then GIVE them what they want.  But when you have a much better understanding of the feelings, wishes, and needs of everyone around you I can guarantee you will be in a much stronger position.  You will have a much better control of what is happening around you.  Why settle for any less?

Prayer for Peace

In this article I hope to bring together people of very different beliefs, some of which are held very strongly.  I believe this is possible, although it is necessary for each of us to suspend any prejudice we may have about the beliefs of others.  Hopefully you will find I am not asking you to change what you believe, but just phrasing that belief in a way that should resonate with all my readers no matter what religion they follow (or even if they follow no religion at all).  Please try to bear with me on this, as the end result if you do could be an enormous surge of goodness and purity into a world that at the moment may seem to be filled with evil, danger, and dark powers.

When I look at the news there seems every reason to despair.  We read of violence in the Kenyan elections.  We hear of Kim Jong-un's threats to devastate the Western world with nuclear weapons.  We hear of Trump's counter threats to destroy North Korea completely.  We hear of 100 people dying in North Korea when a tunnel at its nuclear test site collapsed - and another 1,000 people dying when they tried to save those who were still alive and trapped.  We hear of moves in Japan to strip its constitution of its current pacifist position.  We hear of a threat by Daesh to murder a 4 year old boy (Prince George).  The list goes on and on ......

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the war to end all wars ended.  Except it DIDN'T end all wars.  Since the Great War ended in 1918, according to the Polynational War Memorial, there have been 221 wars in which just over 67 million souls have been lost (compared with the 10.7 million lost in the Great War).

But despite all the above, I do not despair, and neither should you.

Do you believe in the power of prayer?  If you are a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jew, Daoist, Zoroastrian, Wiccan, or a believer in virtually any other religion you almost certainly do believe in the power of prayer.

Do you believe in the power of the mind?  Even if you do not subscribe to any religion, even if you do not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being (which may be called God, Allah, Atman, or something else), you should certainly believe in the power of the mind, the ability of using the mind to create enormous changes around you.

So whatever you believe, I want to ask you to do one thing which can totally negate all those negatives I have listed, all the equally horrendous things happening around us that I haven't listed, and all the horrible issues that are about to arise and that we simply haven't heard about yet.  I am asking you to pray.  I am asking you to use the power of your mind.  I am asking you to help bring Peace into this world.

When you pray, when you send out positive healing waves of thought, do not allow the despair you may feel any entry into your being.  There is an evil power abroad in the world.  Again, what you call it depends on your religion and/or your philosophy.  But whatever you call it, it is out there.  And it does not want you to pray for peace.  It does not want you to send positive, healing thoughts of peace into the world.  It will use any means possible to stop you doing this, and one of the easiest ways is to make you think that your prayer, your positive healing thoughts, will not make any difference.  But this evil power is a liar.  When it tells you that you cannot make a difference with your prayers or thoughts it is telling lies.  Recognize those lies for what they are.  If you are a Christian, when you feel that despair coming repeat the words Jesus himself uttered - "Get thee behind me, Satan!"  If you are not a Christian, think of a way to say something similar that fits your own beliefs.

Another way you can deflect the thoughts of despair, the thoughts that you cannot make a difference, is to use the technique I introduced in an earlier blog about beginning to meditate.  Don't try to counter the thought, just recognize it is there but carry on praying or meditating regardless.  Eventually the Evil One will stop trying to deflect you that way as he will realize it simply isn't working.  But then he will try another tack.  Instead of despair he will try to get you to think about something other than what you are praying about or meditating on.  Perhaps he will tell you that you are thirsty.  Maybe he will tell you that although what you are doing now is important there are other even more important things you should be doing.  But remember that Satan is the father of lies!  Whatever he is telling you is untrue.  So simply recognize that he has introduced this thought but ignore it.

Unless you have any religious objections to doing so, when you start your prayer or meditation session for Peace, use the "Purity" meditation I introduced a couple of articles ago.  I am not going to repeat the entire meditation here, as you can find it here.  But in summary, look up and see above your head a ball of light that represents everything that is good.  Draw this down into your body and allow it to fill you so you are one with it.  Feel it expanding until it fills the world.  Then begin your prayer or meditation for Peace.

Do this as often as you can.  It should only take a few minutes once you are used to doing it.  But especially do it on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when maybe those around you are holding their two minutes silence honouring those who died in a war.  You will be honouring those men and women by asking for Peace, so that their suffering and deaths were not in vain.

I believe just one person doing this is releasing an enormous power for good in the world.  But imagine 10, 50 or 100 people doing it.  If 100 do it I believe it will not simply be 100 times as powerful, but many more times than this.  Spread the word.  Send your family and your friends to this blog so that they all know what to do and how to do it.

Believe me when I say this could be the most important thing you will ever have done in your life!  So do it!  Please!

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

As I write this article people all over the world are getting ready to mark Remembrance Day in a couple of days’ time.  Remembrance Day was instituted to remember the sacrifices of the many young men who gave their lives for their country during the First World War, which ended on the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month in 1918.  Nowadays it is extended to remember all who have sacrificed their lives for their country in war, both men and women.

During the 2 minutes silence at 11 am on the 11^th of November this year I will be imagining something John Lennon and Yoko Ono imagined early in 1971.  A world without war.  Or to put it in a more correct, affirmative way, a world filled with peace.  This is something I have always done on Remembrance Day since I was a child.

I do not imagine a world without religion though.  Religion has its place.  As long as it is not divisive.  It was the divisiveness of man-corrupted religion that made Lennon and Ono want to throw it away.  As Lennon himself said, he wanted a world “without this my-God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing”.  I imagine a world at peace, where we each seek the Truth in our own way, some of us by following a particular religion and others finding that Truth in a different way.  All of us recognizing and respecting the differences between us.

Nor do I imagine a world without possessions.  I believe the Universe wants all of us to enjoy the possessions we have and to provide us with even more.  It is simply not true that there is a limit on those possessions and that if I possess something it means someone else cannot possess what they want or need.  So there is nothing immoral about wanting more and going out and getting it.  But I also believe we are intended to use those possessions for good, using them to help all those around us.  In that sense my thinking is perhaps not so far apart from John Lennon’s as it might at first seem.

Probably most of you reading this believe in the immense power of visualization.  I certainly do.  If you do believe in this power, or even if you are not sure but are prepared to agree it may exist, and if you believe a world at peace is much preferable to a world at war, I would ask you to join me in a 2 minute visualization for peace.  Visualize everyone, regardless of country, race or religion, working together, living together in peace, being happy together.  Let us all do this visualization together for 2 minutes at 11:00 am on the 11^th November, this year, next year, and every year.

Imagine the power of that visualization!  Let’s do it!