Now and Zen: To Whom It May Concern

August 27, 2016March 7, 2017 / Iam Saums / Leave a comment

A Dime a Dozen:

I find it fascinating how people instinctually respond to events that don’t even happen to them. We as human beings have a tendency to overreact to the choices, actions and lifestyles of others, while we underreact to those of our own. We do so because of our lack of communication, experience and understanding about the circumstances of others. Our interpretations are based upon inaccurate and incomplete perceptions. We are quicker to criticize, judge, shame and dispose of people in our lives than we are to make a difference. Some do this to take opportunity from the downfall and disgraces of others, while most subscribe to this sociopathic behavior to conceal their dependency, disappointment, embarrassment, hurt and pain.

Spiritual Elitism:

Yes, we all have it. Get over it. My friend Elva just recently wrote an article entitled, “The Writing on the Wall,” in which she acknowledges the awakening of the human race, then poses the question “what are we awakening to?” This is a much greater concept to ponder in light of the accelerated era of decline in which we currently find ourselves. We who have committed and practice a path of spirituality may not understand that with the expansion of our consciousness, so does our ego grow in equal or greater measure. When we chase after the light we are not present to the darkness we overlook in ourselves. Spirituality has become the new religion. As a culture we fail to observe the pompous influence of our judgement and self-righteousness.

Experience teacheth Wisdom?

Each of us have our own experiences. Though, we are more often preoccupied with those of others than our own. We are swift to pounce upon the downfallen in society to bolster our own image and status in the world. We manufacture false power through the negativity of demeaning, demonizing and disgracing others. We present ourselves as aggressive, arrogant, cynical, disempowering and sanctimonious much to our oblivion even when we express ourselves with the greatest of intentions. Our experiences teach us ways to break the patterns of society’s conditioning that ultimately transmutes humanity into a monstrosity. We sacrifice the wisdom we may kindle in life to achieve, acquire, compete, dominate and exceed.

Where is the Love?

We all embody ourselves as being civilized, creative, educated, intelligent, kind, spiritual and transcendent. Yet, when we find ourselves in challenging and overwhelming circumstances, we turn on ourselves and each other as fast as the speed of light. Our greatest friends become our bitterest enemies. What we believed, felt and thought yesterday is quickly discarded when we are confronted with conflicting beliefs or opinions distinct from our own. We not only disagree, we respond with outright anger, disdain, frustration and vitriol. Gradually we degrade and destroy all which we do not or are not willing to accept, consider or understand. The love we once had for everyone evaporates. Even our love for ourselves.

Idyllic Life:

None of us, no matter how clever, creative, smart or spiritual we believe we are, are the ideal human being. Each of us has downfalls, flaws, negativity and weaknesses. This is the nature of humanity. It isn’t the people that present themselves with authenticity and integrity with who we have to be critical and suspicious. It is all who chose to present themselves as the ideal expression of existence we should be wary. These are the people who are manipulating reality to gain advantage, advancement, position and the conversion of the world to their own image, lifestyle and vision. The more we fashion ourselves in the shadow of others, the more personal power we sacrifice upon the altar of self-importance.

Mirror Image:

Everyone and everything in our lives serves as an all-encompassing mirror. How we respond to these elements of our experience determines how we think, feel, act and are. The attention and energy we give them ultimately produces the events that will occur to us in our present and future. How and who we choose to be in our everyday life defines who we become and who and what we attract into it. We do not get how powerful we are as human beings. If we did, we most certainly would not be jumping on the comment sections of website articles to take out our angst, drama, failures, fears, insecurities and disappointments about how our lives turned out due to our own lack of investment, involvement and fulfillment.

Ready, Aim…Fire!

Our proverbial guns are locked and loaded for bear in any circumstance we may find ourselves. We are tinderboxes bouncing off of each other, who at any moment can spark, ignite and explode. More often than not we do so with the gravest of consequences. When our environment, experience and perception is challenged and/or compromised, we instantaneously react with a fervor that even shocks and terrifies us. By the time we are present to the impacts of our thoughts, words and actions, the damage has already been done. The scariest revelation is that we are not even conscious of the harm we willingly inflict upon others, when we believe we have been betrayed, deceived, manipulated and lead astray.

Keyboard Assassins:

It is so easy, too easy, to sit down in front of a computer and open fire on what we perceive to be attacks upon our intelligence, faith, lifestyle, morals and well-being. The inadequacies and insecurities of our lives are on full display when we feverishly tap out our anger, disappointment, frustration and upset on our keyboards with a passion that is evidently lacking in our lives. No matter how much we engage in virtual confrontations upon the comment streams of someone else’s article will never change what is happening around us. We can only transform that which is occurring within us depending upon how we respond. The difference we make in our lives and the lives of others begins with our ability to accept all for who they are and who they are not.

