Demand More

There is a day coming soon — perhaps a hundred years, perhaps two hundred years, but no more than that — where the evil of religious fundamentalism will no longer exist.

Now, one or two hundred years may seem like a long time, but when compared to the thousands of years that religious fundamentalism has existed, it is really just a blink of the eye.

There will always be close-minded people who insist that they are right and everyone else is wrong.  Human nature is not set to change.  But what will change, what must change, is the grip of fundamentalism over the minds of individuals.

Whenever human consciousness has expanded, fundamentalism has declined.  The Enlightenment heralded the end of the power of organized religion in temporal affairs and the birth of reason; the American Revolution brought forth the First Amendment, which commands a separation of church and state in a manner that every democracy now strives for; and the development of science heralded the dawn of rationed inquiry into the nature of existence.

With each of these developments, fundamentalism was deprived of one of its carefully cultivated monopolies.  With the Enlightenment, fundamentalism lost its monopoly on war, and the reasons for war; with separation of church and state, fundamentalism lost its control in the realm of politics; and with science, fundamentalism was deprived of its monopoly in explaining Nature.

We stand at the doorstep of an age of yet another explosion of consciousness; a final push of thinking that will end once and for all fundamentalism’s last grip, its last claim of relevance — its explanation of God.

More and more, people are discovering that organized religion and religious fundamentalism cannot explain God.  In fact, people are increasingly discovering that these things are in fact great obstacles to true inquiry into God, true connection with God, true contemplation and union with God.

More and more, people are discovering the fact that religious fundamentalism is based in fear.  Look at any religious fundamentalist of any religion, and you will see the same fear.  People are taught to fear Hell,  the Devil,  reincarnation,  karma, or even social ostracism.  Like all forms of control, religious fundamentalism feeds off of fear.  And anything based in fear cannot be God.  It is the opposite of God.

More and more, people are growing sick of this fear.

What will replace religious fundamentalism?  We should be clear that the replacement will not be “science”, as we conceive of that term.  We will not invent devices that will measure God, or machines that will trap angels.  Science dedicates itself to the study of measure, but God is not something that can be measured.  Measure implies observation, which in turn implies a separation between the observer and the observed.  God is a thing of unity; there is no such separation with God.

Religious fundamentalism will be replaced with personal inquiry.  Instead of pre-packaged answers, we will move to a world where people will be encouraged to inquire into the nature of God for themselves, and to reach their own conclusions.  We will move to a world where a diversity of consclusions is not only encouraged, but expected, and where respect for those conclusions will be honored.

Religious fundamentalism will be replaced with faith.  Today, faith is a faith of fear.  It is a faith that commands the blind adherence to antiquated sets of rules so as to avoid eternal punishment in an afterlife that has never been proven.  This is not really faith.  True faith is based in love.  This is a faith that rests on the foundation that life is filled with joy, that people can be decent, that kindness is the operative law of the universe, and that the forces of universalism and peace by definition necessarily triumph over the forces of division and war.  This is a faith that can see the order in the chaos, and the blessings that accrue through suffering.  It is a faith that is deeply personal and derived from experience, not from any religious text, however holy.

Religious fundamentalism will be replaced with truth.  Organized religion today is in the business of selling lies, packaged lies with bows on them that may seem pretty, but which are lies nonetheless.  Please, let us not disparage those who sell the lies — let us not doubt their intentions, which are no doubt benign.  But a well intentioned lie is a lie nonetheless.  And a business, as well, no matter how clothed with ritual and holy ordinance, remains a business.  Churches are not built without labor; and man does not eat on bread alone.  Thousands of years, thousands of religions, millions of preachers and monks and nuns in all religions — yet we live in a world consumed with war, with hatred, with disrespect, with plunder of the environment, where children are still controlled to believe the falsehoods of their parents.  Religion has not ended any of these things.  Dare I say that religion may in fact bear some responsibility?

Truth cannot come from a book.  Truth is not something that can be communicated with words from a preacher to a listener in a pew.  Truth is experience, but it is also beyond experience.  Truth is understanding, but it is also beyond understanding.  Truth comes about when a person’s consciousness resonates at the vibration of the Universal and comes to grips with a deeper reality that exists beyond the realm of our five senses.  This is something that no religion can give.

Fundamentalism will not go without a fight.  It has survived for too long and enslaved the minds of too many to simply go with a whimper.  But like all things that are composed only of shadow, the extent of its power is only as meaningful as the power we choose to give it.  Like all shadows, the flicker of even the smallest of lights will expose how transitory, illusory, and rather silly its power really is.  As individuals of all cultures and religious backgrounds awake to the true nature of reality, across all continents and languages, the nature of this shadow will be exposed once and for all.

We stand like Moses at a promontory overlooking a promised land — a land free of fundamentalism — that we may never have the opportunity to enter.  From this vantage point, it is easy to see the fertility of the land, the extent of its blessings, and its ability to provide a real sense of security born of freedom of thought.   It is a land where people can connect with this universe in their own way, on their own terms, so as to obtain genuine understanding of their purpose and the nature of existence.  It is a land where the seedlings of our consciousness will find ready soil to grow and flower in their own unique and magnificent ways.

We may never enter this land; but we can see it, and we know it is there.  And we should rest assured that our children and their children will reach ever closer to this place that is all around us, that is so close but still so far, that is always just one day away, until that moment when human beings from every corner of this fantastic planet shed their fear once and for all and enter an undiscovered country where truth, love, and beauty find ready resonance in the minds and hearts of all seekers.  This is what God is; and while some may think it ironic, it is only fitting that it is God — God — who will vanquish religious fundamentalism forever and ever.

In just a few short weeks, Californians will head to the polls to decide, among other things, the fate of their months-old experiment with same-sex marriage.  A voter-initiated proposition (”Proposition 8“) aims to re-write the state’s Constitution to take away the right of any individual of any sexual orientation to get married. Opinion polls show Proposition 8 winning amongst likely voters, although not yet having a clear majority.

Earlier this year,  the California Supreme Court struck down all laws restricting marriage to heterosexual couples, finding that such laws violated California’s Constitution.  Chief Justice Ronald George (appointed by conservative Governor Pete Wilson), wrote for the Court that such laws violated California’s guarantee of liberty and privacy enshrined by the state’s supreme law.

