The Plan

How to Save the World

by Theo Cedar Jones

Foreword

The Plan is an answer to the deathic urgency of the

Global situation, a situation where a planet-wide culture
of consumerism and violence threatens the future of our
Earthworld and the human species.
As Adi Da states in Not-Two Is Peace, The future is either
going to be catastrophic disaster, or it is going to be the
turnabout moment in human history, in which humankind
will step out of its dark ages of tribalism, into a new
mode of human cooperative order.
The Plan is intended to support all of the proposals in
Not-Two Is Peace, including the formation of the
Global Cooperative Forum. The Global Cooperative Forum
is the first global body intended to represent the interests
of everybody-all-at-once, as well as to effectively deal
with all of the biggest issues and problems that we have
in common. The Plan provides practical creative solutions
to the worlds biggest problems, and will be revised as
needed to include any and all globally emerging best
practices.
But the purpose of the plan goes beyond making a
survivable future so humans can go on being consumers,
and being asleep. The purpose of the Plan includes a
determination that we should have a livable world in
which to do fruitful and true spiritual practice, for the
ultimate purpose of becoming divinely liberated, and
actually transcending the ego, which is THE SOURCE of
virtually all of the problems that the Plan is intended to
deal with.

But if we do not stop the ego culture in its tracks, and if

we allow our world to be destroyed, or too far degraded,
then it will no longer function as a place for beings to do
spiritual practice and become liberated.
In order to save the world and the human race, we must
have an accurate picture of what the most serious threats
are in the world, and then put them in the right order of
priority. So, the Plan includes a Top 100 list of the most
harmful problems in the world today. Now, and into the
future, the Plan will include an ever increasing group of
creative responses to each and all of the problems on the
Top 100 list. And the items on the Top 100 list will also
change as the science and the conversation about
prioritizing the problems evolves.
The Plan is a support document for what I see as the
primary document, or the blueprint for human survival
the book Not-Two Is Peace. The Plan is an ultimate and
universal to-do list, constantly growing and evolving, to
help everybody stay focused on their global action
items. The Plan is a direct outgrowth of the fact that I
assume personal responsibility for the fate of the planet
and the human race, and I will collaborate and cooperate
and co-create with all others who will do the same.
Dealing with the Top 100 problems requires a multilayered approach; on the one hand, we must criticize,
understand, reduce and prevent the dark and negative
effects of violence and un-necessarily harmful human
behaviors. On the other hand, we must propose the
creative alternatives to these dark human activities. For
example, I propose the radical expansion of the arts and
culture economy as well as non-violent militaries, as a
progressive replacement for spending on violent
militaries.

The Plan supports a new global leadership that is based

on prior unity, cooperation, non-violence, harm reduction
and a fully functioning Global Cooperative Forum. The
Plan also points to the ultimate significance of Adi Da and
His Wisdom as the Way that enables humans to be free of
their egos and ego culture. The Plan stays on point about
the central fact that ego and ego culture is the chief cause
of the worlds problems, and therefore, true ego
transcending Wisdom has far-reaching public health
implications.
So I am addressing you, everybody-all-at-once, and asking
you to come play with your whole human family, and take
on these enormous global issues in the spirit of creating
art together, a grand and original collaboration the
saving of the Earth and the human race.
In keeping with the best practices of harm reduction, I
encourage the use of the most current science to gain
ever more accurate assessments of both the harms
caused by the Top 100 Problems, as well as the results of
our campaigns to address the Top 100 Problems.
I will also describe a type of global leadership that is
driven by a respect for a spiritual wisdom, one that is
based on the spiritual authority of True Spiritual Masters,
as well as on the example of others in the higher stages of
human maturity. This global leadership will recognize and
serve the highest revelations of the True Spiritual
Masters, including the direct admonitions of Adi Da
concerning the ending of all war and the development of
a global cooperative culture, (as in His book Eleutherios
(2001 Edition), and His book I give you the gift of one
another, as well as Not-Two Is Peace).

This global leadership will employ the universally effective

means of non-violence, harm reduction, and the
Global Cooperative Forum in order to implement and
accomplish the mandates and practices of the Plan.
How I personally intend to pursue the Plan
I will pursue the Plan as one of its advocates and
architects, but also as an artist, writing, speaking, and
singing in Swaybone, and as a representative in the Global
Cooperative Forum.
The Plan calls for a critical mass of people who recognize
that the problems in the world are not isolated, who see
the big picture, who identify themselves as global citizens
first and foremost, and who assume responsibility for the
Earth and all of humanity as a whole. The Plan recognizes
what Adi Da has described as the prior unity of all
worlds, things and beings. The Plan will help people to see
all apparent problems as arising in a field of prior unity,
and that this prior unity will therefore guide our solutions.
The multifarious nature of the problems we face will be
resolved more effectively if we see our work as the
expression of the inherent prior unity of all existence.
The Plan is intended to be not just a great campaign
undertaken by a vast collective of humanity, but also as a
kind of art project in which artists are creating and
playing together to transform the course of human
history.
The scope and vision of the Plan is not merely to save the
world and the human race; nor is it merely to creatively
solve all of the Top 100 Problems; but ultimately the Plan
harmonizes with the purposes of Adi Da Samraj, who

enables all beings to be liberated utterly from the

bondage of ego, fear and un-Happiness. Therefore, the
purpose of the Plan is not just the survival of Earthkind,
but also the universal enlightenment and Divine
Realization of all beings, creatures and things.

The List of the Top 100 Problems

1. human egoity (i.e. the primary cause of unnecessary
human-caused suffering, and the primary source of problems
in the top 100 list)
2. Human overpopulation
3. Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction
4. Catastrophic collapse of the planetary ecosystem
5. Global warming
6. Infectious diseases - TB, AIDS, Bird flu, other flus,
mad cow disease
7. Cancer
8. Human religious divisions
9. Heart disease
10. Species extinctions
11. Natural disasters - hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes and
tsunamis
12. Starvation and famine
13. Environmental pollution
14. Depletion of topsoil
15. Depletion of drinkable water
16. Genocide
17. War and terrorism
18. Murder
19. Automobile accidents
20. Obesity and unhealthy diet
21. Ozone depletion
22. A new ice age
23. Human prejudice
24. Bad Educational systems
25. Lack of appropriate excercise
26. Disparity of income
27. Lack of health insurance and appropriate health care
28. Racism
29. Drug prohibition
30. Sexism
31. Homophobia
32. Global debt
33. Bad architecture

34. Bad urban design

35. White collar crime
36. Governmental corruption and ineptitude
37. Degradation of democratic institutions
38. Degradation of the rule of law
39. Nuclear energy
40. Cigarettes + tobacco
41. Torture
42. Landmines
43. Pharmaceutical drugs
44. Nuclear waste
45. Censorship and corporate consolidation of the media
46. Medical mistakes
47. The lack of true rites of passage
48. Bad automobile design
49. Bad road and freeway design
50. Bad leadership
51. Republicanism
52. Fundamentalist Christianity
53. Fundamentalist Islam
54. Fundamentalist Judaism
55. Fundamentalist Hinduism
56. Scientific materialism
57. Greed and toxic profits
58. Misuse of public lands
59. Overgrazing
60. Overfishing
61. Genetic engineering
63. Cutting down too many trees and rainforest
64. Illiteracy
65. Lack of devotion to Heart Master Adi Da
66. Gun related deaths and injuries
67. The culture of violence - video games, tv and movies
68. Suicide
69. Mental illness
70. Collapse of pensions, medicare and social security
71. Depression
72. Fear and anxiety
73. Stress
74. Slavery

75. Child abuse

76. Animal abuse
77. Genocide against dolphins and whales
78. Genocide against tribal/indigenous cultures and
autonomous communities
79. Lack of honest drug and sex education
80. Alcoholism
81. Too many prisons
82. Unresolved Oedipal issues
83. Economic mismanagement
84. Fascist tendencies and fascism outright
85. Lack of human growth
86. Lack of Divine Self Realization in most people
87. Lack of tolerance and cooperation
88. Lack of self-understanding
89. Lack of self-transcendance and spiritual growth
90. Accidents
91. Human taboos
92. Degradation and suppression of arts, culture and
nightlife
93. Infant mortality
94. Lack of beauty
95. Avoidance of relationship
96. Delusion and denial
97. Apathy, timidity and ineffectualness
98. Lack of moral reasoning and descriminative
intelligence
99. Homelessness
100. Censorship
98 of the Top 100 problems are human-caused, or ego-caused,
therefore, the ultimate solution to the Top 100 problems is to
help humans transcend, or be liberated from, their egoity. The
following essays and creative proposals are my contribution to
helping to save the world, and reduce the harms caused by ego.

Cultural Transformation
the collective process of ego transcendence
Salvation, liberation, freedom, deliverance these are
some of humanitys highest aspirations. They are words
that express the potential of a higher collective destiny,
one which avoids the current drive toward mass selfdestruction. Our need to actually realize the meaning of
these words now may be greater than ever, because of
the unprecedented trouble that the human race is in.
But what is the primary source of the trouble?
What does humanity most need liberation FROM?
What do humans most need freedom FROM?
What do we all need salvation and deliverance FROM the
most?
Ego.
Ego is what each of us does - ego is the act of selfcontraction.
Ego is also the presumption or idea that each of us is an
irreducibly separate individual, forever separate from
God, the World and others.
The act of self-contraction that each of us does, and the
feeling and idea of being separate, drive all of the humanmade problems threatening the world and human
civilization.
The universal problem of human ego is magnified by
destructive technologies that could render our planet
unlivable. War, violence, genocide and tyranny threaten
the human species and all of Earthkind.

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Humanity has allowed itself to accept consumerism and

materialism as its primary vision, perpetuating the
obscene idea that we are all just meat-bodies consuming
until death, and generally drugging ourselves into
consumer stupidity with every form of media-enabled
self-stimulation.
Ego is the source-idea or principle running our current
civilization, and it is the root issue that must be addressed
individually and collectively in order for humanity to have
the possibility of collective survival.
An essential part of the solution to the problem of ego
involves the process of cultural transformation. Cultural
transformation is the process of counter-egoic activity
and ego transcendence among individuals and groups of
people. Cultural transformation is exemplified by the
wisdom Teaching of Adi Da Samraj, especially as He
generates the real process of ego transcendence in
humans, and represents the ultimate destiny of human
evolution. The creative solutions and guiding principles of
the Plan are founded on the process of individual and
collective ego transcendence, as well as assisting the
process of human evolution.
And one of the primary avenues of cultural
transformation that I am proposing is one that works
directly to roll back unnecessary taboos and prohibitions.
The many harms caused by ego show themselves in the
form of taboos and prohibitions, as well as in the forms of
repression, denial, censorship, etc. It may not seem
directly evident at first that there is a relationship
between prohibitions against consenting behaviors on the
one hand, and war and violence on the other; but I
propose to you that if you reduce the prohibitions against

11

consenting behaviors, you will also be preparing the

ground for the gradual phasing out of war and violence.
The great social movements of recent history, such as the
black civil-rights movement, the womens rights
movement, the native american rights movement, the gay
rights movement, the evironmental movement, and
others, were all characterized to a large extent by an
activist process of confronting and rolling back certain
forms of prejudice as they impacted specific groups.
Therefore, what I am proposing is a continuation of the
very same process, now extended into the areas of sex
and drugs. What I propose is that we simply finish the job
that we started, by extirpating absolutely every last
vestige of human prejudice and unnecessary prohibitions
and taboos against adult consenting behaviors.
We must end the drug war, legalize prostitution, and all
forms of safer sex work, leave public space for public
nudity, allow rites of passage for teen-agers, increase the
sexual rights of teen-agers, end censorship against
obscenity, end the ban on gay marriage, etc. All of these
are necessary in order to roll back the forces of ego in
their various forms of fascism, war and violence.
Envelope pushing, taboo shattering, transgressive actions
and public theatre, can lead to emotional breakthroughs
in our collective culture, releasing new energy,
understanding and human connection between us.
Understanding of ourselves and each other can be
increased, and the quality of relationships between us
improved.
Artists, as culture workers, can operate as a vanguard to
help lead others, through the exercise of arts and culture
altogether, by demonstrating and practicing ego-

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transcendence, spiritual devotion and self-discipline,

cooperation and inter-faith tolerance. In light of the
imminent and negative consequences of ego in our
society, the artist becomes sensitive to the urgency of the
greater purpose of their work and their craft, and their
obligation to lead by the example of their own spiritual
maturity, as well as in the content of their artistic work.
By directly and openly confronting all arbitrary taboos and
prohibitions, we gradually roll-back and phase out all the
systems of collective egoity that are otherwise leading us
to a nightmare situation of mutual war and destruction.
One of arts highest purposes is to reveal and proclaim the
Sacred, and to assist the collective purification of all
modes of ego in our social body.
Art and Rock and Roll can be about anything. But I am
interested in that Art and Rock and Roll which are for
expressing the Real and irreducible Unity of our true
Condition in Real God.
Following is a list of possible subject matter artists could
address in order to engage this process:
the taboos against loving in porn.
the taboos against loving in politics.
the taboos against loving in education.
the taboos against loving in the military.
the taboos against loving enemies.
the taboos against loving death.
the taboos against loving the devil.
the taboos against loving God.
the taboos against loving Real God Realization.
the taboos against loving counter-egoic practice.

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Once you get to spotting taboos around you and within

you, including all the repression and the prohibitions of
egoic culture, you become more and more sensitized to
all the forms of ego, whether in the individual, or ego as it
manifests collectively. This increasing sensitivity can
motivate you to renounce each form of ego, and be
purified of egoic effects, and while doing all this, also
turning devotionally to Real God, and practicing in the
company of the Divine Heart Master.