Zen and Bear It:

I have known Zen Gardner for a few years. We email back and forth occasionally, share articles on www.zengardner.com and have similar interests. Most of us on the site do, contributors and readers alike. I read his article, “The Missing Years,” and was surprised at the vitriolic response it received. As I was reading, I became present to a part of his life that was both difficult and revelationary, written with sincere authenticity. We never know what we are into completely until we see “The Writing on the Wall.” Zen made a choice to make a difference and attempt to transform injustices he became aware of about something in which he once believed. When he realized he could not, he left it and moved on with his life. The question we all must ask ourselves every day is, “do we choose to make an opinion or a difference?”

http://www.zengardner.com/now-zen-may-concern/

Transformation

August 18, 2016 / Iam Saums / 2 Comments

“The greatest challenge in life isn’t that we survive, it is our choice to thrive.”

Who We Are:
We are eternal beings existing in infinite experiences beyond the perception of our imagination. Our body, mind and heart are connected to our spirit and the universe through the multi-dimensional conduit of our intuition. We are related with all possibility all the time with everyone and everything that was, is and will ever be. We are an expansive illustration of all creation. Our potential and resiliency is emulated and sustained by the nature that embodies us. The power of our consciousness, inspiration, listening and presence is our common birthright. Our personal transformation is the essential expression of our creativity.

Where We Are:
Reality and our experience of it is a three-dimensional construct devised and maintained to amuse, distract and detain us into the parameters of duality. Society is a vortex that insatiably devours our creativity, consciousness, energy, intention and possibility. In our daily encounters we are given two options; yes or no, left or right, up or down, liberal or conservative, good or evil, etc. We accept and apply this communal understanding because we do not identify and explore existential diversity. We turn our backs on our own experiences, insights, lifestyles, perceptions and thoughts for a superficial sense of belonging, purpose and worth.

Selective Reality:
We have a natural desire to sense only what we want. Our experience is primarily dependent upon our advantage, comfort, convenience, interest and willingness. We often shy away or even criticize and discredit all that is distinct from our unique lifestyle, perception and understanding. Our reality is fashioned not by our choice, but the frequent avoidance of our choice. Our life becomes a decision of what we don’t want instead of what we truly need. We have enabled reality with our mere existence. Our attention and engagement sustains our attachment to and dependence on a subservient human survival.

“It is not our reality that is the most powerful influence of our life. It is our oblivion.”

Buying in to Oblivion:
Human beings have an innate tendency to be enchanted by the artificial mysticism of obscurity. It is an enigma of reality that consumes our attention, awareness, intention and enlightenment. When our consciousness has been compromised by this insensible dimension of perception, our experience of life is severely diminished and inevitably manipulated. Creativity, destiny, purpose and the possibility for transformation all cease to exist. The investment of our energy, focus and involvement with the comfortable and common diversion of human oblivion concedes our aim, passion and will to thrive. We become a shadow of all we were destined to be.

The Power We Yield:
We are an extraordinary and enormous expression of energy. Yet, most of our potential is never acknowledged, embraced or fulfilled. Simply being with our own empowerment terrifies us, let alone expressing or living it. We convince ourselves that it is much easier to acquiesce our personal power instead of claiming its ownership. We pass our personal empowerment onto authority figures and elected officials with an expectation they will achieve our desired outcome. When they inevitably don’t, we demonize them as failures without realizing the absence of our own initiative and participation.

The Greatest Con on Earth:
We are too clever for our own good. Every day we invent strategies to conceal and defend our agendas, deficiencies, downfalls, fears and insecurities. Eventually these ploys become our rackets which enable our unhealthy lifestyles thus suspending us in our self-induced confusion. Once we have been successfully captivated by our own artificial authority, we begin to impose our rackets upon others. We deceive, distort and fabricate to proliferate our selfish desires and false power. For us to break our patterns of manipulation, we must transcend our illusions and become present to who we truly are.

“Our salvation comes not from what we do, think or say. It is in who we are being.”

An Act of Being:
Ontology is not a practice that is appreciated, emphasized, encouraged or required in our society. It has been forgotten under the heaping pile of metaphysics somewhere between meditation and ritual. Yet, it is one of the only practices that can empower and transform our life and the world. For most of us to be present to our way of being, we must discover, experience and commit our lives to it every day. Our oblivion to being as a culture inhibits our capacity to become the fulfillment of our possibility. The history we carry into our present most certainly ensures the repetitive outcome of our future. We allow our past to dictate our present.

An Epiphany of View:
For us to see what is unknown about ourselves and our lives, we must first distinguish our perspective from who we believe ourselves to be. This takes a great deal of authenticity, dedication, honesty and integrity. Yet before any of these qualities are exercised, we need to experience insights to define our greatest potential. The intention of our vision and mission in life ultimately creates our purpose and destiny. When we release everything we “think” we know about ourselves and create space for possibility, all we could only imagine becomes our experience. Our way of being is the soul of our life’s expression.

