the 21st Century Buddha

[metta 0]

Buddha? Jesus? Mohammed? I want a leader who knows that there are 50 states in America–not 58. I want a President who understands that they speak Pushto and Dari in Afghanistan, not Arabic. I want a Chief Executive who has enough common sense to know that he should not enter into a real estate deal with a crook on the eve of running for President of the United States. I will leave the walking on water, luminous soul, auto-elevation (floating in air for you unenlightened folks) and healing of the sick to hucksters, carnival workers, and Pentecostal ministers. Just give me someone who has enough sense to identify Jeremiah Wright as a race baiter and provocateur early on without sleeping thru 20 years of vile sermons only to awake, like a Rumpelstiltskin, to the belated realization that Wright’s views have no place in the mainstream of American culture.

Don’t save us Barack, save yourself.

Larry Johnson

Is Obama an enlightened being?

Spiritual wise ones say: This sure ain't no ordinary politician. You buying it?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

I find I'm having this discussion, this weird little debate, more and more, with colleagues, with readers, with liberals and moderates and miserable, deeply depressed Republicans and spiritually amped persons of all shapes and stripes and I'm having it in particular with those who seem confused, angry, unsure, thoroughly nonplussed, as they all ask me the same thing: What the hell's the big deal about Obama?

I, of course, have an answer. Sort of.

Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former '60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain't gonna like this one little bit.

Ready? It goes likes this:

Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.

This is what I find myself offering up more and more in response to the whiners and the frowners and to those with broken or sadly dysfunctional karmic antennae - or no antennae at all - to all those who just don't understand and maybe even actively recoil against all this chatter about Obama's aura and feel and MLK/JFK-like vibe.

To them I say, all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?

No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn't have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.

Dismiss it all you like, but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it's just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.

Here's where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually demeaning stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.

Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there's something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn't assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It's because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.

Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up.

Let me be completely clear: I'm not arguing some sort of utopian revolution, a big global group hug with Obama as some sort of happy hippie camp counselor. I'm not saying the man's going to swoop in like a superhero messiah and stop all wars and make the flowers grow and birds sing and solve world hunger and bring puppies to schoolchildren.

Please. I'm also certainly not saying he's perfect, that his presidency will be free of compromise, or slimy insiders, or great heaps of politics-as-usual. While Obama's certainly an entire universe away from George W. Bush in terms of quality, integrity, intelligence and overall inspirational energy, well, so is your dog. Hell, it isn't hard to stand far above and beyond the worst president in American history.

But there simply is no denying that extra kick. As one reader put it to me, in a way, it's not even about Obama, per se. There's a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that's been held back by the armies of BushCo darkness, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod, is now effortlessly self-organizing around Obama's candidacy. People and emotions and ideas of high and positive vibration are automatically drawn to him. It's exactly like how Bush was a magnet for the low vibrational energies of fear and war and oppression and aggression, but, you know, completely reversed. And different. And far, far better.

Don't buy any of it? Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes? I understand. I get it. I often believe it myself.

Not this time.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Metta, to put in a language that you may be able to understand: The lady in the pantsuit said it's over.

[Ggreen 12]

You support Hillary...Hillary support Obama...and Obama supports Me

.

Edited June 9, 2008 by vjmmbr

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Woah. I didn't see this one coming. I would equivocate this to the same line being passed around that every end of the world movie always seems to star a black president, so the end of the world must be coming if Obama becomes president.

Edited June 10, 2008 by Olivia*

[GaryC 7]

Metta, to put in a language that you may be able to understand: The lady in the pantsuit said it's over.

Yes, Hillary lost. That means all critisizm of Obama should halt. Now take your koolaid and be a good little obamabot.

[Ban Hammer 13,651]

Metta, to put in a language that you may be able to understand: The lady in the pantsuit said it's over.

Yes, Hillary lost. That means all critisizm of Obama should halt. Now take your koolaid and be a good little obamabot.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Metta, to put in a language that you may be able to understand: The lady in the pantsuit said it's over.

