Let’s talk about food, shall we? Being a Cancer Sun Sign native, food has always been fairly important to me. But I am also someone who has pretty good health Karma. For this reason, my relationship with food has, for the most part, been very positive and healthful. I have cooked professionally several times and studied many diet-type health regimes. I have also studied herbs and supplements a little. I do love food and I am a fairly good cook. But overall I think that the main thing that could make me a food/health expert is that I am very healthy and I eat good. When I say I eat good I mean I get to eat a lot of food that is very clean and healthy. And by clean I mean it is simple, natural, and relatively untainted. I look around and see that so many people are having dietary problems. I see people spending thousands of dollars on supplements and medical treatments that in many cases could be alleviated by a balanced diet. I would just like the opportunity to share a few things I have learned over the years that might be helpful.

Recently I was in one of our local grocery store chains, Safeway, to be exact. As I walked down the isles I realized that there was less than 10% of what they sell that I would ever buy, or eat. There are isles and isles of food products, and most of them will make you sick. No one seems to really care. They would not be selling those things unless someone was buying them. It’s a reflection of the awareness we have in this country about food and what we eat. I feel fortunate that I can still go into such a store and find a few pure and unblemished food products, such as rolled oats (called Quaker Old Fashion Oats, but the same thing). But each year I see less and less of these simple food products and more of the ones with the long list of ingredients that I cannot recognize. I can say this – if you do most of your food shopping at one of these major food-store chains, you are probably very unhealthy. There are so many toxins, questionable ingredients and hormone enhanced dairy and meat products that you are essentially signing up for a serious disease by eating food from them.

For example, I learned a long time ago when I worked in the kitchen of Kripalu Ashram in Pennsylvania that oils can go rancid quite easily. If left un-refrigerated on the shelf, most oils go rancid within a month or so. I used to try to purchase cooking oils at supermarkets. But invariably I would get the oil home and open it and find it to be rancid. I have a very sensitive nose. Most people do not. They buy these soy, corn and other oils and eat them, never realizing how toxic a spoiled oil that has gone rancid is for your system. Fortunately olive oil does not generally have this fate. It keeps for a long time. But even it can go rancid eventually. It would be nice if you could open the oil right there and smell it to see if it is good or not. Olive oil costs more than twice as much as soy and other cooking oils. So a lot of people keep using those questionable ones.

Truthfully you can eat almost anything and not have any negative side effects if you do it in moderation. You can eat foods that are not good for you, your blood type, or other criteria. As long as you only have a little of it, you will not do much damage. A lot of people become food extremists. They are extreme vegetarians, extreme macrobiotics, extreme raw food people, vegans and other food elitists. They actually often end up hurting themselves because they are not being moderate. I remember personally meeting Victoras Kulvinskas, a major proponent of the raw food diet and the author of several books on it. He drove up in a 60s VW van with wheatgrass growing all over the roof. He was one of the unhealthiest people I ever met. He smelled real bad too. I wonder what happened to him? Benjamin Franklin, one of the smartest guys to have lived here, once said, “Many dishes, many diseases.” He taught moderation and lived it as well.

Just keep in mind that moderation in your diet can be a seriously good practice that can allow you to eat most anything, as long as you don’t eat too much of it.

I have heard of several people I know getting prostate cancer lately. None of them had ever heard that hormone-induced dairy and meat products can cause that. They can also cause breast cancer in women. Breast cancer and prostate cancer essentially showed up in our country shortly after farmers started using a lot of growth hormones to get more production from their chickens, beef and pigs. It makes perfect sense that growth hormones ingested by a human in their diet could cause cancer, which is essentially a rebellious over growing of cells in the body. Nowadays you can get hormone free meats, eggs, milk, and cheese even in the big supermarkets. If your life depended on eating the hormone free alternative, would you? Again, moderation is important here. Though I buy and cook only hormone free products, if I am out and want to eat some eggs or chicken that are not hormone free, it is not going to kill me. I do eat out occasionally and I do not worry about it because the main portion of my diet is clean and clear (of hormones, that is).

