How To Prevail Over Evil

“The greatest triumph of the devil in the modern age is convincing people he doesn’t exist.” I don’t know the author of that memorable quote, but it encompasses feel-good New Agers, dogmatic secularists, and rigid rationalists.

All of us in the West are well acquainted with the Christian view of evil and the devil. God created the angels before man, and they were all good. But the highest archangel, Lucifer, led a rebellion against God. He chafed under heavenly rule, because his ego and pride prohibited him from serving anyone or anything but himself. Lucifer was cast out, along with

his followers, and after God made ‘Man,’ Satan and his entire entourage began their fight for the souls of men, women and children on earth.

The Scientific Revolution, and the prematurely named Age of Enlightenment, supplanted this simplistic supernatural story. Prior to World War I, it seemed to many that scientific and technological progress was assured, and that the old shibboleths would be swept away by the victory of reason over the irrational impulses of humans and the childish beliefs of religions.

That faith was shattered by the bloodbath in the trenches of Verdun, although it took Auschwitz and Hiroshima to bring

the faith in reason, science and progress into serious doubt. Even so, believers in the creed of human rationality held on until stateless and state terror combined in the new millennium to produce a perpetual “global war on terror,” and following it, a much more sophisticated rise of a globally interconnected fourth Reich.

Few would deny the existence of evil anymore, as many did until the New Age turned out to be the same old shit and then some. The popular notion in the ‘90’s (even after Rwanda) was that evil could be explained using conventional psychological models. You still hear it sometimes, how evil is an amorphous

phenomenon in human consciousness, an impersonal force that has blind momentum. By subtracting intentionality however, the concept of evil loses all meaning.

The denial these days has to do with not the existence of evil, but its nature, purposes and agents. Those who react to Christian ideology on the subject, and give a conventional psychological explanation for evil, or deny the existence of its intentionality, are spiritually, intellectually and politically surrendering the field to those who serve the very thing they decry from their gilded pulpits.

So let’s tackle the issue head on. Does the devil exist, and if so, what is it? To take even the first step in this inquiry, it’s necessary to confront the primal fear of darkness, the metaphor for evil. After all, if evil, which in essence is collective darkness imbued with intentionality, is supernatural, then the Christian view is as good as any. But if, as I maintain, evil is not supernatural, but a byproduct of the willfully suppressed and neglected ‘dark matter’ in human consciousness (hatred, grudges, jealousy, greed, etc.), then a deeper philosophical and psychological explanation is necessary.

Essentially, if human consciousness has subconsciously generated evil over the millennia, there is no reason to fear it, since it’s man-made. To develop the capacity to meet it, we need to honestly admit and face our own fears and flaws, grudges and sludges on a daily basis.

Human consciousness is not individualistic. Every person is ‘embedded’ in the past, however new our surface scripts. People who think of themselves as entities unto themselves, and live in terms of their superficial identities, images and ideas, are the most frictionless conduits for collective darkness.

Conspiracy theories abound because there is so much darkness, nebulous as well as focused, and there are no adequate philosophies of evil.

Are there masterminds of darkness? Yes, but they are human things operating in human consciousness through willfully blind humans. Viewed accurately, demons are weak, pathetic, miserable hairballs in consciousness, fearful only because of our own unseen and unexamined fears. They prey on people’s weaknesses and flaws, and can possess people who refuse to take responsibility for their own darkness.

The astounding thing is, if one genuinely and continuously acknowledges and learns from one’s own mistakes and failings, one turns the tables on evil, and grows stronger in the ending and understanding of darkness.

The key qualities are humility and doubt.

The devil, by whatever name, has neither. It is as certain of its rightness and righteousness as the marionette Trump and all his evangelicals preaching to the inwardly dead.

There is no “battle between good and evil.” Only evil does battle. Good does not battle evil, though it does stand against it. Good people continually learn from the darkness that’s within all of us. That’s how we will prevail over evil.

Martin LeFevre

The post How To Prevail Over Evil first appeared on The Costa Rican Times.

Many Paths or No Path To Truth?

