Swami’s 2011 State of the Universe Address
The Shift Has Hit the Fan …
And All Heaven Has Broken Loose
By Swami Beyondananda
The shift has hit the fan. And all heaven has broken loose.
You say, “Heaven?? Where the hell do you see heaven?”
And yes. If you look at the news headlines from the past year, you’d have a hell of a time finding any heaven. It’s a dogma-eat-dogma world out there, and everyone seems caught up in the bipolar insanity. Even Poland is polarized – the North Poles and the South Poles. We talk about peace in the Middle East and we can’t even make peace in the Middle West. Here in America, we have a deeply divided body politic. Half the population believes our election system is broken. The other half believes it is fixed.
In 2010, political anger became all the rage, as town hall meetings turned into “I scream anti-socials,” and enlightened discourse into heated detestimonials. The Tea Party Movement, a coalition of civil libertarians and uncivil libertarians, provided an ideal cover for mining interests (as in, “that’s mine … that’s mine … that’s mine”) to throw barrels of anonymous money into Congressional races to defeat Democratic candidates.
Of course we all know that when it comes to defeating Democratic candidates, no one does it better than the Democrats themselves. In the area of self-defeat, the Democrats are simply unbeatable. Somehow, in just two years they turned a mandate into a man-who-can’t-get-a-date.
A Wolfowitz in Sheepowitz’s Clothing?
There is one prime cause of disillusionment, and that is illusionment. And in these challenging times, it’s understandable how a population can get strung out on hopium. America has been going through a dark night, and who wouldn’t want a white knight on a dark night – albeit a slightly darker white knight?
But a lad and a lack. So far, our lad seems to lack the will or the power to stand up to the forces of endarkened self-interest. Barack Obama’s neo-liberal foreign policy looks pretty much like George Bush’s neoconservative one, and disheartened progressives who believed in Obama’s election rhetoric are beginning to think they fell for the old “debate and switch,” and we ended up with a Wolfowitz in sheepowitz’s clothing.
On the other hand, how can we expect a President to stand tall, when the body politic is so sickly and out of shape? After all, we’re still suffering from the lingering effects of Mad Cowboy Disease and chronic electile dysfunction, not to mention irony deficiency and truth decay brought on by weapons of mass distraction. And let’s not forget the Deficit Inattention Disorder that led to our near-debt experience.
American Middle Class Tops Endangered Species List
To add injury to insult, the American middle class continued to top the Endangered Species List, caught between the lowly criminal at the bottom, and the highly criminal at the top. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’m nostalgic for the good old days when people robbed banks. Once again in 2010, Chase chased us, Wachovia walked over us, and the name Goldman Sachs tells us all we need to know: We have been sacked by the gold men. Gold-collar criminals have overruled the Golden Rule with the Gold Rules Rule: “Doo-doo unto others before they can doo-doo unto you.”
And let’s be honest. Not just the people at the top, but everyone seemed to buy into the boom that could never go bust. And then … BOOM! The bubble popped, and just like that, we’re busted. So, the moral is: Don’t put your faith in false profits.
Sadly, the financial fleecing didn’t awaken the body politic, but it was harder to sleep through the alarming oil spill in the Gulf last spring. So perhaps it takes a pillage AND a spillage to wake the village to stop the drillage and wildlife killage.
The upwising continued to gather esteem in 2010, and the irony curtain is becoming more and more transparent. Wikileaks emerged to challenge our official media, Weaky-Licks, to help end the other “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy – that’s where the American people promise not to ask what the government is doing to “keep them safe,” and the government promises not to tell them. When the people choose to not see what is too uncomfortable to look at, the inevitable result is Not-Seeism.
Time to Gather Under One Big Intent
But enough about our small world down here. This is, after all, the State of the Universe, and there’s a big, big Universe out there, which is pretty much purring in perfection. Which is to say there is a hell of lot of heaven out there.
So, you are asking, why the hell isn’t heaven here, already? Everything seems to be crashing down, and heaven is nowhere to be found!
As a cautious optimystic, I say that contrary to the way things appear, the sky is not falling. It only looks that way because we are ascending. Yes, thanks to the evolutionary upwising and the recently declared state of emerge ‘n see (where we emerge from fear and separation and see how we are connected), we humans are better able to rise to the occasion than ever before. And when it comes to rising above whatever has been bringing us down, nothing works like levity.
Now I certainly would never want to impose my spiritual faith on anyone else, but I must declare that I am a FUNdamentalist, accent on the FUN. While some of the less fun fundamentalists believe that heaven is above us, we FUNdamentalists believe that heaven is where we make it. FUNdamentalists are strictly non-dominational, so we have no commandments. But we do have One Suggestion: “Let’s go for heaven on earth, just for the hell of it!”
“OK,” you protest, “that’s the ideal, but how do we deal with the real deal?”
It’s simple, although it may not be easy. If the uncommonly wealthy have hijacked the commonwealth, we the people must higher-jack it. And we do so by acting on another FUNdamentalist suggestion: We’re not here to earn God’s love, we’re here to spend it!
That is how heaven is breaking loose, with people spending their love like it’s going into style. Think about it. Someone comes into a room overflowing with love, and 300 people leave with that love … and pay it forward somewhere else. Love, joy and laughter … they are the loaves and fishes of spiritual nourishment. Yes, heaven has broken loose and we are here to put it together. Each of us – if we so choose – brings a piece of heaven. You have a little piece here, a little piece there, and before long, you have one big peace everywhere.
So … now is the time for all those heaven-bent on planetary transformation to gather under one big intent that reflects the heart core values shared by humans the world over: “We are here to re-grow the Garden, and have a heaven of a time doing it.”
And when the cosmic beings ask, “Oh, by the way, how did the human race turn out?” the answer will be, “They won. They achieved Oneness and won.” This is the true second coming. The human drama achieves a pleasurable climax, as everyone comes together.
© Copyright 2011 Steve Bhaerman. All rights reserved. Swami Beyondananda is the cosmic comic alter ego of Steve Bhaerman, and can be found online at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/ And seriously … read Steve’s serious book with Bruce Lipton, Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future and a Way to Get There From Here, available at http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/ along with some free bonus articles. For reprint information, please contact info@wakeuplaughing.com