Because of so many people with heart problems, people freak out about salt. Salt has proven to have a constricting effect on your blood vessels. Thus, if your vessels are already somewhat blocked, or if your blood pressure is too high, salt consumption could be dangerous. People are so freaked out about salt that many restaurants will not even use it to cook. I really dislike getting a dish at a restaurant that needs to have salt added because absolutely none was used in cooking. But it happens. What is overlooked is that salt in the diet of a healthy person has many advantageous effects, including lengthening of one’s life span. The natural constriction of the body that is causes will help you live longer. I love salt and I have low blood pressure. I use it every day in most dishes I prepare. That brings us to our next topic, yin and yang.

It is good to have a basic understanding of yin and yang. Yin foods make the body softer and larger. Yang foods make the body denser and more compact. Yin is basically cold while yang is hot. You have probably already guessed that salt is yang and if you did, you are correct. Sugar and all sweet foods, including fruits, are yin. If you live in a very yang environment, you need a lot of yin foods to balance out all the heat. You can get sick from too much yin or yang. I remember one year I went to the city of Delhi in India. Though it was only May, the temperature was already over 100 degrees centigrade. I remember what a lifesaver it was to drink orange soda pop and other sugar-laden soft drinks. They helped keep me from overheating. I would drink them almost continuously all day since I was outside in the heat and it felt just right. I never got sick or had any ill side effects from what is normally considered a very unhealthy drink. But the environment I was in was so extremely yang, the extreme yin had no ill effects. If I were to drink that many sodas here in the US where I live, I would surely get sick from too much sugar and sweets, and that sickness would be a yin sickness, like a cold. The common cold and even the various flues are generally yin illnesses. If you eat too much yin food, you increase your chances of getting a cold. A runny nose is a yin symptom.

Other yin food include bleached flour products, oils, alcohol (which is super yin, along with all drugs), all candies and sweets. Yang products include meats, eggs, and salty products. Smoked meats would be super yang, stuff like beef jerky. You will find when you eat something very yin, you immediately want something very yang to balance it. For example, after eating ice cream you may get a craving for potato chips (salted of course). In the very middle of the yin/yang scale is brown rice, one of the most boring but nutritious foods on the planet. And it is very balancing to the body because it is neither yin nor yang. If you look at any kind of chip, like potato chips, corn chips and others, you will see an example of extremes of yin and yang in one product. They have oils and light grains and starches, like potatoes, corn, rice, etc. combined with salt. And when they add the flavorings like nacho cheese green onion and the like, these mixtures of flavorings are all extreme yin. They need even more salt to bring them into balance. But eating such extreme foods takes a toll on your body. Try to keep that in moderation. Another great example of this is catsup. Catsup or ketchup as it also spelled, has more sugar than ice cream per its volume. This is why kids are so addicted to it. But that sugar is masked by the large amounts of vinegar in there. But overall, catsup is very, very yin, maybe even more so than ice cream.

I think people take supplements mostly because they are lazy. They don’t want to change their diet or exercise. They want to be lazy and eat as much as they want and hope that a pill will do the work for them. Unfortunately it doesn’t work. No pill can counteract all your bad eating habits. If a person were reasonably healthy, their own natural urges would tell them what foods they need and when to make sure they get all the nutrition they need. They wouldn’t have to read a book to tell them what they need to take. They would just get an urge for the food that has the nutrition they need. It might even be a food that some people classify as bad. But for them, it may provide just what they need at this moment. I really don’t believe that a thousand years from now scientists will be any closer to understanding the mysteries of the body and its chemistry. What we think of now as being good for us may in fact be harmful. It sure seems to be, when it comes to supplements and prescription drugs. Why not ask your body to tell you what you need to eat and then eat it. I say stop taking supplements altogether. Just eat some great food. Eat what tastes good, not just to your mind, but to your body. I can always tell when what I am eating is good for me. I get a feeling, like a smile, from my whole body.

