Core beliefs are our own attitudes about ourselves.

We engage with the world from our own perspective and so we have differences of opinions to outright conflict due to our beliefs.  Core beliefs that are held by youth can differ depending on the cultural context and our conditioning.  In Kansas City where I am living we have a lovely and swanky area called the Plaza.  It used to have a supermarket that was more upscale than price chopper for sure but it went out of business several years ago and not has been replaced.  A core belief that I have is that there are disparities based on race and culture and that the ones who have had the good fortune to earn the most money are ones with the cultural connections and families who inherited wealth.

We saw a rebellion in the Plaza earlier this year when a thousand young African American youths descended on the area to hang out and create conflict due to their mere presence.  A core belief held by people who are mostly white is that they have the right to shop in peace and enjoy spending their wealth on goods that are for the elite minority.  I believe that we have the right to earn money and I am all for it.  I don't like poverty and don't like it when you have to exist in a society where there are barriers to becoming wealthy.  It's called the old boy's club where depending on who you family is or who you know carries more weight than your talents.

Each generation has some distinguishing characteristics that make a statement about their core beliefs.  Generally I believe due to peer pressure individual thinking is not as common among youth as being part of a wave of new thoughts and the resulting expression of those thoughts via their behaviors.  When I was a youth just by following the Rolling Stones and The Beatles meant that you were counter culture to the older generation.  I adapted the same core beliefs as my peers that sexual freedom was a way of opening up and relating to the world of taboo and ending a systemic cultural conditioning that sex was reserved for marriage.  I for one didn't want to get married and when the time came when I felt the pressure to get married I had an opportunity to move to the Midwest, USA.

A core belief of the young people who invaded the sanctity of the Plaza where it can be viewed as sacred ground for the wealth of the area is that they deserve to be respected.  They are looking to enjoy the same freedoms as others but haven't got the doe (money) and pedigree to go along with their ideas of being free to enjoy the fruits of the good life.  They are pushing back in much the same way that I see the everyday French people who are pushing back at those who have taken over streets in Paris to kneel down and pray.  Here again we have conflict resulting from opposing sets of core beliefs and it's territorial in much the same way that the African American youth choose a territory to exhibit how they felt about the rich in Kansas City.

The Indian Spiritual Masters whom I have studied with help transform us individually through their talks which are based on philosophy and science to help us to realign our thinking and become better people.  We have all been conditioned by our families and culture and loose touch with our true identity and our  inner home of the heart which we share with God.  Through meditation and other spiritual practices such as jappa which is the repetition of a mantra, or God's name.  You can use whatever name that God is known to you and that is pure, holy and dear.  My Teacher has given a Sirnam which is a set of different names of God that are repeated silently.  The Master gives the names to the student and it is something which is kept as a sacred and significant bond and tool for the spiritual journey to sound and light meditation.  Meditation is not merely a method of using silence and stillness to feel calm and increase concentration.  It is a vehicle whereby you are enabled to connect with God and experience your own greatness. 

One of the core beliefs that most of us are taught and conditioned by our culture, is that to think of one self as great is not good and anyone who would share that personal core belief may find themselves ostracised by others.  We even have labels for people.  Big head, self centered and so on and so on.  The truth is that we are all great in God's eyes and the Bible even says that we are created in God's image.  My Teacher said during a New Year's talk that we should learn to put ourselves first because we can have all the zero's in the world, but unless there is a one first they don't amount to anything!  My Teacher's Master who came to the United States in the seventies said that we should honor, respect and love ourselves because God dwells within us as us.  A core belief that we are taught in the West is that God exists some where up in the heavens.  Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God is within.  Another Saint whom I love so much said that we should go into our hearts and roam because there is no other place that is as sacred.

I believe that youths today are seeking to find happiness in much the same way that most of us start to at least, through external sources.  True joy and happiness happens on the inside and it's not necessary to have luxuries and money to feel blissful.  I personally would rather not be poor and that is the way my personality is.  I am not comfortable going to fancy places because I am more likely to align my attention and concern for those who are working in such places and I never feel comfortable being on beaches where other's can enjoy because they are isolated in some ghetto like part of the town.  I noticed a parallel town in Naples, Florida where I used to visit my sister with my daughter when she was young.  It wasn't until we went to a store in a part of town that her husband was looking for bathroom fixtures or something that I realized that there were duplexes that housed a poor African American community.

My core belief that got me to this country was that I would be free to choose the type of lifestyle that I wanted.  I worked hard and completed my education at The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, graduating with a Master of Science Degree in nursing.  Being an entrepreneur I opened a business and then closed it due to issues with the state board of nursing.  A core belief of mine is that it is both good for your own personal development as well as helps others through volunteering.  I volunteered in prisons where I helped inmates manage their own spiritual programs and support each other as they served out their time.  Since I returned to Kansas City after working in the Bay Area, California I cleared up the issues had come up with the state boards in my absence and have found once again that the board posted something untrue about my standing on their web. 