The Dawn of Possibility:
Before we can manifest anything new in our lives, it requires us to become present to something we have yet to experience. Within the three-dimensional structure of our everyday routine, our perception is conditioned to observe only what is relative. There is a vast, unknown universe of ourselves to discover. The expanse of our exploration is defined by our willingness to release the known and intentionally embrace the mystery. We are born to be creators of our experience. The expression of our creativity and intention originates from the possibility we choose to apply. Our possibility is the spark that ignites the manifestation of our destiny.

“Enlightenment is possible in the experience of our transformation.”

Being Real:
We all have a wardrobe filled with personality guises we don to achieve, evade and survive. Eventually we become so accustomed to the appearances we present we lose ourselves in the presence of our own collusion. We perceive authenticity, objectivity and sincerity as being needless social expressions of charity and weakness. Yet, these are the essential qualities of our being. Authenticity allows us to become present to and relate with others in profound and powerful ways. It empowers and inspires us to transcend the ordinary reality of doing and become an extraordinary expression of being.

All That We Are:
We don’t know who we are. We live our lives stumbling through our experiences with an aimless wanderlust for consciousness, love, purpose and truth. Yet, when it comes to extending the effort and energy to express and manifest a life that inspires us, we allow ourselves to become distracted, disengaged and disinterested. Our lives will not be fulfilled until we reclaim the power we have long ago yielded to social authority. Until we are real with ourselves and others, our destiny will continue to be a comfortable daydream. When we are present to the truth of our lives, we become the source of our transformation.

“Transformation is becoming conscious to the creativity of human being.”

http://www.zengardner.com/transformation-2/

Our Choice

August 5, 2016August 5, 2016 / Iam Saums / 3 Comments

What we perceive as fear, is not “fear.”

It is simply a natural, raw energy we encounter.

When we transmute this energy into love before we begin to interpret and embrace it as fear, we will transform ourselves and our lives.

This is how powerful we are as human beings.

When we personify our fear, we are being lazy with our consciousness and potential.

When we express our love, we are “being” our consciousness and potential.

This Just In!

July 29, 2016July 29, 2016 / Iam Saums / 2 Comments

“A wise person makes their own decision. An ignorant person follows public opinion.”

– Chinese Proverb

Extra Extra…

It’s a free-for-all! And we do enjoy the ride. We are helplessly and hopelessly addicted to, dependent on and enslaved by all forms of media. Be it news broadcasts, the sports industry, all things entertainment and last but not least politics (which has become the most atrocious form of amusement.) Yet the style of media that seems to “trump” it all is the one to which we all subscribe every day of our lives. It is the worst expression of our nature as human beings. Gossip is the greatest destroyer of experiences, opportunities, people and possibilities. We are the echo of a society built on arrogance, entitlement, envy, judgement and self-righteousness.

…Read All About It!

We haunt our computers in a quest to find the meaning, purpose and truth of life. We pour over articles, interviews, social media, videos and website links to fill in the missing pieces we ourselves have vacated in our pursuit to gratify our egos instead of expressing our souls. Countless individuals with audacity, ingenuity and vanity rush to their cameras, devices, keyboards and personal media outlets to offer their radical commentary on hot topics that are as contrived as the reality in which we are imprisoned. We all have an obscene tendency to offer the craftiest of our intelligence to compensate for the absence of our wisdom.

Hot Off the Presses:

The line of demarcation between truth and fiction in the media has long been blurred beyond recognition. Reality has become a lie and a lie has become our reality. The mass manipulation of our global culture has polluted the roots of our understanding by the very information we are conditioned to believe is real. Reality is as subjective as perception. The nature of which has been infinitely distorted with the stratagems of advantage, control and distraction. It is not those who govern the air, food or water supplies who rule the world. It is those proficient in manipulating reality and our perception of it who hold absolute dominion.

If It Bleeds, It Leads:

Believe it or not, we are the primary administrators and enablers of this diabolical system of information and perception manipulation with our obsessive attention, energy and reactivity. Our focus is forever upon the drama, trauma and tragedy of others to forget about our own downfalls, failures and tribulations. We populate our consciousness, listening and vision with a barrage of artificial stimuli in a wanderlust of broken destinies, dreams, lives, loves, people and promises. In the face of adversity, diversity and possibility we chase after celebrity, controversy and rumor. We exchange our need for purpose, truth and worth with our want for self-indulgence.

Know Your Sources:

A handful of corporations own most if not all of the existing media outlets in the world. Everyone has an angle and those with the most to lose will do anything to proliferate and protect their investment to the greatest degree. Every major corporation devotes a phenomenal sum toward the advancement, expansion and fulfillment of its agenda. This is the foundation upon which fortunes are made and lost. The only way to always win a game is to rig it so the other players believe they are going to win up to the moment they lose. This is the fundamental nature of society’s information and perception manipulation.

“What we don’t know we don’t know about the media is that it is invented.”