Speaking of exercise, if you are aren’t doing it, you are probably losing months, if not years of life. Lack of exercise makes the body very yin, and bloated. And not exercising makes even good foods become toxic to your system. If you are a grown adult and not getting much exercise, your natural hunger will be very low and you will not require much food. When is the last time you had a real hunger, a body hunger? Most of our hunger today in America is mental or emotional hunger. Body hunger comes naturally after you do something physically strenuous. It is easy to identify. And remember that the best condiment you can ever use on any food is hunger. I have gone through periods where I stop exercising and not exercising is an exercise in self-hatred. I only stop when I am depressed and in a real self-loathing state of mind. And starting to exercise again is always a way to love myself. And I also get the added benefit that all my food tastes better and is enjoyed more. I love that!

Diet cannot solve all our health problems. Some people have karmic health problems that will require other approaches. But a lot of our disease in this country is completely unnecessary. If we would just eat good tasting and untainted foods, in moderation, many of us would not ever need health insurance. Throw in a regular exercise plan and you are all set to live a long, enjoyable life.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett

Desiree and I saw this movie two nights ago. We both absolutely loved it. The themes expressed in this movie have a timeless quality about them. Love, and particularly the love of life, was probably the main theme. I went to this movie thinking it was all about the love relationship of the two main characters, Benjamin and Daisy. And though their relationship was probably the most prominent, there were so many love relationships in this movie that theirs didn’t actually stick out that much. There was love between Benjamin and Captian Mike, the steamboat captain for example. And what about Benjamin and his adopted mother, Queenie? The list goes on and on. But most of all it was the love of life that stuck with me. I loved how Benjamin, as a child, was able to accept his fate (that he might die any day now) and live each day in gratitude. He started his life in adversity, surrounded by death on a daily basis, and so became more accepting of everything. The theme of ‘you never know what tomorrow may bring’ was also prominent in this movie. Many surprises occurred, which is just how life is.

Hollywood reviewers disappoint me. I guess they are too concerned with being smarter than the rest of us to care what matters to us in a movie. But even these hard-nosed, paid to be skeptical people, were touched by this film. I remember seeing the television show, At the Movies, which used to be Siskel and Ebert but who currently is hosted by some new guys who don’t have a clue. Trying so hard to sound intelligent, they dissected this movie. In the end both said “See It” but they had to throw in their two cents. Why can’t movie reviewers just say, “I loved it” or “I hated this movie” and be done with it? Benjamin button caused me to feel joy,  love, wonder and sadness. It caused me to ponder my own existence, to consider my own life and to come to appreciate more the things I have. What more could any movie offer? This is the best movie I have seen that I can remember. It did not barrage me with action sequences, or offend me with violence or vulgarity. It simply captured my heart. And for me, that is what I want from the experience of seeing a movie. I want to care about the characters and be somewhat amazed at their choices.

I felt that Brad Pitt, a King of Hearts with a 2 of Diamonds Planetary Ruling Card, was perfect for the role. He was ultimately charming and seductive, and friendly to all, a characteristic of many King of Hearts. He is a Sagittarius too, and his character embarked on many adventures, just as a Sag would do. Kate Blanchett, a Taurus 5 of Diamonds was also perfect. As a Five her character also displayed that wanderlust that had her traveling all over the world. I am amazed at how actors end up in roles that fit their cards so well. I personally don’t think their chemistry on screen was all that impressive. And neither would I expect it, based upon their cards. But it really didn’t matter since this film was much more than their relationship.

I highly recommend this movie to all. Even a child could watch it.