It may sound strange coming from a mystic, but I sympathize with atheists. If the choice is between a ‘Creator’ standing apart from ‘His’ creation, or nothing but cosmic randomness, then there is nothing but cosmic randomness.

Fortunately, this is a false choice. To quote the greatest religious teacher of the 20th century, J. Krishnamurti, “There’s a sacredness which is not of thought, nor of a feeling resuscitated by thought. Thought cannot formulate it. But there’s a sacredness, untouched by any symbol or word. It is not communicable. It is a fact.”

Of course just because sacredness beyond all conception and imagination by the mind exists, doesn’t necessarily mean that God as supreme intelligence exists.

To be frank, I’m sure there is a completely impersonal sacredness that suffuses nature and the universe, because one touches it on nearly a daily basis during meditations in nature. But I’m not so sure about the existence of God, much less gods, that care about the future of humanity.

These are distinct questions to my mind. What I’m concerned with here however, is the confusion and conflation between what the human mind decides is sacred, and what is actually sacred.

Clearly, such notions as “the sacred symbols of democracy” are nonsense. Even in religious contexts, however rich the meanings in texts, churches, synagogues or mosques, they are artifacts generated by thought. Symbols are never sacred; indeed, the symbol precludes the sacred.

When I was a boy, the manipulative mysteries of the Latinate Roman Catholic Mass captured my imagination. But a few years as an altar boy dispelled the artificial mystery, and left the hollowness of ritual, devoid of real meaning.

As a young man, when I went to Moscow not long before the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was taken to a High Mass of the Eastern Orthodox Church. There, only the most pious (and I use the word without derision) had been left a place to worship in the atheistic country of the USSR.

The atmosphere was a thick as the incense and as emotionally intense as the Gregorian chanting. But as moving as it was, it was not sacred but a simulacrum of sacredness.

So what actually is sacred? Only with the complete quieting of thought in undirected attention can one come into direct contact with the living actuality beyond the word. Quieting the mind is done for its own sake however, not to bring the sacred.

Beyond “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction,” why meditate then? One simply sees the necessity of observing without the infinite regress of the observer every day. Effortlessly gathered, unwilled attention to thoughts and emotions as they arise ends and empties the useless and destructive content of thought/emotion, at least for a timeless, peaceful interval.

The chattering mind is but the tip of the iceberg. It’s like watching a roiling, muddy stream full of leaves and debris, without trying to do anything about it. The very act of watching (as long as there’s no watcher standing apart from what one is watching) quiets and clears the stream.

This art cannot be taught, which makes the legions of meditation teachers rather like snake oil salesmen. Given that meditation cannot be taught, only self-taught, what is the point of writing about it? Is there a way to convey the art of it, without sliding into the tar pits of methods, systems and techniques?

Perhaps all one can say to a young person of some seriousness, or an adult for that matter, is that one has to question, experiment and play with observation. Then one will discover the art of true observation, which still seems rather miraculous to me after 50 years.

Then one begins to feel the movement of time proprioceptively, which is to say, in the same way you feel where your arm is as you move it with your eyes closed. Time is the enemy, for there is no ‘later,’ no ‘eventually’ or ‘gradually,’ only now. Change may take time, but it never happens if one employs time.

Can the ‘default’ state of the brain be attention and stillness? Is that what enlightenment is? Is a transmutation in the brain itself required?

These are open questions. The only thing I’m sure of is that following the idea of ‘many paths to truth’ is a dead end. Truth is trackless.

Martin LeFevre

The post Many Paths or No Path To Truth? first appeared on The Costa Rican Times.

Overalls Man & the Whispery Girl

Date to be there: March 20, 2021, Saturday. Time to be there 6pm. Name of Occupant: Tiffany Cameron. Address to be at: XXXXXXXX North Highlands, CA. Type of Haunting: Ghosts. Activity: Old home that may possibly have spirits lurking about. On their security camera, they get orbs with intelligent movement. They want verification. Case Number: 9D16Y956L1480

HPI PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS ROLL CALL:

Paul Dale Roberts – HPI Co-Owner; Deanna Jaxine Stinson – HPI Co-Owner & Psychic Medium; Matt n’ Michelle Mesa; Valerie Chenoweth; Greg Sellers; Alaceo “Big Al” Rosatano.