Get a Quote:

The evolution of the quote has surpassed the origin and significance of the story. The attention span of the human race has accelerated at an alarming rate, desensitizing us to the gravest and most scandalous of editions. Quotes once stood as beacons of clarity, hope, inspiration, promise and truth. Now their ambiguous diversion and political correctness has left their audiences rummaging around in the intellectual shadows for reason, sense and understanding. All who are granted the authority and prestige to provide a quote usually do so with the intention of saying nothing while seemingly saying everything.

Cover Story:

Mainstream news broadcasts and reports are altered and/or invented to captivate our attention, fear, reaction and upset. Media networks use chaotic and distorted electromagnetic bandwidth frequencies to distract, hypnotize and “program” their audiences. This ensures that the information they are disseminating is transmitted and received to its optimal impact and potency. Conventional networks will often air biased and simulated reports and feature hostile debates to divert the focus of their audiences away from the truth of every day inequalities and injustices. We pull the wool over our own eyes when we fail to exercise our personal discernment.

Headlines and Deadlines:

The contemporary consciousness of the human race is such that it doesn’t take much to attract, captivate, maintain and stimulate its attention. Headlines are designed to assault us from the page or computer screen by drawing upon the greatest false power ever devised. The sharing of information in our mainstream society has gradually declined from one of genuine awareness to blatant, outright fear. Once our interest, intelligence and possibility was sourced by a common purpose. Now it is restricted and replaced with incorporated propaganda pushing anxiety, “dis”-ease, opposition and “terror.” Headlines have become deadlines.

Scrolling for Ratings:

Since the invention of the running scroll on computers, devices and television screens, the attention spans and listening of audiences have been gradually altered, disrupted and distorted. The stimulated sense of emergency and urgency subliminally traumatizes its viewers with an experience of apprehension, bewilderment, hypnosis, hysteria and vigilance. The visual content, energetic frequency and regularity of the transmissions render the spectator’s comprehension, listening and perception vulnerable to assimilation, conditioning, influence and intimidation. Viewership becomes a vicious cycle of existential, perceptual and social enslavement.

The Spin Factor:

Contemporary reports about events that occur around the world are profoundly adulterated, editorialized and fabricated to promote the illusion of freedom, justice, opportunity and unity. Yet, all that is truly conveyed is its extreme antithesis. Media outlets provide only the tip of the iceberg of available information. What is broadcast is a corporately-crafted, agenda-driven viewpoint to program its audience into a two-dimensional experience of right and wrong, love and fear, left and right and dark and light. Every facet of the mainstream media spins its news updates in their own interpretation to control, manipulate and modify the nature of reality.

The Source of All Sources:

In a society besieged with drama, distraction, dysfunction and division, there is only one true source that is diverse from the cacophony of human reality. It is the eternal spring of consciousness experienced only through the transcendental nature of our intuition. It is all possibility of everything that was, is and ever will be. It is the multi-dimensional expression of the universe that resonates with every element of our being. When we envision and experience what is beyond the information and perception manipulation, we become the manifestation of the source. The truth exists in reality when we choose to personify it.

This Just In!

We will never receive authentic, balanced, comprehensive and empowering information from the current network of news sources in the world. There is too much at stake for the few to endorse and publicize the truth to the many. All we can do as reluctant subscribers of contemporary media is to exercise our own choices, distinctions, epiphanies and insights. The more we inspire our own experience, vision and wisdom, the more we will be able to distinguish ourselves from societal fear, prejudice, propaganda and vanity. The present and future of our lives has, is and will always be in our power. Yet, it is only attained if it is willingly claimed.

“There is nothing more destructive than an illusion believed to be true.”

http://www.zengardner.com/this-just-in/

Being Our Experience

July 15, 2016 / Iam Saums / Leave a comment

“Until we choose our own experience of life, we will never truly live.”

Common Thread:

There are over six billion unique interpretations of life in the three-dimensional construct we experience as reality. Although human beings have the popular inclination to gravitate toward a common one to which we are bound, our true vision and nature is remarkably multiplicit. We inevitably subject ourselves to inner and peripheral conditioning to toe the line of reality. We become social echoes for an engineered existence that is distorted, elusive, obscure and unconscious. Our desire for social amusement, comfort, identity, purpose and security significantly outweighs our quest to fulfill our being, creativity, destiny, love and truth.

Foundation of Illusion:

We are programmed to believe that our intelligence is the sole benefactor of our survival. Our insatiable fascination with ourselves and our place in the world distracts us from all that is sacred. Eventually, we exchange our passion to live with an addiction to buy. Our genuine experiences that empower and enrich us are superseded by virtual events recorded on a sales receipt. The measure of our fulfillment is in the quantity of our entertainment instead of the quality of our experience. Society turns on a worthless dime, promising a wealth of abundance, happiness and meaning, though rarely ever delivers.

