No more Christmas for me, thanks!  This year I am on strike.  I am on strike from Christmas.  
It is not that I don't enjoy giving gifts to people.  I do.  It is not that I don't enjoy good company or good food.  I do.  It's not that I don't like the lights, although I do think that we don't need either the higher electricity bills or the drain on the environment.  It's not that I am against Santa Claus or anti-Christian.
But I am on strike for a good reason:

1. Christmas has become all about spending money.

Gone are the days when you made Christmas presents throughout the year and then gave them to select friends and family.  This still might exist in select households but on the whole it has become about emptying your wallet and running up debt.  I am not into that.


2.  I don't believe anyone should be telling me when to buy things for people I care about or when to celebrate or how. That is my job.  I am perfectly willing to decide that for myself.  So I will, thanks.  We live in a society where so much has become pre-determined - we now have a day to celebrate our secretaries, our grandparents, and so on.  Really?  Why does someone else decide that for you?  Are you incapable of doing that for yourself?  I am not going along with this anymore.


3.  If Christmas were really a time where happy, uncomplicated  families get together and celebrate their blessings - I would be all for it.  How many people actually have happy families?  Or is it a case of putting a brave face on it and surviving going home.  There are way too many expectations around Christmas.  You have to do this, eat this, buy that, go here, stay there and on and on.  I'm sure these expectations came about little by little and accumulated but like the straw that finally was too much and broke the proverbial camel's back.  I don't want to conform to anyone's expectations.  Period.  
5.  Christmas adds stress.
Life has enough pressure but Christmas picks up the pace - parties, presents to buy for people at work, at home - it goes on.  I don't know about you but I don't need the extra stress.  No.  Not at all.


So why is everyone seemingly so gung ho about Christmas? 


 Is it the religion thing?
If Christmas actually were the day that the founder of a religion were born, that might be one thing  but it is not   The Romans decided to roll the Christian holiday right in with their pagan beliefs, so that they could neutralize the threat that Christianity (which was nothing like the current practice btw) posed to their dying empire.  They therefore set the date as December 25th, which is the ancient pagan festival of Saturnalia.  Hence we have all the customs and trappings of the tree and decorations, feasts and so on.  It has nothing to do with Christ.  And even if it did we are no longer a nation of Christians (if we ever were), so why are we all cowed into celebrating this pseudo holiday?  

Now don't get me wrong, I like the break but I would really like it with a bigger does of honesty.  Honesty takes courage.  Especially in Western Society.  So how about we start with that at the end of this year? 

•  Let's admit to ourselves that we do need the holiday at this point in the year.  Call it "Fred"  holiday if you want - who cares, really?  After all, we are humans, we are not machines and if it weren't for the sugar donuts and coffee we wouldn't be wanting to go to work early in the morning in the freezing cold (for those who live in the Northern hemisphere). 
• Let's admit to ourselves that we are being played by the corporations and it is time to cry foul.  Get off the wheel and just say "No!".  No!  I don't have to buy the latest thneed produced by XYZ corporation.  It won't make me happier - not in the long run.  The Kabbalists say that receiving never brings more than momentary happiness.  It is a huge form of insecurity and emotional instability to need to buy things to prove your self worth.
• Let's admit to ourselves the truth about Christmas having nothing whatever to do with Christ.  The hype is all that.  Really look into what Christ stood for and you will find out I am right on this.  And Christians - wake up and really look into the history of what happened to change the spiritual practices that Jesus taught into the religion 

So this holiday, I am opting out of "Christmas".  No tree, no decorations, no turkey,no shortbread or any of the other trappings for me, thanks!  Just simple, relaxing time to write, paint, hang with friends, or be in nature, that is what I'll be doing.