Marriage, according to the Chief Justice, represents “the right of an individual to establish a legally recognized family with the person of one’s choice,” and is fundamental to a person’s “personal autonomy” and their “liberty”, both of which are protected by California’s Constitution.  Withholding marriage from same-sex couples deprived them of these constitutional freedoms.

The Court relied on its 1948 court decision Perez v. Sharp in reaching its decision.  In Perez, the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws that prohibited two people of different skin color from marrying.  California was the first state in the United States to strike down such laws; the federal Supreme Court would strike down all such laws only some twenty years later in Loving v. Virginia.

In striking down similar restrictions against same-sex couples, Chief Justice George noted, “It is instructive to recall that the traditional, well-established legal rules and practices of our not-so-distant past (1) barred interracial marriage, (2) upheld the routine exclusion of women from many occupations and official duties, and (3) considered the relegation of racial minorities to separate and assertedly equivalent public facilities and institutions as constitutionally equal treatment.”

It is strange and a bit sad that a thing like liberty needs defending; but these are strange times.  Why the private decisions of two consenting adults should be the business of anyone else — or the business of any government, be it local, state or federal — is a question that few politicians are willing to answer.  Yet more and more, Americans seem content to interfere in the lives of others.  Spying telephone companies and a failed war on drugs are just two of the more obvious examples of intrusive and inappropriate social policies designed to police the private lives of otherwise law abiding citizens.

Much of this interference is done in the name of terrorism (or more accurately, irrational fear of terrorism) but initiatives like Proposition 8 are a reminder that restrictions on liberty come in a variety of forms.  Today, it is fashionable to argue that liberty should be restricted — a sad testament to the decline of freedom in America.

And thanks to the explosion of money in politics over the last few decades, California’s direct democracy initiatives and voter referenda have become battlegrounds for this call to arms against liberty.  It is interesting to wonder whether in 1948, after the Perez decision, people would have flocked to the polls to keep Mexicans from marrying people with black skin (the couple in Perez) in order to preserve the institution of marriage for proper, decent folk.  Perhaps this is a hypothetical better left unanswered, because it is not unreasonable to think that such an initiative would have soundly passed, and even been enshrined in the state’s Constitution: “Marriage for one’s race, and one’s race only.”

Even today, more than fifty years after Perez, interracial marriage remains uncommon, and many people express preferences for people of their own “race”.  It is of course anyone’s right to be close-minded and prejudiced, and to believe in the fiction of race.  There are people who believe the world if flat, that climate change is a lie, and that you go to a place called Hell if you don’t worship a particular god.  In time, a more enlightened society will see the notion of “race” for what it truly is: a way to artificially divide people and keep them separate and at each others’ throats, without genuine communion, compassion, solidarity or love.  And, thankfully, California had a brave Supreme Court which realized more than fifty years ago that close-mindedness is not an appropriate bedrock for law; and that prejudice, no matter how defined, no matter how clothed, no matter the arguments made in its favor or the religious texts used to support it, cannot be what defines the concept of liberty for any free people.

The best way to preserve one’s own freedom is to support the freedom of others.  That’s how freedom works, in all its aspects.  If you want to have freedom of speech, to say what you want without threat of retribution, then, in addition, you have to support the right for people to say things that you don’t like or may not want to hear.  If you want to have the freedom to associate and join political parties of your choice or to vote for candidates who support the way you think, then, in addition, you have to support the right for people to vote for ideas or candidates whom you may find repulsive or deadening to your values.  If you want freedom of religion, to worship the god or gods of your choice, then, in addition, you have to support the right of others to worship who they want as well.

Freedom is not a thing that can be parceled to favorites — it must exist for everyone, or it exists for no one.

And if you want the freedom to love who you want, and raise a family with whomever you want, then, in addition, you must support the right of others to do the same.  The denial of anyone’s freedom is a denial of your own freedom as well.

There are many opponents of same-sex marriage who argue that same-sex couples should have a different institution to sanctify their relationship — a “separate but equal” relationship, if you will.   Has this country learned nothing from its bloody history with race?  Separate but equal is a principle that was implemented and tried for over fifty years, depriving black-skinned people of basic rights for no other reason than to keep them confined as a permanent underclass.  It was only through brave protest and judicial oversight that such laws and practices were banned.  Today, America still wrestles with these demons.  Yet there are those who would want to bring back such principles, once more!

There is no doubt that the institution of marriage will one day be open to any individual who chooses to make a life-long, civil arrangement with any other individual.  The question before Californians is whether they will recognize this inevitability now, or choose to restrict liberty for some undefined period of time.  This is what it means to live in a democracy — you have to present this choice to the people and appeal to the “better angels of their nature”.  It is this choice, and this responsibility, which represents what it means to be free.  Only now, we will see whether democracy will be used as a tool to protect freedom, or as a means to oppress a targeted few.  We will see the nature of those angels; we will see what they are worth.

Happiness comes from within.  It is a perspective that is carried in the mind at every waking moment.  You will not find any lasting happiness in the outside world that is separate from your own inner perceptions.  This is because the outside world only reflects your internal point of view, your internal perspective.

If you are not happy on the inside, you will never find happiness on the outside.  Yet today, it is common to see people seek happiness on the outside without having done this inner work.  They seek some sort of lasting fix from something out there, somewhere.  They expect the next TV show, consumer gadget, website click or paid-for experience to provide some happiness, even when it never does.

The urge to find happiness on the outside leads to addiction and delusion.  It is possible to be addicted to anything in this world, even pain.  The root of all addiction is simply the urge to find pleasurable stimulation, to cover over the emptiness felt on the inside.  It is not possible to treat addiction without addressing this very emptiness — you have to teach the addict how to create happiness first, then the addiction will go away, naturally.

And it is possible to be deluded about anything.  So many people today are so obsessed with their religion, with their politics, with their ideas about how the world must be.  They cling to some belief system to interpret their emptiness and sense of existential anguish, to give it meaning, to give it some dignity.  This is a very human thing to do, but no matter how much you dress up the empty void inside, it remains an empty void.  The fundamentalists of religion, of politics, even of science — those who refuse to question — have made this world a very difficult place for the rest of us.

I want to point out that our entire economic system today — consumerist corporate capitalism — is itself a product and reflection of this attitude that we can find happiness on the outside without doing the self-inquiry and personal work necessary to make ourselves happy on the inside.

