The paradigm shift most needed now involves the dismantling of a thought system based on fear, to a thought system based on love. It’s a spiritual transformation from a sense that we are separate from the world, to the recognition that we are one with it. Everything we see outside us is simply a reflection of our thoughts. Therefore until we change our thoughts, the world outside us will not fundamentally change.

All wars begin with othering the other. The environmental crisis began with humanity demystifying nature. A lack of reverence for life itself is at the core of every problem in the world. All our external problems had internal origins. And only on that level can they be ultimately solved.

That’s why today’s revolution in consciousness is our greatest hope for fundamental change. Yes, we must do everything we can - and quickly - to treat the symptoms of darkness, but only light will ultimately cast it out. A new paradigm world is a world renewed, regenerated, illumined, and repaired.

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The issue here is not anti-technology. Rather, it’s a repudiation of the overreach by huge tech companies running roughshod over communities all over America. Their AI data center business model is all about them and no one else, as they act with careless abandon towards the safety, health, economic, and environmental consequences for people who live, work, and raise their children in the vicinity of the centers.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We can pause, have a moratorium, and design the unfoldment of AI - something we all know cannot and will not be stopped - in a way that is safe, just, and respectful of the needs of people, animals, and the earth itself. That this should be considered too much to ask is a problem. That huge corporate forces should be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want, extracting and exploiting both people and earth for their own financial gain, is more than a problem. It is a threat to our way of life, and potentially to life itself.

I hope my conversation with Saul is helpful to you, as it was to me. This is not a problem that is going away, and each of us can be part of the solution. It’s important that the Tech Bros as well as the President know how we the people feel. President Trump raves about the value of AI data centers but is starting to feel the resistance. The current alliance between government and Big Tech doesn’t like things like pesky protesters, but if we don’t complain now then we won’t be able to complain later.

We will democratize this process or we will all pay a price.

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The fight Against AI Data Centers Isn’t Just About Tech – It’s About Democracy (Levin’s article in The Guardian)

The Hum Pod (Levin’s Podcast)

The Hum Pod on Instagram

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I’m reminded of what happened to me in the early 1980’s, when a terrible incident initiated what many would call a mental breakdown. I felt at the time as though my head exploded into thousands of little pieces, all of which slowly and painstakingly came back together. Once they did, there was something inside my brain - my consciousness, my spirit, whatever we call it - that had not been there before. My career began not too long afterwards. My breakdown led to breakthrough.

That’s how I choose to see what’s happening in the world today. Things are falling apart, and the question is how we can ensure that things will come back together. This isn’t an easy time, and it might get even harder before it gets better. But it’s also a profound opportunity for all of us to become the people we need to be, to learn from what we have experienced, in order to repair the world.

The first thing that has to happen is that we must repair ourselves. Gandhi said self-purification must precede direct political action. What happens when our lives fall apart, or a society falls apart, is that we are forced to look at all the ways in which we ourselves must improve. There’s always a temptation to lay blame on others, but that’s not a portal to healing; it’s a portal to pain. At some point we must look at ourselves, and monitor our own behavior, if we’re to make our way from the darkness to the light.

Today’s video is about our current political discourse, particularly the ugliness of so much of it. We’re splintered, stuck in silos, too often unable to hear each other, all of which obstruct the deeper conversation that’s imperative if we’re to transform these times. I hope it adds a bit of insight to a larger conversation in the air today. We must mature beyond the anger and disrespect that characterizes the times in which we live.

A politics of contempt will not repair the world. Only love can do that, and if we allow it to it will.

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(P.S. In case you haven’t checked out Substack Notes, I post fairly often. I’m writing daily prayers leading up to the midterm election on November 3rd, praying for peace and harmony in the midst of what is obviously a very volatile campaign season.

May no weapon formed against our democracy stand.)

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Someone once told me many years ago, “You’re a sufferer.” It was a shock to me at the time and I never forgot it. He was calling me on something I hadn’t realized; that I’d developed an emotional habit pattern based not so much on circumstances as on a persistent way of interpreting things negatively. I wasn’t someone with big problems so much as I was a bit of an emotional spoiled brat.

Within ten years of that conversation I found myself in the middle of the AIDS crisis, witnessing collective human suffering up close and personal for probably the first time in my life. In the years that followed, having the privilege of being allowed into many people’s experience of the darkest hours of their lives, I saw how often those with the most painful problems had the most positive attitude. They were positive not because of their circumstances but because at a time when giving and receiving love was literally all that they had left, they practiced it fully and found peace.

There’s a lot to be cynical, and jaded, and even angry about today. But we still have a choice because we can always choose love. Today I walked into a bakery and ordered a cappuccino. The man behind the counter asked me how I was and I said, “Great! I really like Mondays. How are you?” He said he was great too, and that he loves every day. I talked for a couple of minutes with my new friend, an immigrant from Africa with a heart full of gratitude for his family, work, and friends. The conversation itself was a blessing and both of us knew it. I came home with a lot more energy from him than I got from the coffee.