Barack Obama - August 4th, 1961 9 of Diamonds
Michelle Obama - January 17, 1964 10 of Diamonds/ 5 of Hearts

Barack and Michelle make a great couple. And anyone who has seen them together can see the compatibility. Michelle is a very strong woman. You can see it in her face and stature. She is no pushover. And of course Barack is no quitter either. All Leos are capable of fighting when needed. They say that neither Leos, Taurus’ or Scorpios will back down from a fight when necessary. And these are three of the four fixed signs in astrology.

Michelle, however is a Capricorn, a 10 of Diamonds. As much as anything else, I am sure that she craves the spotlight and how better for a woman to get in the spotlight than to be the president’s wife?  Ask Hilary Clinton about that.  But when we compare Hilary and Bill with Barack and Michelle we find one important difference. And that is that Barack is the Moon card to Michelle. In other words, she is the assigned leader of their relationship. And this has a lot of meaning.

This is not surprising that Barack married a woman that he is Moon to. His mother, Anne Dunham, was also a powerful woman, a Sagittarian 4 of Hearts/6 of Clubs, born 11/29/1942. It is common for men who have powerful mothers to become what is known as ‘momma’s boys.’ And in turn, momma’s boys go on to marry women  like their mother. It is also common for momma’s boys to marry women they are moon to, as in the case of Barack.

On one level, we can say that her relationship with Barack will give her a once in a lifetime opportunity to further her agenda, whatever that may be. I think that Barack does depend on her a lot for counsel and suggestions. The sun card, in this case, Michelle, always has good ideas and new directions for the Moon card person. And this is a really good thing. It would not surprise me if we start to see Michelle play a stronger role than most president’s wives of the past. Unlike Hillary Clinton, who is Bill’s Moon card, MIchelle can take the lead if she wants.

It will be an interesting four years to say the least. And most of all I will be watching with interest to see how Michelle and Barack’s relationship plays out in the near future.

Robert Lee Camp
12/22/2008

Sarah Palin was born on February 11, 1964 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin), same birthday as Jennifer Aniston and Sheryl Crow, among others. This birthday is an Ace of Spades with a 9 of Spades Planetary Ruling Card. Many Ace of Spades women have profound beauty. Think Princess Diana and Pamela Anderson. This comes from their 2 of Clubs 2nd Karma Card. This is a hard card for relationships, for two reasons. Their Ace of Spades is known to have abandonment and betrayal issues (7 of Hearts first Karma Card). Many Ace of Spades women, though so beautiful, make terrible choices in relationships due to this underlying influence. Sarah seems happily married so this did not factor in for her so much in her marriage. However the 9 of Spades PR Card has a huge impact for her. What is important about the 9 of Spades is that it has a King of Hearts first Karma Card. This generally plays out as a tendency to dominate others, given from a strong past life influence. All 9 of Spades, both Birth Card and PR Card, have this tendency to one degree or the other.  Sarah has a history of this and even just a couple of days ago an investigation into an affair whereby her and her husband were accused of a campaign of abuse and harassment against an Alaskan state trooper found that Sarah abused the power of her office. This is the story of her life. You will see this manifest in many different ways in her life. The main thing here is that she has a strong desire for power. Power is a keyword for 9 of Spades.

Not that this is anything all that remarkable. Many people in business and politics have similar issues. It often takes some karmic power issue to motivate someone to office or high positions in the first place. Anyone who lives with a 9 of Spades will tell you how much they want and try to dominate their home, family and others around them. It only varies from person to person by degrees. Combine this with the ambition of the Ace of Spades and you could have a very powerful person who cares little for who they would hurt along the way.

Would she make a good leader? Aside from these aforementioned traits her Ace of Spade and 9 of Spades both have humanitarian sides to them. And this humanitarian urge will inspire her to do things to help the world, and people in general, in many ways. And, for that, she can be commended. Just be careful if you have to deal with her one on one!