Indeed, the entire premise of our society is that happiness can be purchased.  It doesn’t matter what it is you purchase, as long as you are purchasing something.  You could be buying a flat-screen TV, or a pet, or a year supply of Prozac.   In each instance, we make the assumption that the purchase itself leads to happiness.  That moment when cash exchanges hands, when units of money are swapped for some consumer experience or consumer item: this is the sacred moment of our society, worshipped as the sum total of human civilization.

If you want to understand the damage cause by this philosophy, all you need to do is look at the waste caused by consumerism.  Consumerism and waste go hand in hand.  Humanity has generated more waste on this planet in the last 200 years than in the last 200,000 years.  Thanks to consumerism, we have littered the world with our plastics, which scientists say carry a toxic poison.  We have created so-called “dead zones” in the ocean where life can no longer exist.  An entire island of trash, twice the size of Texas, floats between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Our need for cheap energy to fuel non-stop consumer acquisition threatens the habitability of life on this planet.  Fossil fuel emissions, air pollution, spent nuclear energy — all these things are produced because we give short shrift to the consequences of waste.  We prefer to have the luxury of cheap energy and fast cars even if it means poisoning the air quality and melting the ice caps.  There are so many evils associated with these waste products — health evils such as cancer and asthma, as well as environmental evils such as climate change — yet today, these evils are ignored.

Consumerism generates internal waste as well.  In addition to the physical garbage produced by consumerism, we accumulate mental garbage in our minds.  Short attention spans, fix-it-now attitudes about life, seeing people as worthy of respect only if they look like the people we see on TV: these are the types of mental waste we produce when we dedicate our lives to consumerism.

So we live in a world where we are told that buying things on the outside will soothe the inner void on the inside.  But this never happens.  Instead, all we end up doing is creating and living in our own waste.  Can you see how destructive this logic is, how truly brainwashed we must be to buy into the consumerist point of view?  We are so brainwashed that we cannot stop our behaviors even when they are toxic to the planet and to ourselves — even when we recognize the damage we are causing.

But let us look on the bright side.  The bright side is that more and more people are waking up to the reality that consumerism is a poison that prevents us from being happy.  More and more people are taking a holistic approach to the problems of our society — the problems of happiness, the problems of health, the problems of waste and climate change — and seeing that these problems are all linked together, linked to the very basic desire to find contentment.

Today, it is possible to talk of a world based on sustainability, and not consumerism.

What is sustainability?  Sustainability is a way of life that asks us to cultivate happiness from that which we have, instead of expecting happiness to come from that which we can purchase.

A sustainable world will look very different than a world based on consumer acquisition.

A sustainable world begins in our own minds.  Sustainability says, “what I have is enough,” and uses that foundation as a basis to do the inner work necessary to cultivate happiness.  Instead of seeing the world as a vast resource to be exploited, the attitude of sustainability seeks to live in harmony with the world and minimize human impact in order to preserve it for future generations.

A sustainable world will not be focused on the production of new consumer items.  Today, we all work to get rich, so that we can purchase things.  In a sustainable world, we will not work to get rich, but to maintain our essentials so that we can have the free time to cultivate happiness.

A sustainable world will honor mental and physical health.  Today, there are a variety of diseases that accrue due to our unhealthy lifestyle, diseases of the mind as well as diseases of the body.  Because we sit for so many hours of the day, we get heart disease later in life, and we develop cancers due to the poisons we put in the air and the earth.  Because we are constantly looking for happiness in consumer acquisition, we develop addictive and delusional traits that lead to psychosis and greater feelings of unhappiness.  A sustainable world will ask us to confront these ills, and heal them.

A sustainable world will ask us to take individual responsibility for our every day needs.  In a sustainable world, we will have to take a hand in guaranteeing our shelter, our food supply, our modes of transportation.   We will have to work with our friends and neighbors to ensure that those common necessities of life are shared by everyone, so that all can pursue their happiness in the way they see fit.

A sustainable world will have a different attitude towards technology.  We won’t use technology as a stand-in for human happiness, but we will use it as a tool in making our lives easier.

A sustainable world will be a world of peace.  Our current attitudes about acquisition play themselves out on the world stage this very moment.  What are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, if nothing other than America’s desire to acquire stable energy supplies and greater power in this world?  No, we don’t need to acquire any of those things.  We can do with what we have.  Ninety-nine percent of the wars in this world result from a desire to acquire resources from another.  When we adopt an attitude of sustainability, we will come to see war as the disrespect that it really is, both to its victims and to ourselves.

A sustainable world is a world based on the wisdom that we cannot acquire happiness.  Happiness comes about through cultivation of the soul, through self-examination, by looking at our lives and making constant improvements so that we can feel ever closer to the grand consciousness which permeates all of existence.  If we can adopt this attitude internally, then the world will reflect this attitude as well.

The problems of the world today are the problems of unhappiness.  We are all just looking to be happy.  There is nothing wrong with this desire, but we should be critical of the methods we use to obtain happiness.  And we must discard those methods that do not in fact bring us happiness, ways of life like consumerism.

We can fix a lot of the problems of the world today with a new attitude: an attitude of sustainability.  It is a difficult thing to examine this collective way of life called consumerism which we live day-in and day-out, without thought of any alternative.  But it is a way of life that is killing us, and killing the planet, and prevents us from being happy.  It is time to think of another way.

What do you have to lose in this endeavor, other than your own misery?

When you quiet your mind, and start to look at life with fresh eyes, one of the first things you will notice is the amount of struggle on this Earth.  If you have traveled and seen poverty and hopelessness as it exists in so many places on this planet, you will know that the struggle for food and water is a reality for millions.  But even in the rich countries, there is struggle as well.  There is struggle to find good work, to find a good place to live, to find a good lover, to experience good moments in life.

Struggle is ongoing; it is ceaseless.  We wake up, and we begin our struggles.  We struggle to get out of bed.  We struggle to get to work on time.  We struggle to leave work at an early hour.  We struggle to eat a good dinner.  We struggle to have a little joy and relaxation.  Then, when we are done, we struggle to get to sleep, so that we can wake up and start struggling all over again.

We are trained to struggle.  But this was not always so.  If you know children, you will know that children do not struggle.  Children are spontaneous.  It is only adults who are not spontaneous; spontaneity has been beaten out of them.