What has that given me, that little practical affirmation of what’s right with the world? A lot more energy with which to stare down what’s wrong. As it says in A Course in Miracles, “Look at the crucifixion but do not dwell on it.” A positive attitude doesn’t weaken the mind. In the middle of the worst news you might see today, perhaps remind yourself that it’s Mick Jagger’s 83rd birthday, put Satisfaction or Beast of Burden or Symphony to the Devil on full blast, and raise a glass to the miracle of it all.

As my new friend at the bakery told me, “Love every day!”

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(If you’re interested in studying A Course in Miracles with me, you can do so daily).

Sometimes victimhood becomes our schtick, however subtly, and in today’s world there’s lots of support for that. The belief is frequently introduced into our consciousness that we will forevermore be defined by past traumas. We then surrender to our own diminishment and weakening by enrolling in the thought that whatever damage that was done to us is now part of who we are.

Enlightenment - or miracle-minded thinking - changes that, shifting our self-perception from body-identification to spirit-identification. The body can be hurt, even destroyed, but the spirit cannot. The spirit is unaffected by anything in the past except love that was given and received. To recognize this heals both body and soul, re-minding us that nothing but love can permanently affect us.

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And what of our wounds?

They will constrict our hearts or open them; the choice is ours.

Our wounds become sacred wounds, when we allow them to be portals to greater understanding and compassion. I can focus on what I didn’t receive as a child, or I can focus on making sure that children in my midst today receive the blessings I did not. By choosing the latter, I’m not only changing someone else’s childhood, I am also changing my experience of my own. That hurt part of my consciousness, now flooded with love for someone else, will shift from victim to victor, crucifixion to resurrection, weakness to strength, and pain to joy.

To forgive is to enter the present without bringing what A Course in Miracles calls “shadow figures” from the past. This releases the present and future to be unlike the past, recalibrating our destiny like a cosmic reset that releases new beginnings. Forgiveness is an act of love because it recognizes someone’s innocence despite the evidence of their guilt. It releases a power that is stronger than fear. It is not a weakness; it is strength.

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In today’s video, I suggest a good way to start each day. Before you even get out of bed in the morning, send your love to the entire world. I know, though no longer care, that many would call this woo woo. Those who know the most, however, know it’s a way to rewire the brain. We can program the mind in the direction of inner peace, treating it as a spiritual muscle we develop through repeated forms of exercise. Sometimes it’s seemingly inconsequential movements that make a tremendous difference, such as a morning shift from “I wonder what’s going to happen today” to “I send love to all the world.”

The powers of consciousness are every bit as important as the powers of the world Why? Because everything starts there. Thought is the level of cause, and the world as we experience it is the level of effect. Learning to change our thoughts is the key to healing our lives. The spiritual journey, the journey of enlightenment, is the harnessing of our internal forces for the sake of an internal good.

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In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses to throw his staff onto the ground. It becomes a snake, which God then tells Moses to pick up by its tail. At that point, it becomes a staff again. What God commanded Moses is a lesson for us: if our thoughts are low and lowly, they are a dangerous thing. Lifted high, they empower us in everything we do. Thoughts of love, forgiveness, and faith in each other and in God, carry the power to cast out fear.

We need such power now, for we are living at a moment of chaos and tremendous change. The world is transforming, and with every thought we think and everything we do, we contribute to the collective decision in which direction we will turn. We will be burned by the fires of transformation, or we will be purified and illumined by them. The choice is up to us.

As we move through this time, we should ignore the needs of neither our bodies nor our spirits. We’re here to strengthen them both. We are rebuilding who we are now, to be the designers and the builders of a far more beautiful world.

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The ego mind is a constant fault-finder. Whether it’s a person or a circumstance, the ego is like a scavenger dog always on the look-out for someone or something to judge. Nothing is ever good enough. I remember always thinking I was too young, then thinking I was the right age for about a minute-and-a-half, then quickly starting to think I was too old! All three were statements not about my age but about my mind.

The journey of age is a mysterious one. The younger we are the more we know certain things, and the older we are the more we know certain other things. Hopefully we can begin to break down the generational walls that divide us, so we can learn from each other what we can’t see by ourselves. We need everyone now, at every age. We need each other’s wisdom. We need each other’s hope.

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(For those feeling the encroaching shadows of age, the magic time of sunset when the sky turns darker blue though no less beautiful and even more magical, you might want to check out my book MIDLIFE AWAKENING: Creating a Miraculous Next Chapter. There’s magic in the air at every age, for the body ages but the spirit does not.)

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