I was thinking again about the presidential contest and I had this thought, ‘What would I do if I were president?’ I would love for some of my readers to ponder this question for yourself and see what you can come up with. How would you change things, if anything? I think that if we put ourselves in that role for a moment or two, we can get a real sense of what is going on. Here are a list of questions that may stimulate your thinking. Write a comment here and I will publish it.

1. What would you do about the federal budget? Do you think it is important to have it balanced?

2. How important would it be for you to be a person of integrity? ( no lying, no shady deals behind the scenes )

3. Do you think you would be lured by the power and money of your position? Could you rule with fairness and equality in your heart?

4. How would you handle foreign affairs? Would you continue Bush’s ‘war on terror’?

5. Would you raise or lower taxes? What would you do with all the money that the government gets now?

6. What other ideas or plans would you have for making our country better, if any? Or would you just use the power of your office to get rich at the expense of the people?

Send me your comments!

Robert

I don’t pretend to know much about the inner workings of our economy but there are some obvious and rather glaring problems that have probably been the cause of our current situation. The one I see first is the way we use credit cards indiscriminantly. Our country is a country of debt. Saving is not encouraged or practiced, even though saving is the way out of debt and into the clear open skies of prosperity. I am not saying that one cannot make money on borrowed money. But our indiscriminate use of credit cards has reached new heights. And the majority of our country is in serious debt. This may be why even a small downturn in our overall societal economy puts so many in dire danger.

This is what we see in the public. But this same applies to our government. As of September 2008, the total U.S. federal debt was approximately $9.7 trillion, about $31,700 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident). To understand the federal debt more, read HERE. This is like our country’s credit card bill. For as long as I can remember, there has not been anyone in office who seems to care about the federal debt and budget. Bush especially has lowered taxes and increased spending. That is like you or I deciding to work less hours each week and use those hours to go on a spending spree. So we get to see that in both cases the result will be financial collapse. The problem with our government is that they can just print up more money.

A good friend mentioned to me recently that he read that most of the gold that our country has in Fort Knox has been sold to companies and investors, and is not planned to be returned. Again, we see a very bad sign for our country.

The proposed economic bailout is just another credit card band-aid. The government intends to take on more debt to bail out a bunch of companies who have not been fiscally responsible. There is also a huge element of greed working in the background of these companies that was demonstrated when they sold bad loans to people who could not afford them. Greed is one of the main forms of poverty consciousness. And actions based upon greed always create more poverty in the long run. This economic bailout is just another loan, adding to the problem. It is not fiscally responsible. Who do you think is going to pay for that $700 billion? Where is that money coming from?

If companies should have to fall because they were greedy and irresponsible is it fair that you and I should bail them out? I see it as very healthy to have many of these shady dealers fall. I think that this current economic situation is very healthy in that it will cause a pruning effect on some of the dead weight in our country. Perhaps it will help get people off of the lending/credit card disease that is so prevalent. Maybe some of us will have to cut back, maybe someone’s kid won’t get a college loan, maybe some companies will fall. But in the end, it could restore a true sense of value to millions of people in our country. And that in itself is priceless.

Most of you are probably readers of my newsletter and have read my thoughts about who will win this election before. So, I simply want to talk a little about the candidates. It’s funny because I come from a large family and we are all having an email debate about the coming election, half of us supporting Obama and the other half supporting McCain. I have in the past always voted Republican because I identified more with their overall philosophy. I would like to see less government, not more. But I have realized the past few years that both parties are actually creating more government so from that point of view, it really doesn’t matter who you vote for. What I have observed, however, in the past eight years has really opened my eyes. I have watched a corrupt and greedy group of guys who are the current administration use our country and its resources for their own ends, mostly greed. I have seen a president and his crew wreck our economy, make us the enemies of most of the world, and in the process make themselves rich beyond belief. I believe this was carefully and intentionally orchestrated. The current economic mess, high prices of gas, and increased terrorism can all be attributed to the plan that was carried out by Bush and his buds. I also believe that McCain is just an extension of that and that if he is elected, we will see more of the same, with conditions in our country getting worse and worse. Oil prices will go back up immediately following the elections and we will see more of the administration’s friends making billions of dollars from us, the American people. Why no one has really questioned the oil industry or Cheney’s companies is a mystery. But we are the ones paying the price for their greed.

