Physical Freedom

I am presently in India and I found myself thinking about freedom. So I have decided to share my thoughts. Given the time restraint I will do it in a series of blogs. India is a great place to think about freedom – on one hand you have the avatars – who are conscious of themselves as Gods – free from all restraints and on the other hand we have people living as slaves in every area of their lives.

Physical Slavery

Most of us are familiar with this. It was just over two hundred and fifty years ago that slavery existed in the United States and other countries. Slavery has existed all over the world and in many places women are still treated as slave or property of men. In India more than half of their population of over six hundred million people live in physical slavery. They are illiterate and many do not go to school. You are not even allowed to touch them or to walk in their shadow.

Historically in most world religions including Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, women were not even considered to have a soul and were there mainly as baby making machines and for the pleasure of men. Historically in China a man could kill his wife without any sanction, as she was his property and he could do with his property as he likes – no crime committed. In Indian language the woman is actually called “property.” Women in many societies and religions are still considered as property. Now, most of us in the West are pretty convinced that physical slavery is no longer allowed. Yet in many ways most of us are still not physically free.

In the domain of health many of us are not free from sickness and dis-ease. We don’t practice proper care for the body and do not understand the principle of making our food our medicine and our medicine our food. We still run to the doctors who specialize in dis-eases and illness rather than taking the time to discover how to properly care for our bodies ourselves.

Most of us are still not financially free. We work for an entire lifetime and still do not discover financial freedom. Many of us still work from “hand to mouth.” We rely on governments, social security, our children etc. for our financial well-being. In so many areas of our lives we are still living in physical slavery. What is the cause of all this madness?

The way out of physical slavery is to take 100 percent responsibility for your personal, physical, material and financial wellbeing. It means that you have to become self sufficient in every physical, material and financial way possible. The only way someone can exploit you is if you want something from them. As long as you want nothing from no one – no one can exploit you. No one can enslave you or exploit you without your permission.

When you are awake and take 100% responsibility for your personal, physical and financial well-being you become physically free. Until we are physically free there is little or no hope for us to venture into the higher realm of emotional, mental and spiritual freedom.

“Wake Up to Your Prosperity” is GIFTE’s first course that teaches you how to eradicate physical slavery from your life.

Love and light

Courtney

Obama or Clinton - For Democratic Nomination?

As I spent some time this Sunday watching TV, in particular CNN, I could not help being engulfed in the democratic nomination race. At this time Barack Obama is leading with 1389 delegates to Hillary Clinton 1282 delegates – where 2025 delegates are needed to secure the nomination.

There are a few issues that I would like to comment on as I try to discern from the debate which candidate is more appropriate for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

1. My Support
I am supporting Barack Obama for president. To me Barack Obama has the wisdom, temperament, poise, understanding, judgment, knowledge and grace to lead the United States at this time. Barack is the best candidate to lead the United States out of the depression and negative image abroad.

2. Woman vs. Black Man
This to me is about 200 years too late. For the last 200 years we have had 43 white men run the United States of America. The reason why we have not had a woman or a black man as president is simply because of the sexist and racist component of the United States. The only surprise is that it has taken so long for one of the major parties to nominate a woman or a black man to run for President of the United States.

3. Leadership
Selecting a President is basically selecting a leader. We therefore have to ask the question “what kind of leader do we want?” There are two types of leadership – one based on love and the other based on fear. We are very familiar with leadership based on fear – we have just had 8 years of it under President Bush or more broadly we can say that for all our lives we have had leadership based on fear. Our old paradigm of politics is based on fear. My cursory look at the campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton I have concluded that she represents a continuation of this old politics based on fear. Also based on my cursory look at Senator Barack Obama I have concluded that he represents a willingness to venture into that enchanted ground of love-based leadership. And as both candidates rightly say – it is not so much what you say but more importantly what you do. However, actions and deeds do start with thoughts and words.

