Heyoka Ken Thornton goes into the heart of the city and reflects upon modern life and awakening to a new world. Music composed, arranged, and performed by Jeffrey Gold.

“I have the distinct honor of writing one of Michael Jacksons all-time favorite songs,” says Saieda Garrett. “Michael’s compassion and generosity taught the world to sing with one voice and his amazing talent lives in the hearts of people everywhere.”

“Michael Jackson inspired the world by demonstrating how one person can make a positive impact on the lives of many,” says Rickie Byars Beckwith, director of the 200 voice Agape International Choir. “We are honored to sing in joyous celebration with Siedah Garrett, whose socially responsible lyrics helped bring consciousness to the masses.”

[From "Conversations With Seth" (Vol.2)--from Chap. 20
"Those of you who are affluent may think that it is spiritual, even
sophisticated, to diet, to deprive yourselves, or to go upon a fast so
that you can become spiritually oriented. The starving man can afford no such spiritual luxury—his guts ache until his brain spins!"

Seth looked around at each of us in turn, his eyes wide, dark, and
penetrating. "Again, individually and en masse, you choose your
reality," he continued, his voice now rasping out in a throaty whisper.
"So the starving in India represent something—the part of the planet
that is in pain; the place where beliefs do not mesh; where the
spiritual and the physical are so divorced in practical terms. The gurus
may go on fasting retreats, but in the meantime, they eat well! They do not lie in gutters in their own vomit!

Seth Continues: "Those of you have enough money to live may adapt the garb of the poor. You may disdain what you think of as wealth, yet by those [starving men's] standards, you are indeed each a king!
“What use have those rituals been? And I use the word ‘ritual’ because you understand, in your terms, what you mean by it. There is a ritual in starvation; a ceremony. It is the opposite of the ceremony that takes place with chandeliers and shining silver and china plates. It is the opposite of the ceremony offered by the gurus.”
Seth bent forward in Jane’s rocker, looking quite stern. “There is a
ceremony of the seasons; a ritual of the seasons that is blessed and
exuberant and knows its own order. The guru can well afford to luxuriate in it!

“Here [in class], comfort blankets are taken away from you. Or, rather,
you take them away from yourselves, though now and then you tug for them, and think how lovely one would be, for just a moment!”
Then Seth’s voice really rang out:
“You are your own great ceremonies, as the seasons are their own great ceremonies. If ever there was a time when natural ceremonies should be recognized, the ceremony—indeed, the loving ceremony—of the seasons and of spontaneous song and of spontaneous joy, then this is, in your terms, the time! “It is not the time to set up new rules or regulations or even loving dogmas. In your terms, you have been through that before. Each of you, in your own way, will creatively do your thing, with the material or the Sumari, or your interpretation of it; and that is good. That is what it is for. We give it to you to use as you will. But there will be no new organization, no new church, no new cult. There will he a brotherhood of men and women who know themselves, and who explore the nature of their own reality, subjectively and objectively!” Seth paused in his delivery, and Allan Demming, who had been arguing in favor of a “Seth school,” spoke up. “Are you really telling us that reality is entirely isolated within the individual?” he said. “If so, then that seems to mean that there’s no joyous coming together possible, because—”

“Now, raindrops fall,” Seth interrupted. “They are all individual. They do not stop and together think, ‘We must all fall together upon Elmira, New York, at four o’clock this afternoon!’ Yet, by being themselves, they bring freshness and vitality to the grass and flowers by thus falling.

“You cannot separate yourselves from others or from your world,” Seth
said to the class in general. “Indeed, neither can you immerse your
individuality, as you know, in others. But by being yourself completely,
you are automatically doing what you yourself want to do — fulfilling
the purpose that is your own, and joining with others of like purpose.
And you become, therefore, a force of nature, and in trusting that force
that is yourself, you flow naturally into those areas of your own
interest and the interests of others.

“You are a brotherhood—you do not need to form one! You meet with
other [Sumari] in your sleep. You do not need credentials—none of you! “Now, I understand your need, because of your historical existence, for exterior organization,” Seth went on, his voice now soft and affectionate. “But I say to you that the real organizations are inside. And when you thoroughly understand this, there will be no need for exterior ones, for they will naturally appear, as the raindrops
naturally appear—and you will change yourselves and the world; as
raindrops change the world each time they fall.”