Yes, Hillary lost. That means all critisizm of Obama should halt. Now take your koolaid and be a good little obamabot.

Gary, I am no more of an Obamabot than you are a McCainiac. Let's try to leave the name calling for the others. Okay?

By the way, I think the column is anything but criticism of Obama. Who gives a ** what some useless blogger thinks about the column? I sure don't. It's quite irrelevant, to be honest.

[Ggreen 12]

Metta, to put in a language that you may be able to understand: The lady in the pantsuit said it's over.

Yes, Hillary lost. That means all critisizm of Obama should halt. Now take your koolaid and be a good little obamabot.

Gary, I am no more of an Obamabot than you are a McCainiac. Let's try to leave the name calling for the others. Okay?

By the way, I think the column is anything but criticism of Obama. Who gives a ** what some useless blogger thinks about the column? I sure don't. It's quite irrelevant, to be honest.

The name calling expiration date is 11/2008. he is still dreaming of Mcsame winning.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Metta, to put in a language that you may be able to understand: The lady in the pantsuit said it's over.

Yes, Hillary lost. That means all critisizm of Obama should halt. Now take your koolaid and be a good little obamabot.

Gary, I am no more of an Obamabot than you are a McCainiac. Let's try to leave the name calling for the others. Okay?

By the way, I think the column is anything but criticism of Obama. Who gives a ** what some useless blogger thinks about the column? I sure don't. It's quite irrelevant, to be honest.

The name calling expiration date is 11/2008. he is still dreaming of Mcsame winning.

And he's entitled to that dream. I'm just trying to be a good pal to him so that the waking up in November isn't quite as hard and shocking as it might be if nobody warns him that his dream is just that: a dream.

Well, to be honest, this election isn't over by any means. Both candidates have obstacles to overcome. I just think that the deck is stacked quite badly against McSame - who did a lot of that stacking in the past year in order to secure the nomination - and that Obama has a better shot at making it past the finish line. It's going to be interesting. I try not to take anything for granted, though, ever since America gave Dubbya a second term...

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes?

Out of curiosity, what do people mean when they say a candidate doesn't have experience? What would count as experience? Both call each other inexperienced. I wonder how you gain this experience in an office you cannot have experience in until you hold it.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes?

Out of curiosity, what do people mean when they say a candidate doesn't have experience? What would count as experience? Both call each other inexperienced. I wonder how you gain this experience in an office you cannot have experience in until you hold it.

Obama has experience - a lot of it is being derided or denied simply because the folks that would never vote for the man are trumping up their own ignorance by saying that they know nothing about him.

If they really wanted to find out what he has actually done (which they don't) they'd at least be honest and take a look for themselves before crying about "lack of experience".

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes?

Out of curiosity, what do people mean when they say a candidate doesn't have experience? What would count as experience? Both call each other inexperienced. I wonder how you gain this experience in an office you cannot have experience in until you hold it.

Obama has experience - a lot of it is being derided or denied simply because the folks that would never vote for the man are trumping up their own ignorance by saying that they know nothing about him.

If they really wanted to find out what he has actually done (which they don't) they'd at least be honest and take a look for themselves before crying about "lack of experience".

You didn't answer my question, namely, what is experience in this scenario and why is one experience more relevant than the other?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Think that's all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls-- and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you're talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes?

Out of curiosity, what do people mean when they say a candidate doesn't have experience? What would count as experience? Both call each other inexperienced. I wonder how you gain this experience in an office you cannot have experience in until you hold it.

Obama has experience - a lot of it is being derided or denied simply because the folks that would never vote for the man are trumping up their own ignorance by saying that they know nothing about him.

If they really wanted to find out what he has actually done (which they don't) they'd at least be honest and take a look for themselves before crying about "lack of experience".

You didn't answer my question, namely, what is experience in this scenario and why is one experience more relevant than the other?

Sorry - I was addressing the post at the top. But yes I agree with you that "experience" is something that has been ill-defined in this context - you can always say that McCain has been a senator longer than Obama - but that in itself doesn't say much.

Edited June 10, 2008 by Number 6