4. Experience
Senator Clinton has been making much to-do about her experience in contrast to that of Senator Obama. To her credit she cites her 8 years as First Lady and her seven years as United States Senator. Senator Obama on the over hand has 3 years as a United States Senator and 8 years as an Illinois Senator. She argues that even though he has more legislative experience than she does, her time as the wife of the president is valued more that his legislative experience. To me the argument is a non-issue – you have two United States senators running for president: whether you are in your second term or first term seems to be of little value to me. If that was the major criteria for President then we would just choose the oldest serving senator to run.

5. A female President
Whether the Democratic Party delegates nominate a black man or a woman as the presidential nominee they will be sending a positive message to the world. Even thought there are thirteen countries led by women we still have a world which is male ruled and controlled. The prospect of a female leading the United States of America will no doubt be a huge boost to the challenge for parity not just in the United States but in the world. But to be honest, a vote for Hillary will not yield any substantive change – to paraphrase George Orwell – from the man to the woman and the woman to the man they are one and the same. All that will change is that we will exchange Bill for Billary. In a situation when there was no change agent yes, I would welcome a female president simply because she is female but when there is a real chance for change – just being female is not enough.

6. Barack as President
To me Barack is not just a black man. He transcends race, class, religion and gender (in fact to me Obama has more feminine energy than Hillary). Barack is a phenomenon. He is that rare breed of people you compare only to the great such as John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Junior, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. We are very fortunate at this time to have a person emerge to lead us through this time of turbulence in the United States and the world.

7. Endorsement
Who is endorsing who is an interesting point to me. First, I find it interesting that Al Gore who served as Vice President for 8 years when Hillary was First Lady and therefore worked closely together in the White House is not endorsing her. Added to that is that David Wilhelm former chairman of Bill Clinton’s campaign who must have worked closely with Hillary is endorsing Barack. In addition most of the party’s elite have endorsed Barack including Kennedy, Kerry, Oprah and many, many more.

I am very encouraged to see Hillary and Barack in this race for the Democratic Party nomination. For me while the race and gender is important – I am even more encouraged for the possibility of having a more humane, love-based leadership in Washington. I believe with anyone of these candidates and especially with Barack Obama the United States and indeed the world will be a better place.

Love and light
Courtney

Courtney Kazembe's Blog

Courtney Kazembe's Blog

Love Your Enemies

Valentine’s Day is designated to be the day that we express love to our beloved/s. So I asked myself; why do we have a day for this purpose? For on this day it is expected that we go out and “do” the things that lovers “do” - get the flowers, jewelry, chocolate, etc. These things that we do and are expected to do, from our perspective, is suppose to be a gesture of loving or being loved.

From this perspective we see love as an act; as something we “do”. If we are ‘doing” love, then it is not love. When we “do” love – it takes effort, and we will eventually get bored and/or tired. We will want to relax and rest. And sometime we will even relax into hate – for we can only relax into the opposite. That is why, one moment we could be doing love with our beloved and the next moment we could be doing hate with our beloved. The same person becomes the object of both love and hate – that is the conflict of doing love. There is so much misery in our love life because our love is an act. Doing love is not real love!

The first thing we must understand is love is a state of being – it is not an act. We can “be” love or “be in” love – but we cannot “do” love. As I write this I am feeling the difference and hopefully as you read this you can feel it too. There is a fundamentally different experience from “being love” and from “doing love.” Doing love without being love is absurd. Yet that is how most of us on the planet live our lives.

How do we shift from doing love to being love?

Being in love is a state of being. This state of being may be focused on one person or it may be unfocused – on the whole. When we focus it on one person, we call it love. When it is unfocused, we call it prayer - agape. Then we are just in love – not just with one person, but just in love. We are then in love with ourselves, everyone and everything, in love with God. Love becomes as present as your breathing.
Have you ever heard anyone say “this is breathing day”? I am going to breathe today. No! There is no effort involve in breathing. If there was effort we could forget to do it, or we would get tired and we would have to relax and we would die.

Love is just like breathing, it is a higher plane of breathing. If we do not breathe our bodies would die. If we are not loving our spirit cannot flourish. Love is the breathing of the soul. When we are in love our soul becomes vital, alive, just like it is breathing.