Before I get into the story, Sacramento Paranormal Help on Facebook received this message from Melissa Lethco: “I’m Messaging Wish Fire! I don’t know her real name but I watch her live on FB all the time and she gives me readings. Well, she gave me a reading last night, and right after she kept talking about Chickens, and how she was worried about chickens, and she didn’t know why, I commented, and told her I have chickens, an d one of them is my Pet. Well she had a right to be worried! A dog got in my Pen today and killed some of them, and he hurt my pet one really bad!! I have her in the house with me now, trying to dr. her. I hope and pray she makes it! But anyway, I wanted to say, that I wish I would have payed more attention to what she was saying last night about the chickens, and mine would all still be alive!! Tell her I said Thank you for the Warning! And I will be waiting to hear what she has to say next time!!”

Wishfire of course is Deanna Jaxine Stinson and on the side, Wish Fire does readings.  Above is an example of some of the compliments that she receives for her readings.  Sending angels to protect and heal Melissa’s chicken.  Now to the investigation.   As we pulled up on the street in North Sacramento, Deanna did not know which house it was, but automatically saw a man in overalls walking around the front yard of the house.  Matt picked up on high EMF readings around certain areas of the house.  Michelle obtained an EVP of a Whispery Girl saying “I’m here”.  Later on, Big Al picked up on the same Whispery Girl saying “I’m here.”  We were not able to identify who this Whispery Girl was, but she definitely wanted us to know that she was there.  Tiffany does not feel any threat from the entities in her home.  I also believe her 3 big dogs keep the entities in check. Deanna picked up activity in the corner of the backyard.  The only EVP I obtained at this location was a dog yapping and at the time I was doing the EVP, there were no dogs around me.  So possibly there is a ghostly dog hanging out at this residence too.

Michelle obtain video footage of some strange orb movement.  Some of the orbs seemed to move with a purpose, as if they had intelligent movement.  The videos have been uploaded on my Facebook timeline and anyone is welcome to check it out and analyze it.  The home was built in the 1950s…so it definitely has some history.  I do believe this house is haunted.  The best evidence we obtained are from Michelle and Big Al, in which at two separate times they obtained an EVP from a Whispery Girl saying “I’m here.”  I will give a standing ovation to Matt, Michelle, Big Al, Valerie and Greg.  Michelle and Big Al for getting the EVP of the Whispery Girl.  Valerie and Greg for asking a ton of questions.  Matt for doing a EMF reading of the house.  Great team work and Deanna and I, are honored to work with all of them.  The 3 entities we identified at this home was: 1. Overalls Man; 2. Whispery Girl and 3. Backyard Ghost Dog.  The evidence that stands out and shows that this house is haunted is the two EVPs by Michelle and Big Al.

Special Note: Tiffany says that the Overalls Man was her boyfriend’s great grandpa. This is the ghost that Deanna saw as we drove up to the house.
Follow us into the unknown…………..

VIDEOS FROM THE INVESTIGATION:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqKR6wNqFs&feature=youtu.be
www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32kZlrJZ-A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaTUxuYAGCU&feature=youtu.be

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAcpz3huEE8&feature=youtu.be

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcFjk-BvVQs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlKynWXA9nI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SavF7nFnkDU&feature=youtu.be

Paul Dale Roberts, HPI’s Esoteric Detective
Halo Paranormal Investigations
www.cryptic916.com/
Sacramento Paranormal Help
www.facebook.com/HaloParanormalInvestigations/

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Nature Doesn’t Care About Me, But the Cosmic Mind Cares About Humanity

It’s late afternoon. The foothills are astoundingly clear after raining all night and morning. A few lines of gray and white cumulus hover over the hills, like stationary waves crashing upon a fluid shore.