Wired for Reason:

We are multi-dimensional beings with eternal possibilities and infinite potential. Our indoctrination into the complex principles and structures of the standard reality conditions, hypnotizes and manipulates us into the human imprisonment of instinct, reaction and survival. We are akin to a clipper ship with unfastened sails, bouncing upon the social seas of happenstance. Our body and brain is our hardware and our software is a two-dimensional program of instinct and intellect. We are dependent upon and obliviously tethered to knowledge and logic, conditioned to be simulations in a paradigm of thought, threat and fear.

Playing the Angles:

All of us are brainwashed and spellbound by the multi-faceted filters of our own perceptions. We are frequently presented with opportunities to choose how we behold our experience of life. Most of us view the world through an elaborate tapestry of our analysis, fears, judgements, and wants. Rarely do we observe the world as it truly is. We see it the way we would like it to be. We live from these personal fantasies and push the agendas of our positions in the pursuit of making the common reality ever more comfortable, compliant or convenient to our own desires. We engage with an illusion of what is instead of its authenticity.

The World We Enable:

Our personal power is in our creativity, compassion, consciousness, love and transformation. Yet, we express it most often with our drama, judgement, opinion and outrage. It isn’t that we are purely oblivious to our truth and purpose. We are products of the societal ethics to which we eagerly acquiesce. It seems easier to abandon our own unique experience, existence and perception as an inauthentic and noble sacrifice instead of claiming and living the life only we were meant. We are so powerful as human beings. Yet, we commit to killing our lives everyday with our denial, disinterest, doubt and obedience to the enslavement of reality.

“Lay down your right. Lay down your wrong. Lay down the lie. To which you belong.”

The Human God:

The human invention of God we accept and are expected to believe is primarily one of judgement, vengeance and wrath. It is the fear beyond the myth that captivates our allegiance. The intoxication of this false power seduces us into emulation and imitation. Though we often fail to see the most glaring truth of this “divine” influence. The raw power of our unattended ego imposes an experience and perception of cynicism, resignation and ridicule for anything that is not of our own clever design. We adopt a defense of disapproval, drama, opinion and rumor rather than be present to the possibilities of acceptance, compassion and understanding.

Vital Signs:

The medical field identifies the vitality of our existence by taking our pulse, analyzing our response to stimuli, observing our breath in different areas of our body and listening to our heart. When we meet these basic criteria, we are given a label of heath and an acknowledgment of life. Yet, the true measurement of living is found in our potential, expression and willingness to make a difference. The true meaning of life is to serve others as much or more than ourselves for the sake of service. When we choose to exercise this opportunity, we instantly transform our experience into one of community, purpose and possibility.

In Purpose:

Most of us live our lives in the absence of purpose. We have a tendency to throw havoc to the wind and see what returns to us. More often than not very little does, at least to our desire. Unfortunately, purpose isn’t primarily exercised let alone existent in our society. The very nature of reality does not support or sustain the extraordinary. Our personal focus depends solely upon the what, how and why of our experience. These are the crucial elements of our potential to empower our lives. When we bring purpose to every facet of our experience, we express creativity, consciousness, enlightenment and transformation.

The Truth of False Power:

Each one of us has our own unique experience of life defined by our choices, the focus of our energy, the perception(s) we embrace and the destiny we fulfill. There is no one else in this world that could or should degrade, discredit, judge or question the authenticity, intent, meaning, and worth of our experiences. All who do simply endeavor to conceal or protect their own fears, inadequacies, insecurities and weaknesses. We have been raised in a social environment of defense that is of great peril to the coincidental targets of our expression. The force of the false power we project upon others ultimately diminishes the truth of our own.

Being Our Experience:

There is nothing more significant in our life than who we are being. In a reality where being-ness has been swept under the proverbial rug of contemporary society, it is truly the only saving grace for the present and future of all. Who we are being creates, expresses and sustains the quality of our commitment. Our vision, empowerment, purpose and stand inspires how we truly live our lives. Of us it requires our creativity, confidence, courage and trust to manifest our greatest experience. Only through us will the power of our experience transcend the boundaries of reality and society and transform the world.

“The greatest experiences we will ever have are the ones we choose to create.”

http://www.zengardner.com/being-experience/

Present in the Present

July 12, 2016 / Iam Saums / Leave a comment

During the Holidays, I made an intention of practicing “being present” as much as I could.

My definition of “being present” is an awareness of our breath, our thoughts, our emotional moods(s), our bodies, our consciousness of our environment, the expressions of our intution and creativity and how we influence and impact the people in our lives. As I was working with this idea, I began to wonder, “how much of our lives do we fully or near-fully experience?”

We all have a good understanding that there is a “maze of distractions” in our every day lives that compromises our focus, our personal intentions, our goals and our dreams. A house of mirrors that operates as a mechanistic vacuum. If left un-managed, this distraction machine claims our time, our efforts, our energy, our relations with others, our inspiration, our empowerment, our sense of adventure, our destiny and even our life force.

I could probably relay a great deal of complex and intricate information about the multi-tiered social distraction infrastructures currently in place to keep us all preoccupied from the important things in life and what’s really going on in the world, yet that would possibly lose most whom would choose to read this.