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New Consciousness
(or, the human evolutionary imperative)
Why do we live in a supposed democracy today, and not
merely some techno-medieval brutal feudalist tyranny? It
is because of hard won transformations in human
consciousness, otherwise known as the emergence of
new consciousness.
Humans are driven by stories and beliefs that they tell
themselves. These beliefs and stories are allowed to
shape peoples outlook on reality (as well as their
presumptions, perspectives, points-of-view, hearts and
minds, etc.) If, for example, in their hearts and minds,
some people believe that slavery is legitimate and
necessary, even justified by God in the Holy Scriptures,
then they will commit atrocities against other humans,
while assuming they are in the right, and that their actions
are sanctioned by God.
But, new consciousness is emerging, even in the depths of
human darkness; and, thus, we saw the great human
movement to end slavery, to destroy its legitimacy, and
strip it of all divine sanction. The change that took place in
the ending of slavery originally occurred at the level of
individual peoples hearts and minds. The emergence of
new consciousness is demonstrated first by a change-ofheart in the individual, and it then spreads outward to
effect changes in the course of human history.
This change of heart represents a revolution or
transformation in a persons perceptions of themselves
and reality; the ego acts as a universal filter all of our
experiences of ourselves, others, God and nature are
limited and distorted by this filter. New consciousness
changes the filter itself, therefore allowing a greater range

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of perception and understanding to occur within us. This

is the hard-won prize of human evolution: the capacity to
allow new consciousness to alter and expand our range of
understanding.
This expansion in our range of understanding is
characterized by growth in our human faculties, like the
faculties of compassion, tolerance, pleasure, selftranscendence, creativity, confidence, happiness, selfrespect, responsibility, emotional growth, intellectual
growth, technical abilities, psychic abilities, healing
knowledge, leadership and spirituality.
The potentials for human growth are truly awesome, and
potentially benign and positive; that is one reason it is so
important to support and participate in the process of the
emergence of new consciousness.
Shining examples of new consciousness abound, even in
this, the dark epoch of human history. The Protestant
reformation, the birth of science, the invention of the
novel, widespread literacy, the explosion of technology,
the printing press, anti-biotics, painting, music, cinema,
womens right to vote, the birth control pill, the labor
unions movement, non-violent civil disobedience, the
anti-war movements, the nuclear disarmament
movements, the save-the-whales movement, womens
liberation, the black civil rights movement, the gay rights
movement, the environmental movement, the
consciousness revolution of the 60s, psychedelic drugs,
and rock and roll.
And throughout all this, the wisdom and religions of the
East have been making inroads in the West. Over a
hundred years ago, with the arrival of Swami Vivekananda
in England and the U.S., there began a steady arrival of

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Eastern religious teachers and teachings in the West,

including Buddhism, Hinduism, Advaita Vedanta, Tibetan
Buddhism, Gandhism, Zen Buddhism, Krishnamurti,
Muktananda, Chogyam Trungpa, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
Amma Chi, Rajneesh (OSHO), yoga and meditation,
among others.
These all have helped the cause of new consciousness by
introducing the practice of meditation, as well as the
ideas of enlightenment and the transcendence of the ego.
In addition, these teachings and teachers from the East
have brought the Light of enlightenment itself to the
West, in the form of living teachers of various degrees of
Realization; and truly, there is no greater source of new
consciousness than the living presence of an enlightened
teacher.
And, thus, we see today the One Who is Himself the
ultimate source of new consciousness, Adi Da Samraj,
who is, Himself, Conscious Light, and the greatest Giver of
enlightenment and Realization to all beings.
So, we find ourselves in the most dramatic point in human
history, where the Divine Person has emerged at the very
moment when humanity faces its greatest threats and
challenges.

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What is Cooperation +Tolerance = Peace?

The phrase Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace is a Universal

Law revealed and given by the Divine World Teacher
Adi Da Samraj. Following is an excerpt from a pamphlet
He wrote of the same name:
I Call every one and all to consider at least the political
and broad social fulfillment of My Avataric Divine Wisdom
Teaching, via the active embrace of every form of true
and benign social and political cooperation and allembracing social and political tolerance - since such
cooperation and tolerance are the prerequisites for true
social and political peace.
I Call upon all the leaders and educators of mankind (now,
and forever hereafter) to actively embrace, and to
universally declare and promote, and to actively require
and measure the universal real fulfillment of My simplest
Law and Measure of Man:
Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace.
Adi Da Samraj
(for more on Adi Das call for a global cooperative world
order, please see His books, I give you the gift of one
another, Not Two Is Peace, and Eleutherios, 2001
edition.)

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A plan to reduce murders in Oakland

by one-half in 10 years
The City of Oakland has experienced a 20 year average of
111.8 homicides per year. The City of Oakland suffers a
9/11s worth of homicides every 2 years and 7 months.
It is long past due for the Mayor of Oakland to step
forward and show true leadership, vision and compassion
in order to make significant reductions in murder and
violence within our City. To this end, I am offering the
Mayor and our community the following ideas and
strategies that will enable us to significantly reduce the
rate of murder and violence in the City of Oakland.
First, set a collective goal to reduce homicides in Oakland
by one-half in 10 years, and by ninety percent in 20 years.
Visualizing success is one of the keys to realizing it.
- Invite Spiritual Deputies into the Mayors counseling
circle; these would be community leaders and visionaries
who would offer counsel to the Mayor. Seemingly
intractable human problems like violence and homicide
require an appeal to Gods Grace, and for the wise
understanding among the leaders to employ policies that
actually work at reducing violence at its source.
- Youth Centers opened in Oakland with division of space
into at least three areas, for Loudness, Learning and
Lounging. Every center would always have adult social
directors on duty to instruct, encourage and guide the
youth. (Please also see my proposal for the 24 Hour Youth
Multiplexes.)
- Place billboards around the city with catchy harmreduction slogans, like: De-escalation, discussion and

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dispute resolution, as well as information about reducing

violence, who to call, where to go, etc.
- The Mayor can truly show an example of leadership by
publicly fasting and praying after each murder in Oakland.
Others in the city would be encouraged to join the Mayor
in fasting and praying when murders occur, and this
would bring a new consciousness and focus to the issue.
- The Mayor and members of the community could visit
the families of the murdered and the murderers, and
offer their prayers, presence and help.
- A section of the police force should be allowed to
employ non-violent means of policing. Instead of carrying
and using lethal weapons, this nonviolent police squad
would employ conflict resolution, skilled intervention,
prayer, de-escalation and other nonviolent and harmreduced methods. This would set another example of
non-violence for the citizens.
- Nonviolence should be taught in all public schools in
Oakland. The Mayor should speak to groups at the public
schools and show video tapes or introduce live speakers
who can talk first hand about the effects that murders in
Oakland have had on their lives, as well as teach and
demonstrate to the youth the various non-violent
methods to address the problems.
- Employment, detox and counseling services should be
guaranteed to each person released from jail or prison in
Oakland. This would help reduce crimes committed by
people who are getting out of jail.

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- One day a month should be devoted by each citizen of

the city to prayer, fasting, contemplation and social
service citywide in Oakland.
- Neighborhood volunteers would take their turn as
social directors, easily identified by distinctive clothing
or designation, who wander the neighborhoods on foot or
bike, helping to resolve disputes when called, and
connecting people in need with the appropriate referrals
and resources. Social directors would work closely with
police to pre-emptively reduce violence.
- Artists and Musicians in Oakland should be enlisted to
get the message about non-violence, harm reduction and
cooperative community out to Oakland residents through
all available media channels.
- A survey of the city should be made of all streets that
dont have trees, and a tree planting campaign put in
place to make sure there are trees on every street.
- The Mayor should initiate and support a gun buyback
program in Oakland so that the number of handguns
could be reduced in the city.
- The Mayor should help to create an Oakland Memorial
for all those in Oakland who have been murdered. In
addition, the gun buyback program could supply materials
for a gun sculpture, that would take all donated and
purchased firearms and weld them into an artistic
sculpture of destroyed guns. Once a year a city holiday
would commemorate the dead and redouble our
collective commitment to meeting our violence and
homicide reduction goals.

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- The Mayor should support legalization of all drugs within

the City of Oakland. A large proportion of the violence
taking place in Oakland is driven by the prohibition
against drugs. Drugs on the black market have highly
inflated prices, which attracts people into the business of
selling them. With no legal means of dispute resolution,
illicit drug sellers resort to street violence to resolve
territorial disputes or bad business deals. By removing the
black market for drugs, we could eliminate most of the
violence. The City of Oakland must take local
responsibility for the taxing and regulation of the sale of
marijuana, ampthetamine, heroin, cocaine and
psychedelics, etc. for the sake of the health and well being
of the residents of the City.
- Education in non-violence should be made available to
every child in Oakland, on or before the 6th grade, the 9th
grade and the 12th grade.
- Arts and music programs should be availabe to every
youth during every year of their public education.
- The Mayor should require that all programs, policies and
initiatives have a certain amount of budget allotted for
the scientific study of the consequences and outcome of
the programs over time. Without this kind of objective
and consistent feedback, we have no way of knowing if
we are throwing good money after bad. We must always
directly monitor the results of our policies, and provide
the resources necessary to do so.
Through these measures Oakland will stand as a beacon
of intelligent and compassionate leadership for the whole
world to follow.

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Saving America
Or, the fundamental need to confront and roll back any
and all fascist tendencies, or fascism outright, here in
America, and how to pursue this through the ending of all
prohibitions against consenting behaviors that do little or
no harm to person or property.
Fascist tendencies and fascism outright in America
America has been tainted from birth by atrocities and
genocide; our great democracy and its history have been
shadowed at every step by a dark tide of fascist
tendencies and fascism outright. Americas fascism began
with the genocide committed against the American
Indians, and continued with the enslavement of African
Americans. In addition, the scourge of fascism was
extended by the witholding of the vote from women.
America has not been exempt from the terrible tide of
darkness that has gripped China, Russia, Europe and other
parts of the world we too, are at risk of falling prey to
our own fascist tendencies here at home.
Fascist tendencies in the United States exhibit
themselves, in part, through the suppression and
persecution of those people involved in certain
consenting behaviors. Governments have no right to
punish, persecute and oppress people involved in
consenting behaviors where there is little or no harm to
person or property.
The following list represents fascist suppressions that
have only recently been rolled back.
1. The imprisoning + persecution of homosexuals

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2. The imprisoning + persecution of interracial

couples
3. The imprisoning + persecution of adulterers
4. The imprisoning + persecution of communists
5. The imprisoning + persecution of people who
have anal or oral sex.
The following list represents fascist suppressions that we
have yet to roll back.
1. The imprisoning + persecution of prostitutes and
the customers of prostitutes
2. The imprisoning + persecution of drug users and
drug dealers
3. The imprisoning + persecution of gang members
4. The imprisoning + persecution of people who
have consenting incest with each other
5. The imprisoning + persecution of people who are
naked in public
The same men that condone the prohibition against
public viewing of human nakedness are also responsible
for sending the machines of death, war and hatred into
other countries, and causing murder and mayhem to the
citizens of that other country. So, they censor the human
body at home, and they lay waste to the human body
abroad.
And the same men who give the orders to send men off to
war, are the very ones who proclaim that graphic displays
of human nudity and sexuality are obscene and
therefore subject to fines and punishments.
And the same men who build and possess gigantic
arsenals of nuclear weapons, are the very ones who
loudly proclaim their indignation and outrage that Janet

24

Jackson would expose her breast and nipple to the

American masses, at half-time, during the Superbowl.
So, the culture of war is fundamentally associated with
arbitrary prohibitions against adult consenting behaviors,
such as, published expressions of human nudity and
sexuality, gay marriage, prostitution, abortion, underage
sexuality, sex education, and drug use.
This is their policy, and they even claim Gods own
righteous command to pursue it. Religious faith is used
worldwide as a justification for war, not least here in the
United States, where presidents and congresspeople
dress themselves in the garments of religious
righteousness, and then send the machines of war around
the world to commit crimes against humanity.
I put before you that there is no legitimacy whatsoever to
the idea that God grants humans a moral justification to
pursue war and systematic violence against ones fellows.
We must shatter, once and for all, any claims of legitimacy
that war, murder and violence now enjoy among policy
makers and heads of state, or the people at large.
Jesus himself never took up swords or weapons against
his enemies, nor did he approve that others should take
up swords and weapons against their enemies. His story is
uniquely lacking in any war making. Indeed, the correct
disposition of America is the same as the disposition
demonstrated by Jesus, that of self-sacrifice, compassion
and non-violence, even in the face of provocation of the
most dire and desperate kind.
Revenge and plunder are never condoned or justified
anywhere in the teaching of Jesus, and yet nations and

25

states accord themselves the right to bomb, murder and

kill the citizens of other states while pursuing the
mandates of revenge and plunder.
So, to cut right to the heart of any supposed legitimacy
that war and violence now enjoy, I propose that we
pursue the policy and process of rolling back and phasing
out any and all prohibitions against consenting adult
behaviors where there are little or no harms to person or
property. Our active intention to undo all tides of fascist
tendencies and fascism outright here in America requires
us to seriously undertake the systematic ending of all
prohibitions against consenting behaviors.
By undermining the legitimacy of prohibitions against
consenting behaviors, we are also simultaneously
undermining the legitimacy of war. The culture of war
necessitates that fear and prejudice be maintained and
duly exercised through the arbitrary condemnation of
legitimate and less-harmful consenting human behaviors,
while simultaneously glorifying and legitimizing human
behaviors that are murderous and genocidal on a mass
scale.
We will starve this system of its capacity to generate fear
and prejudice by stripping prohibitions against consenting
behaviors of any of their legitimacy. The engine of fear
and prejudice which drives war will then lose much of its
fuel. As Camus pointed out in his book Neither victims
nor executioners, murder is a voluntary human behavior;
since it is done by humans, it can be undone by them, or
simply abstained from, if we decide that that behavior has
no moral legitimacy. Absent the legitimacy, war and
violence will fall out of practice.

26

And all of this becomes a tremendous moral obligation,

because if we fail in our collective task, the human race
will continue to face unending wars and possible nuclear
annihilation.

Saving America from Republicanism

27

When dealing with ones enemies, one must know as

much as possible about them. Since World War II, the
greatest enemy of the United States has been
Republicans. This is not to say that Democrats, and
others, havent also been full of corrupt and destructive
tendencies; but Republicans have exemplified the worst
aspects of corruption and destructiveness in the United
States, and brought the most ruin and disrepute to our
nation and the world.
A quick overview illustrates the darkness and evil meted
out by Republicans upon America. Nixon deepened
Americas involvement in Viet Nam, allowing the
destruction of tens of thousands of Americans, and
millions of South-East Asians, for a war that was not
justified. He and his evil visionary sidekick Kissinger,
ordered the secret bombing of Cambodia. And he spied
on and persecuted his own citizens with ruthless
paranoia.
Ronald Reagan gave support and legitimacy to fascist
governments and death squads in Latin America, while
also running up the biggest budget deficit in American
history. He also encouraged financial corruption through
the deregulation of the Savings and Loan industry, such
that taxpayers had to bail out its collapse. He ruthlessly
pillaged our natural environment and undermined
environmental protection. He crippled and neglected the
development of alternative energy. And he was a callous
individual, always capable of turning his back on the
weakest segments of society, such as the poor, minorities
and those with AIDS. And, tellingly, he made light of
nuclear war when he joked, the bombing begins in five
minutes.