When I arrive on the bike at the swollen stream, the beauty is so intense I stand agape for a minute. At that moment, and for less than a minute, the clouds have thrown the large saddle-like entrance into the canyon beyond town into deep shadow, while the rest of the green foothills shimmer in     the last hour of full sunlight.

Someone has thrown a slab of lumber, about 8 inches thick and two feet long, off to the side. Since even with pads and plastic, the ground is too damp to sit on, it makes a perfect little platform for today’s meditation. On the short, shallow slope down to the creek thick bunches of poppies, with fat buds are about to burst open. They’ll soon cover the area in bright orange.

Experiencing the actuality of communion with the numinous is immeasurably more important than any description or philosophy about it, however lyrical or intellectually persuasive.

As humans, we put the word before the thing because we are creatures of symbol. As emergent human beings, we realize, even if we need to be reminded again and again, that the word is not the thing, and preclude experiencing the thing when primary.

Anyone who has spent a few days in the wilderness, especially alone, realizes that nature doesn’t give a whit whether you live or die, eat or get eaten. At the same time however, anyone who has spent a few days in the wilderness, especially alone, realizes that nature is suffused with an ineffable mystery and inviolability.

Reconciling this apparent contradiction is one of the most difficult tasks of philosophers, and any serious human being. Can the wordless experiencing of the silent vastness of Mind come before any verbal or philosophical conception?

Though I don’t subscribe to the dictum,  “those who say don’t know, those who know don’t say,” words do fail when it comes to mystical experiencing. Even so, a love of language has its place.

The conundrum of language aside, bringing the awareness and presence of the numinous into one’s life in society is much more difficult than experiencing intimations of the sacred alone.

Having both a strong mystical and philosophical bent (I know, that word can be taken two ways), my life’s goal has been to be as fully realized as one can be in this lifetime, and develop a philosophy that makes mystical experiencing understandable and open to any serious person.

Both are an art, not a science, though science has its place. My favorite science writer on human evolution is the paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall. He’s exhibits much insight into what makes humans different from other animals, and how we came to be the strange primates that we are. But he’s not a philosopher, and rather runs aground on the deeper questions (not that philosophers, including this one, don’t as well).

Consider this passage from Tattersall’s book, “Becoming Human”:

“We can derive no concepts of morality (a social construct) or of ‘natural law’ (an intellectual construct) from the contemplation of nature…for nature is simply indifferent to individual suffering or success, and to call such indifference amoral would be simply to anthropomorphize.”

“Thus, while I passionately believe that any moral system is deeply flawed that does not start from the proposition that the individual is the unit of suffering, I have to recognize that I can find no justification for this notion in anything that lies beyond the human milieu (or perhaps my own perception of it).”

Tattersall’s focus on “individual suffering,” and his humility regarding whether there is compassion beyond “the human milieu” is evocative and provocative.

The question remains unasked however: Given that nature is completely indifferent to individual survival and suffering, what relationship, if any, does cosmic intelligence, which one communes with in the wilderness or deeper states of meditation, have to the human condition?

The easy answer is none. But in the moments when one ceases being a dividual, and is a true in-dividual (that is, an undivided human being rather than a divided human), one feels an impersonal love and compassion, emanating from beyond the “human milieu,” for what the poet Robinson Jeffers calls “this poor doll humanity.”

There is a feeling that man’s consciousness has come to its logical, totally fragmenting end. Whether humanity will have another chance at some unforeseeable future juncture to radically change and change course I don’t know. But this is it for this age.

The meditative state is complete, and stands alone. But besides the necessity of protecting and nurturing it, it brings with it a tremendous seriousness about the human condition in the present, and for the future of humanity.

Martin LeFevre

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Be a Window for the Sublime and Sacred

On one of the last days of the year before winter set in in the mountains, I drove up to Lassen Volcanic National Park, the entrance of which is only about an hour and a half from here. Lassen is the least visited national park in America, and is spectacular beyond description.

It was an amazing thing to go from early autumn at sea level, through full autumn at mid-elevation, and finally, at the pass (at 8500 feet/2600 meters), early winter.