Now what happens if I say to you, “Only breathe when you are near me and do not breathe anywhere else,” you would surely die. Likewise if I say to you only love when you are with me and love no-one else, then also you will surely die and your spirit will not flourish.

That is how we relate in love. We attempt to possess the love object. We say, “don’t love anybody else – only love me.” Then the love is emaciated and then the lover cannot love, it becomes impossible. This does not mean that we have to be in a sexual relationship with more than one person but we have to be in a loving state of being. It is just like breathing, even if your enemy is around you still breathe.
That is why Jesus say “love your enemy.” When love is a state of our being – it is not a question of friend or enemy. I am love.

To be in a state of love means being loving in a single moment. It means getting out of past and future and simply being present in the moment to life as it is occurring. You are therefore not wishing or hoping for something else other than what is so - right now! Right now! Right now! Life is ever changing and as it changes you go with the flow and love the moments as they present themselves. Here Now! Here Now! Here Now!

Only a single moment of love and we all know how to fill a single moment with love. Once we are able to enter a single moment with love we have entered eternity - time is no more. A moment of love is a timeless moment. This is real love that we will attain when we develop a meditative being. We get to the place where we feel oneness. Existence and I are one. We move beyond fear and death. Then loves flows from us. Love is then not an act, not an effort – we cannot do anything except love. That is when we become enlightened - we become the Buddha and the Christ.

In Love and Light
Courtney

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everybody.

Let's make this year our best year ever.

Some of you are concerned that you have not heard from me in awhile.

Well! I am presently away in India - meditating with some of the most highly evolved and enlightened beings on the Planet. It is an awesome experience.

I send you all Divine grace.

Love and light
Courtney

Merry Christ-mas

It is with great pleasure that I extend to you and your families the warmest wishes for this holiday season.

Christmas brings with it an added sense of love, joy and excitement as we make special effort to shower our love and gratitude on all who are dear to us. The sense of oneness that we experience at this time of year is so fulfilling that we all wish that it was possible to bottle the experience and keep it for all times. What If? Every moment was “Christmas” - A Christ filled moment.

Oh! I can hear all of us saying to ourselves Lois Armstrong’s ‘what a wonderful world’!

We at GIFTE not only believe it is possible - more importantly we are committed to its manifestation here and now.

We make this possible in each moment we when not only remember and worship the Christ, but importantly in each moment when we actually live the say the Christ lived. And therefore become the Christ.

At first glance it may seems very hard to live the way the Christ lived but there is actually an easy way to do it - just stay present in the moment and be conscious and in each moment do the right thing, think the right thoughts, feel the right feelings and speak the right words. This moment - can I act with unconditional love to the other? This moment! This moment! This moment!….. And that is all there is. Stop - where you are right now and become the Christ - This moment! Have this moment be a Christ(moment).

The season is the time of year when we agree to exercise more of our true self, - our love, our gifts, our peace, our happiness and our joy. Let’s have more Christ moment in our lives.

With love and light,
Merry Christmas
Courtney Kazembe

Passion

Sitting on a plane from Toronto to Los Angeles, I decided to watch the in flight movie “Hairspray”, starring Queen Latifah. It is a musical about diversity, dance and teenage love. I like the one-liners from the movie “if you don’t like the way I look – I just don’t give a dam” – “you can’t stop the dance”. I was moved by the energy in the movie and began to think of the role of passion in our lives.

Many of us – including me at times - live our lives so-so, lukewarm, without any intensity, without any authenticity, without enough fire to bring our lives to the boiling point. Our lives are filled with formality, doing right, coping with each other, never any genuineness, and never any passion. At this level nothing will happen – at best we will be mediocre.

What is passion? Passion is energy. Passion is fire, it is life, and it is intensity. Passion is enthusiasm for life. It is zest, it is zeal. It is love that has arisen from the heart and soul. The opposite of passion is indifference. It is living from fear. It is meaningless. It is absurd. It is ridiculous.