Seth ended this exposition while staring directly at Richie Kendall, who
was sitting next to Mary on the edge of the blue sofa, obviously waiting anxiously for a chance to ask a question. Now he and Seth grinned at one another, and Richie launched into it with his familiar playful intensity. “So,” Richie said, punctuating each word with exuberant gestures, “practically speaking—if I have a desire for a beautiful house, pretty clothes, a beautiful car, et cetera, et cetera, and I fulfill that desire—then, practically speaking, I am in some way acting to actually alleviate a future situation such as exists in India with starving people. Right?” Class roared with laughter…
“Even I have trouble following that reasoning!” Seth bellowed
humorously. Richard Continues: “Well, by being spontaneous,” Richie shouted over the laughter and guffaws, “wherever my spontaneity takes me—Come on, you guys, shut up!-If I’m being spontaneous, then naturally I’m helping the world of which I’m automatically a part of, right?” “You are indeed!” Seth answered.
Richard Continues: “All right, so even though there are people starving
in India and money could be sent there to feed them—if my spontaneity leads me toward buying a beautiful house, a beautiful car, a beautiful–” Seth: “If you allow your spontaneity its own freedom, then you can quite happily have whatever you want!” Seth roared back. “But spontaneity will also lead you to thoughts of love for others; it will lead you to realize that you cannot plunder your planet; and it will lead you to realize that as long as one person is starving, then you are  starving in ways that you are too ignorant to realize!”

Book Text Continues:
Warren Atkinson Said: “Seth, could you give us a comment on this thing going on in the Middle East—where much of our energy seems to be focused, when a few thousand miles to the east, there is this fantastic drought and all these people are dying?” Seth: “To some extent, and, I admit, opaquely, I am discussing that in our present book,” Seth replied. “But each portion of the world, in your terms, has certain meaning, and the people of course accept their own reality, and form it.”
Seth Continues: “Each area—the area of which you are speaking, and
this area in your country, for example—these areas are important focal
points; each working out certain beliefs in exaggerated form. If you
think, those beliefs will come to you, and you will see why the
conditions exist in each area.”
Book Text Continues: Seth withdrew, and class tried, clumsily, to tell
Jane what had been going on. “It just really flips me out,” Richie said,
still perched on the sofa’s edge. “If what Seth is saying really works,
then does that mean it’s really okay to go out and just buy and buy, and throw away, and buy some more, and have twelve kids, even if that means cutting down all the trees to build beautiful houses for everybody to live in—” He stopped in mid- sentence: Jane was removing her glasses again.”—All totally spontaneously, of course!” Richie added hastily.
Seth Continues: “There is abundance,” Seth said, blinking Jane’s
darkened eyes at Richie.
“There is also the fact that you dwell on a physical planet. With a
sense of love and identification, your idea of survival would not
include annihilating other species so that you could live. You would
understand that all of you share this reality, and that all of you are
bound together in a gestalt of creativity . . .”
Seth Continues: “The animals, knowing their own grace, breed with a joy and spontaneity that know their own order. The cow, giving birth, knows how many caterpillars are within a meadow, or a field, or on a
continent; and in your terms—but in your terms only—the other
species gracefully acclimate themselves.
“They give and they take with a graciousness that you are only now
beginning to recognize. They are not gluttons!
“You have chosen a different kind of consciousness. That kind of
consciousness necessitated a different kind of challenge, so that with
your new kind of mind, you would come to different crossroads. You would forget what the animals knew. But with a different kind of
consciousness, you would triumphantly then become aware, but in a
different way, of the animals’ blessed knowledge, and use it again in
new terms as conscious co-creators. You have not as yet reached that
level, but you are working toward it.
“That is a partial answer to your questions,” Seth said, turning to
Richie again. “There is a great conscious revelation that in all
probability can come to each of you, and to those of your species, in
which you understand the nature of your own grace, and your relationship with All-That-Is within the reality that you know; and then you will realize many things.”
…
In April 1977, during one of the infrequent post-1975 “un-class”
meetings held in Jane and Rob’s new house, Seth continued this theme in a message of springtime: “You cannot help yourself and you cannot help your species by identifying with your own weakness, or with the weakness of your species,” he told us. “When you are safe, you are safe, and you are in a position of strength and you can be in a position of tranquility. Then you have the energy and the exuberance to think and feel clearly, and to help others.
“When you are in a position of safety, you do not help by pretending
that you are not safe, or by taking upon yourself the agony of others.”
Seth Continues: “Your reality, when you are safe, is a reality of
security. From that framework you have strength, validity, grace,
exuberance—additional energy that you can send out to touch the hearts and the realities of other people.
“If you become so frightened of realities that are not your own; if you
take upon yourselves tragedies that do not exist in your reality, in
your moment; then you weaken your position and you weaken the position of those you think you are helping. You look about you and you see only hopelessness and helplessness. You organize your reality according to the tragedies of the newspapers!”
Seth Continues: “The tragedies of the newspapers are symbols,” Seth
continued… “Those symbols represent ‘real’ tragedies, but those
tragedies do not exist in your moment unless you are participating in
them. Those who are involved in such tragedies feel a sense of
hopelessness and the loss of power in the present —and you do not help them by taking on the guise of hopelessness!”