The feeling of wildness at the top, at about 8500 feet, is intense, cleansing and joyous. I was able to sit for an hour at Summit Lake on the other side of the pass, at about 7000 feet. As the leading edge of a storm rolled in, the wind howled through the pines, with birdcalls occasionally rising above the noise.

Wavelets lapped the shore as I gazed across the small lake upon one of the many minor peaks in the park, any one of which would tower over the highest mountains in the east. The essence of one’s meditation practice is this: Opening all the senses in nature and watching the movement of thought/emotion without division.

When I was just 17, the direction of my life radically changed when one’s contemplative and philosophical proclivities converged in the question, asked over a period of weeks: What is this observer that always seems to be separate from what it is observing, even in oneself? The insistent question apparently percolated within me, and exploded into insight one day. it forms the basis of one’s meditation to this day, more than half a century later.

What is that insight? That the observer is a primal, continually generated illusion of thought, the very wellspring of psychological separativeness within the individual and man, preventing direct perception, insight and love. In Christian terms, the separate observer is the “original sin.” But it took years to form these words for it, since the phenomenon preceded the philosophy.

When there is the deep, wordless insight that the observer is inseparable from the movement of thought that it purports to observe, a completely different quality of observation occurs—an observing without the observer, without division and the infinite regression of the self.

Back in the valley and the canyon beyond town the next day, the creek was audible about a couple hundred meters upstream, but the current could barely be heard directly in front of where I sat. A chainsaw bites through wood in directly across the stream. It only lasts a second or two, and then stops. A couple minutes later, it happens again, exactly the same way, and fortunately, that’s the last I hear it.

It was overcast, with the kind of clouds that reflect and intensify light and sound. Jays squawked, and other birds chirped. A crow cawed, and in the distance, a hawk’s cry pierced the air.

Our individual consciousness is as inseparable from collective consciousness as eddies are from a river. In a dead culture such as this, meditation is not a luxury, but a matter of inward survival. Even in an intact culture, a person cannot grow into a human being without space and silence for observation and reflection. Continuous reaction is the way of machines, which most people seem content to become.

Methods, techniques, rituals and habituated practices are antithetical to awakening meditation because all these things are born of thought, and thought cannot be used to quiet thought.

Sound is the best teacher of meditation, because we don’t direct our hearing as we do our sight, and if one really listens, without judging or even naming, the mind naturally grows quiet as attention effortlessly gathers in the brain.

Through fully and undividedly attending to the movement of thought/emotion in methodless meditation, the chattering mind ends. Then one leaves the valley of suffering, and enters into the vastness of the cosmic mind.

Human beings are not meant to be encrusted accretions of experience and knowledge, but windows for the sublime and sacred. Why then are we the former rather than the latter?

Martin LeFevre

The post Be a Window for the Sublime and Sacred first appeared on The Costa Rican Times.

Taxes on Costa Rican Pensions

Those with multiple pensions would have to pay tax on the total, under a bill approved in the Treasury Commission. The proponent of this project is PLN deputy Yorleny León.

Authorities clarify that ROP and voluntary pensions are exempt. Basic pensions in the Disability, Old Age, and Death regimes will enter the calculations. Those granted from former employers will also count.

If the sum of the person’s pensions exceeds ₡840,000, they will end up paying more than they currently do. If a person has a pension of ₡2.5 million and another of ₡800,000, they currently don’t pay tax on the lower one because it’s under the limit. When they are combined, they’d have to pay tax on the total ₡3.3 million.

The plan will now go to the legislative plenary. If approved, it would collect an additional ₡9,582 million annually. Those who receive multiple pensions are 5% of the country’s retirees. About 100 get over ₡5 million a month and about 22 get four pensions.

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How Much To Bribe the President of the Honduras to Drug Traffic to New York?

$25,000 is all it takes to bribe the president of Honduras. With this payment, suspected drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes allegedly bought protection. Because of his association with the president, he became bulletproof, free to do as he wanted.

The bribes were paid between 2013 and 2014, to the current president, Juan Orlando Hernández. This was explained in the opening arguments of a federal trial against Geovanny Fuentes, in New York.