When you see the war on this planet, and the lust for power and the quest for resources, when you see all these things, you should learn to see the struggle that has sparked them.  I don’t mean the geopolitical strategy or the economic motivations or anything like that.  You should learn to see the struggle of the individual people involved in those events, their inner psychological battles they wage against themselves every day.  It is the workings of those minds, the inner clockwork — that is the source of war and misery.  The president and the prime minister struggle internally, and then they take that struggle out on the entire world.  The person who cannot accept himself is the first person to call for war on the other.

There is a seeming paradox about existence that must be explained.  It is true that there is a universal consciousness, of which we are all individually apart of; and it is also true that there is no larger consciousness than that which is contained in our own individual minds.  Do you see this paradox?  Everything outside our minds is connected, and is one; and at the same time, there is also nothing beyond our perceptions.  Both of these things are true.

Of course, this is not really a paradox — our minds operate at the same wavelength of the universal consciousness; the two are both one and the same.  But because of the struggle, because we have been taught from an early age to dress up our egos and compete and kill each other, we have lost touch with this basic universalism, a universalism that all other nature comprehends.  The mind is the universe, and the universe is the mind; open your mind, and you will explore the universe.

This, too, you must see — the universe does not struggle.  The universe is effortless.  That is its way.  The universe is chaos, and chaos is effortless.  Yet chaos is in fact the only true order.  Again, a seeming paradox, but only because we do not yet understand.

Nature is effortless.  Anything of grandeur that Nature accomplishes results from its lack of effort.  Nature will set the stage, but it will then allow events to transpire as they will.  There is so much energy and effort in a hurricane, in a giant storm.  But it will not destroy a mountain.  On the other hand, the effortless march of a glacier, inching forward decade by decade, propelled only by its own gravity, its own inertia — this will hollow the greatest of mountains.  This is the effortlessness of Nature.

Nothing in Nature struggles against itself.  It is only human beings that struggle against themselves.  You feel shame, you feel anxiety, you feel paranoid, you feel insecure — that is the result of your struggle against yourself, your hatred of yourself, your refusal to love and accept everything about you.  The stars do not struggle or complain about their place in the universe.  It is only the human being who looks up to those same stars and laments and struggles against his or her purpose.

And when people are not struggling, they feel so worthless.  They have to constantly be busy or be amusing themselves.  They cannot face a moment when there is nothing happening, a moment in which they simply exist in that beautiful potential which accompanies all genuine periods of silence.  This is a moment of real peace, of real serenity — people cannot stand that moment.  Look at people when they are by themselves, they cannot stand themselves.  They need other people, a friend or a boyfriend or a pet or anything that will take away the utter solitude of existence.  Yet solitude is the only truth of this existence.  You are alone, just like this universe is alone.

When you put down the struggle, you can really start to listen.  You can listen to what this reality is trying to tell you.  At every moment, this unified fabric of consciousness that we call reality is constantly showing you new things about the world and about yourself.  When you start to listen, you will start to be happy, because you will come to understand more and more the paradox that you have both total control and no control over the direction of your life.  This is similar to the paradox of the universe — that it is everything, and that it is nothing as well, just a perception of your own mind.  In the same way, the universe controls everything, and you also control the universe.

This is the final mystery that must be unraveled, if you wish to be totally free.

In Daoism, it is written that when you cease to struggle, you become one with the Dao.   Lao Tzu wrote centuries ago:

If any one should wish to get the kingdom for himself, and to
effect this by what he does, I see that he will not succeed. The
kingdom is a spirit-like thing, and cannot be got by active doing. He
who would so win it destroys it; he who would hold it in his grasp
loses it.

The course and nature of things is such that
What was in front is now behind;
What warmed anon we freezing find.
Strength is of weakness oft the spoil;
The store in ruins mocks our toil.

Hence the sage puts away excessive effort, extravagance, and easy
indulgence.

God is effortless.  God does nothing with effort.  God is the rolling waterfall that falls effortless and tumbles below, roaring with the power of certainty, of collision, of both creation and destruction.  God is the ocean dancing to the beck and call of the gravity of the Moon, ever approaching and ever distancing, like two lovers who both hunger and fear the reunion of their essences.  God is the Sun, continually pulsing through countless cycles of nuclear fusion not for any other purpose than because that is its purpose, and in so doing, bathes this planet with its energies and allows life to flourish.

Something we have lost in the West is the ability to let things go, and in a fashion, to tumble with the waterfall.  Destruction is part of life.  It is pointless to struggle against those things that have already been lost.  We suffer so much because we insist on clinging to the dead, to the decrepit, to things that have outlived their usefulness.

In India, Hindus believe that the god of destruction, Shiva, lives in the Himalayas.  Shiva is a destroyer god, but destruction is not feared in Hinduism; this is why millions of people worship Shiva.  Destruction sweeps aside all the old habits, all the destructive patterns we accrue so thoughtlessly in our lives.  The force of Destruction sees the filth that we put ourselves through and washes it off of us.  It is good to wipe all that stuff away, every now and then.

When there is no struggle, there is total freedom.  You respond to events in a new way.  You create the future, and direct it to your will.  You unite once more with the universe, and the universe unites with you.  This is the Kingdom of Lao Tzu, and the Kingdom of Heaven.  It is right there, right in front of you.  But you won’t ever find it, if you struggle for it.

It is easy to forget the basic truth that the winner of the American presidential election in November will not be the person who is most qualified.  It will not even be the person who gets the most votes (as Al Gore found to his detriment in 2000).  Rather, it will be the person who wins the most states.

And in order to win the most states, you need to appeal to a majority of voters.  Not an overwhelming majority; the winner-take-all system of presidential politics only requires you to secure 51 percent of each state in order to carry it.

Those are the rules of the game.  And if the campaign of Barack Obama does not change its tactics, and soon, it may find itself losing as a result of the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican candidate for Vice President.

At heart, Americans are populists, and they love candidates with populist streaks.  They flock to candidates who they can relate to and who speak their language, even if those candidates do not end up winning.  This is the double-edged sword of traditional populist candidates: outside of the elite class, they may have been able to garner popular support, but could never actually win high office.

The history of American politics is littered with the corpses of populist candidates who were indeed a force to be reckoned with, yet who could never master the fact that you had to carry states in order to become president, and not just be popular with the people.   Ross Perot secured 18 percent of the popular vote in 1992 — a stunning figure — but failed to carry a single state; as a result, he was never a real threat to the status quo.