One thing that has occurred to me, during my several years of researching, investigating, reading and discussing with friends about what has and is going on in our global society, not accurately or appropriately broadcast by our esteemed mainstream media, is the current ratio between the attention the issues, problems, dilemmas and dramas receive in relation to the coverage of the solutions, resolutions, revelations, achievements, progresses and all the extraordinary things that happen around the world every day.

I get it, it’s the ratings. On average, people would rather tune into the negatively-charged articles than positively-infused stories. It is what it is. It is where our society is at in its social evolution. This is also a reflection of us personally and the status of how much of our lives we do experience.

You have to admit it is interesting that even the “alternative media sources” tend to focus more on the problems than on their solutions. If we are encountering a barrage of distractions in our daily lives, in our thoughts, in our emotions, issues with our bodies and challenges in our relations with others and with ourselves, how much of our lives do we truly experience? Have we ever fully experienced our lives? If we have, how long did it that experience last? How can we experience our lives more fully.

The only answer I can offer is found in the first paragraph of this note, “being present.” For me, being present isn’t just about showing up, paying attention, staying focused, interacting with others, going about our busy days, monitoring our thoughts, our words, our feelings or our reactivity to events and occurrences in our lives.

Being present is about disengaging from the things, people, thoughts, feelings, reactions, dramas and stimuli in our lives that do not bring us happiness, fulfillment, joy, health, peace, inspiration and love.

Being present is acknowledging that we all have a choice to engage in only what inspires, empowers, sustains, enlivens and unites us. Imagine that our lives are a blackboard littered with scribbles, marks, shapes, lines, words and symbols in chalk.

Being present is the ability for us to choose to pick up the eraser and clear the board of the things in our lives that no longer serve us.

When we choose to do this, we are able to make space for us to create new inspirations. And when these new inspirations are no longer working for us, we can choose to clear them and create even newer ones that will.

The past does not serve us, it enslaves us.

The future is only beneficial to us when it has become our present. The present is all there is. Being present allows us to experience the most of our lives.

When is the best time to be present?

Now.

http://www.zengardner.com/experience-life/

The Cosmic Resonance of Music

July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 / Iam Saums / 2 Comments

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine introduced me, through conversations and articles, to diverse frequencies of tuning in music other than the standard 440 hz frequency. At the time, she brought up that it was a glaring difference when it came to hearing it and experiencing it on an energetic level, as well as the natural healing and conscious-raising properties of the sound and music itself.

Having sent me a few articles about it, I had read that at some point between the first World War and second World War, there were a lot of military marches that were being written to set the tenor of the times. It was during this time that the standard tuning of instruments was decreased to 440 hz. Having read a bit about this transposition of frequency, it inspired me to go out and purchase a chromatic tuner that I could tune to different hz frequencies.

The one recommended the most, for the range that I write, sing and play instruments in was 444 hz. For those adept to pitch modulation, it is less than a half a step sharper than 440 hz, or 15 sens in technical terms. It didn’t take me long to adjust to the frequency alteration, as most people that play music can naturally transpose their voice and instrumentation almost instantaneously.

Though it may not seem much of a difference in frequency modulation to inspire me to write a note about it, it is! When they altered the standard tuning to 440 hz, it “deadened” the sound to give it a more “earnest” “urgency” and almost “dire” and “anxious” tonality. In other words, the frequency of 440 hz is kind of an “edge of your seat” provoking, stimuli-laden, expression of discomfort and unease, i.e. the sound of wartime.

Of course, most people who listen to music may never experience or be conscious of the effects that the frequency to which the music is adjusted may have upon them, as perhaps most musicians or artists may not as well. Yet, having written, arranged, recorded and performed music in this frequency for a few years, I can attest to the fact that it does indeed make a massive difference in its energetic expression. 444 hz is a very organic, alive, bright, brilliant, or sharper (literally) sound that provides a natural energy and frequency of life, growth, progression, consciousness, awareness and my personal favorite, truth.

Perhaps 444 hz may not just be recognized as the “frequency of love,” as categorized by “forward-being” artists, musicians and sound technicians. Perhaps it is also a frequency that grants direct access to our natural abilities and tendencies toward our consciousness, awareness, relativity, connectedness, intuition, insight, communication, evolution, and transcendence, which ultimately may be the best word to describe the difference between 440 hz and 444 hz. Incidentally, I was inspired by this friend to write, arrange and record my new, soon to be released CD “Lakshmi” in 444 hz frequency, and most certainly, when listening and “feeling” the playbacks in and outside of the studio, there is no doubt that the sound expression is powerful, transcendent and conscious provoking.

http://www.zengardner.com/musical-tuning-and-cosmic-resonance/

INeMe

July 8, 2016 / Iam Saums / Leave a comment

We are our greatest ally and we are also our most bitter rival. As much as we have the potential for boundless creation and life, we possess the possibility for devastating destruction and death. We have the inherent ability to inspire and support our selves and others. We also have the learned inclination to thwart and disempower. The extent of our existence is the measure of our expression, with whatever nature we choose to live.