28

George Bush the first, continued the trend of war,

bombing civilians in Iraq in order to repel Saddam Hussein
from Kuwait.
George Bush the second, and his evil visionary sidekick
Dick Cheney, have shown the world some of the worst
that Republicans can do, when they are really allowed to
cut loose. GB2 has plunged us into two disastrous wars,
killing thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of
Iraqis and Afganis, based on lies and bad strategy to
protect our homeland. He has grievously neglected the
Israeli/Palestinian peace process, which is the heart of
tensions in the Middle East. He has provoked Muslim fury
throughout the world, endangering Israel in the process, a
country with a hundred nukes, and surrounded by hostile
neighbors. He sat passively while our nation was under
direct attack, and may be directly complicit in 9/11. He
has overseen and fostered a culture of widespread
corruption amongst his Republican allies through white
collar crime, lobbying scandals, influence peddling and
giving out no-bid government contracts to his cronies. He
has undermined the environment and resisted taking
action on alternative energy and global warming. He has
perpetuated a culture of voting fraud and manipulation.
He has degraded the rule of law, habeas corpus, and due
process, while encouraging torture. He has neglected
diplomacy with North Korea, while encouraging nuclear
proliferation in India and Pakistan.
So what is really at the heart of Republicanism? If there
were a 12 steps program for recovering Republicans, the
two main issues the program would have to deal with are
rapacious greed and the will to mass-self destruction.
Both of these issues stem from a basic characteristic of
ego, which is the feeling of being a trapped animal under
constant threat. The psyche of the trapped animal knows

29

that it is trapped in a body that is going to die, that it is

threatened by death in every moment, and it is
fundamentally longing for one last act of desperate
release, so that it can escape its body, because it hates its
body and it hates the world.
All humans suffer this psychology of the trapped animal,
but Republicans merely represent its most exaggerated
form; and when they hold the levers of power, we all run
the risk of being bystanders in their last act of desperate
release.
Dick Cheneys philosophy of perpetual war is the perfect
illustration of trapped animal psychology. It follows that,
in a world with weapons of mass destruction available,
perpetual war leads eventually to some provocation that
justifies their use. So, buried in the dark vision of
perpetual war, is the great end-game of modern warfare,
nuclear war. So it follows that Dick Cheney and those like
him, are really pursuing an agenda to destroy the world.
This is why I propose as one of the chief motivations of
Republicanism, an active desire and agenda to destroy the
world. Death and mass destruction are an active urge
motivating their policies, consciously or unconsciously.
The second issue the 12 steps program for recovering
Republicans would have to deal with is rapacious greed. It
can be observed that some humans, when faced with
imminent total destruction, begin to loot, pillage and fuck
with amoral glee, driven by a base instinctual urge to
binge on pleasurable riches until the last possible
moment. The apocalyptic ideology of many right wing
Christians could be driving this behavior among the
Republican ruling classes. Go ahead and steal as much as
you can now, because this world is dead meat.

30

There is one other insight about Republicans I would like

to share with you before I propose the solution. This is a
more esoteric explanation, based on teachings by a
channeled entity named Michael. The Michael Teaching
explains how each human being is a specific soul age
based on how many lifetimes, or re-incarnations, that
person has experienced on Earth. Soul ages range from
infant souls, who have recently been born out of the Tao,
to old souls, who have been around many times. In
between are the young souls, and Michael describes their
unique characteristics. Young souls are driven, almost
sexually, to acquire power at any cost. They are not strong
in empathy and human connection, and war, murder and
mayhem are all a perfectly acceptable price to pay to
further their agenda. Most of historys worst dictators,
and many Republican leaders are, of course, young souls.
By Michaels account, the average soul age of the Earth
recently passed from young to mature. The golden era
(or dark age) of young soul dominance is waning, and
young souls are desperate to hang on to all the power
they can, even in a world that is close to collapsing from
several thousand years of their young soul games. The
nail-biting drama of our age is whether humanity will
mature quickly enough to save itself from the worst of its
self-created young soul nightmare.
So, how do we save ourselves from the threat of
Republicanism? I think that you cant really get rid of
Republicans or Republicanism, but you can reduce or
contain the threat of Republicanism, simply as another
form of harm reduction. The goal is to reduce and contain
the threat sufficiently to get the world and the human
race through the most dangerous challenges in the times
ahead.

31

Simply, we must expose all of their actions, hold them

accountable for all their actions, and finally, through the
exposure of all of their worst deeds, to, fundamentally
and forever, critically destroy the legitimacy of their
program. Destroying the legitimacy of their policies is the
way to keep them and their policies politically
marginalized forever, and to allow new paradigms of
cooperative and prior unity-based leadership to take their
place.

32

Global Intervention
through global cooperative culture
and a regenerated United Nations
Some commentators have cast aspersions and doubts
upon the United Nations capacity to be relevant and
effectual in the world situation today. Does the U.N. have
the power to enforce the will of humanity in such trouble
spots as Darfur or Iraq or Syria?
It serves the right wing interests in the United States to
keep the U.N. underfunded and underappreciated,
because they know that it is the U.N. and the
International Criminal Court that has a real mandate and
obligation to investigate and bring to justice the chief war
criminals of the present age, and a few from the recent
past as well. It is the U.N., in concert with the members of
the U.N. Security Council, the Global Cooperative Forum,
the European Union, and the indigenous tribes and
autonomous nations of the world, who have the right and
prerogative to intervene pre-emptively and non-violently
in the internal affairs of any country that is the source of
crimes against humanity or violations of universal human
rights, within or without their own borders.
We have seen a certain chill collect around such
characters as Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, George Bush
Sr. and George Bush Jr., as the likes of Pinochet,
Milosovic, Saddam Hussein, and the Nazis have been
brought before international courts to answer for war
crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. We have
even seen echoes of this same demand for accountability
in the corporate world, with the likes of Ken Lay, Fastow,
Skilling, and others, being put in jail for vast campaigns of
corporate criminality. It is logical and natural that fair and
just standards of prosecuting misconduct should be

33

applied evenly and fairly wherever the need arises. The

past U.S. war against Viet Nam, as well as the pre-emptive
invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United States,
satisfy the standards of misconduct that must be
proportionately prosecuted and punished.
The particular kinds of misconduct that constitute crimes
against humanity are readily observable in the policies of
the Bush regime. Their pursuit and practice of perpetual
war, their suspension of habeas corpus and other civil
rights, their pre-emptive military invasions of sovereign
countries, based on false or invalid pretexts, their cruelty
and reckless incompetence, their torture and illegal
detentions, their cover-ups, conspiracies, and marshall
law, and their out-and-out corruption and abuse of power
at every level; these, and more, are all the punishable and
prosecutable crimes of the current U.S. government.
Therefore, I, as a citizen of the United States, and a citizen
of the world, call upon the United Nations to immediately
intervene in the affairs of the United States for the
specific purpose of bringing the standing President, as
well as certain of his administration, before the
International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
I call upon the Global Community to intervene in my
country, the United States, in a firm but compassionate
way, so that the gross and unconscionable acts of
violence committed by my country may be reduced or
brought within survivable limits. America must be
redeemed, and brought as an equal entity to the table of
nations, purged of its sins through a just and due process.
The most evil actors in our midst must be dealt with in the
same way that we deal with all thugs and dictators,
through bringing them to task for their actions, and
demanding that full and appropriate punishments and

34

restitutions be exacted from them. And certainly, in due

course, they are deprived of their rights and privilege to
rule, for as long as is fit and necessary.
Other similar Global Interventions by the Global
Community will also be required in such areas as Israel
and Palestine, China and Tibet, India and Pakistan, Iraq
and Iran, Burma and North Korea, Darfur and Colombia,
etc. Such interventions may also be required to deal with
the amount of violent crime, inadequate health care,
species extinctions, global warming, etc. generated by the
largest and most powerful countries within and beyond
their borders.
The U.N. will enact a tax payable for every life taken by a
government through warfare, starvation, neglect or massproduced crises. All governments will be required to pay
murder taxes to the Global Body as restitution for their
evil deeds. The exact same standards of behavior that we
expect from individuals, that require that we punish
individual deeds of abuse, theft and murder, will apply in
a due, just and proportional manner, to all those
governments that pursue policies of plunder and revenge
through, lies, corruption and military violence.
All nuclear governments must be compelled and
persuaded to relinquish all of their nuclear arsenals, by
the universal will of the Global community of humanity,
until there are no launchable nuclear weapons owned by
any of the major world governments. Any governments
that persist in the deployment of weapons of mass
destruction will be required to pay insurance to the
Global Body that can pay for all of the human deaths and
environmental destruction that could occur from the use
of these weapons. And the use of nuclear weapons by any
government, or other group, will be fully punishable as

35

war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, at the

International Criminal Court with the auspices of the U.N.
and autonomous worldwide communities.
But what sort of institution can be entrusted with such
grave duties? Clearly the United Nations is in a corrupt
state, where violent military intervention is still tolerated,
and where non-violent armies and diplomatic efforts are
still underserved. As well, the Security Council is still
dominated by nuclear governments with long histories of
the worst abuses and crimes against humanity. The
Security Council must be expanded to include all
countries, governments and autonomous global
communities, so that all of their and our interests can be
served on an equal basis. In addition, the U.N. must be
converted progressively to the principles and practices of
non-violence and harm reduction.
The precepts of cooperation and tolerance, as well as
prior unity, as put forth by the Divine World Teacher
Adi Da Samraj, must become the active working
presumption of the United Nations, and participating
countries, nations and groups. The newly emergent
Global Cooperative Forum, as proposed by Adi Da in Not
Two IS Peace, will become the effective political voice of
all global citizens, in concert with the United Nations.
The U.N. must become functionally co-axial with the
movements and interests of autonomous global
communities, such as Adidam, the Nation of Islam,
Buddhist lineages, TM, Oshos people, Burning Man, the
Rainbow People, Raves, the Community, Native and
Indigenous tribes and nations, the Farm, etc., etc., etc. In
this way, the principles of intimate human scale
community and cooperation are respected and allowed to

36

thrive in myriads of forms, even within the theatre of

emerging Global Citizenship.
The U.N. will restore and redeem itself also through the
generous, fair-minded, transparent, and creative use of all
the funds collected through fines, levies, punishments and
taxes from misbehaving governments and multi-national
corporations, as well as through the positive use of the
funds freed up from shrinking militaries and prisons.
Great humanitarian global ventures, toward renewable
and sustainable energy, agriculture and mutual human
reconciliation will spawn and thrive across the globe,
through benevolent partnership between the U.N. and
the Global Cooperative Forum and a rainbow spectrum of
human communities.
Violence at the top levels of government, the U.N. and the
global corporatization system (WTO, et al), must be
phased out. Standing violent militaries, prisons and
violent police forces will and must ultimately shrink, or be
converted to non-violent forms. And throughout all of
this, the power, influence and obligations of the United
Nations will steadily grow. The vanguard of global
leadership that honors and practices the teachings of the
Enlightened Masters, such as Jesus, Buddha, Mahatma
Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the galactic
community and Adi Da Samraj, will drive the processes of
transformation and purification required within the U.N.
and the global cultures of humankind.

37

The Save Adidam plan

Why is saving Adidam important, even to people who
arent (yet) devotees of Adi Da? Adidam is the only
authorized source of Adi Das Wisdom and Way, and it is
this Wisdom and Way which affords humanity the means
to authentically practice the transcendence of the ego
and ego culture.
Adidam is showing signs of decline in several key areas:
The Fear-No-More Zoo, The Orpheum Tent, Seigler
Springs road, and the Bright Room Tent, for example. In
addition, I heard a report that the numbers of devotees
and the amount of dollars coming in have been declining
in Adidam each month.
Adidam can't save itself from within its existing pattern.
Something new must emerge. If it is true that the only
thing that can save the world from destruction is the
Global Cooperative Forum, then it could also be true that
the only thing that can save Adidam is the Global
Cooperative Forum.
Given the many urgent global matters that the GCF must
address, including the systematic reduction and
elimination of warfare and nuclear weapons, why would
creating a conversation with Adidam also be a top priority
for the Global Cooperative Forum?
A top reason for the GCF to get involved in the selfrightening and saving of Adidam is that the Way of Adi Da
is the only means for humans to transcend their egos and
ego culture, and thereby eliminate warfare (and all the
other ego-made global threats) at the root, at the ego
itself. Adidam has a unique historic role to play in helping
humanity convert from the ego culture to the ego

38

transcending Way of life. Therefore, we have to save

Adidam if we want to save the world.
By engendering the Global Cooperative Forum with our
intimate communities and applying the Forum to a
specific issue, such as saving Adidam, we help insure the
future of Adi Da's world Work, which improves the
chances for the human race.
But how does this process actually work?
When a group of us has read Not Two Is Peace and
publicly affirmed Prior Unity, we are in the position to
help create a context for a certain kind of conversation to
happen. That conversation happens in the context of Prior
Unity, non-separateness, and "no enemies". This is a
uniquely neutral atmosphere in which all interested
parties can bring up any issue and be heard in a non-tribal
context.
When the people of Adidam have resort to conversations
in this context, the problems and issues of Adidam can be
dealt with in a self-rightening and self-managing manner,
as always, with the guidance of the Sacred Authority of
Adidam (the Ruchira Sannyasin Order). This will allow
Adidam to righten itself from within a new pattern, the
pattern established by the Global Cooperative Forum.
Of course, this does not mean that the Global Cooperative
Forum has any special interest in or association with
Adidam, any more than it has with any other religion. The
Global Cooperative Forum is involved with Adidam for
primarily public health reasons. Inevitably, the Global
Cooperative Forum will involve itself with issues within
and between many other religions as well, whenever
there are compelling public health reasons to do so.

39

Engendering the Global Cooperative Forum

In order for we the people to save the world, there has to
be a critical mass of us participating in a fully functional
Global Cooperative Forum. But the Global Cooperative
Forum must exist for this to happen.
Proposed here is a list of ways we can start the
Global Cooperative Forum.
1. Create an online survey that allows people to check
boxes for certain statements, such as:
"I affirm prior unity"
"I have read Not-Two Is Peace"
"I vow to serve the interests of everybody-all-at-once"
"I am interested in serving in the Global Cooperative
Forum", etc.
Surveys are starting to happen at
http://www.nottwoispeace.info.
Surveys would also collect people's contact info and
provide links to Not-Two Is Peace online.
http://www.ispeace723.org
This survey would help those people who are most
interested in Prior Unity and the Global Cooperative
Forum identify each other and self-organize. Regional
groups can then form and tie together globally to form
the infrastructure for the Global Cooperative Forum.

40

2. Create a Global Cooperative Forum discussion group

online. (See http://www.ntip.org). Also use social media
to share Not-Two Is Peace and create discussions and
inform people of events.
3. Create and participate in cooperative businesses and
theatrical events informed by Not-Two Is Peace, such as
the everybody all at once All ages show. ^^
http://www.swaybone.net/everybodyallatoncehappening
/
4. Create and participate in regular 723 meetings.
(http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=177987468
938901). These are meetings where people can recite
from Not-Two Is Peace, and plan Prior Unity related
events, campaigns, businesses, etc.
5. A website where people can make-your-own social
contract, using principles of the Global Cooperative Forum
and Not-Two Is Peace. In order for the old civilization to
be relinquished, "A new mode of social contract must
emerge - a mode of social contract not founded on
egoity."
6. Get Not-Two Is Peace to 10 million people. Make sure
that a creative commons license is secured for Not-Two Is
Peace from the copyright holder.
7. Participate in global celebrations on "723" (July 23rd),
and "Light in everybody" (December) every year.
8. Formally convene a meeting of the Global
Cooperative Forum and begin to handle issues or
problems we all have in common.