Yet enter John McCain, a seasoned politician, and his choice for Vice President, Sarah Palin.  While many have declared this move a sign of desperation by the McCain campaign, it reflects McCain’s reputation as a “maverick”, and is politically deft.  Like his populist hero, Theodore Roosevelt, McCain is gambling that Palin’s charm and ready ability to connect with average Americans will produce victory.  She is truly an outsider to Washington, which makes her selection a gamble, but also provides that populist appeal that simply cannot be manufactured.

Given the tone and spirit of Ms. Palin’s speech as she accepted her party’s nomination for Vice President, it is clear that she will be a formidable force in this race.  Many American voters, who yearn for a politician who will “feel their pain,” will be attracted her to plain-speaking candor.  She has presented herself as the average mother next door, the hockey-mom who joined the PTA and then suddenly found herself governor of the biggest state in the Union.  This type of caricature will appeal to many people.

In addition, she toes the Republican Party’s line on militarism quite effectively, making it seem patriotic, even maternal, to call for continued war against all enemies.  Obama tried to out-maneuver McCain’s foreign policy expertise by selecting Joe Biden as his vice president, but Biden’s in-your-face mannerisms may be too uncouth to an American electorate that approves of torture so long as it’s in the dark.  Who do you want comforting your children that what we do to terrorists, while abhorrent, is necessary? Americans may prefer the softer features of Palin as such a spokesperson for this attitude.

It does not matter that Ms. Palin is potentially ignorant of foreign affairs or economic theory.  She is not trained in a profession, such as Obama and Biden (both are lawyers).  But this will only help her.  Her lack of credentials will appeal to American voters in the same way that George W. Bush’s lack of finesse appeared to help him against the then stiff and avuncular Al Gore.

In America’s recent electoral history, the importance of capturing the populist sentiment is well known.  Bush won in 2000 due to this appeal. In 2004, the war made this easy — Bush cautioned that as a “war president,” the nation had no choice but to select him once more in order to secure victory in the War on Terror, and the nation complied.

Before the summertime, it looked as if Obama was the candidate who had tapped into the populist spirit.  He ran on his anti-war stance and his outsider status in the Senate.  His internet fundraising is legendary, as well as his ability to bring out young voters.

Now, his populist appeal is in considerable danger.  Obama’s move to the center of the political spectrum following the primaries has not won favors amongst his base who were initially energized by his campaign.  His selection of Joe Biden as Vice President was not the spirited choice many had hoped for.

In politics, experience and intelligence, even charisma, mean little if they do not translate into victory.  And in America, the people vote for those politicians who give off that populist appeal.  Americans are guided by an innocent, almost naive sense that the politicians who connect with them are the ones who will help them.  Sarah Palin gives this impression.

I am not suggesting that Ms. Palin is qualified to hold high political office.  She certainly does not have the academic experience of Obama, nor the political experience of Biden. And like all bona fide populists, she is terribly unpredicable.  There is no way to know how she will fall on a certain issue ahead of time.  This is why populists typically run third party campaigns, and why populists can oftentimes be dangerous — too popular for their own good.  The same charisma that has propelled her to the spotlight may become a threat to the republic itself.  With the people at your side, the power of a politician becomes truly unstoppable.

Nonetheless, there is no test to become President, and no need for qualifications other than to be 35 years of age and born on American soil.  The only test is given out by the people themselves.  In 2000, the people chose George W. Bush, albeit with the help of the Supreme Court.  In 2004, the people once more chose Bush.  Ms. Palin’s appeal to the electorate is a reflection not so much of her own experiences, but the desires of those who will vote for her.  Americans do not want someone they view as an elitist to occupy the highest position in the country, for whatever reason.  If Obama does not realize this now, then his chances of winning will dwindle.  He must seek to recapture the populist mantle back from McCain and Palin in some way, or else he will face defeat in November.

The mind is a thing of such beauty. If you treat it well, and fill it with love, then you will encounter love and beauty wherever you go in this world. If, on the other hand, you clutter it with worry and anxiety, then you create for yourself only suffering.

We have so much power in our lives to change things and make things better. Even when we fall on hard times, when we are experiencing the darkest of midnights, life will offer us opportunities to turn things around.

This is not to say that life is always wonderful, because it is not. There are many painful things in life. Everyone’s experiences in this world are colored with trauma in some form or another. But pain is a momentary thing. It is not pain that produces suffering; rather, it is our inability to deal with this pain, to confront this pain, to challenge this pain and overcome this pain that leads to suffering.

Our minds are capable of so much more. Our minds are capable of creativity, and compassion, and the ability to perceive beauty. Our minds can cultivate love, and see life through the lens of love. No matter the circumstances, no matter where you find yourself, you have the ability to be happy, and to set yourself down the path of finding even greater happiness.

We must learn to observe ourselves. Observation allows us to confront our unhealthy behaviors, the patterns and practices that produce suffering in our lives. We should see ourselves in the third person and really examine our thoughts, behaviors, and ingrained habits that have become so routine and rote that we no longer pay them any attention. These are the things that keep us chained to our suffering. If we are to lose these chains, then we must become aware of their existence.

We observe through meditation. Meditation means to quiet the mind — that’s all. You don’t have to put on saffron robes and shave your head to meditate. You can just sit, and take 10 deep breaths, and relax, and look at your thoughts without judgment. It is hard to do at first, because we are always judging our thoughts, always seeking to label them and put a value on them. But it is much better to just examine your thoughts without any sense of good or bad, right and wrong; just to see what your mind is producing of its own accord.

Then we ask why. Why am I so worried? Why does something bother me so? Why do I fret and fuss about something? When we meditate, we realize how silly our worries are. They are silly because they are based in fear, and fear is never based in reality.

When you sit, and quiet your mind, you will find yourself in the precious moment of the present. In the present, all things are possible. There is nothing in this world that is set in stone, nothing that is predestined or fated to happen. On the contrary, when we act in the present, we write fate in accordance with our will. We become the masters of our lives.

But the present is always overlooked. It is clouded by fear — fear of the past, or fear of the future. We are afraid of the past, because we feel we have committed an error; or we are afraid of the future because we fear a certain outcome. In either case, we are worried about things we cannot change, or things we have no control over. It is this idle worry and speculation that suffocates the potential for action, now, in this moment.