Watching Dr. Hawkins and Alan Watts in virtual reality, I find an interesting correlation and a synthesis beginning to form in my own understanding.  They are both speaking, in this instance about consciousness, an understanding of which both have built over time.
Some interesting insights gleaned from both:
1.  Consciousness is a continuum.  (Hawkins)
2.  Consciousness can be calibrated using muscle testing. (Hawkins)
3.  Consciousness correlates with the chakra (energy centre) system.  (Hawkins/Watts)
4.  Multi-dimensionality and consciousness are linked.  (Hawkins/Watts)
5.  Ascending to higher states of consciousness allows one access to higher dimensions of reality and freedom from the 3D matrix.  (Hawkins/Watts)
6.  Most of humanity is stuck at the lower three levels of fear/sex/anger (3D reality)  (Watts)
7.  Getting into the consciousness of compassion (heart chakra) raises one to awareness of 3D reality.  (Hawkins/Watts)
8.  Eastern modalities - yoga/meditation/qi gong - are ways of raising one's consciousness.  (Watts)
9.  There are those who have a vested interest in keeping as many people as possible trapped in the lower three (fear, sex, anger) and they use media to do this.  (Watts)
10.  We are responsible for the level of consciousness we live our lives on.  Different levels bring different experiences.  Complaining about it does nothing but it is possible to completely change your experience of reality by changing yourself.  "Be the change, you want to see" is correct.  (Hawkins/Watts)
In an earlier post I cited Hawkins consciousness chart.  It is worth looking at.  It matters that you are living at the best level possible for you right now.  It matters to you.  It matters to the others.  Just like a piano, to play beautiful music, all strings must vibrate in tune.  Think about the music humanity is making - not too pretty?  
The more of us who are working on our consciousness, the better for everybody.  Let's not let humanity down.  Literally.
We need to be successful and as Hawkins says, you can only be successful when you own it in your heart.
Namaste!

Being a sagittarius - I find honesty and truth refreshing.  There is so little of it in our society.  Brand pulls no punches and I admire that. 
 
Honesty as a best policy is what we mouth but do not often do.  I completely believe that it is always the best policy - in the spiritual sense.  In the physical day-to-day reality, sometimes telling someone that they are completely off-base and have just said something utterly reprehensible or false, will land you into a lot of trouble and possibly take away any and all means of support you have.  

Why?  How did we fall this low?  And make no mistake - when we can not tell the truth, when honesty and the person who espouses it make someone persona non grata, we are not at a high point in human evolution.  Regardless of whatever technology or other advancement we think puts us at the top of the food chain, the fact that we can not utter our own truth without landing ourselves in trouble is not indicative of an advanced society.  And folks, we are there now.  University professors and other professionals have to wait until they are retired to become whistle blowers and break the code of silence in our institutions.  Dogma has replaced truth, the party line is towed or you are on the unemployment line.

So, why?
Look at what is trending.  It is not humanity at its best.  That wouldn't make the corporations enough money.  But how do they get away with it?  Why do we follow their lead in ads?
Human beings are remarkably imitative as a species.  Don't believe me?  Get a group of friends together and do something reasonably unique.  You start and then get a friend to join you.  Then get two more friends to fall in line  Soon people you don't know will be following along.  That is how we roll as a species.  Except for the outliers, like me, that is.  I don't frankly give a care about what people in general do.  
Having established the general rule of imitativeness, (call it peer pressure if you will)  if follows then that if those we see and admire are not truthful, we will have a tendancy to imitate them.  Checked out politicians lately?  Think they might be the trendsetters here?  

I wish that were the only factor.  If we examine our own behaviour we will find that we often will justify a small "untruth" here and there - in the interest of not hurting others' feelings perhaps.
But the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.  Lies like - "I can't do that on my own!"  "Who am I kidding?  I could never own my own business."  "I'm just no good at math".  "I'll never be successful!"
When we fail to recognize the lies that keep us stuck in negativity and inaction, that keep us sitting in front of the television  or video game night after night instead of getting on with what changes we can make in our lives and the lives of others, in other words when we do not live our truth, the cost of our lies becomes intolerable.  Intolerable not only for those who are not living the active, happy life they are capable of living but for the others who would benefit from their help and example.  What if you started a group to oppose injustice in whatever field rankles you the most?  What if others joined you?  Don't think that the people have power?  I promise you that is not true.

Many of us have grown so used to the lies that our lives are, that we live with a sense of hopelessness or depression.  What do I mean by "the lies our lives are"?  Are you living your life?  Or are you living someone else's version of your life?  
For example, perhaps you have gone to med school or law school to make mother or father happy,  or perhaps you simply accepted without question their vision of you future.  Maybe you have never even questioned yourself as to what you really want out of life.  Some of us sleepwalk through life, following what the others are doing, having been lulled into living the type of life, we have seen pictured on television (tell a vision) and in movies and ads.  I've been there.  And it is not a happy or fulfilling place to be.

So why do people do it then?
It fits you in with the crowd.  Like lemmings heading for the cliff, people commiserate with others as they hurtle toward a goal, which will ultimately be their destruction.  Because it isn't their personal goal!  

So back to Brand...he doesn't fit in  He urges others to question, to stop and think and to live differently.  I can get behind that.  I am an outlier too   Check out his platform and some of the interviews he does.  He's raw in his honesty.  It is excellent.

How about you?  Are you ready for a new vision?  Or still letting yourself be told a vision?