41

The everybody all at once all ages Happening

The everybody all at once Happening is a live event taking
place at the Humanist Hall in Oakland, California, as well
as at other venues.
The everybody all at once Happening is all ages, and
offers a kid and family friendly place for people to
experience live music, art, theatre, dance and healthy
food and beverages. No alcohol is sold.
The Happening is an event where both child and adult
performers can play.
The Happening is based on the principles of prior unity,
cooperation and self-organization, as described in the
book Not-Two Is Peace.
The Happening is a place of universal sacred space. Why?
It is in the area of the sacred where the worst human
divisions appear. Therefore it is in the area of the sacred
that we need the most healing. The everybody all at once
principle allows us to invoke universal sacred space at the
Happening, a space where the presumption of nondifference is encouraged, and where people can be free
of division, tribalism, sectarianism, etc.
A diversity of artistic forms and faith orientations are
encouraged at the Happening, as part of the inclusive
spirit of everybody all at once.

42

The everybody all at once Happening is a refuge and a

sanctuary for humanity away from the culture of division.
The Happening is a vehicle for art and live performance,
as well as community building and organizing.
The Architecture of the everybody all at once Happening There are certain event design principles that are
observed at every Happening.
1. There are at least two main spaces at every
Happening, one with a stage for live performance, and a
second area as chill space. This allows for relief from the
loudness, and more space for community and culture.
2. There is a retractable projection screen at the front of
the stage, to conceal band change-overs, and allow for
presentations to take place in front of the stage while the
screen is down. When the front of stage screen is rolled
up, there is another projection screen on the wall at the
back of the stage. Digital art projections are used
generously on and above the performers at every
Happening.
3. Lightweight tensegrity shelters and sculptures are used
both indoors and outdoors, made from bamboo, stretch
fabric and rope.

My personal vow of non-violence

43

I declare to God and to all beings that I will respond to any

and all problems that I may face, with no use of physical
violence, and no use of guns or other weapons. I do not
and will never own or use guns. I will never join or
condone any violent military organization for any reason
whatsoever, including personal or national self-defense.
I stand as a benign presence to everyone in the world,
with love for all people and beings, including those who
may seem for a time to be my enemies or opponents. I
demand and require that all those who employ violence
cease and abstain from all use of violence forever. I offer
myself as an example and a building block upon which a
truly peaceful and cooperative human culture can
develop. I challenge and undermine any claim of
legitimacy that violence may enjoy among individuals or
governments. I vow to use all proper means at my
disposal to de-escalate any potentially or actively violent
situations I encounter. I advocate non-violence universally
to all human beings as the best and most effective and
ethical way of life.
If a sufficient critical mass of humanity adopts nonviolence, the human-caused problems of war will be
reduced sufficiently to save our planet and species from
mass destruction.

44

What is Harm Reduction?

Harm reduction is the practice of subjecting all of our
actions to an impartial and comprehensive analysis of all
the harms and all the benefits resulting from any of those
actions. After a thorough process of analyzing the various
harms and benefits of a given action, the sum total of
harms are weighed against the sum total of benefits; if
the harms outweigh the benefits, then the harms are
taxed and discouraged sufficiently to offset the net total
of harm. If the net effect of an activity is beneficial, then
positive incentives are put in place to encourage the
beneficial activities.
Harm reduction is intended to replace, as much as
possible, existing systems of governance that emphasize
prejudice, prohibition and punishment, especially for
crimes of consent (i.e. victimless crimes). It is also a way
to attach appropriate fines and dis-incentives to
behaviors, policies or products that are very harmful to
the public, but have been under-regulated up to the
present.
For example, under a system of harm reduction, the net
total harm caused by the sale of alcohol would be
assessed a financial value, and taxes and fines would be
levied against the manufacturers, sellers and consumers
of alcohol sufficient to offset the sum-total harms caused
by the sale and consumption of alcohol, including
alcoholism, violence, drunk driving and death.
Every type of harm can be ascribed a specific financial
value. How much is each human death worth? How much
does each alcohol related accident cost? All of these costs
would be covered ultimately by the price that people pay

45

for the purchase of alcohol. This would result in an

increase in the price of alcohol, thus resulting in a natural
disincentive for people to pursue the harmful behaviors
associated with alcohol.
Eventually, we will apply harm reduction and harm
benefit analysis to all of our major policies, including war,
nuclear weapons, nuclear energy and the use of
petroleum and tobacco. Under the system of harm
reduction, corporations will find it increasingly difficult to
profit from behaviors that are destructive to the common
good, and they will discover increasing incentives to profit
from actions that are beneficial to the common good.
Harm reduction will become the main purpose and
method of democratic governments, who will allow all of
their policies to be guided by a comprehensive accounting
of the Top 100 problems in the world, their appropriate
prioritization, and the systematic reduction of their
associated harms.

46

My band could be your life A story about Swaybone

Hey, Theo: whats the motto of your life?
Theo: The band, the Plan and the Godman.
This is another way of saying I dedicate my life to
Swaybone the band, Not-Two Is Peace the book,
and Adi Da the Heart Master.
The lyrics I write for Swaybone celebrate Adi Da
and are basically devotee loves Guru.
My lyrics are also a rallying cry for solidarity
within the global human family, and a rock and
roll soundtrack for the emerging civilization that is
based on prior unity.
My lyrics are to wake people up.

The following essay offers some background on my life as

an artist and how my own art has evolved to work within
the Plan.

My life as an artist:
Swaybone is the only band I have been in my entire adult
life. When I founded the first incarnation of the band with
Thom Opal in the mid-Eighties, our general vision was to
re-create, through our music, our experience of tripping
on psychedelic drugs. But which aspects of
consciousness expansion would we try to re-create in
our music? The extraordinary sensual and textural

47

aspects? The joyous and ecstatic aspects? The

revolutionary impulses and insights about society and
reality? The spiritual and God-revealing experiences?
What about the darker aspects of death and fear, the
bad trips? Should those be represented as well?
It turned out to be immensely difficult to translate the
light-speed wonderment of our trips together, and my
trips alone, into a form of music that could be performed
effectively and appreciated by audiences. For his part,
Thom became very skilled at crafting unique and
otherworldly textures with his guitar and ever-evolving
effects set-up. My own limitations as a singer, songwriter,
performer and advocate for the band, however, took
many more years to overcome than I had anticipated.
My one strength from the beginning was as a lyricist. But
in spite of this strength, the grandeur, righteousness and
joy of our best trips never became the resounding core of
our music. Just as the band was established enough to
play live shows and make demo tapes, my life was
transitioning away from the golden era of our best
psychedelic trips, into the darkness of my childhood
memories and family issues that were re-emerging. Old
wounds and insecurities were coming to the forefront of
my consciousness, especially through my relationship to
my first wife, Sheira Kahn, whose love, fearlessness and
resolve helped both of us to dive into difficult emotional
waters, and attempt to heal ourselves and each other.
There was another impediment to boldly expressing our
most expansive psychedelic visions through the bands
music. To do so would require a cohesive psychedelic
culture to be re-established within our community and
society at large. But in our immediate community, Thom
and I were a fragile core of tripping culture, occasionally

48

joined by a few other lovers and friends. But this intimate

drug culture was soon disturbed by personal issues in our
relationships, break-ups and departures, which became
overwhelming.
In the larger world, psychedelic music had only a few
marginal outposts during the 80s, in, for example, Robyn
Hitchcock, the Rain Parade, the Dream Syndicate, the
Three OClock, and some others. But these artists never
achieved the wide appeal of similar artists in the 60s, and
therefore, there was less social support for what we were
trying to do.
So I delved head long into the personal issues that were
intense and unavoidable in my life; I felt I would have to
resolve and heal these issues directly, or risk a life of
intolerable misery. This required constant work with
Sheira, as well as my training and work in the Diamond
Heart School, daily meditation, dream journals, waking
journals, 12 steps, personal therapy, couples therapy and
Neuro-emotional therapy, and couples therapy.
This period of my life spanned 11 years, from age 24 to
35, and ended with Sheira divorcing me, and Thom
leaving the band, in 1998.
One of the comforts and redeeming aspects of this
intensely difficult period was my love affair with
marijuana. Around 94, I started to use pot daily. It
became my solitary discipline to smoke it in my room at
home, or out in nature, and with its help I was able to
maintain a thread of visionary writing, musical
composition, drawing, personal boldness, leadership and
fierce commitment to art, spirituality, as well as personal
and social transformation.

49

I filled dozens of notebooks and hundreds of cassette

tapes with music and writings and ideas. I maintained a
discipline of hours of productive creative work every day.
Through this work, my therapeutic work, and my work
with Sheira, I was able to nurture the foundation for the
band, the Plan and my relationship to the Godman.
My divorce, and the break-up of the band in 1998 left me
at a low ebb in my life. Enter Bunnybunns, who ushered in
the next epoch of my life. She helped me heal and recover
my confidence, so that I could build my recording studio,
re-build the band, and support the life and work of
Warner Williams.
And yet, after these many years as a musician I was
frustrated by the limitations of my singing voice and
songwriting, and lack of an audience for the band. This
frustration was reflected in the darkness of my lyrical
content, which had been influenced by metal and grunge;
and yet I could not mold myself into a convincing hard
rock screamer, such as Chris Cornell or Kurt Cobain. Nor
was I content to settle for the depressed and limited
visions these artists had to offer.
Lingering traces of the psychedelic vision emerged on one
song on my bands 2000 album, Burning Life, called
Transfixed. On it I sang, Sometimes I feel I have a
secret, and I dont want to keep it to myself/ getting down
and begging you, to feel the same way I do. I still
hungered to share the ecstasy and divine revelation of my
highest trips and visions with the masses through our
music.
But it was not until the Summer of 2001, when I had the
chance to see Heart Master Adi Da in person for the first

50

time, that I began to break through these long standing

obstacles in my music, as well as in other areas of my life.
Through a good friend, Mark Comings, I had an
opportunity to have darshan (or sighting of the Guru)
with Adi Da, due to the fact that I had developed
connections in the art world through my work for painter
Warner Williams. Adi Da had recently begun sharing His
Divine Image Art with the world, and people with a
background in the art world had a unique opportunity to
meet Him. In fact, I had been studying Adi Das teaching
since soon after my first LSD trip during college. I was
certain from my first exposure to Adi Da that He was a
Divinely enlightened Godman of the highest degree, and
continued to read His books for the next 20 years.
Two weeks before I was to see Adi Da for the first time, I
began to spontaneously experience a devotional response
to Him, and a desire to take up the practices and
disciplines of the Way of Adidam. Not only was my heart
attraction to Him suddenly growing, but my positive
disillusionment with all of my previous forms of seeking
were increasingly apparent; I felt I had exhausted all of
my other alternatives to surrendering to the Heart
Master, and yet I was still experiencing intolerable levels
of fear, worry and guilt.
I saw my Master for the first time on July 7, 2001, which
was an emotionally overwhelming experience that utterly
confirmed for me that I was His devotee forever. I signed
my eternal vow to Him on August 31, 2003.
His Presence and Wisdom began to influence my music
and lyrics. Instead of trying to recover my sense of the
Divine through a few psychedelic experiences from years
ago, my lyrics became infused with the vision of Him, His

51

Teaching and the turning of my life and art to Him. At the

same time, my voice suddenly developed a natural power
that gave me the means to fully express these lyrics, in a
more open, fluid way, without the strain, and forced
aggression. In addition, I began to write and record songs
at an unprecedented rate, with my bandmate, drummer
Jack Meyers. This enabled me to increase my confidence
as a songwriter and recording engineer, resulting in the
breakthrough song of my life up to that point, Divine
Solution, on Bones you can trust (2007).
As an artist I could never be satisfied until I had made an
album that fully met my artistic standards, and also had a
message that possessed spiritual depth and relevance to
the human condition. As the album Bones you can trust
neared completion, I realized I had finally met my own
standards, and started to turn my attention to collecting
some of my writings on The Plan into a physical and
cohesive form.
As this book has achieved a cohesive form, the three main
movements of my life - the band, the Plan and the
Godman, are ready to be shared with the world.
As of this writing, the band is back to being a complete
four piece, with our latest album, Bones you can trust
released and on the market.
So what is my plan for Swaybone, and how does that fit in
with the Plan, and my practice of devotion to Adi Da
and His Mission?
At the most basic level, my goal for the band is that it be
successful enough to support the livelihoods of its
members. I want to tour with the band throughout the
world, and play as many shows as we can. While doing

52

this, I want to participate in events and happenings that

support the Plan, Not-Two Is Peace, and Adi Da, while
creating a sacred space with our audience that is the living
example of radiance and cooperative community in the
world.
By doing all this I am serving what I love the most,
Adi Da, music and the world.