When you sit, and quiet your mind, and find yourself in the present, you will never experience worry or have fear, because you are tuned in to the very center of creative action. You have the power of God with you, because you can change your life in any shape or form. You are neither concerned with the mistakes of the past or the pitfalls of the future. You simply act. This is the state of nirvana, of true enlightenment, because it is a state without suffering — only conscious choice.

We must learn to live our lives with love in our hearts. Love grounds us in the present moment because it destroys fear. You can act out of love, or you can act out of fear. But you cannot act out of both. When you give yourself love, and comfort yourself as a parent would a worried child, then you will find yourself in the present, where all things are possible.

God is love. When you are grounded in love, you will know God. You will see that God is not a bearded man in the clouds, or a thing of vengeance or hatred. Love is encompassing, and God is encompassing. Love is energy, and God is energy. Love is the essence of the human consciousness, and God is the essence of human consciousness.

If you wanted, you could personalize love, you could make an idol and slap a label on it and call it love, and burn incense before it, or build a church around it. You could demand that people in other places worship your idol of love. You could kill them if they did not want to worship your idol. You could do that if you wanted, but it would be a tremendous waste of human energy, isn’t that right? A sad endeavor. This is what people have done with God. It is the same waste.

Today, we live in an age of great consequence. Millennia from now, humans will look on this century as a defining moment for the species. Today, there are wars, and rumors of wars, as well as tremendous changes affecting the environment. The ice caps are melting. The light of freedom dims as nation eyes nation with suspicion. Fear clouds the judgment of even the most well meaning of leaders.

In this context, one can either be afraid, or realize that such fear is meaningless. The first leads only to suffering; the second leads to liberation. Perhaps, in other times, it may have been possible to avoid a confrontation with fear, and to live our lives chained to the wheel of suffering, however unintentionally. But the suffering of today is sharp and its needles affect the soul in deep and powerful ways. Fear can no longer be the answer.

It is a life well lived to teach our children the danger of fear and the causes of suffering. It is enough to teach our children happier ways of life than the ways instilled in us by our parents, and to remind our children to do the same for their own progeny. For we are no less well intentioned than those who raised us. It is enough to merely ask that each generation improve upon the last. It is enough to do this.

All too often, wisdom is found in the most curious of places.

Since the United States invaded Iraq five years ago, tensions between Iran and the U.S. have simmered and then receded, and then simmered again.  Indeed, there have been many points over the last five years in which war with Iran seemed inevitable.

Perhaps if the invasion and occupation of Iraq had been more “successful” from the American perspective — that is, if Iraq had been subdued and made a de facto American territory — American troops may have been in Tehran, and even Damascus after a short stint in Baghdad. 

But the occupation of Iraq was poorly thought out, and remains so.  This is why seven years after invading Afghanistan, and five years after invading Iraq, the United States remains trapped in a hopeless battle against rebel insurgents. 

Yet even with the failure of the current wars, the threat of a new war with Iran refuses to go away. According to famed reporter Seymour Hersh, the United States has significantly increased Special Forces operations in Iran, in an attempt to foment sectarian violence and look for clues regarding Iranian nuclear weapons programs. 

Covert operations are not the only item on the agenda.  In recent weeks, Israel has staged massive war games, insinuating to observers that such activities are a dress rehearsal for an assault on Iran.  Iran has responded to these threats by firing missiles and stating that, “Tel Aviv and the US fleet” would be “set on fire” if Iran is attacked in any way.

How much of this is rhetoric, versus actual threat of war?  This is difficult to say.  Even while saner heads appear to be controlling diplomacy, at least for the moment, certain factions within the American, Israeli, and Iranian governments favor war as an outcome.  A third war in the Middle East would give American neo-conservatives the opportunity to waive the banner of the “war on terror” and cast a dark vision of fear once more on the population, stymieing Democratic Party victories in November and feeding the ever-deafening military-industrial juggernaut. 

In Israel, as well, war would allow the ruling Kadima Party an opportunity to divert attention from a host of domestic scandals that have forced the Israeli Prime Minister to schedule early elections. 

And in Iran, war would allow the ruling elite an opportunity to maintain its grip on power while blaming the country’s domestic and economic problems on outside forces.  As in the United States and Israel, war serves an important purpose of providing a distraction from the real pressing problems of the day.

It is probably fair to say that at this point, war is not the desired outcome of any three of these countries.  On the other hand, none of these countries would shirk from a war, as long as they characterize any war as an “act of self-defense.”  This is not as difficult as it sounds: Hitler famously stated that his invasion of Poland was done in self-defense, and the Germans ate it up. 

And while it may seem stunning that Americans would accept a third war in the Middle East, the power of the mass media to influence the public mood cannot be understated.  If Iran is labeled as a “terrorist threat” and is made an enemy in the rubric of the war on terror, Americans will accept another war.  This is a sad but honest statement of the American public today, and is the reason why Barack Obama (in yet another disappointing gesture of his candidacy) has characterized Iran — a third world nation with no ability to attack the United States — as a “great threat” to the United States. 

At this very moment, making its way through the United States Congress is HR 362 (supported in part by a militant Israeli lobbying group, AIPAC), which calls for an embargo against Iran of “refined petroleum products”, and which would impose a “stringent inspection requirements” on all ships entering and leaving Iran.  Under international law, an embargo against another country is an act of war.   While not calling for war, such a law would make war inevitable.  Passage of HR 362 could happen within the next few weeks.

No doubt there will be further developments in this situation, but it is clear that the United States, Israel, and Iran are playing with fire.  We may not be speeding towards war, but as of now, we are almost certainly stumbling into it. 

We have forgotten how powerful one person has become over the course of seven years.

Today, the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the history of civilization. More powerful than Caesar, the Tzar, or the Fuehrer.

In the course of seven years, the President has assumed the following powers:

• He has assumed the power to spy on any person anywhere in the world, including American citizens, without a court warrant or judicial oversight;
• He has assumed the power to wage war against any nation, without a declaration of war from the Congress;
• He has assumed the power to use nuclear weapons against any nation without a declaration of war from the Congress;
• He has assumed the power to indefinitely detain any person he deems an enemy combatant without judicial oversight, and when confronted by the judiciary and told to cease, he continues to detain as many as 26,000 people in prison ships;
• He has assumed the power through presidential signing statements to ignore the laws passed by Congress and to execute only those with which he agrees;
• He has assumed the power to ignore obligations of international law concerning the rights and treatment afforded to prisoners of war.

All of this, the President has done in the name of fighting terrorism.