So, I could never vote for someone associated with that. But then again, if there was a Republican candidate that had some integrity and who really was going to make the effort to set things right, I would vote for him. In the end I am not Democrat or Republican. But I would like to see our country being led by people with integrity and a vision for a better country that goes beyond their own personal greed.

Unfortunately, John McCain is not such a leader. He is the same birthday as Michael Jackson, a 10 of Hearts with a 10 of Diamonds planetary ruling card. This birthday, among other 10 of Hearts birthdays, is one with a very high potential for insanity and pathological lying. All 10 of Hearts have the potential to be deceitful and many are extreme. McCain is showing that he has no regard for the truth, or facts whatsoever, which is what I would expect from a politician born on his birthday. Here are a couple of recent stories that display his affinity for lying and deceit and his absence of any integrity.

http://current.com/items/89293206_misleading_absentee_ballots_being_sent_to_citizens_by_john_mccain

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-22-ads_N.htm

According to unbiased reports, McCain’s use of out and out lies in his campaign advertisements goes beyond any previous precedent. No one has ever seen lying like this before. Expect more. You can essentially bet that everything and anything McCain does from this point forward has nothing to do with our welfare but everything to do with his getting into office so his pals can resume their plan of the destruction of our country.

It is interesting that Bush is a 9 of Diamonds with a Jack of Clubs planetary ruling card. Interesting because Obama is a 9 of Diamonds. However, Obama is a Leo and does not have the Jack of Clubs as his ruling card. That Jack of Clubs is where deceit steps in. And that same Jack of Clubs, which is the first Karma Card for the 10 of Hearts, is why there is such a high probability of deceit with that card.

For these reasons and more, I could never vote for McCain. He stands for nothing except whatever will get him into office. This reminds me of another great liar, ex president Bill Clinton. He was a lot like McCain but McCain has even surpassed Bill and he isn’t even elected yet.

As for Obama, he is a Leo 9 of Diamonds. There is nothing terrible about being a 9 of Diamonds per se and I think that Obama really does have a conscience and can see the lunacy and wrong that has been occuring the past eight years. Though I do not pretend to know all the forces that may be behind his campaign, what I hear him saying is consistent and for the good of this country. He is a Leo and Leos are generally considered the best leaders in whatever capacity they are found. I would rather have him in office that this crazy McCain who has no integrity.

I have written that McCain has an edge over Obama, card-wise. This is because Obama is Moon to McCain. But with the addition of the two vice presidents, the mix becomes a new entity which I personally cannot read. This election, at least for me, is one that I cannot make a strong prediction for. I have my personal hopes but I know that ultimately everything is in God’s hands and will happen the way it needs to happen.

If we have a pain body, and it is pretty much a sure thing that each of us do, then our most intimate relationships will certainly stimulate and activate it. Having a committed relationship is a great tool for developing one’s awareness and presents a unique opportunity to become aware of and ultimately to conquer one’s pain body. It is a fact that it is in personal relationships that we, as a race, exhibit the most extreme manifestations of our pain body. This is why it is much more dangerous to be a judge or juror in a divorce proceeding than a mafia trial.

Although we profess that we love our partner the most of anyone in our life, we also treat them the worst of anyone in our life when our pain body becomes activated. We say the most hurtful things and do the most hurtful things to those we proclaim to love the most. This occurs when something they say or do activates our pain body. For the most part this process is so automatic that we may not even notice it. Your partner will certainly notice it, at least in you. And your pain body will then activate theirs, and the intensity can escalate quite rapidly in many cases. You two can be having a peaceful day when one comment can, out of the blue, cause a chain reaction that has the two of you shouting at each other within seconds of that peaceful moment.