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Science=Psychedelic Drugs=God
My teenage atheism, inherited from my father, aligned
with my interest in science and medicine, to form the
limits of my vision as a seventeen year-old. But my first
acid trip, at age eighteen, instantly re-awakened me to my
spiritual path with God, and soon after, my life long
practice of meditation began.
My positive orientation toward science continued after
my psychedelic initiation, but it grew to include the
primary data I was collecting through my use of
psychedelics and pot with my best friend at the time
Thom. We both knowingly consented to use our own
minds and bodies as laboratories to discover the breadth
of possible experiences exploring new realms of
consciousness. We tripped almost weekly, often in the
hills above Berkeley Campus, including Strawberry
Canyon, as well as the beach South of Stinson near Slide
Ranch, and RCA beach, North of Stinson.
Thom and I both shared an academic grounding in
science, and this dovetailed naturally with our bold and
playful explorations with pot and acid and mushrooms.
For us, science naturally includes personal
experimentation with psychedelic drugs, especially when
that experimentation is done in the spirit of joyful
discovery and self-understanding. We increased our skills
in navigating through mind blowing visions, body melting
ecstasies, wild humor, awed discoveries, ego dissolving
telepathic communication, and a few treacherous and
difficult trips. These trips taught both of us many of our
most important lessons about perception, consciousness,
reality and existence. The mushroom and acid

54

experiences often achieved an intensity that rivaled or

exceeded all other experiences.
My most significant trips were the most ecstatic ones,
including a few where I identified completely with God,
and ceased, for a time, to identify as an ego or separate
self. These God trips fundamentally changed my
understanding of existence. Now I saw that all is God, and
God is where I will ultimately end up, as I become
enlightened. After those trips, I tacitly assumed that I
was God, that all are God, and that God is the ultimate
inevitability for all of us. These God trips occurred in 1984,
1985, 1988 and again in 2000/2001. In July 2001 I saw Adi
Da for the first time and became His devotee.
Tripping had helped prepare me for the existence of a
Godman who is offering enlightenment and Divine
Realization to all beings. My Godtrips on psychedelics had
caused me to identify with God, thus generating the
expectation that enlightenment in my case was possible,
if not inevitable.
Based on the accumulated wisdom of my tripping and
spiritual experiences and insights, I can propose the
following equation:
Science=psychedelic drugs=God
Science had given me the gift and miracle of L.S.D., as well
as the scientific method of self-exploration. L.S.D. had
restored to me the vision of my spiritual path and my
relationship with God.
While this was going on, I was gamely trying to unify and
harmonize the disparate fields of science and liberal arts
in my curriculum at CAL Berkeley. But there was an

55

ideological abyss between these different disciplines, and

I could never find a teacher, a department, or a course
that was seriously trying to integrate the two great fields
of academia. In the West, we still suffer from rigid and
arbitrary divisions between art, science and religion. They
each exist on mutually exclusive terms in most parts of
mainstream society. But I was developing ways to
integrate them in my own life, especially through
psychedelics, music, writing, meditation and Nature. For
example, music involves art, as well as science, in the
form of electric guitars, amps, effects and computers, and
religion, in the form of ecstatic communion at live shows.
Integrating and harmonizing things or beings that have
been arbitrarily or unnecessarily alienated from each
other is one of my key strategies. This work continues,
through my efforts to foster reconciliation between
erstwhile alienated camps, such as between Christianity
and Science, and Christianity and fully expressed and
liberated human sexuality.
For example, in Swaybones song, Prophecy of Now, I
describe a vision of humanity evolving all the way from
apes to Jesus Christ, which helps to bring together the
ideologies of Christianity and science, as well as re-state
the obvious, namely that evolution and God might be
perfectly compatible with each other.
Whenever there are arbitrary divisions and sectarian
animosities, I look for means of reconciliation, synthesis,
integration and harmony between them all. I always
assume that there are creative ways for cooperation and
tolerance to be increased in every situation, and I feel
compelled at heart to advance this process continually.

56

So, in conclusion, Marijuana and Psychedelic drugs have

been absolutely critical for me personally, in getting to a
place whre I could both create the Plan, and become a
devotee of Adi Da.

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Following is an exercise in overcoming arbitrary divisions

between religions; how many similarities between
Christianity and Buddhism can you find?
Below is a brief comparison of the practices and principles
of two of the worlds greatest prophetic and Godman
based religions. By looking at core similarities between
religions, we can begin to see the prior unity that
underlies them.

1.
2.
3.

Christianity
sin
mercy, forgiveness
becoming as Christ

4.
5.
6.
7.

sacrifice of self
chanting
contemplation
prayer

Buddhism
suffering
compassion
Samadhi,
Nirvana, Enlightenment
surrender of self
chanting
meditation
prayer

Phrases or mottos that both Christians and Buddhists can

understand.
My ego is the source of all sin.
My ego is the source of all suffering.

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More projects and proposals for the Plan

The everybody all at once all ages Happening
The everybody all at once ages Happening is a familyfriendly music event that has a separate chill space where
people can take a break from the loud live bands playing
in the other room. The chill space has lots of soft places to
recline, and DJ chill music playing at conversational levels.
In the other room, live bands play on the main stage,
which is elevated. There are light shows around the main
stage using both stage lighting and an LCD projector
showing a variety of cool and artistic imagery.
There is also a place where people can audition and
purchase recordings of music by select bands and artists,
purchase merchandise, and sign up for street teams.
Public speaking, featuring educational, political and
spiritual content will take place, as well as live DJs and
dancing later in the evening.
Every Rock and Roll party is all ages; this is critical to
helping restore youth audiences to the live music scene.
Replacing alcohol with sophisticated and stimulating
healthy beverages is key to the success of the Rock and
Roll Party, because it is the regulation of alcohol that
keeps youth out of the clubs; alternative beverages will
help to replace the revenue that alcohol has provided to
the clubs in the past.
The Rock and Roll Party will help raise the vibe of the
live music scene, and make it more inviting, enriching and
positive. This, in turn, will help to enhance and strengthen
the arts and culture economy, a key element of the Plan.

59

A Vision for humanity

We in the global community of humanity demand an end
to all warfare from all gangs, states, governments, and
other thug bureaucracies. Gangsters and thugs, like
George Bush Jr. and his dad, (top-ranked killers, right up
there with Darfur) must renounce violence in their
capacities as elected leaders, and accept the unity and
harmony of all humanity, or face the penalties and
obligations meted out by the International Criminal Court,
and the Global Cooperative Forum.
The Great New Vision of humanity includes the following
demands and decrees:
1. End all war
2. Dismantle all nuclear weapons
3. Stop the ego culture in its tracks, including within all
of the ruling elites of states, militaries, religions and
corporations, holding them all accountable for their past
actions.
4. Create a new civilization based on cooperative culture
and prior unity, (as described in Not Two is Peace, I
give you the gift of one another and Eleutherios - 2001
Edition by Adi Da).

5. Work with the U.N.; build, defend, purify and extend

the U.N. in accord with grassroots peace movements,
cooperative worldwide cultures, and the guidance of wise
leaders, including the teachings of the True Spiritual
Masters and Adi Da Samraj.

60

6. Build and celebrate together in Global Temples of

World Religious Unity
7. Build and expand the Global Green Party
8. Create reconciliation between the Abrahamic religions
(i.e. Judaism, Islam and Christianity), and the Goddess
and tribal and earth based religions.
9. Restore the Three-legged stool of global culture, i.e.
the natural harmony between the religions of the East,
the religions of the West, and the indigenous and tribal
religions.

61

The power of womens culture

I support the furtherance of womens cultures that are
based on Truth, responsible use of power, acceptance of
partnership with the Earth, and the principles of global
cooperation and prior unity. I look to the ascendance of
female power to help phase out male dominance and the
egregious abuses and burdensome legacies of patriarchy.
The Vision of the Goddess
With the ascendance of female power on the Planet, the
Goddess based religions will enjoy a great resurgence.
Generally, the Goddess cultures of the world will be
rehabilitated and strengthened in the esteems of the
global community of humanity.
The GodIS Movement
The GodIS Movement celebrates the Vision of the
Goddess in many forms, including the worship of Shakti,
Durga, Mother Mary, Mary Magdalen, Elizabeth I, Isis, Kali
and the Goddesses of Nature.
The GodIS movement proclaims: I am God, you are God,
Nature is God, everything is in God, God is all there is.
Mottos:
He and She is Me.
Everything arises in the One Who Is always already the
case.
What we are up to in the GodIS Movement:
Serving the Goddess.
Loving the Goddess.
Defending the Goddess.

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Worshipping the Goddess.

Surrendering to the Goddess.
The GodIS Movement supports the reconciliation
between the earth religions and the prophetic and
Godman-based religions of the world. The GodIS
movement assists the global human community in
purifying itself of patriarchy.
In the GodIS movement we each declare ourselves to be a
Universal citizen of the global human community, and we
recognize the Universal human rights of all people.
More GodIS SLOGANS:
God is the body and the body is God.
God is Nature and Nature is God.
God is prior to and beyond all experiences in
body and mind.

63

On whose shoulders?
An evolving inventory of heroes:
Who are my leading lights? Who do I look to for
inspiration within the Plan?
First and foremost Adi Da Samraj.
And then there are the modern day female saints:
Kali Ma, Gangaji, Amma Chi, Chidvilisananda, Quandra
Sukapur, Nadikanta
Other people I love... these all represent some of the
leading luminaries of the great progressive culture of
humanity:
Zen Master Rama, Muktananda, Nityananda, Jesus,
Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King, Jr., Rajneesh (OSHO), Bobby Kennedy, Thomas
Paine, Nietzche, Van Gogh, Edward Munch, Matisse,
Gauguin, Leonardo Da Vinci, Andy Warhol, Karl Marx,
Freud, Kinsey, Wilhelm Reich, Thomas Jefferson, Ben
Franklin, Elizabeth I, Abe Lincoln, Charlie Chaplin, Louis
Armstrong, Sam Clemens, Walt Whitman, Louis
Farrakhan, Socrates, Hameed Ali, the Diamond Heart
School, Jim Morrison, Michaelle Small Wright, Perelandra,
Gandhi, Bono, Theo Cedar, Stanley Cedar, Michael the
Channeled Entity, Tom Bloink, Timothy Leary, Allen
Ginsberg, Albert Einstein, Albert Hoffman, Madonna,
Stephen Gaskin, Terrence McKenna, Sasha Shulgin, Pearl
Jam, U2, Minutemen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jim
Woodring, R. Crumb, the Hernandez Brothers, Charles
Burns, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Aung San Suu Kyi,
Robyn Hitchcock, Bob Nesta Marley, Bobby Dylan, Cesar
Chavez, Rigoberta Menchu, Badshah Kahn, Ozzy
Osbourne, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, Pink Floyd,

64

Richard Misrach, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandella, Steven

Soderberg, Oliver Stone, Lenny Bruce, Abby Hoffman,
Gertrude Stein, Albert Einstein, Cezanne, Picasso,
Vermeer, El Greco, Dali, Jung, George Lucas, Steven
Spielberg, John Lennon, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis,
Marilyn Monroe, Prince, NIN, Depeche Mode, FDR,
Eleanor Roosevelt, Nirvana, Lou Reed, The Pixies, Pete
Townshend, Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, Keith
Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Stephen Greer,
Mark Comings, Richard Linklatter, Vincent Gallo, Tim
Burton, Green Day, Swaybone, David Bowie, Dorothy Day,
Rilke, e.e. cummings, Muse, REM, Radiohead, the Who,
Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant, Neil Young, the Grateful Dead,
Sting, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Perry Farrell, Michael
Moore, Velvet Undergournd, DEVO, X, Warner Williams,
Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Emma Goldman, Frida
Kahlo, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Ringo Starr, David
Byrne, Brian Eno, George Martin, Danny Lanois, Mike
Watt, Paul McArtney, Prince, Quincy Jones, Michael
Jackson, Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone, George Clinton,
Marvin Gaye, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five,
the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Rolling Stones, the Beach
Boys, the Byrds, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Allanis
Morisette, Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain, Foo Fighters,
Queens of the Stone Age, Janet Jackson, Madonna,
Metallica, James Brown, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jimi
Hendrix, Sarah McLachlan, Jefferson Airplane, Santana,
Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Black Sabbath, Black Flag,
Steely Dan, John Fogerty, Joni Mitchell, the Stooges, the
MC5, Fugazi, Ani Di Franco, Phillip Glass, Stevie Wonder,
Sonic Youth, Cocteau Twins, Rush, Orson Welles, Franz
Kafka, Jack Kerouac, Anais Nin, Hunter Tompson, Oprah
Winfrey, Gary Snyder, Tom Killion, Alan Watts, Bernadette
Roberts, Rachel Carson, Mother Theresa, Alice Waters,
Richard Register, Annie Sprinkle, Eve Ensler, Malcolm
Margolin, etc.

65

These are all cultural heroes who, in my opinion, have

helped create and defend and advance the best aspects of
human culture.

66

The left wing deficit

and the limits of secular politics
The Democratic Party has suffered at the hands of its
enemies, as well as by its own hand. The historic
effectiveness of the the left wing has been diminished by
corruption from within and setbacks from without. The
deaths of MLK, JFK, Malcolm X, John Lennon and Bobby
Kennedy, as well as the sellout of the left to violence and
militarism, are two of the biggest reasons that the left has
lost so much power and influence.
At a critical juncture, the Democratic Party allowed itself
to be steered into the depths of the Viet Nam war, under
the guidance of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who declined to
run for a second term of office as President, under a
general cloud of moral failure and futility for his tragic and
misguided escalation of the U.S. war in Viet Nam.
The culture of materialism has embedded itself into the
core of American culture, and into the core of the
Democratic Party. The pursuit of happiness that
Jefferson referred to, has become degraded into entirely
materialistic and gross terms: the all-consuming pursuit of
money, profit and power for self. And the Democrats tend
to be more and more aligned with the materialist system,
and less linked to religion, and are therefore on shaky
moral ground in the eyes of most Americans. The
Democrats have earned a reputation as soft appeasers,
too morally weak to take on the barbarous and evil
Republican party extremists. The Democrats exploit the
misguided faith of their own Left wing, the people who
have actually earned moral credibility through their
activism on the part of unions, civil rights and the
environment, etc.

67

But the core power of the Democratic party has always

been compromised by its lapse into greed and
materialism; The DP has become a standardbearer for
materialism, willingly serving the interests of both
capitalisms worst extremes, as well as the governments
maintaining of nuclear weapons arsenals. As such, the
Democrats have become corrupt, and are actively
advancing the agenda and means of a system plunging us
all toward mass self-destruction.
Its true that the Democrats usually have a better voting
record on the environment; but the Democrats have not
been able to shake the corrupting influence of greed, as
well as the corrupting influence of maintaining a huge
arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And Democrats
shaky connection to a solid and real religious or spiritual
orientation accelerates their downfall and decline.
True cooperation must replace the tenets and legitimacy
of greed at the heart of the American system of life. True
reverence for all life must replace religious nihilism,
fatalism and body-and-earth hating fanaticism of rightwing religionists. Non-violence must replace war and the
development or possession of weapons of mass
destruction.
All of these are why we must expand the progressive
platform, and why we must build the Green Party as the
first true 3rd party in modern American political life.
The Greens will have to bring out their spiritual side to
accomplish this. People must combine their spiritual side
with their political side in a meaningful and moral and
harmonious way. For example, Greens need to be out in
the hills at night worshipping, and declaring solidarity and
cooperation with Gaia, Mother Shakti and the nature

68

spirits. The Global Cooperative Forum needs to effectively

assert itself in order to provide right guidance to
Progressives altogether. Everybody-all-at-once and the
Teachings and Guidance of Adi Da Samraj, will provide the
highest and ultimate moral leadership for the expanded
Progressive movement worldwide.
With the loss of Martin Luther King, Jr., the left lost one of
its greatest and best hopes of reconciling the left with the
spiritual and sacred guidance of true spiritual leaders.
The left wing has allowed the right wing to monopolize
conversations about faith and religion within politics. The
left has rigidly adhered to the idea of separation of church
and state, and therefore failed to articulate an alternative
vision of the role of faith in politics. The left has yet to
embrace the idea that real spirituality and a sacred
orientation can indeed have a central role in politics,
without necessarily risking a slide into fascist theocracy.
The left has not yet fully taken up the calling of egotranscending personal transformation and non-violence
within the context of political service. Non-violence is the
natural and right religious disposition of people on the left
who fully embrace spiritual life. By failing to firmly
articulate an alternative spiritual vision, the left has
allowed its imagination to be colonized by the violent
ideologies of the right wing and the war-mongering
centrists.
People on the left have to deal seriously with their own
egos, and allow themselves to be touched by the
teachings and proven results of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Gandhi and Adi Da Samraj. Any political philosophy that
doesnt account for and take responsibility for the