There is no “terrorism” exception to the Constitution.

There is no “terrorism” exception listed anywhere in Article II, which details the powers of the President.

The current powers of the President were unthinkable on September 10, 2001. Today, these powers are as accepted as the night sky.

These powers will be given to the next President, who will likely be either Senator John McCain or Senator Barack Obama.

Neither man has made any promise of giving up these incredible powers.

On the contrary, both men have a significant interest in keeping them.

No doubt, both men believe they can handle such power in a well-intentioned manner that will benefit the people.

No doubt, both men will abuse these powers the moment they have assumed them.

Nietzsche once wrote, “When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.”

No matter how good a person is, they are oftentimes transformed by circumstance.

It is an old story: the well meaning politician transforming into the tyrant. It is an old story because the nature of power does not change.

Yet time and time again, people believe this politician or that politician will be different.

No, this is not true.

Power does not change. People have not changed. Power corrupts even the best of men and women. The awesome powers of the President will transform the next office holder into something of misery.

It is sad to speak to Americans today. They have forgotten the meaning of liberty. In 2001, they said, “We will invade Afghanistan, and we will be safe.” So they invaded Afghanistan, yet they still did not feel safe. They did not find the perpetrator of the horrible attack that had taken place months earlier.

Then in 2002, they let their President build a concentration camp in Cuba, outside of the law, where people could be tortured and made to sign false confessions. They said, “Let the President do this, it will make us feel safe if these people are tortured and housed in a jail in this manner.” Yet they still did not feel safe.

Then in 2003, they let their President lie to them and say that another country, Iraq, was a threat, that it had nuclear weapons. All lies. So they said, “We have not found Osama bin Laden, we have not secured Afghanistan, but we must invade Iraq, and we will be safe.” So they invaded Iraq, yet they still did not feel safe.

Then in 2004, there was an election and they said, “We still do not feel safe. We are at war. We must re-elect the man who led us into these wars, and then we will feel safe.” So they re-elected their President, yet they still did not feel safe.

And in 2005, they learned that their President had assumed great powers over the last five years, that he had assumed the power to spy, the power to make war, the power to detain, and the power to decide which laws to execute, all in contravention of their Supreme Law, the Constitution. They learned all of this, but they were still afraid, so they said, “We must give the President these powers, or else we will be attacked again. It is OK if he has these powers.” So they said nothing when they learned all these things, yet they still did not feel safe.

In 2006, there was an another election, and they realized they had to restrain their leader, their President. They said, “The Congress will change hands, and things will change.” In 2006, the Congress changed hands, yet things did not change. Things have proceeded on course.

Now, in 2008, there is another election, and they say, “The President will change hands, and things will change.” You see? Americans have still not learned.

In the meantime, their economy is in tatters, their cities are crumbling, their rights and liberties are totally destroyed. This is the destiny of a great nation, a nation founded on principles of democratic governance and republican virtue. It is all gone now.

Senator McCain will not make America safe. Senator Obama will not make America safe.

Only Americans can make America safe.

They must elect people into the Congress who will put limits on the President and demand the return of presidential powers illegally taken.

They must elect people into their state governments who will resist further encroachments of federal power.

They must remember their rights and liberties and sense of virtue and decency. They must be outraged that so much has been taken from them over such a little period of time.

The branches of tyranny are thick and manifold, and they suffocate and oppress. There is the curse of perpetual debt, of inflation without end, increasing costs of living, constant war, greater police presence. Today, the people suffer.

The people must see the root of their problems — too much power in the hands of too few.

They complain about the branches, but they refuse to strike the root.

The greatest threat to America today is not terrorism. The greatest threat is the threat of power, especially the power of the President.

Invade a man’s home, and you have made an enemy of an entire family, or perhaps an entire village. They will fight back.

Apologize, and the hurt will go away. Make restitution. Give it time. The man can become your friend, even after you have wronged him. People are kind on this Earth, and they are happy to forgive.

There is a way to stop terrorism. It is to encourage freedom.

Freedom, like charity, begins at home.

Restrain the president.

End the wars.

Focus on domestic issues, on the economy, on the health of the citizenry.

Return to the rule of law.

Apologize, and make restitution.

Terrorism will go away.

When you engage in thinking, no matter how mundane or profound, you must remember that you are engaging in a profound act of creation.

When a human mind thinks, it is doing more than simply transferring electrical impulses through biochemicals across synaptic channels. Perhaps this is the biological explanation, but it is at most a partial explanation.

The act of thinking is more than just the firing of neurons. Our minds are rich pastures that allow for the cultivation of the soul. With thought, it is possible to reach enlightenment; but it is also possible to create Hell on this planet, for oneself and for others.

Every religion documents the advent of human thought in a way that brought shattering consequences and harsh lessons. These tales are documented in allegory. Prometheus brought the gift of Fire from the gods to humanity; and the result was that human beings became civilized and knowledgeable. But the gods were displeased that man had their Fire, and so they sent Pandora amongst them, who unleashed green, envy, pining, lying and hope — symptoms of the evils of mankind, yes, but also products of that same thought which had blessed them with civilization.

In Judeo-Christian thought, it is written that Adam and Eve existed in a state of innocence in the Garden of Eden. Then Eve consumed the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and shared it with Adam, and the “eyes of both of them were opened” — an eloquent expression of the leap in consciousness they must have experienced! And the Bible recounts that the Lord God was concerned that Adam and Eve had “become as one of us, to know good and evil”, and they were forbidden from ever coming back into Eden. Adam and Eve had become like God, because they could now utilize their thought and divide their consciousness into things that were good, and things that were evil; indeed, according to the Bible, at that moment, Adam and Eve shared the same power as God.

And it is here that we in the West can learn lessons from Eastern thought and religious belief, the traditions of which emphasize the responsibility of the thinker in finding happiness. Many Eastern religions speak of karma, which at heart is a doctrine of the power of thought. Karma relates to the Sanskrit word karna which means “to do.” When you do something, you have already put in place the result of that action. Similarly, when you think something, you are creating your everyday reality, condemning or liberating yourself depending on the thought in question.

In either case, you are directly responsible for your present reality; your present thoughts and actions literally create your future. Through your thoughts, you act as God in your own life, at every single moment that you are alive.