Seth Continues: “What I am saying this evening is indeed simplified . .
but you must operate from strength, not from weakness. When you stand upon a firm shore, you can extend your arm to the man who is in
quicksand. You cannot help him by leaping into the quicksand with him,
for surely both of you will go down — and he will not thank you!”
Warren Asks: “Then we’re doing that as a nation?”
Seth: “Individually— as you read your paper, as you watch your
television,” Seth replied, “whenever you look around you and say, ‘Other men are fools’; whenever you look around you and say The race is ruining itself—it is insane’; you are doing the same thing— you are jumping into the quicksand, and you cannot help.
“Organize your reality according to your strength; organize your reality
according to your playfulness; according to your dreams; according to
your joy; according to your hopes—and then you can help those who
organize their reality according to their fears.”

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sethquotes/message/1500

Tales Bounced off the Lonely Road
Stuart Wilde – February 2nd, 2006

Some years ago I mounted my high horse of indignation and I went out to fight evil: human evil, transdimensional evil, demonic ghouls, black magicians, anything satanic. I’d plough in like there was no tomorrow.

I scored some fantastic successes – humdingers, but I suffered many more defeats. And I took endless etheric hits, thousands of them. In the end I got tired and sick and I nearly died a few times along the way.

My soul got wet wading through rivers of injustice, maybe you have done the same? Eventually a weight of helplessness and futility hung over me forming a shroud like a wet blanket. I could no longer see which way to go. I was one of those soggy Kleenex heroes, lost in the fog of a thousand things I had no power to fix.

So I got off my high horse and I realized fighting evil is stupid. I took to an idea I call, ‘cheesy denial’. You smile and pretend everything is just fine. But in the end cheesy denial becomes painful because it endorses a lot of lies. So as a cure for cheesy denial I tried isolation for three and a half years, but I got lonely. So now I’m twiddling my fingers waiting for a new formula. I think it’s called surrender.

When you sit down and quit it feels a lot better. But it is also rather scary as life passes you by and I also found it confusing; I didn’t know where to put my mind. I can well understand why in the olden days the Knights Templar suffered hardship to go off on crusades to fight the infidels.   The problem is that in the end you realize you are the infidel and while rumors of war are true, the war is always inside you.

I can’t see the answer, there is an agony in fighting with your eyes shut; beauty lies in surrender. It’s a feminine humility that calls to wounded souls from beyond the mists of Avalon.

Late at night I’d called to the mist saying, “Help me, my heart, she cry.”

And the Spirit of Surrender she’d talk to me in visions and dreams and she’d tell me to quit and sit and wait. So to while away the time I breathed love into the hearts of liars and crooks and pedophiles and the embezzlers of human souls, and I waited.

It’s going to work: surrender that is.

Certainly, plans A, B, and C were glorious flops. This new tactic might turn out the perfect solution. Once you quit fighting it helps you enormously. I found the injustice of the world overwhelming but there must be an important reason why we are all here watching it. Perhaps in watching we learn what it is that we don’t want to become.

© Stuart Wilde 2006 – www.stuartwilde.com