Before our ego rises with the passage of our innocence, we possess a natural yearning to support those around us to thrive and expand their consciousness, thus fulfilling upon and relating to our own. Though it would appear that the pendulum swings to and fro between our spirit’s aspiration to express this sacred service and our ego’s agenda to recover the power it believes it has lost. This human equilibrium eventually lulls us into a hypnotic state of duality, entrapping us into the eager embrace of two-dimensional existence. Eventually, our personal power soon follows.

Many of us are unaware of the negative elements of our personality and behavioral patterns that may lead to our decline and eventual demise, let alone the positive qualities that guide us into the domains of our transformation and destiny. Even more of us are oblivious to the impacts and influences these characteristics may have on our lives and the lives of others. Whatever choice we make to be the best of ourselves or the worst of ourselves determines whether or not we are the heroes of our lives, or the villains.

Ever wonder why it seems like we are working against ourselves? As though an unseen force stands between us and the life we were born to live? A presence that hides in the darkest recesses of our being, waiting, ever watchful, ever patient and ever-present for the perfect opportunity to impose its force and influence over us. It is our “INeME” (inner enemy). As soon as we become conscious to its existence within us, it retreats back into the shadows to await another opportunity to wreak havoc upon our lives.

Many of us mistake our INeME as our “dark side,” “our evil,” or even depict these parts of our being as our “inner demons.” When confronted with the truth of ourselves, most of us would opt to point the finger at others, thus furthering the contrary agendas of our INeME. Yet this is false and in most cases may prove to be as harmful as our unchecked imaginations running away with our energy and our lives.

We would probably be amazed at how often during the course of a day this happens and how much of our personal power we sacrifice. It is astonishing when we reflect upon how the quality of our life is diminished by the meanderings of our own willful perceptions, agendas and dramas.

Our INeME hypnotizes us through the monotony and triviality of daily life. The clouds of our own collusion and indifference begin to form with our constant, catatonic consent. We become lost in a dark forest of ourselves, reaching out and clinging to anything we may find in the hopes of making sense of our self-endorsed confusion. We even begin to believe that there is worth in our drama to the degree that we defend it with everything we believe we are. Eventually, we submit to the adversity, opposition and anarchy of our INeME. We fall prey to its trappings, triggers and stimuli, as we hand over the last remnants of our personal power.

It is only with consciousness we may discover who the real oppressor is in our lives. It is only then we may realize who we are truly up against. An adversary that is second to none. Someone we will never evade, defeat or escape. We give our power over to our INeME whenever we fail to acknowledge, claim and express it. The INeME is the part of us we rarely see or know exists. It has been pulling our strings in ways more clever than we could have ever envisioned. It is the veil we pull over our eyes that hides us from the truth of ourselves.

There is an eternal force within us that is similar to the current of a river. For most of us, this current runs one way for the majority of our life, from our ego to the rest of our being. It does not flow “our” way, though we condition ourselves to believe it does. It directs us from a place intertwined within the multi-faceted intricacies of our mind. It is a perfect internal storm of our base animal instincts, our unbridled thoughts and our unhealthy emotions associated with attachment, expectation and entitlement.

Amidst this inner storm, we may feel victimized and repressed. Not by our family members, friends, employers, communities, society or reality. Yet by our very own patterns and behaviors we have enabled and sustained through our unconscious and selfish desires and lifestyles. This is a self-imposed illusion. It only seems this way because of the power we give to our external experiences. Beyond the linear perception of life and reality, we cannot just be the victims. We are also the antagonists. Though it may be difficult to identify and accept, we are our only INeME.

Our contemporary society simply does not prepare us to exercise the integrity and intention it requires to fulfill on the accountability and purpose of being human. Nor does it preserve, encourage or value our responsibility to evolve, expand and express our consciousness. Our world is rampant with distractions to draw the focus of our awareness away from transcending and exceeding our selves. Yet, the distractions we may encounter around us are merely a reflection of the disruptions we invent and sustain within us to discourage us from confronting and overcoming our INeMe.

Our INeME is only as powerful as we enable it to be with our unconsciousness and fear. It can be befriended. Our very perception that it is against us grants it even more influence over us. It is what we create it to be. When we choose to accept it for what it really is, it becomes a potent ally. The INeME is simply the mirror image we reflect to the world. The greatest gift we can receive from our INeME is claiming the opportunity to transform it from our inner villain to our inner hero. Only then will we emancipate from the slavery of our self. Only then will we become who we truly are.

http://www.zengardner.com/ineme/

Human Being

July 7, 2016 / Iam Saums / Leave a comment

Human beings are extraordinary expressions of life. Our intelligence, potential, compassion and creativity is unrivaled by any other life form. Yet, when it comes to the practice of these gifts, our ideals rarely become our realities. And it is bewildering how we fail to express these qualities with those whom are closest to us. Our kindness oftentimes seems to be more fluent with strangers than it is our family and friends.

