While creating these podcasts/blogs over the past year, I have tried to avoid overtly political content; the reason being that long ago I realized regardless of political affiliation, there will be no heroes riding in at the last minute to save us.

We will have to do that for ourselves – hence the nature of this website.

Whenever I feel my personal peace growing to the point of it being uncomfortable, I can always count on the corporate media to try to disrupt it with tales of blood and terror. On my most charitable days, to say that I am merely disappointed in the media and its performance as informant to the masses is about as generous as I can be. Over the past few days, watching the corporate media project their visions of worldwide financial catastrophe has brought to mind one of my first jobs out of high school.  

I was a telemarketer (que horror movie music).

My job was to set sales appointments for a company that sold and installed solar water heaters. Part of my sales pitch was that a homeowner could redirect money they were already spending on their utility bills; combine that with state and federal tax credits and they could save money and energy without having to come up with any out of pockets expenses.   

A jewel in the rubbish that is the Bush administration is that they have bankrupted the U. S. economy to the point that progressive, populist, but heretofore politically suicidal revenue streams will have to be considered. I favor Gore Vidal’s suggestions to dramatically reduce the U. S. military budget, tax the property and investment portfolios of all churches, and legalize and tax drugs – or at the very least decriminalize them.

It is crucial to understand that despite what we have been told recently and will be told in the coming days, weeks and months; there is enough money to achieve a greater good for not only the American people, but all of humankind!

Any one or a combination of all three of these seemingly radical ideas would produce a pool of wealth that combined with technologies that have existed since the early 1970s would provide every man, woman and child on the planet with clean water and safe housing; to say nothing of education and health care. To paraphrase Buckminster Fuller, Now it is simply a matter of will.

Coming soon: Are we watching the 2008 Presidential election being stolen right in front of our eyes?

In practice, there is almost no difference between meditation, prayer, and self-hypnosis. All three of these actions share similar physical characteristics. Whoever is doing them is doing the same thing. We become still; we become quiet; we go within ourselves.

All of our lives, we have been programmed, we have been taught to pay attention to our thoughts and almost ignore our breathing. Meditation in its simplest, most pure form just reverses the focus of our attention. We become aware of our breathing. We breathe in…and we breathe out. We breathe in…and we breathe out. That’s meditation in its simplest form. A very common mistake that people who are new to the practice of meditation make – one that often undermines and causes people to give up the practice altogether – is the misconception that we calm our minds in order to meditate. That’s 180 degrees opposite of what we actually do when we meditate. We meditate to calm our minds.

Understanding levels of consciousness is also important when beginning a meditation practice. There’s beta, that’s us fully engaged in our daily lives, driving our car, going to work, talking to our friends and family – that’s a conscious state. The other three levels of consciousness are referred to as subconscious states. There’s alpha. Alpha encompasses everything from daydreaming through trance-like states, to deep dreaming. We also experience alpha when we’re watching television. That’s one of the reasons that television is so insidious. We are in a trance-like state, being bombarded with messages of fear and consumerism and crass commercialism. And when we’re in this state, these messages that we are getting – they take hold, they take root. The next lower subconscious state is referred to as theta. In theta, lucid dreaming is possible. And after that, the fourth level, delta – non-dream sleep. There are your levels of consciousness. Beta – wide awake, alpha – trance-like daydream state, theta – lucid dreaming, delta – non-dream sleep.

Tying this all together, through the simple act of shifting our focus away from our thoughts and towards our breathing, we can reach subconscious states. And in these subconscious states, there are lots of different things that we can do. There are lots of different tools that you can apply that help you in different areas of your life. Just some examples are accelerated physical healing, performance programming, dream programming, stress management, past life regression, habit control for those of you who are trying to quit smoking or stick to diets.

Which brings me back to Dialog with Feeling. When I began this journey of self-discovery 20 years ago, I was like most people. I was all too willing to abdicate the responsibility for my emotional well-being to anybody and everybody. I used words like, “you make me mad,” and “you make me happy.” Everybody does it. Take the next 24 hours – test this for yourself. Listen to people talk around you; listen to radio; listen to television. See how many times people blame their emotional state on other people. More to the point, see how many times you do it. How many times do you say other people are responsible for your emotional well-being? “You make me happy.” “You make me mad.”

What I learned is that our feelings are a unique language. Unique to us as individuals. And our feelings tell us much more about ourselves than they do about anybody else. However, most people have that backwards, and they try to use their feelings to figure out other people. I’m upset, therefore there’s something wrong with you. The meditation technique Dialog with Feeling enabled me to interpret my feelings and what they said about me. Instead of using my feelings to figure out other people, all of a sudden I was able to decipher my feelings in such a way that it freed me from the disempowering language of blame. But at the same time it enlightened me about the root causes of my emotions. As an extra bonus, I came to the realization that there’s no such thing as a negative emotion.

This podcast is designed to provide you with the basest of theories regarding meditation and hypnosis. For those of you interested in the actual practice of Dialog with Feeling, there is an additional download wherein I use guided imagery to take you from the beta state to the alpha state, and then through the Dialog with Feeling exercise.

I find in my practice usually I’m working with some feeling that I’m uncomfortable with – anger or fear or something along those lines – it doesn’t have to be one of those feelings. It could just as easily be the feelings of joy, happiness or peace. The biggest obstacle to enlightenment for people who are doing this meditation occurs when they judge the information provided by the subconscious mind. It’s our conscious mind that rationalizes – “That can’t be it,” “It doesn’t work that way.” Our subconscious mind will not lie to us.

Let me give you a personal example of how the Dialog with Feeling meditation technique works. A little over 16 years ago, my wife and I got married. We were married in

As I said at the beginning of this podcast, this is most enlightening and liberating thing that I have learned in my journey. Enlightening because I use my feelings now to better understand myself. And to paraphrase the Dalai Lama, to learn one thing about yourself is more beneficial than to learn a thousand things about somebody else.