69

harmful consequences of unsurrendered egos ultimately

causes more harm than good.
True Spiritual Masters are the ultimate and best basis for
any and all political leadership worldwide. True Spiritual
authority is the best and ultimate guide for all human
beings in all their affairs. The left will find its true base of
support in the cooperative human communities of the
world, not in the overreliance on corporate and military
interests. And the left will re-generate a culture of the
sacred and of ego-transcendence, and thereby enjoy a
new era of relevance and true leadership throughout the
world.
The Left wing deficit Part II - a non-violent President
People often wonder and consider what would have
happened to the civil rights movement of the Sixties, if
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had not been
assassinated. Perhaps there would have been greater and
broader convergence, integration and growth of the
movements that each of them helped to lead. The
hypothetical non-killing of MLK and Malcolm X could have
led to a creative, Black-led rapprochement between
Christianity (as represented by Dr. King), and Islam (as
represented by Malcolm X). Todays grim march toward
escalating intra-religious confrontations might have been
slowed, if this had come to pass.
Now consider this. If Martin Luther King had not been
assassinated, there could have been further creative
convergences between the non-violent Christian
movement led by Dr. King, and other nascent radical
movements of the Left during the Sixties as well, including
the newly developing drug cultures of pot and acid, and
the spontaneous revival of quasi-shamanistic and

70

visionary popular cultures of sacred mushrooms, peyote,

ayahuasca, and mescaline. Had Dr. King survived, would
he have found common cause with the likes of Timothy
Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey,
Adi Da Samraj, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Bob Dylan,
Stephen Gaskin, etc?
Would Dr. King have broken bread and dropped acid with
Dr. Leary?
Just Imagine.
This could have helped put an early end to the vicious and
immoral war against drugs, as we know it today. The
Leary-ites could have helped some of the Christians turn
on and get directly in touch with God through the
sacramental use of LSD, marijuana and sacred
mushrooms. Inevitably, such sacramental communion
would have helped to unlock all the puritanical taboos
against sexuality and the body that Christianity has
harbored and perpetuated for centuries. And the
followers of Dr. King could have helped the Leary-ites
become fully activated as a self-identified political and
social movement strong enough to roll-back the various
legislated harms perpetrated by most Republicans and
many Democrats against the followers of the psychedelic
movement.
But, today, we are left with the post-assassination reality
of our present situation, and what to do about it.
I propose that we continue the work of Dr. King and Dr.
Leary, and stage a recovery from the Left wing deficit, and
the right wing ideology of perpetual war and global
extinction. This involves a regeneration of the left wing,
and the marginalization of the right wing, through
deliberate re-unification of the left wing with the

71

Christians, the left-wing with the non-violence movement,

and the left-wing with the drug cultures (especially of the
psychedelics and marijuana movements, and the drug
legalization movements altogether).
Non-violence is the inevitable moral and religious
expression of a restored left-wing. The ending of the drug
war is one of the primary policy objectives of the first
100 hours of a restored left-wing, and ultimately, the
advent of the United States first non-violent president.

The Adi Da Mission Project

Adi Da is here!

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I confess to all humanity and to all beings - the Divine

Person is incarnate in our world today. He has called upon
all His devotees to tell everyone that He is here.
Therefore, I offer the following creative proposals as ways
to share Adi Da more effectively with the world.
Goals:
1. Bring 10,000 new devotees under vow in 5 years.
2. Expose Ten Million people to Adi Das Divine Bodily
Human Form, His Divine Image Art, movies, DVDs, Word
and leelas in 5 years.
3. Bring at least 20-50 qualified individuals into Adi Das
Renunciate Army.
I propose an autonomous and independent group, the
Adi Da Mission Project (A.M.P., or AMP), working in loving
cooperation with Adidam, in order to accomplish these
objectives.
The A.M.P. will be a multi-media and live events
company, owned in-part by devotees of Adi Da, that puts
on small, medium and large scale public events and
marketing media campaigns, with the purpose of bringing
Adi Da to the world, and telling everyone that He is here.
AMP will feature content derived from all of Adi Das
media and missionary materials, as well as selected media
from the Great Tradition, and the media of sympathetic
contemporary artists.
The Participatory Mission of Adi Da
The type of Mission I propose within the AMP, is the
participatory Mission, a Mission that invites bodily and
heart-felt participation in the Gifts of Adi Da Samraj. This
type of Mission is very attractive because people can be

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ecstatic, expressive and physically engaged in the midst of

it.
The participatory Mission should always be generated by
the Guilds of Adidam in their fullest expression. It is the
Guilds of Adidam that can give flesh, form and beauty to
the Adi Da Mission.
The Guilds of Adidam and AMP events
The AMP will put on live music events that feature Adi Da
centrally and unambiguously, with mostly devotee
musicians performing. Some of these events will be of a
more contemplative nature (more for older audiences),
and some will be of a more dynamic nature (more for
younger audiences.)
These events should be richly informed by Pleasure Dome
principles, exemplifying the beauty and attractiveness of
Adi Da Samraj, as well as the work of the Guilds in
Adidam.
Guruvara public events
Guruvara is Adidams weekly celebration of the Guru and
day of retreat. Once a month, there should be an
extended Guruvara event at a public space. The event will
consist of three stages, each occurring successively over
the course of the day:
1. First stage - An Inner temple Guruvara for Second
Congregation devotees only.
2. Second stage - An Inner temple celebration of Adi Da
for Second and Third Congregation devotees, approaching
public people and V.I.P.s.
3. Third stage - An Outer temple celebration of Adi Da
for everyone, including the general public.

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The Third stage portion of the event will be family

friendly. These extended Guruvara celebrations will take
place once a month, and rotate locations from the East
Bay, to San Francisco, then the South Bay and then Marin
County or Santa Rosa.
The Adidam website as an integral mission tool
Video tape the leelas of every Bay Area 2C devotee, and
edit excerpts of these together as a gift to Adi Da, as well
as for content to be added to the Adidam.org website.
Adidam should show the face of Happiness in devotion
through the images and leelas of devotees readily
available on Adidam.org.
The prime musical and artistic offerings of devotees
should be readily available on the Adidam.org website.
The outpouring of creative devotional response of Adi
Das devotees should be abundantly apparent online.
Some of these can be sold online to raise money for the
mission. An Adidam record label should be formed to
market these musical works to the world.
Primary missionary tools
1. The Bright DVD - Work with the Free Renunciate Order
and all concerned parties to make any modifications
necessary to make this video again available to the
general public.
2. The Outpouring of Divine Blessing - Work with the Free
Renunciate Order and all concerned parties to make this
wonderful video available to the general public and to
Adidam missionaries everywhere.

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3. The Divine Discourses - Bring the Divine Discourses of

Adi Da in DVD form to the world, and help make
resources available to publish dozens of titles.
4. Murti-like images of Adi Da Samraj - Should be
abundantly available on every page of the Adidam
website, and at our events, and at our public centers for
sale.
5. The Divine Image Art of Adi Da Samraj AMP will help
the Adidam Mission bring His Divine Image Art, as well as
the movie about Adi Das Image Art, to the world through
a traveling show that includes the full presentation of His
video suites, as well as gallery showings of his
fabrications.
6. Adi Das Source Texts, as well as all of His other books.
7. Adi Das theatrical presentation of the First Room
Trilogy (a.k.a. Orpheus), traveling throughout the
world.
Comprehensively adopt all of the methods of modern
marketing in the Adidam Mission
1. Billboards - Adi Da is here.
2. Mass emails targeting spiritual and new age
demographics.
3. Devotee blogs online to counter or balance the
negative information about Adi Da on the internet.
4. Dramatic recitations of His Divine Source Texts.
5. Adi Da broadcast throughout the world on satellite,
cable and broadcast television and radio.
Neighborhood barefoot mission - experiment with having
intro events that are promoted on foot in the immediate
neighborhood where the intro event is being held. Make

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the Barefoot Mission of Adi Da real. Literally go door to

door selling His Books and CDs and DVDs.
Expand the range of public offerings:
a) Public Kirtans - vibrant and joyous celebrations of Adi
Da for the general public
b) Basket of Tolerance roundtable events - interfaith
dialogues between Adidam and representatives of other
faiths.
c) Bright Room Events - mobile presentations of Adi Das
Divine Image Art
d) Healing clinics at Adidam centers featuring devotee
practitioners offering healing services to the public as a
form of devotional practice.
e) Conscious childrearing clinics
f) Public events on Adidam holidays .
g) Intimate Chill Salons multi-media Mission events
that include a sensual environment for intimate and
contemplative viewing of Adi Das Divine Discourses,
Divine Image Art, and Darshans. These are byinvitationonly events, that may include several rooms so that
people can flow from one space to another, and either
watch Beloved, discuss Beloved, eat, listen to music, see
and purchase Beloveds Divine Image Art and books, etc.
Adi Das Mission on the UC Berkeley Campus Make
events at lecture halls and theatres on campus.
Young devotees should be represented in every branch of
the AMP!!!
Every devotee is a missionary. Bring non- or lessparticipating devotees into some form of missionary
function. Re-enroll these devotees on an ongoing basis if
necessary.

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In addition, I propose two new Adidam centers for

Oakland, an Inner Temple and an Outer Temple.
The Outer Temple would be a public gathering place, a
combination community center, yoga studio, book and
merchandise store, movie theatre and live music venue,
where Adidam can have continuous culturally and socially
beneficial events and services available to the wider
community. This would present the more public and
accessible side of Adidam.
The Inner Temple, on the other hand, would be a more
formal, and by-invitation-only space where formal Pujas,
Kirtans, chanting, meditation, and other sacred ocassions
where the more formal Worship of Beloved Adi Da take
place.
In addition, I propose that a new Laughing Man style
magazine be resumed, as well as a newsletter/catalog for
the purposes of selling Adidam merchandise and
extending the various branding campaigns of Adidam. A
magazine presents a medium that is more approachable
for many people in the public.
As Adidam and the AMP become much more effective in
expanding the Mission and Message of Adi Da Samraj into
the public, we will from time to time be faced with strong
and unwarranted reactions from certain members of the
public to one aspect or another of Adi Da Himself or His
Religion or His devotees. We will need to have strong
Public Relations people who can answer any and every
potentially inflammatory response to Beloved or His
Religion, and answer on His and our behalf. These people
should be ready to do rhetorical and legal battle as
necessary to defend, protect and support the Mission of

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Adidam and His Message. These people can also

forthrightly engage the press.
Concurrently, I propose that certain aspects of the
Mission be specialized to answer the specific questions
and concerns coming from Christians about
Adi Da. The Mission to Christians should develop artful
ways to combine the faith and practices of contemporary
Christians with their devotional approach to Adi Da
Samraj. We would need to teach our missionaries-toChristians specific ways to respond to the most
frequently asked questions from Christians.
Adi Das Mission to Christians and Christian Churches
We should make alliances between Adidam and any
willing Christians, including more sympathetic and radical
Christians. Adi Das devotees can be groomed for full
rhetorical debate with Christians. Like Shankara, they can
travel and debate and inform the leaders of Christianity,
as well as all rank-and-file Christians.

Also, Adi Das Mission should extend its full ambassadorial

presence to representatives of all branches of Buddhism,
Advaita Vedanta, Hinduism, and the many tribal nations
and gatherings of indigenous spirituality.
The Adidam Google Database
Participate with Google to scan every book, video, sound
recording, as well as every other published utterance of
Adi Da Samraj into the Google Book database. This will
enable people around the world to ask any question of
the online Adi Da Google database, such as, What does
Adi Da say about food?, What does Adi Da say about

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sex?, What does Adi Da say about Jesus Christ?, and

receive answers derived directly from Adi Das Word and
Teachings.
This will enable the Adi Da Mission to avoid many of the
problems of interpretation and revision that arise when
devotees attempt to answer questions on behalf of
Adi Da. As much as possible, the Adi Da Mission has to be
transparent to Adi Da, and help people connect directly to
Adi Da Himself, and to His Word and Teaching.
Free Adi Da Books and media
Establish a fund to amass millions of Adi Das books and
CDs and DVDs that can be given away free to the public.
Again, this helps the Adi Da Mission be transparent to
Adi Da, by helping people connect directly to Adi Da
Samraj through His Word, while minimizing interpretation
and revision.

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A Plan for reducing terrorism

I offer the following plan to end terrorism, in the spirit of
helping us to get out of the endless cycles of war and
violence that we are in today.
I believe that any actions we take out of retaliation or
revenge will pull us further into our own destruction,
while at the same time blinding us to the fact that we
ourselves have been the chief instigators of much of the
terror and violence that has resulted in these acts of
desperation and terrorism directed back against us.
One painful memory I have in particular is of the horrible
bombing that America perpetrated against the cities of
Basra and Baghdad in Iraq, during the first Gulf War. Our
bombing killed tens of thousands of civilians in those
cities. How did Iraqs attack against Kuwait justify us
murdering tens of thousands of women and children? Our
10 years of economic embargoes against Iraq have killed
more thousands of innocent people through disease,
impoverishment and famine. China has done just as much
damage to Tibet as Iraq did to Kuwait, and yet we did not
punish China with our military air power. I conclude that it
was our dependence on middle-Eastern oil that motivated
much of our fury against Iraq, not altruistic concern for
the sovereignty of Kuwait. If this is true, it makes us all
murderers of expedience, because we all consume and
depend on this foreign oil, and paid for the killing with our
tax dollars. Our victims in the middle-East must feel truly
desperate at being attacked by the most powerful nation
in history and having so little they can do about it.
America is also the largest exporter of weapons and
pollution in the world. To take one arbitrary example, the
U.S. gave Latvia 30,500 M14 Rifles as Excess Defense
Articles for free in 1999. Since World War II, we have
been the most active proliferators of violence through our

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support of death squads and dictatorships, covert

operations and dirty wars in poorer countries all over the
world. Many people in the rest of the world view the
United States as the biggest terrorist and gravest threat to
global security of the last 50 years. And we have always
led in the race to build weapons of mass destruction
which still threaten our entire species with extinction, or a
living hell much worse than extinction.
One of my prayers is for every American to sincerely own
their part of the violence that America has committed for
decades all over the world and at home. I pray that we all
become more sensitive to the consequences of our
collective actions as a nation. And I have a material
proposal for truly reducing any future terrorist acts
directed against us.
We should immediately take 10 Billion dollars out of our
military budget, and spend it on the most needed
humanitarian aid in the most troubled and dangerous
parts of the world. We should make an exceptional effort
to deliver aid to those regions we believe to be our
potential enemies, such as Afghanistan, Russia, Serbia,
Northern Ireland, Palestine, Pakistan, Iraq, North Korea,
China, and the urban centers of America. If we love our
enemies, we lose them by turning them into friends.
In addition, America needs to build its non-violent
military, which can be deployed to separate combatants
the world over.
This is much less Utopian than a missile defense shield
which will spend us into further economic chaos, while
rendering itself instantly into brand-new shiny
obsolescence, as the enemies we create exercise their
endless resourcefulness by delivering biological weapons
and crude nuclear weapons in briefcases and rental
trucks.