There is a type of mind control that is so effective today because it acts on the way that you think. In past times, you had to chain people up and whip them if you wanted them to be slaves. Today, there is no longer any need for physical chains if you wish to enslave someone. Instead, all you have to do is restrict their thoughts. A person who does not utilize their thinking is a slave. It is that simple — such is the power of human thought.

Many people live their entire lives thinking the same things in life. And, as a result, they experience the same things over and over again. This is guaranteed, because when they think the same things, they plant the seeds for the same outcomes later in life. So you see the person who dates the same type of person, and who is always unhappy, or who takes the same types of job and is always complaining about their work, or does the same routine for 50 years and lives the same boring life. And they find themselves always facing the same outcomes — the same dishonest lover, the same horrible boss, the same boring night after work — never learning the lesson that they are in control of their future, that they can change the future at any time, if they would only think differently.

And we cannot ignore the fact that there are many powerful interests in this world today who profit from the dearth of imagination in the world. There are more than 6 billion people on this world today, but perhaps there are 10 or 20 ideas that govern how these 6 billion people think. This is a total travesty of human consciousness, an insult to our minds, and a pathetic and pitiful example of how humans too often choose self-imposed slavery over their natural freedom. Come, count with me on your fingers the defining ideas of our era — free market capitalism, a handful of established religions, “democracy” versus “terrorism”. A handful of incomplete and imperfect ideas, the sum total of hundreds of thousands of years of human development! How unoriginal our great species has become as a result of the brainwashing of the 20th century, to believe that only a handful of ideas are legitimate or can otherwise define our place in this universe.

We are all so unique on this planet, our minds so powerful, that we ought to have 6 billion ideas about happiness, government and God, and not just a handful. All great nations today proclaim their respect for freedom of thought and speech, yet why then are there so few thoughts that are worth expressing? The right is there, it must be used or it will be taken away. Yet who uses it? No, today instead it is the same old story, the same old belief that you must support this candidate, or you must believe this god, or you must follow this path in life.

The diversity of human experience has not given birth to a diversity of human conscious thought. Powerful forces are to blame for this, yes this is true; but it is also true that those powerful forces are only as powerful as the 6 billion individuals on this planet choose to believe.

Today, I tell you that the same patterns of human experience, the same patterns of human culture — the very same patterns which have produced countless wars, countless deaths, countless atrocities — are at work once more. They are busy today seeding the future wars, the future deaths, the future atrocities, just as they have done in the past. Nothing is different with those thoughts, so it can be no surprise when the outcomes are no different as well. The outcomes will be the same. Hit your head against the wall, it will bleed. Do it once more, it will bleed once more. It is the same with human thought — there is no difference.

So today the old ways of thinking, which have not changed for millenia, are busily at work. Except now we must be honest with ourselves that the backdrop of human activity has drastically changed. The actors are still acting on the same stage, as they have done for thousands of years, playing the same old play, but now the stage is on fire. This is the effect of overpopulation, overconsumption of natural resources, and runaway climate change — unforeseen consequences of constant spreading, constant war, constant development, the ill-gotten gains of apathy and lack of planning.

And what is the reaction to these problems? It is to deny them, or to ignore them — again, an old and very established pattern of human thinking. So we can guarantee that these problems will all get worse, won’t they? A burning house does not douse itself, but only stops burning when there is no more tinder left. So we see the burning house, but turn our backs. How then can the outcome be anything other than further disaster? Is this not clear?

Humanity needs new ways of thinking. Every person needs a new way of thinking, a way that points towards happiness, and responsibility, and freedom, for all three things are exactly the same thing. Happiness is responsibility, and happiness is freedom as well. People shirk responsibility, they fear it because they would rather be licentious, without any concern, without any worry. They act like children. It is fine if you are a child to not have responsibility, but you commit a great waste to your consciousness when you do not employ it thereafter. Employing one’s mind means becoming an adult, and taking on adult responsibilities. When you were in the womb, no doubt it was very comfortable, and no doubt you feared leaving when it was time to do so — but you had to leave eventually. The fetus becomes the child, and the child, in turn, must become the adult. Adam and Eve had to leave Eden, didn’t they? Millions of people today fear the fact that they must evolve into adults, so they live their whole lives like children. What a great waste this is, and an insult to the consciousness that resides in all our heads. And they do themselves a disservice, for in truth such people are never happy as well. They may be drugged or stimulated by physical pleasure, but that is not the same thing as happiness; such people have never known, and will never know happiness.

If there are 6 billion people on this Earth today, then we ought to have 6 billion ways of living, of conceiving of the world. Let the flowers of human consciousness bloom into a billion different spectacles, a billion different wrinkles of the great consciousness that pervades all life, all creation, the entire universe. What is there to fear in this diversity? We fear it because humanity, to date, has no experience with freedom and genuine human creativity. Humanity’s primary experience and primary way of thinking has revolved around death, and slavery, and tyranny. This is why empires rise and fall, republics crumble, and people go to war. History repeats because humanity’s thinking never changes. We are afraid of freedom because we are so used to slavery.

But freedom there is, and its genesis is the mind. Our minds should be supple like the waves in the water, not rigid and set in stone. A rigid mind loses its imagination and its spontaneity; it becomes dead. I have seen too many religious people, of every religion, who cling to their dogmas, and for what? Such people are totally miserable. One should be Buddhist for a day, Christian the next, Muslim on the third day. It is a wonderful thing for the mind to experiment with religion and see how different people see the world. There is no harm in it, you will be redeemed once you come back to your original beliefs, won’t you? Or at least this is what the priests say.

One should be a Republican one day, a Democrat the next, a Marxist on the third day, a neo-conservative on the fourth. Why bother oneself with these ideologies? They have all produced blood, every single one of them. They have all committed acts of terror and murdered children. None are exempt from their own guilt. Why not see what the big deal is?

In doing all of this, one can learn the falsity of all these ideologies and the errors that come about through the repeated use of old ways of thinking. It is time to get rid of the old. It is time for the new to flourish, for the individual to flourish without any concern for ideology or religiosity or political correctness. This is the only hope for human kind today, because it is the path of freedom. And it is only through the exercise of freedom that human thought — and with it, the entirety of human consciousness — can be activated towards its full and glorious potential.

Never forget that with thought, you are in control of your future, shaping your destiny with every waking moment.  This is the responsibility that comes with the gift of freedom, the gift of consciousness.  It is the responsibility of God.  Respect your thoughts accordingly, for they will create either heaven or hell — whatever it is you choose to do with them.