The prosecutor has a witness who worked for a rice company that was used to launder money. He will tell the jury about how the president told Fuentes “that he would transport so much cocaine to the United States that they would put the drugs down the noses of the gringos.”

The defense attorney tried to discredit the testimony based on the fact that he has a lot to gain and a little to lose, as he hopes for asylum in the U.S. in exchange of his testimony. She also told the jury not to believe the testimony they’ll hear from Leonel Rivera, former leader of the Honduran cartel Los Cachiro, because he is “one of the worst murderers on the face of the earth.”

The president’s brother was found guilty of large-scale drug trafficking in New York in 2019. The prosecutor claims he was an intermediary between Fuentes and the president.

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Alien Lives Matter – It’s Okay to Be Grey (Book Review)

Authors: Timothy Green Beckley and Sean Casteel

Publisher: Inner Light / Global Communications

Reviewed by: Paul Dale Roberts, HPI’s Esoteric Detective

Comments:  First off, this book is THICK!  538 pages filled with interesting stories about the UFO phenomena!!  You have the legendary authors Timothy Green Beckley and Sean Casteel that put this masterpiece together!  Timothy starts off with a true story about a raccoon hunter hunting these cute little creatures, when all of a sudden he hears a buzzing sound that sounded like a thousand bees!  A gold colored saucer-shaped UFO lands nearby.  He encounters an alien wearing a black tight-fitting suit with goggles and a helmet on.  This alien had black curly hair and asked him some strange questions.  A very intriguing story with a Close Encounter of the Third Kind!  In this book you get information about reports from 217 B.C. in which round shields were seen in the sky.  In 104 B.C. Pliny the Elder talks about flaming spears and oblong shields in the sky.  Remember in those days, they didn’t have the same terminology as we do.  They can only describe objects in the sky as something they are familiar with, such as shields, flaming swords, round shields, etc.  Sean Casteel talks about…”Will the Gods of Old be Returning in Full Force Soon?”  In this book find out what Antonio Attansio and Franco Prezioso (two fisherman) saw in the water.  I will give you a hint, the water seemed to boil, with huge bubbles 7 feet in diameter, then they saw an underwater beam of light…well, you got the idea.  You have to get this book to find out the rest of the story.  Further in this THICK book, you will learn about the late John Salter, Jr, a former professor and civil rights activist that had his own close encounter with friendly aliens and he discusses after this encounter, his body changed in many ways, more adapt to immunities, fast healing factor and more!  Get the scoop on Farrakhan’s UFO vision! Did this really happen or was it a vision implanted in his mind by extraterrestrials?  Another thing I love about this book are the many, many photos and drawings.  When you get a breather reading the stories in this book, you can relax and look at some of the visuals.  This book is like a Summer blockbuster movie unfolding in my hands!  There is a cool drawing from a Japanese magazine depicting an alien with punk rock hair and a tight fitting suit on.  One of the photos I enjoyed in this book is of black helicopters escorting a UFO after a cattle mutilation.  Tell me that there is nothing going on.  The government knows, but is keeping us in the dark!  This book really opens up your eyes to the fact that we are not alone.  There is a lot of things going on here on Earth and many species of aliens are visiting us.  The aliens have been here since the dawn of mankind.  This book is knowledge that has no boundaries.  You will get a universal perspective of what the UFO phenomena is all about.  I highly recommend this book, get it now, you will be happy that you did! 

Timothy Green Beckley has written many, many books on the UFO subject and you can find those books here:

www.amazon.com/Timothy-Green-Beckley/e/B000APJFWY%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Alien Lives Matter can be found here:

uforeview.tripod.com/index.html

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True Dialogue Is a Symphony of Meaning

Dialogue is a word that has been rendered almost meaningless by having so many meanings to so many people. Politicians have appropriated the word and nearly destroyed its usefulness. But there is a deeper meaning to dialogue, having to do with shared exploration through questioning together.