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We must encourage our government and our fellow

citizens not to indulge hateful fantasies or actions of
revenge, punishment or retaliation. We should take
prudent safety precautions, but stay our mighty hand
from dealing out any more violence and destruction. The
perpetrators of the terror against our country should be
brought to justice using the means of international
policing and courts, and not one single act of military
revenge. Let us abstain from it!
Finally, I hope we all pray in our own way for Love, Light,
Peace and Healing to every living being on this Planet,
especially those in the most dangerous parts of the world,
which, increasingly, includes all of us.

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A Plan to reduce automobile deaths

by 50% in 20 years
In 1999 there were an estimated 6,289,000 car accidents
in the US, with about 3.4 million injuries and 41,611
people killed. The number of people killed in highway
crashes in 2001 was 42,116, compared to 41,945 in 2000.
In 2005, there were 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in
traffic crashes, a figure nearly unchanged during the last
decade. (from NHTSA website). Worldwide, automobile
crashes cost a half-trillion USD, as well as cause 1.2 million
fatalities and 50 million injuries.
The number of people who die in automobile accidents
every year in America is roughly equal to all the
Americans who died in the entire Vietnam War. We can
and should cut this outrageous and intolerable number of
fatalities by one-half in twenty years by directly dealing
with some of the main risk factors of driving.
Common risk factors in driving include:
Following too close, or tailgating
Poor awareness approaching intersections
Distracted driving
Not looking far enough ahead
Speeding / driving too fast for conditions
Driver fatigue
Risky lane change / passing
Inadequate and inappropriate guard-rails
To meet my proposed harm reduction goals for
automobile drivers I propose a four-part system:
1. Mutual regulation
2. Angel drivers
3. Voluntary self-monitoring

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4. Innovative guard rail technologies

Mutual Regulation is a method of increasing safety
through voluntary participation. With all of the money
and manpower devoted to Highway Patrols, auto fatalities
are still much too high. Highway patrols need to be
augmented by paid or volunteer drivers who are willing to
help regulate the driving behavior of themselves and of
those around them.
Angel cars and angel drivers are the primary means of
mutual regulation that I propose for our streets and
freeways. Angel cars have very distinctive external
markings of a kind that will become as familiar to drivers
as standard police car markings, perhaps in flourescent
yellow and green.
Angel cars are equipped with special technologies
including:
1. An onboard event recorder
2. Internal and external cameras
3. External proximity sensors automatically indicate
dangerous proximity, as well as accurately record the
speed, movement, position, and sometimes license plates
of nearby cars. Colored indicators on exterior of car
provide feedback to surrounding drivers about their
driving behavior.
4. Public address system
Angel cars use cameras and proximity sensors to
automatically track and record certain of the most
common risky driving behaviors in surrounding vehicles.
These cameras can record the situation, the make, model
and color of the cars involved, and in some cases their
license plates.

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Whenever a vehicle within range of the angel car makes a

risky move, like following too close, cutting off a driver,
swerving, speeding, or driving too slow, the event is
recorded, and, in some cases, so is the identity of the
vehicle(s) involved. These events are stored and reported
to insurance companies and the DMV, potentially causing
insurance rates to increase for people who incur a certain
number of these events.
The very presence of an Angel car may give some drivers
pause before they engage in unnecessary risky driving
behaviors. In addition, Angel cars and angel drivers help
to herd traffic into compliance with appropriate speed
limits and driving behaviors.
The high numbers of deaths, damage and injuries caused
by drunk driving indicates the need for breathalyzers, or
new scanning technologies, to disable car ignitions when
drivers show too much alcohol in their systems. Drivers
who voluntarily allow the alcohol sensors in their car
would be given various incentives, including breaks on
their car insurance.
Traffic safety should also be improved by the increased
use of guardrails made out of recycled tires. The excessive
amounts of discared tires could find a beneficial use
through the artful weaving of tire strips into shock
absorbing guardrails that help to guide errant vehicles like
a tobagan course back where they belong. Metal
guardrails should be phased out, because they become
dangerous pieces of jagged metal when a car crashes into
them.

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Public rituals in our open space

One way to save the Earth, is to create rituals that actively
state our intention to live in partnership with the Earth
and the nature spirits that are connected to all living
things. Such rituals can take place locally, on suitable plots
of public or private land, where a group of people feel
uniquely inspired by that places beauty or personality.
Such rituals help to re-establish our personal relationship
to Nature, the Planet, God and the Goddess, which can
have far-reaching beneficial consequences.
As an example of such a ritual, I here put forth a plan for
an outdoor ritual at a place near where I live and work,
that I find uniquely evocative.
This place is in the hills above Hayward, CA, immediately
North of a modest regional park called Garin Ranch.
This place offers an attractive range of terrain, both open
and tree-covered, with awesome views of the Bay, and
many intimate spots to erect permanent or temporary
shrines.
First, a group of friends will spend a few hours at the site,
establishing direct contact with the Goddess, God and the
nature spirits of the place. We will vision together to
determine which shrines should go where, with advice
and consent from all appropriate spirits. Then we will
erect the shrines to honor various sacred beings including
Adi Da Samraj, Jesus, the nature spirits, the Goddess in
various forms, including Kali, Durga, Green Tara and
Mother Mary. We will adorn, serve and make offerings at
the shrines, giving our thanks for the healing, sustenance,
enlightenment and creativity that Nature and the Dieties
provide.

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The work of saving the planet will require solidarity and

cooperation between humanity, Nature and
God/Goddess. The sacred rituals performed in open
spaces will help us to affirm and celebrate these
relationships, and heal the alienation between humans
and Nature.
Getting married to the Goddess.
Following is a suggested ritual for those who participate in
ceremonies in Nature.
An annointed woman is cast in the role as the Goddess.
An outdoor shrine is created for Her in Nature, and
annointed men approach her in their ceremonial finery,
offering their confessions of love to Her, and their
committment to cooperate with her and learn the many
ways to respectfully embrace and serve Her. The Goddess
becomes a trusted presence and friend and influence in
ones life forever thereafter.
I will also pledge my fidelity to the Goddess by
proclaiming myself forever the friend and bond ally to all
the tribal and indegenous peoples of the Earth. The Three
legged stool of Global human cultures necessarily is
comprised of all three of its legs, the cultures and
religions of the East being one leg of the stool, and the
cultures and religions of the West being the second leg,
and those of the indegenous and tribal peoples being the
third leg of the three legged stool of Global human
culture.

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InspireUS: a new multi-faith music event and tour

The time has come to enlist the power of music to
confront head-on the plague of religious divisions and
religious intolerance that is threatening humanity.
Millions of people hunger for the spiritual nourishment of
communion with God, but most organized religions
encourage a climate of ignorance, intolerance and even
violence towards the followers of other religions. There is
a great need for new forms of culture that encourage
mutual respect and understanding as a counterbalance
against these divisions. Just as music has had the power in
our recent past to bring black and white people together
beyond the barriers of racism, music will once again show
the way to global unity between people of all religions.
In this spirit, I propose a new music event called
InspireUS.
InspireUS is a series of live music events that will evolve
into a traveling road-show, where bands, artists and
musicians of any and all religious persuasion who accept
the idea of mutual cooperation and tolerance, can share
their music and messages. Youth, loudness and energy
will be encouraged. InspireUS will generate spiritual
nourishment for the masses. It is my hope that some of
the resurgence of Christian Rock music will find a place
within InspireUS.
InspireUS will include the following aspects or values.
1. InspireUS is God-positive or faith centered
2. InspireUS celebrates Consciousness and
transformation
3. InspireUS welcomes followers of the Goddess,
Wicca and Earth religions

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4. InspireUS supports responsible psychedelic use

5. InspireUS is politcally progressive
6. InspireUS is dedicated to youth empowerment
and non-violence
7. InspireUS affirms the importance of arts and
culture
8. InspireUS celebrates the sacred music of all
religious and ethnic backgrounds
At the beginning, we will book shows together, and build
a positive reputation for our events. These shows will
have value adds, like education materials, sacred rituals,
prayer, etc.
I also propose the creation of a live event production
company that will put on these events in the spirit of
community and cooperation. Surrounding this
cooperative business are a series of ideas and founding
principles that I want to plant in the soil from which this
company will grow. Following is a list of these ideas and
principles.
1. The primary goals of InspireUS are to entertain people,
help people to overcome religious divisions, and celebrate
a vast diversity of faith orientations.
2. At InpsireUS, seminars will be available in non-violence,
to help learn the tools of diplomacy, de-escalation and
interfaith tolerance.
3. The participants in InspireUS are encouraged to take
their counsel in both worldly and spiritual affairs from the
greatest teachers, prophets and Masters of the Great
Tradition.

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4. Seminars and study groups will take place to teach

people about the faiths and religions of the world.
Vanguard meetings will be the forum for leadership
development and the creation of a core group of people
who are deeply immersed in and guided by Wisdom.
Participants in study groups will willingly share their faith
with others of different faiths, and willingly listen to and
learn from the advocates and lovers of other faiths. This
will help to generate a cooperative culture within and
between people of multiple faiths.
5. InspireUS will work in close partnership with
representatives of the worlds religions, including the
religion of Adidam, the religion of the Living Realizer
Adi Da Samraj.
6. Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace will be one of the
mottos of InspireUS.
7. Music and sacramental communion will be the driving
force of InspireUS.
8. InspireUS will be a place where the Mission of Adidam
can function successfully and effectively. Adi Da will be
able to reach millions of new people, bringing his urgently
important Blessings and Message to everyone. Inspired
and tolerant representatives of all religions and
progressive causes will be invited and encouraged to
share their message as well.
9. LCD projectors will be employed to project the artwork
of Adi Da Samraj, Warner Williams and others onto large
screens or walls.
10. InspireUS will be a youth-positive environment; all
events will be all ages.

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11. InspireUS will always possess a chill space where

people can escape the loudness and socialize, watch
multimedia, hear lectures and snuggle.
12. Vegetable oil and biodiesel tour buses and trucks and
generators will be employed as often as possible in all
InspireUS functions.

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A Plan for the Revival of the Live Music Scene

For years the Bay Area live music scene has suffered a
depressed condition. Many clubs have closed, police have
had undue control of the permitting process for live
music, youth audiences have been shut out, marketing
and promotion for live music has been weak, and afterhours transportation has been inadequate. Audience size
has not been sufficient to support the livelihoods of
worthy bands, and the obstacles that bands and
audiences and club owners face have been excessive.
The problems with the local music scene are so deeply
ingrained and persistent that it will be necessary to
develop a long-term (fifteen year) plan to make enough
fundamental changes for the scene to fully develop its
potential. In other words, we have to think in ambitious
terms with substantial goals in order to get past the point
of just treading water or doing damage control.
The live music scene is actually lacking in commercial and
competitive strengths that it requires in order to maintain
and increase market share. So we will have to
systematically increase the competitive strengths of the
bands and the live music scene through deliberate steps.
To that end I am putting forth a series of proposals that I
hope will improve the quality of life for artists, audiences
and music business people.
Grants Organizations for Rock Bands:
A non-profit organization should be established to collect
funds from other foundations, grants organizations,
philanthropists, sponsors and state, local and federal
government to provide grants to worthy rock bands who
meet certain selection criteria.

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A peer-review system would be established of qualified

music industry professionals who would review the grant
requests of each band to determine their suitability for
the grant. The grant would then enable those bands to
take their career to the next step by allowing them to
purchase better equipment, promotion and marketing,
management consulting services, as well as to take time
off from their day-jobs to tour and build their fan base. A
percentage of the bands future profits could be directed
back to the Rock Band Grant Fund.
The Creation of a Bay Area Bands Website
A website will be created that lists all of the active bands
in the Bay Area. To get on the website bands would have
to demonstrate that they have played at least two live
shows in the last year and/or have mp3s of their
recorded material. Each band could self-publish a page
about their band on the website that would include music
files, pictures, bio, lyrics, gigs, contact info and reviews.
This site would also amass an archive of streaming videos
of live shows in the Bay Area, as well as an archive of
reviews of live shows.
It would also create a reviewing system based on the
model of Garageband.com whereby bands could be
anonymously reviewed by visitors to the site, enabling the
creation of a Top 100 listing of bands.
As well, the site would be the ultimate clearing house for
all live musical events happening on any given night. Not
only would visitors to the site be able to find out who is
playing on a given night, but they would be able to link
directly to the music of bands they may never have heard
before. This would answer the problem of looking for
shows in the print weeklies and newspapers, where you
are confronted with the names of dozens of bands who

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have upcoming shows, but no easy way to hear their

music and find out more about them.
A site such as this would be very valuable for local talent
shoppers in order to book suitable bands for shows. It
would also give a powerful tool to bands to find other
bands that they like in order to put shows together and
create communities of affinity. It would also help to
strengthen the visibility and coherence of our regional
music scene by giving it a central forum and gathering
place.
The 24-hour Youth Multiplex
The 24 Hour Youth Multiplex is a safe place for youth, and
people of all ages, where the amenities of culture and
community are available 24 hours a day.
The 24 Hour Youth Multiplex features 2 live stages, where
rock bands, DJs and hip hop and rap artists could perform
at all hours. There is also a large chill area, where people
can relax and socialize, eat organic vegetarian soup at any
hour of the day, and enjoy quieter music.
The educational section of the building includes multiple
computers hooked up to the web and onsite tech support
persons and computer skills teachers. There is also a
lecture hall, where teachers, leaders and educators of all
different kinds would enrich the youth, covering topics
the public schools often fail to address.
Among the many topics covered are how to run a small
business, nonviolence training, harm reduction, drug use
and sexuality, spirituality and meditation, nutrition and
health, sustainable energy and food, music and art
history, local politics and activism, etc., etc.
There are also athletic facilities, such as a skatepark, lasertag, indoor rock climbing, ping pong, yoga, martial arts,

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wrestling, basketball and other vigorous but spaceefficient activities.