Create a life of great passion. Whatever you do – do it with great passion. If you sing then sing passionately. If you sweep the street then sweep it passionately. If you love then love passionately. If you talk - then talk passionately. Whatever you do – do it passionately. And from everywhere you will start having contact with God.

When you do something passionately you are in the zone. When you are being totally passionate the ego dies. You no longer care about the perception of others. You do it to please yourself. Dance such that the dancer disappears and only the dance remains. Speak such that the speaker disappears and only the speech remains. That is passion. It is pure energy. You have made contact. You are connected.

Have you ever been so into something that you lose yourself in it? You were connected to your higher self and totally in the moment. Whatever it is that you were doing is like a meditation. Your ego was not there at all – yet you were totally present. You were in the zone, you were passionate and it was the best feeling in the world.

Only mediocre people are egoistic. The really great people cannot be egoistic. The number one factor that imbued all great human beings is that they did what they did with enormous passion. When the passion is great the ego dies. The really great lives have a different dimension - The dimension of passion.

At a ultimate stage passion becomes transformed into compassion. There is a quantum leap from passion into compassion. The leap only happens when you are boiling at 100%. It is the same energy. Compassion is passion come of age. It is a continuation – it exists as passion and then one day it becomes compassion. It is not antagonistic. It is passion blooming. Do whatever you do – but be lost into it. Be consumed by it. Become it. That is meditation. That is energy vibrating.
The only way to life worth living is a life with passion.

Love, light and passion
Courtney

The GIFT of Prosperity

“I am come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” Jesus.

Many of us are confused about the notion of prosperity. We confuse prosperity with capitalism, materialism, greed and hording. Creating and manifesting money and material abundance is an essential element of prosperity, however it is important to realize that actual prosperity is different from perceived prosperity. Actual prosperity is the result of truth and integrity that satiate the soul. When we have love and peace in our body, heart, mind and spirit we are basking in a state of actual prosperity. Perceived prosperity is when we have the bank account, the home, the car and all the trappings of success, yet still feel sick, empty and worried inside.

What is Prosperity? The word prosperity is derived from the Latin word prosperare meaning to do well or to be successful.

Prosperity is not just about having tons of money in the bank or living in the palatial house; it is more about having a balanced life – it is actually about leading a successful life and accomplishing your life’s purpose. The eight cornerstones of prosperity are love, wisdom, abundance, health, freedom, happiness, integrity and peace. Without each of these cornerstones in place, imbalance will rule in your life and you will not be prosperous.

The way to acquire this state of prosperity is through righteousness. The four factors of righteousness are – right thoughts, right emotions, right words, and right actions.

Most of us perceive prosperity as something that requires sacrifice. We don’t believe that we can have it all. And therefore we don’t. We usually go through life struggling in at least some areas of our lives and some of us in many areas of our lives. Is this the way to live?

Most of us have been programmed and inculcated into a paradigm of reality, which invalidates us and destroys our ability to produce the results we desire. This old context gives us the life we have. We whine and complain about it but most often we don’t know what to do. So we continue doing what we have always done, and hope and wish for some other result.

People do not live the way they do because they like it. They live the way they do because they do not know what else to do. The gift of prosperity awakens that first hint of another way to live. The capacity for a life filled with vitality, prosperity, power, true self-expression, and self-actualization lies within each of us. We can gain access to this powerful way of being, by making fundamental distinctions about the nature of being human.

Anyone who wants this new life badly enough can find it. Then, everything alters itself dramatically. Just as a frozen river thaws with the warmth of spring, the new life flows freely, smoothly and abundantly.

GIFTE (Global Institute For Transformation and Enlightenment) focuses on the transformation from fear and poverty to love, peace, prosperity and enlightenment for the entire planet. We are talking about a world that works for everyone and everything, with no one and nothing left out. GIFTE speaks to the capacity to envision options from the future rather than from the past and therefore aids in the transformation of the whole human race.

THE GIFT OF PROSPERITY IS YOUR FIRST WAKE UP CALL!

Love, light and prosperity
Courtney