A core belief that I may have in common with the African American youths is that they have the right to have the support and use of resources.  I think that the event caused enough of a stir that leadership has been putting their heads together to come up with some solutions.  I hope that one of the solutions is to educate everyone about respect.  I don't think that my spiritual Master's would condone behaviors that are disorderly.  However, I do note that they pay an immense amount of time and attention toward the youth and developing programs to support leadership among them.  I think that it is time that people learned to grow and expand their thinking to incorporate the whole community.

At my grandson's Christening I was moved when the Priest asked the congregation to open up to the African American community who lived just blocks away across the boulevard that seperates one section of town from the other.  I hope that their community embraces this idea and welcomes African Americans especially their youth.  It begins with each one of us to take the responsibility to stand up one by one when we experience things in our lives that aren't just and spread kindness wherever it occurs.  Just yesterday someone wrote on my facebook wall in a nasty way about children from a certain minority.  I am thinking of finding a way to keep a statement posted on my wall to the effect that I do not believe in being unkind no matter what the political issues might be.  I personally am quite conservative but I again responded to the chatter that had been going on over a picture of The First Lady taken from behind that they needed to "drop,"the thread. 

I would like you to start with yourself and write a list of what your own core beliefs about yourself are.  Negative ones that typically drive peoples self critical inner dialogue are ones such as (I'm ugly, stupid, not good at...., not likable ect.)
Once you learn to identify what they are you can then challenge your thinking that is driven by these sets of beliefs like an inner engine.

Meditation is the key to the engine so that you can turn off this useless nonsense that goes around inside peoples heads.  Meditate daily and eat a vegetarian diet.  Think good thoughts about yourself.

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Nature is the present.

Nature follows the lead from the universe. Flowers turn their heads toward the sun and close their petals inward when the sun goes down at night. Birds follow magnetic fields during migration that are unseen to the human eye. They can fly to their destination because they are attuned to what God has given them. Similarly have been given the gift of discernment and intuition as tools to traverse our daily lives and transcend problems, and keep ourselves safe. When we focus our energy in the present moment we align ourselves with all the forces of the universe.  They act for our good and whatever we are meant to do will be take us in the right direction. When we spend our time worrying about what will happen in any part of our lives we expend energy. Be good to yourself and spend time during the day alone, in silence. Take a walk away from the office computer and phones. Walk in the park and watch the birds and see which way the wind is blowing. Consider the direction of the wind and contemplate the direction your life is taking.  Connect with the Self during your time alone with nature.  There is communication with God in our encounters with nature.  We have to attune ourselves and open our hearts to how God manifests in various forms in nature.

The nature of man in another aspect that we can look at and ponder why we are given this great opportunity in this life to find God and yet stay focused on one another in more primitive relationships that involve hatred and crime.  I have viewed videos of women being beaten a(s well as men, but less often,) in country's where Sharia law is practiced and enforced against its victims.  Most of the women were brutally beaten for the accused "crime" of adultery.  Some, pregnant at the time they were picked up and isolated from the crowd.  Men who practice the Muslim faith are devoid of their humanness and it is a pattern of brutality I have seen in Nazi guards in concentration camps.  We have a choice to either transcend and become more loving and caring of others or we can become brutal and uncaring.  As I have networked with others I have been advised not to judge the whole culture based on the relatively few examples.   My response is that we have been given a life which is precious in God's sight and not to waste it on immorality or let it fall into the hands of those who would do us harm.  We can continue to do our spiritual work while being steadfast not to mistake sheep in wolves clothing.  I have observed the tendency to be loving and accepting in spiritual communities and it leaves people at risk for those who do not respect our goodness.

My teacher once told of a story about a fox that was looking for food and shelter when he came across a cave with a lion in it.  He came as close to the mouth of the cave that seemed safe enough for him to check the situation out.  The lion was lying on the floor of the cave and said in a pathetic tone that he wasn't feeling well and needed some help from the fox.  The fox took a few steps back to assess the situation further as it involved his safety and indeed his very survival.  He finally asked the lion why there were foot prints leading into the cave and none coming out?  When your survival or the survival of your culture is at stake it can be ravaged in a short time by those who have savage values.

Another illustration was used by a Teacher who taught my own a story about a turtle who saw that a scorpion was stranded on the banks of a river and unable to cross appealed for a ride on the back of the amphibian.  The turtle began to swim with the scorpion sitting above the water line, making headway for the opposite bank when the scorpion stung the turtle on the back of its neck several times for no reason.  The turtle managed to get to the other shore and the scorpion then got off its back.  The turtle was doing its fellow creature a kindness and the scorpion was only doing what was natural to its nature.  Sting!

