Trump may be on auto pilot
".....One of the central definitions of God that is given in the Old Testament is conscious presence. Moses asks God, " What should I say to the people of Israel? Whom shall I say has sent me with the commandments? The answer..."Say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you." (Exodus 3:14)
“Sheol—the lower world or hell of the ancient Hebrews —is the condition of ever-increasing distance from “I am”, from one’s own conscious presence in the midst of life….the conditions of our culture more and more favor the diminishing of our being….The technologies, the inventions, the accomplishments we pride—all of them, almost without exception, are prized because they allow us to live and function more and more automatically without conscious presence, without “I am”. Take the happy life of Donald Trump as a symbol of the state of affairs.
I should, of course, add that I have never met Mr. Trump personally. For all I know, he too wakes up in the middle of night asking himself what he is doing and why. Possibly he, like us, sometimes sees that he is not the hero of his life, that in fact he is being lived by his life rather than living it himself. Even though he writes as though he is consciously making great decisions and masterfully dealing with vicissitudes of life, I do not for a moment take his books seriously in that respect, and perhaps he doesn’t either. But as a symbol of one of the key aspects of our modern mythology, Mr. Trump serves very well.”
The above passage was taken from pages 34-35 “Money and the Meaning of Life" by Jacob Needleman. The book was written in 1991. Maybe it helps solve the riddle of how Donald Trump can now, 1n 2025, so blithely toss aside the rights and freedoms of so many. He has lost connection with his conscious presence. His “I’m”. He acts automatically unaware of there damage and destruction that results.
The above passage is amazing to me not just because it attempts to address Trump’s loss of soul as far back as 1991, but also because it defines “I am” and why it’s so important. My friend Mojan, who has spent the last few years here in California and in India studying the meaning of being, taught me to say “I am” when inhaling. He taught me this a few years ago.I practice it daily. Now I can see that he wanted me to be fully conscious and present through the inhaling practice. God is in the resulting state of being present.