On premises there is a 24 hour health clinic where kids
could get health checkups, sex and drug counseling, birth
control, blood tests and treatment for minor
emergencies.
Present at all times are teams of adult
Social Directors who are available to make
introductions between people, answer questions, provide
conflict resolution and noise abatement, pick up litter,
provide informal youth counseling, and altogether insure
civility inside and outside of the Multiplex. Their presence
reduces the need for police, but they will work
cooperatively with the police when police involvement is
necessary.
The 24 Hour Youth Multiplex is a place for serious fun,
and because of it, young people will always have a place
to go.
Ending the War on Drugs and ending drug prohibition
The existence of drug prohibition laws throughout the
world actually create a social condition similar to an autoimmune disease, where one part of the body of society
arbitrarily attacks other parts of the social body for no
good reason. The social bodies gone out of control are the
police, courts, judges, legislators and ordinary citizens
who are being guided by faulty laws and misguided
morality to punish, oppress, shame, judge and attack
other people (drug users, sellers) who are participating in
consenting drug use.
This climate tends to foster a continual police state
presence and unfavorable legislative scrutiny of all
sections of the live music scene, including the rave scene,

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hip hop and the rock and roll scene. Until we remove this
problem at the root, the music scene will continually find
itself in disadvantaged positions, fending off legal attacks
against artists, promoters and audience members.
In the fairly recent past, music was at the vanguard of
society when it came to breaking down the barriers of
racial and sexual segregation and oppression. I put forth
that music will once again find itself leading the way for
society when it comes to ending the oppression of the
War on Drugs. Musicians, fans and people in the music
industry must organize and speak out to end the war on
drugs, and demand an end to drug prohibition, for the
sake of our civil rights, and for the health of the arts and
culture economy.
The Cooperative Community of Musicians, or
the sacred music guild
I believe it is imperative for bands and musicians to
organize themselves for the betterment of the music
scene and society at large. However, adopting the
traditional forms of organizing that labor unions have
used is not entirely appropriate for bands for a number of
reasons. For example, bands do not operate in the
management vs. labor dynamic that industrial Unions
have operated within. There must be a novel and
effective way for bands to organize that suits their unique
needs.
Bands should join together in local affinity groups,
formed from crew, family, friends and fans, based on
personal and musical affinity, and geographic proximity.
Initially, the members of this network would be selfselecting, but as the membership stabilizes, a selection
process would be developed for the intake of new
member bands. Monthly meetings would take place, and

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joining fees and monthly dues collected. These affinity

groups would in turn cooperate with each other in the
form of larger networks of musicians, ultimately creating
nationwide and international representative assemblies
that would meet to decide on issues of importance.
Affinity groups would prove their effectiveness by
organizing shows and events together. Promotional
expenses would be shared among member bands.
Contact databases, email and mailing lists would also be
shared and aggregated among the bands. A databaseenabled website would be created to allow member
bands to update their mailing lists on a single server from
any web computer.
At this stage, organizing offers the members simple
benefits, such as increased efficiency in the utilization of
promotional resources. It also allows members to share
needed equipment more readily, as well as share
transportation to gigs as necessary. As increased
efficiencies in these areas lead to increased attendance
and revenues from live shows, the reputation and
finances of the band network will grow and enable the
network to increase the scope of its activities and
cooperation.
The long term goals of the Cooperative Community of
Musicians should be to accommodate many of the needs
of the member bands, including needs which have
heretofore been met by Record Companies, with mixed
success.
I will outline what I see as the basic needs of bands, and
my proposals for how the C.C.M. can meet those needs.
Reconnect with youth audiences - By minimizing or
eliminating the sale of alcohol at live music venues, youth
would again have free access to seeing bands at the club
level. Clubs could actively pursue other revenue streams

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to compensate for the revenue lost from not serving

alcohol, including, possibly:

Corporate sponsorship: increased audience sizes

would make it more attractive for companies to
advertise at live venues
Do direct outreach to local Colleges, High Schools
and Junior Highs to pull in paying youth
audiences, by transforming clubs into family
oriented environments at least part of the month.
Rock clubs could be partners to the public school
system; art and culture are, after all, a part of the
education of the youth.
Form a business association among the clubs for
everyones mutual benefit. Share business tips,
legal aid and good fellowship to help uplift the
entire scene.
Clubs should go after grants and public money,
and get a little of that corporate welfare.
Sell fresh juices, soup, smart drinks, etc.

Transportation - I propose the creation of an alternative

energy fleet of vehicles, such as vans, trucks, buses and
RVs that is owned by the C.C.M. and loaned out to
members. Likewise, the C.C.M. can use its lobbying arm to
advocate that more mass transportation resources be
dedicated to the specific needs of night life participants.
Lodging and Accommodations - Spending money on
motels defeats the purpose of enriching and building the
community network. Fans and friends who are willing to
let bands stay at their houses while on tour could
participate in a web database of available lodging for
bands. As the network grows, we will purchase our own
houses and motels for bands and those who wish to
cohabitate with them.
Music Education - As part of the Rock and Roll School,
bands would tour colleges, community colleges, high

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schools and junior high schools, performing for students,

and then providing instruction to youth in seminars.
Youth could thereby gain real-world skills in how to
operate and nurture small-businesses while lending direct
support to their comrades-in-arts. Touring the schools
would help bands to recover the youth audiences lost to
drinking age restrictions in clubs.
Health Care - The C.C.M. would make health insurance
avalable for member bands.
Studio Production - The C.C.M. would affiliate with or
own Recording Studios where member bands could
record.
Record Distribution and marketing - The C.C.M. would
create its own Record Distribution business or partner
with existing ones.
Content aggregation, control and distribution via
broadband and other media channels - the C.C.M. would
deploy mobile sound and video recording of live shows
and distribute the content through broadband, satellite,
DVD and other media in order to help build audiences for
the bands. With the advent of streaming media and
broadband internet access, clubs and bands have a golden
opportunity to deliver vast quantities of under-utilized
content to potential audiences.
Tour support - The C.C.M. would review applicant bands
for the purpose of offering them funding for tour support.
This would be based on a peer review process.
Marketing and Promotion - one of the factors causing the
most harm to local live music is the pitiful amount of
resources available for promoting events. The C.C.M.
would allocate funds to qualifying bands to boost their
promotional budgets for events and CD sales, as well as
offer Marketing consultation, graphic design services,
video production, etc.

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Radio airplay - Own and operate our own radio stations.

Lobby Congress to reduce the corporate control of the
airwaves, and give it back to the bands and the listeners.
Real estate investments - owning land and real estate is
one of the most effective ways for the culture of live
music to grow in strength and stability. We can increase
the sustainability of our way of life by cooperatively
owning and controlling the venues where we work and
play. A new nonprofit organization should be formed
which raises money from public and private sources so
that top-quality music venues can be purchased with the
active involvement of the C.C.M. and other music industry
people.
With the successful formation of Cooperative
Communities of Musicians, it will be possible to aggregate
human resources and collective will sufficient to form
Political Action Committees that will be able to
participate directly in the political process to defend and
advocate the interests of their constituent bands and
audiences.
Appointed lobbyists in the employ of bands would visit
the halls of power, from City Hall to the Halls of Congress
in order to demand greater respect, improved working
conditions, and a fair share of the corporate welfare pie.
We will also collect human and economic statistics about
local musicians and the local music business, and use
these to help us to lobby the powers-that-be on behalf of
musicians and audiences interests. An industry trade
journal should be created that provides comprehensive
market data about regional music scenes, including the
numbers of people attending shows, revenues from live
music, advertising dollars spent, merchandise sold,
numbers of bands that have played, numbers of shows,

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etc. Without hard-core market information, musicians

and music industry people can not fully take up the fight
on their own behalf. With good market information to
back our cause, we can make a better case for the social
and economic contributions that bands offer to their
communities, and have the hard data to prove our
growing cultural and economic strength to the public and
to lawmakers.
The Youth Plan and Youth Leadership
Saving the world rests on the shoulders of the youth. They
are the ones who will grow into positions of influence and
power, and it is they who will make the decisions
necessary to undo the harm caused by their parents and
past generations. So, it is absolutely critical that
participants in the Plan help the youth do what they must
do to save the world.
The Youth Plan has 3 basic parts: the Wisdom Academy,
Event Production, and Street Teams.
1. The Wisdom Academy The Wisdom Academy is
where youth can get in contact with the highest teachings
of the Great Tradition the Great Tradition being the
collected works of the True Spiritual Masters throughout
human history.
The Wisdom Academy will provide youth with the wisdom
and teachings of the Great Tradition, as well as the tools
to practice and apply this wisdom.
The core of the Wisdom Academy will be the
Vanguard Meetings. Vanguard meetings are a place
where representatives from various communities, faiths
or traditions come together to share with each other their

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highest scriptures, and to pray together to support each

others highest visions.
Following is an example of how a Vanguard meeting
would operate:
Invited representatives from various communities gather
in a hall in a circle, with one representative from each
group appointed to recite anything from their preferred
scripture for up to five minutes. The entire group can
then discuss their response to this recitation for another
five minutes. A total of 9 of these readings takes place.
This part of the meeting lasts about an hour-and-a-half.
Next, a facilitator picks six people from the group, each of
whom will lead the entire group in a prayer, expressing
that persons highest vision of what they want to
manifest. The group prays quietly along with that person
to help support their manifestation.
The group prayer process lasts 30-45 minutes.
Finally, an open discussion period takes place for about an
hour.
The entire meeting can happen in about 3 hours.
Vanguard meetings are a place where people can find out
about the teachings and points-of-view of a wide variety
of faith orientations and visions of reality. This will enable
people to heal or overcome the arbitrary divisions that
can exist between different religions or realityperspectives. Vanguard meetings will be a place where
people can gain access to wisdom in a non-sectarian
atmosphere.

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In addition, participants will enjoy the intimacy of praying

together, and collectively invoking the Truth and Unity
that is greater than our individual egos, for the purposes
of the most positive collective outcomes
Cultivating unity and sharing a wide diversity of wisdom
within the Vanguard meetings will be a natural way to
develop new forms of cultural and global leadership
among the participants.
Street Teams
The street teams will help to promote our principle media
offerings, including Adi Das Art and Teachings, the band
Swaybone, Orange Sky Studio, and the Rock and Roll
parties, among many other offerings.
Street teams combine technical internships with
marketing and business training, so younger people can
learn important skills from leaders and each other, such
as the following:
1. Music recording, editing and mixing.
2. Video editing and production
3. Graphic design
4. Web design, html and Flash
5. FTP and file management
6. Archiving, data back-up and data security
7. Server configuration and maintenance
8. Web marketing
9. Street and festival person-to-person marketing
10. CD and DVD authoring and manufacturing
11. Merchandise and branding
12. Database management and email marketing
13. Events production
14. Networking and community building

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Successful interns and team members can become

cooperative partners who share in profits from ticket and
merchandise sales. Successful partners can also leverage
their experience with the street teams to build their own
base of clients.
Street teams will use the methods of cooperation,
consensus and non-violence in their day-to-day
operations.
Street teams are an opportunity for youth to develop true
leadership capacities, which will be further developed
through the Wisdom Academy and the Vanguard
meetings. The Widsom Academy is a place where
members can deepen their understanding of prior unity,
spirituality, non-violence, cooperation, and tolerance of
all faiths.
The Wisdom Academy is a place where the following
subjects will be taught.
a) Non-violent communication techniques, such as:
- I want and I feel statements, instead of personal
attacks
- The use of witholds
- How to have clearings
- How to de-escalate potential conflicts
b) Teaching youth how to be teachers when any youth
has demonstrated mastery and understanding of a
subject, they should teach it to other youth.
c) Youth civil rights, including
o Youth have the right to speak their truth to any
adult at any time

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Youth have the right to have their personal

boundaries respected by any adult.

d) The ego versus Reality every youth must be informed

about the action of egoity that we are all doing and its
consequences of fear, unnecessary human-caused harm
and suffering; they must also be informed of the existence
of the One Who has transcended the ego, His Teaching,
and His availability to all beings.
e) Youth leadership skills youth will be given
opportunities to self-organize, build teams, manage
teams and projects, be accountable to their teams and
mentors and communities, give each other feedback and
performance reviews, develop group structures and
communications channels, share rewards and profits, etc.
f) Youth will be encouraged to develop public speaking
skills, writing skills, cultural literacy skills, economic and
entrepreneurial skills, descriminative intelligence, moral
reasoning, compassion, happiness, ecstasy, spontenaety,
self-discipline, meditation, healthy nutrition, friendships
and intimacy, artistic skills, etc.
g) The Rights and Powers of Consent we will educate the
youth about how the rights and powers of consent
develop within an individual, especially in the optimum
circumstances of intimate human scale community,
where youth can be fully accountable to their community
for their degrees of preparedness and responsibility for
adult behaviors.
2. Event Production the first youth leadership team will
be dedicated to putting on all-ages live musical events, art
gallery events, Guitar Diplomacy events, Adi Da
missionary events, etc. Through putting on live events,

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youth will develop skills in event production, marketing,

web design, graphic design, financial accounting,
advertising, lighting, videotaping, live sound production,
team management, performance, recording, etc.
3. Community building putting on live events helps the
youth learn to bring people together for a positive
collective purpose. And the ultimate purpose of this is the
ongoing development of true human-scale communities
that we can build and rely on for the rest of our lives.
Intimate human scale communities are the true basis for
any human society and civilization, and it is within our
communities that we find our greatest potential for
personal and spiritual growth. True communities are the
alternative to the dark and destructive trends of war,
fascism, materialism and ecological destruction.
There will also be a core group within the Wisdom
Academy, called the Non-violent Youth Army. The nonviolent youth army will use the methods of non-violent
civil disobedience and street theatre when appropriate to
intervene in situations that require bold and direct action.

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108

Last Word
From Eleutherios, by Adi Da Samraj
The only way beyond the chaos and destruction of war is
for humankind as a whole to embrace the discipline of a
truly cooperative global community. It is essential that
each and all of the peoples and nations of the world go
beyond their separate desires for dominance - by (each
and all) relinquishing their wish to establish their separate
racial or ethnic group, or their particular tradition of
religion, or their separately idealized political system, or
their any independently and exclusively presumed selfinterest as supreme. Instead, humanity must accept its
responsibility to manage itself as a globally
interconnected total community - and (in the disposition
of cooperation, and tolerance) that total (or truly global)
community must deal with the immense practical
problems confronting the living world today (including
overpopulation, disease, ecological and environmental
problems, economic problems, and so forth). Through this
cooperative global community, humankind must
collectively address the terrible suffering (whether
brought on by war, exploitation, poverty, or the harsh
realities of nature) that is endured by vast numbers of the
worlds human (and non-human) population.
The active leaders of the cooperative global community
(not only in government, but in every area of human
endeavor) will have a uniquely great responsibility - for,
even if individuals developing within the collective order
of humankind yet suffer the self-caused disabilities of
egoic living, the leaders who serve the cooperative global
community must (without fail) preserve and protect the
well-being of humankind (and of even all of Earthkind) as
a whole, by really and consistently abandoning the self-

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centered, non-cooperative, and intolerant (or loveless)

manner of life and the policies and activities that flow
from it.

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