As I see it, dialogue, as joint inquiry, is the social equivalent of solitary meditation. Awakening the meditative state is an almost inexpressible solitary art, which involves effortlessly gathering undirected attention sufficient to silence the chattering movement of thought. Meditation allows the space and stillness for a spontaneous, quantum leap in awareness. The social counterpart, which is almost as difficult to convey, is the art of questioning together in dialogue, with the intent to ignite mutual insight.

A prime proponent of this in-depth dialogue was David Bohm, a physicist of the highest order who Einstein called his “spiritual son.” Later in his life, after his work in theoretical physics, Bohm became very interested in the transformation of human consciousness. He proposed questioning together–dialogue in depth–as a means of fostering radical change in human consciousness. This entails examining, and going beyond, the narrow range of conditioning and reaction based on assumptions and unexamined worldviews, which so often pass for communication.

I had the privilege of meeting and participating in a series of superb dialogues with David Bohm. Each gathering was an intense experience, both because of Bohm’s prodigious intellect, and because of his passionate concern for the human prospect. Bohm is the only famous person I know of whose private demeanor was the same as his public persona. Indeed, I’m not sure he had a public persona at all.

“Dialogue as we are choosing to use the word,” Bohm said, “is a way of exploring the roots of the many crises that face humanity today. It enables inquiry into, and understanding of, the sorts of processes that fragment and interfere with real communication between individuals, nations and even different parts of the same organization.”

The main factors in exploratory dialogue are that participants be self-aware, and that they develop an ear for the right question for the group at a given moment.

Self-awareness is essential, as it helps neutralize the tendency to automatically speak from assumptions. Participants in meaningful dialogue share the intent to examine their assumptions when they come up. When there is an atmosphere of affection and safety, people don’t resist when someone points out assumptions. In short, participants are attuned to the fact that we all have unexamined assumptions, and are quick to look at them.

Of course, as with anything, Bohm’s approach to dialogue can be abused. I’ve attended organized dialogues with master manipulators, facilitators who sell themselves as authorities on dialogue, while pretending not to be. Such people cunningly set the agenda and determine the course and feel-good outcome of a dialogue. Indeed, an entire industry has emerged that takes advantage of the confusion we all feel during these dark times.

On the other hand, I’ve also been part of groups where questioning together has produced an extraordinary degree of collegiality and shared insight. The result isn’t a group mind, since each person retains his or her own perspective and uniqueness. Rather, there is a quality of communion that is beneficial to everyone in the group. And since core insights penetrate to the heart of human consciousness, authentic dialogue helps create a new culture for humanity.

The space for listening, and the listening that produces space, allows communication beyond the verbal level. Most communication is verbal, conceptual and reactive. You say something, and I instantly translate it into what I think you mean, and then reply to that. (A way to slow down reaction, especially with difficult issues, is to check what a person says against what one thinks they mean before responding.)

The process of examining assumptions and listening for meaning entails continually asking questions together. It’s very hard for most people to withhold their opinions and beliefs, much less to honestly examine them. But speaking from opinion and belief is not dialogue, or even communication, as I’m using the words.

In a group of self-aware people, the right question is like the starting notes in a musical composition. Listening and ongoing questioning by participants provides a string of mutual exploration that simultaneously composes and plays a symphony of shared meaning in dialogue.

Martin LeFevre

lefevremartin at gmail.com

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Costa Rica Vehicle Restrictions for March 2021

The vehicle restriction, while still in place, is lightening up. 

Authorities stress that this does not mean the pandemic is over. It is a reaction to the epidemiological conditions improving but covid-19 is far from over. They applaud the efforts made by many that got us this far into combating it and keeping as many people as possible safe.

This month the restriction for even and odd weekends disappears. There will, however, still be a nighttime restriction. The nighttime restriction will start an hour later, at 11 pm, and last until 5 am. The same exceptions as last month apply.

During the daytime, we can move freely in most parts of the country. Daytime restrictions in San José and the Circunvalación highway will go back to how they were before the pandemic started, that is to say by license plate. 

The fine for breaching the sanitary measure is set at ₡107,000.

In a related sanitary measure, the beaches will remain open from 5am to 6pm.

These measures will likely change in the coming months depending on the evolution of the pandemic. 

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