Nature is raw and full of vitality.  It doesn't recognize political correctness.  It is quite a social faux pas to express views that differ from the norm in western cultures.  There is an immense tendency to expect conformity around certain cultural core beliefs and values that is similar to how Muslims interpret their own Koran and mold their behaviors accordingly.  With little outside influence they tend to think that their way of living is the best and holds the truth for them within that context.  I think that it is because of their rigidity in thinking and not necessarily instinct that will save the United States because whether the news or this administration calls it a religious war or not it is!  Jihad is a force that is now on our door step and we cannot sweet it away. and deny its existence or intention to do us harm.  Our leaders have been slumbering or perhaps participating in our demise, at least some.  Whether it is out of indulgence, ignorance and neglect, or perhaps intentional we are over our heads with issues that run the gamut from economic to military deficits.  Two financial institutions that were the platforms from which the housing market collapsed were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack.  Two Senators are responsible for stopping investigations and implementing oversight from 2002 on - Barney Frank and Charles Shumner.  I believe we the people are paying attention to what politicians are doing more than ever before and I believe that these two individuals need to be held personally accountable for misleading the public about a system that was broken and about to cause a huge financial crisis for this nation.

Intuition and spiritual growth go hand in glove together and I believe that some people are operating from their defense mechanisms of denial and suppression.  It takes time to peel away all the layers of conditioning.  One of the ways that these mechanisms are reinforced by society is through political correctness which says that you will not be allowed to say the obvious even if it is true.  People like pedophiles have rights beyond that of regular citizens who won't to stay clear of them in their own lives as well as feel alarmed when they become aware that they are part of our communities which puts their children at risk.

Spiritual communities will often see our "sins" as something that we are forgiven for and that we should not judge is the message.  My interpretation is that it is good to be forgiven and admit sins (wrong actions,)  but there are rights for others to protect themselves.  There are absolute truths and harm from individuals whose actions amount to evil needs to be acknowledged and brought out into the open.  An absolute truth that I will support is that we should have second amendment rights to protect ourselves with guns.  This may be an individual choice for those who feel confident in their responsible use a weapon.  When it comes to survival our Constitution was framed around our freedoms that can be lost without a means of protecting ourselves.  A post on the web today reminded readers that slaves have always been disarmed.  We should contemplate our survival and how much we are willing to defend our freedoms that can be threatened by internal or external sources.  We say the pledge of alliance to the United States of America and commit to defending ourselves with guns.

Use your instincts and don't deny what you find when you get a feel for what is going.  You will experience a shift in the gut region of the body and upper torso.  Don't let go of that.  Breath easy and relax into what your body is telling you and listen.  Once I had a relationship with a man who was charming in the beginning.  He visited my teacher with me one summer at the spiritual retreat.  All the while I saw him through the rose colored glasses of love and really kept denying the warning signs that were there.  He was from the Middle East and was of the Muslim faith.  His attitude toward women became problematic in our relationship over time and we ended the relationship several times before I moved back to the Mid West.  As we approached my Teacher my heart started to race and I could hear it pounding loudly.  Then I experienced loud ringing in my ears like fire-fighters bells that they used to carry on their engines and ring when they were called to action.  My friend kneeled in front of my Teacher as everyone else did and I noted the look of surprise on my Teachers face.  Someone I worked with said that the only thing that could have been worse for him was if she was a Jewess!  My friend's thought projection was to kick her ass and she of course picked up on his thoughts. 

Relationships are tricky because we are so deeply wanting a fairy book story for our own needs to be met and self validation.  Whether it is a personal relationship or on a national scale such as the relationship between Islam and Christianity we need to see the warning signs and take measures to protect ourselves.  Italy has just announced that it will not recognize Islam as a religion nor give it tax privileges.  The home of Catholicism recognises that Islam is an enemy of Christ and all followers as well as any other religion.  So if you consider yourself spiritual and do not identify with the core Christian beliefs of Christ as Savior doesn't exclude you from being an infidel.  They have made known that Sharia Law will prevail over Western Law.  Berkeley has a class that just began to teach Eastern culture and Sharia Law to their Muslim students.  Why would they want to study their barbaric law when they are living in the greatest country in the world with the fairest system of Justice?  This is how Sharia Law infiltrates - I read where a Judge in Germany refused a woman her divorce from her husband because in the Middle East where they were from her husband could beat her by law.  Islam is a danger to women and I would like to encourage women to look at videos on the web and see how the police and society in general brutalize them over accusations mainly to do with sexuality.

I am a Life Coach and work with individuals who wish to change their lives through learning Meditation and connecting to the love within that empowers all other actions.

Please feel free to contact me at lawrencerita511@gmail.com
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