Some people’s pain body will not stop at shouting, however. Some are not satisfied until they have physically abused their partner. But it is important to see that even verbal abuse is abusive and damaging. It is a good idea for anyone seeking a new relationship to find out just how far your potential partner’s pain body will go when it becomes stimulated. To find out, you may have to ask their ex. Most people will not volunteer that information, or will fail to tell you the full extent of it.

Some people do not verbally or physically abuse their partner but instead will hurt them in other ways, such as withdrawal from their partner completely, what I like to call ‘take away.’ Since you hurt me, I will take away my love from you, forever, or temporarily. The important thing to know here that the way our individual pain bodies express themselves are all basically the same. When the pain body becomes active, it seeks only one thing - more pain. So, it seeks to either hurt their partner or to hurt themselves, or both. And generally speaking, once our pain body is activated, it will not stop until it feels well-fed with pain.

An innocent remark by our partner can activate our pain body. This is especially true when we are already ‘on the verge’ of a pain body activation. If I am tired, or irritated by some unrelated event or experience, my partner’s innocent remark is more likely to be misinterpreted as being against me in some way and blam! - my pain body is alive and fully awakened and seeking more pain. Most of us, when we are tired, such as at the end of a day, are much more likely to have our pain bodies activated. Just knowing this, or should I say, knowing yourself well enough to know when you have a short fuse, is a valuable awareness that can help you prevent your pain body from taking you over. The ‘I’ that we are when the pain body is not activated is always ’sorry’ about the things we do when the pain body is activated. But that ‘I’ seems to have little to do with the pain body. They are like two completely separate entities within the same person. The innocent ‘me’ that loves you and is so happy and grateful to have you in my life and the evil or insane ‘me’ that only seeks to hurt you or hurt myself. They do not appear to have any control over the other, not any communication between them. When the pain body is activated, it has no thoughts of love or concern for the other. It is like a person who is in a life or death situation and who will kill or hurt anyone else to survive. And, its survival requires more pain.

If I truly want to become more conscious in my life and have a life that contains more of the NOW and less of the past, future and pain body attacks, the pain body activations that occur as stimulated by my partner present a unique and powerful opportunity to cut through the illusion that keeps me from being my true self. To utilize this opportunity, I have to intervene, with awareness. First of all, I have to be more aware of myself, my inner moods and state of mind/emotions. I need to know when a pain body attack is imminent. This generally shows up as irritability or sullen-ness in some form. Little events that occur in a day can cause a greater sense of irritability, which in turn takes us either close to a pain body attack or right into one. We must have more awareness of ourselves or there is no hope of ever overcoming a pain body attack.

Practicing being in the NOW on a daily basis is also very helpful. Personally I take hikes almost every day out into nature where there are very few man-made sounds and I sit for a spell each day and disassociate myself from my thoughts and emotions and just become present to everything I can sense, both within myself and without. I sense my own feelings, my emotional state, but also the sounds around me, feelings in my body, and the inner stillness that lies behind all these sense perceptions. This practice has now given me the power to be able to focus in on the NOW more easily whenever I want to. And I can use this when something my partner does or says stimulates my pain body. I can become aware of my pain body and sit there and look at it instead of being swept away by it.

How do we know we are being swept away by our pain body? We know that because all our thoughts are focused on blaming our partner, thinking of ways to hurt them back, justifying our position or ‘rightness’, coming up with new thoughts or schemes to counter what they did to us. When the mind is involved in this manner, we are already lost in our pain body. It has us. But the practice of being in the NOW allows me to intervene in this reactionary behavior and to stop it before it takes us over.

Now, I have the ability to stop my mind from going that extra step when I become activated. I can sit there, with the pain I am feeling from whatever my partner did and just be with that pain, without going into retribution, arguing, justification, or other pain-body thought forms.