There is an important distinction to discover as we are living our lives on this earth that is continually overlooked in the midst of our daily distractions, dramas and preoccupations. We can submit to “being human,” or we can choose “human being.” Though it appears to be semantics, there is a massive difference. The distinction is found in the expression of our consciousness, fellowship and love.

“Being human” is eating, sleeping, working, talking, driving our cars, watching television, debating, being entertained, comforting ourselves and ultimately attempting to escape the bitter agony of our common social reality. It is a mental perception that perpetuates a lifestyle of conditions, expectations, entitlements and stolen advantages for the benefit of the one at the cost of others. Being human is the default program to which we regress when we lack consciousness and compassion, thus sustaining our selfishness. This element of our nature is displayed most powerfully in the quality of emotions with which we chose to react to the people and circumstances in our lives.

“Human being” is quite distinct from being human. It is not merely an expression of awareness and conscience. It is kindness, understanding, acceptance, giving for the simple opportunity to give and offering our service to others without attachment. Human being is our natural expression. It is not just reaching our full potential; it is living it, and in so doing, inspiring others to live theirs. When we choose to transcend our conditions, fears, dramas, attachments and the entitlement of being human, we embrace our ability to love, yet as importantly, to forgive, which is truly what it is to “be” human.

“Being humans” are everywhere. They cut each other off in traffic. They resort to upset with each other when their expectations aren’t met. They become frustrated when their agendas and strategies aren’t successful. They may interpret this as a challenge to their authority or false sense of personal power. They have a tendency toward manipulating and controlling others and circumstances through family and workplace politics, even unbeknownst to themselves. Being humans are also very clever in their ability to utilize expressions of guilt, sadness and even depression to supplement the rackets they play upon themselves and others.

“Human beings” are focused on staying present in the moment and the lessons that the people and their experiences bring to their lives. They are inspired and empowered toward being proactive and fulfilling upon whatever mission they commit. There is an understanding and lifestyle of acceptance, faith, intention and belonging applied to everything they are and do. The possibilities and perceptions they embrace and employ are boundless and eternal. Human beings approach their life and living it equivalent to the wonder, curiosity and selfless honesty and innocence of a child. Their authenticity is so endearing; nothing else within their environment can endure.

We live in a conditional society. When we choose to be true about ourselves, we see that the roots of our conditions, rules, restrictions, stipulations and laws stem from the seeds of our very own fears, worries, concerns, failures, upsets, hurt and pain. This is at the heart of being human. Our dark nature and inclination toward enabling our unhealthy behaviors and patterns always lead to closing the windows and doors of ourselves from the world and throwing away the key for our safe keeping.

These are the conditions of our lives. The barriers we construct from years of repressing our insanity and confusion. We hand over our personal power to the invisible monsters that reside within us all. We ourselves sustain the darkness in the world with our denial, unconsciousness, self-righteousness, disinterest, reactivity, envy and hatred. Yet, these traits are never motivated by a person, event, experience or thing. It is simply our loathing of the part of ourselves we see in others and the circumstances in our external environment. It takes a human being to transcend the vicious cycles and schemes we run on ourselves.

This is why we are here, on this earth, at this time. When we fail to receive these inner messages with our intuition, we may be introduced to someone who pushes the same buttons within us we push with ourselves. They serve as a mirror to us offering a valuable key to the enigma we can be to ourselves. When we continue to miss the lessons the people we attract into our lives bring us, we have experiences such as hurting ourselves, getting into an accident, or losing something or someone precious to us to remind us of the work upon which we must fulfill. We are not meant to be slaves to our identity; we are created to be champions for our own freedom.

The very quality of our lives and how they eventually end is further testimony to whether we are living as a “being human” or a “human being.” It is our destiny in this world not only to choose how we will live, yet as vitally, the degree of a difference we will make, not just in our lives, yet in the lives of everyone in our sphere of influence. Everyone has a difference to make and it is our responsibility as human beings to discover this.

Perhaps what ultimately distinguishes us as a “human being” from a “being human” is the empowerment and inspiration we engender upon others, especially those whom consciously or unconsciously chose to perform the role of a reflection for us. It is always when it is least wanted and with people whom may be our bitterest adversaries.

The greatest strength and courage we will ever discover is in our willingness to hear and accept the truth of ourselves and apply it to our daily lives. All that stands in our way of transforming ourselves and achieving our fullest expression of living is our self-righteousness, fixed perceptions, attachments, reactions and fears. It is the invisible prison we construct in our lives with our conditions that disrupt, distort and destroy the blessing it is of “human being.” In essence, we are the only ones that get in our way.

We are both ‘being humans” and “human beings.” It is simply a choice we make of who we are going to be in any given circumstance, in any given moment with any given person. The greatest personal power we will ever achieve in our lives comes when we make the choice to be what we were born to be.

A human being.

http://www.zengardner.com/human/