As Eckhart Tolle says, the pain body is an “insubstantial phantom that cannot face the light of your conscious awareness.” If we can just be with the pain that comes up in a situation, just shine our awareness upon it, we stop the pain body activation process and make room for miracles to happen in terms of our interaction with our beloved partner.

For those who are just starting on this path to greater awareness I will say that it is a bit slow-going in the beginning. But even at the beginning there are many benefits so that we are rewarded every step of the way in this process of gaining more awareness of our true self.

I got a funny feeling about this movie before it was released. The name Dark Knight, the dark and foreboding trailers and the death of Heath Ledger all gave a sort of creepiness to the movie. I am a devoted science fiction guy and generally never miss a movie so I was going to see it anyway.

I saw it just a few days ago. Funny but just before that, I had listened to an Eckhart Tolle video on YouTube where someone asked him if violent movies activated the ‘pain body.’ His response was that pain bodies make violent films and that pain bodies watch violent films. He also indicated that the popularity of such violent films essentially mirrors the general state of consciousness in the world today. I reflected on this for myself. My ego has an identification with being a warrior type guy. I am competitive, I like playing video games where I compete against the computer or other players, I also enjoy playing billiards competitively. I usually will only compete in something where I at least have a chance of winning. An ego like mine gets very threatened when it loses. So, I also watch war films, warrior films and I love science fiction and comic book movies, for the most part.

I didn’t care much for the Dark Knight though. I never really was a batman fan to begin with but I did enjoy previous batman movies. I also have enjoyed Christian Bale in other movies and I respect him as an actor. It is interesting that he spent 4-5 hours in jail the day of the screening of The Dark Knight in London for supposedly assaulting his mother and sister. Charges were dropped but I would bet that he really did do that. Or should I say, his pain body did it.

The Dark Knight was a little too much pain body for my liking. It is dark and menacing throughout with very few moments of light or truth. The story line has holes that never get filled and we never really know why certain things happen the way they do. But overall I would just say that it is a depressing and violent movie. I like movies where the good guy beats the bad guy and gets the girl in the end. None of this really happens in this movie. There is no closure or completion, no happy ending. It ends pretty much the way it starts, with no chance for salvation and no hope for the future. I suppose I don’t like this because I don’t want to see my own life this way. I want to believe that there is always going to be a happy ending, not only to my life but to the lives of others.

Having said all of this, this movie broke the all time box office figures on its opening weekend. In the theater where I watched it, everyone applauded at the end of the movie, well not everyone because I didn’t. But a lot did. This movie is perfect for today’s society. It is a reflection of our consciousness at this moment in history. The dark and foreboding essence that this movie conveys must really hit a chord in many of us today. Maybe there is no hope for the future. Perhaps this movie is showing us just how many of us feel today in this world dominated by violence and injustice.

It was interesting for me to see that I have limits of liking violence. I also see that I do not like so much darkness in any movie and that I insist on movies with happy endings. All of this is food for reflection and self-understanding. And I was never a DC comic guy, always a Marvel comic follower, ever since I was eight years old!

This actually does not work. And it is what we will do because that is how our mind works. As Eckhart says, “The mind loves to make a problem out of things.” So, if you are practicing being in the NOW you will soon find, as I have, that it now becomes your new problem - getting to be in the NOW. My ego gets in there too telling me all the good reasons why I should be in the NOW. The big ego way of looking at it would naturally be, ‘ I want to be in the NOW so I can feel superior to others, or to be better.’ or ‘Wow, won’t I be so great when I am in the NOW all the time!’

These are all mind tricks. And if you try to just stop thinking, that will not work either. Eckhart teaches that all we really need to do is become aware of what is. Even just becoming aware that we are lost in our heads is the process of coming more into the NOW.

In each moment, with the constantly changing forms running through, we can become aware of something. Our awareness never leaves us. It (or should I say, the real us) is always present. Thus, all we need do is become aware of what is and be with that.

The present is our friend and ally.