Know that you are here, you chose to be here at this time to experience and learn and grow. At this writing 4/10/20 there are over a million and a half worldwide cases of Corona virus worldwide. In the US there are half a million. Deaths worldwide are over ninety five thousand with fourteen thousand plus dead in the USA alone. Not to put too fine a point on our pencil markings herein we might say we are failing miserably in the fight to overcome the spread of the virus. We started too late and our response has been far too limited. Our white house has dropped the ball. They’ve been slow and ineffective in response to what is a world changing pandemic. A world punishing disease. President Trump does get credit for the fact that he shut down travel from China early on in the progression of this virus. We have good friends in the medical profession in Australia and maybe we, our government, could and can learn something from them. Australians now have a travel ban from city to country and visa-versa. People must have written permissions of necessity or job clearances to travel distances. Especially across state, & province lines & boundaries. The police will stop cars and turn them around without proper clearance to travel the highways. They are confined to home and no gatherings of more than two people are advised or allowed. Widespread business closings are enforced and open and honest communication is constantly evolving and being shared. There is information and advice to inform people about exactly what they can and cannot do. Businesses deemed to be essential will be open, social distancing enforced. Our friends G&G tell us that now eight to ten feet are recommended separation distances, especially when people are active. Let’s make that the new Focus Up Philosophers standard to be safe. That’s 8-10 ft. of separation folks. Supermarkets, banks, pharmacies, c-stores, freight, food delivery and bottle shops are open. Police patrol stations, of course, are open. Pubs, clubs, cinemas, casinos, nightclubs, places of worship, gyms, sport activities were closed, basically shut down by order of the PM, Scott Morrison and his medical advisers. Hairdressers are okay down under if social distancing and masks, etc. are enforced. Restaurants are recommended to do takeaway cooking only. We hear now that masks can be worn every four days. Covid-19 does not seem to be viable over four days. Also airing them outside and putting them in the sun can be good. I am thinking of a hanging rack outside our front door to hang them in the sun and fresh air. Anything outside is not brought in by masks. I can leave them there until next use. That must be four days or more. I offered to undress outside, but that was vetoed in favor of the neighbors whom we are quite fond of. Have you all got masks? Daughter Sharon is making them in case any of you need them. Email and we’ll send your requests to her. focusupphilosophers@gmail.com When I first started wearing my mask more than a month ago, people gave me very different looks. Some even looked angry. Now in the grocery store today about half the people had them on. Hearing from our Australian friends that in Sydney the government has taken over several hotels and any Australian citizen who has traveled out of the country and coming back to Australia is sequestered there for fourteen days prior to returning to his or her home. Good idea? Very good idea, when we hear that most of the cases in New York are from a European derivative of the virus. Had we had fourteen day and distancing restrictions earlier along with masks, gloves, furnace and vent Coronavirus eliminating filters maybe New York, especially the City could have been spared being virtually devastated. How refreshing it would be to have open and honest communication from our White House leaders other than Dr. Fauci. My neighbor wants to run him for president. When I went to Pepperdine College one of my professors told us we did not have real communication if it wasn’t open and honest communication. What have we got now? Entertainment, sales pitches, condemnation and mis-education from the White House and friends. When the white house tells us that medical professionals are stealing medical needs and supplies it makes us sad to hear figures about medical professionals who have died while on the job or immediately after treating patients with Covid-19
9. Columbia university in Manhattan (NYC) has asked for volunteers because half of their staff has contracted Coronavirus. The 30,000 people in New York with the disease are putting more than a strain on hospital front lines like the ER, ICU-Intensive Care Units, and other staff. Doctors and nurses are getting sick and dying in hospitals around the US and the world. I heard an Italian doctor report that twenty of his staff of nurses and doctors had died in a very short time. I think it was a day. We hear there is a shortage of masks in the US. I forgot mine and the hospital my wife had been taken to by ambulance would not give me one. We are running without a proper number of ventilators, and other health professionals needed garments and equipment. I was not old enough to remember WW 11. (world war two), yet I have read and seen the effort we put forth to save the world for democracy. It was total. I’ve seen posters about Uncle Sam and Rosie the riveter. I feel that we have now embarked upon WW III. When this many people in America are threatened why not turn out all of our resources to fight this disease for our democracy? Have we saved it in one generation, which Tom Brokaw called ‘The Greatest Generation’ in his book. Now is our generation losing it here and now? Can we not influence our government leaders, especially the white house to take up the fight. Why not, rather than trying to sell us on the prospective of their doing such a good job? We are supposed to be a world leader and here we are falling so far behind that we have a majority of the Covid-19 cases in the world. We are the third most populous nation and the most Coronavirus affected. Does that sound right? Let’s suspend mortgage payments for at least two months and up to as long as this pandemic is threatening Americans. We bailed out the banks. It was the hard working Americans who suffered when the banks did not take care of business properly. They sold mortgages, and other instruments that the people at the top knew were unsustainable. I have a friend in Virginia whose BofA contact quit because he said management was doing things not according good business practices. My friend didn’t sell his BofA stock and he told me how much he lost in the downturn. You wouldn’t want to consider your loss against his I don’t imagine. I would not. It was substantial to say the very least. Carole and I lost a great deal in the downturn and it has taken to this year to recoup it. The banks got money to bail themselves out of trouble. It took my bride and me more than ten years to just break even. The banks were given money and a pass and are now back to doing many of the practices before the crash. Does that sound fair or did you not get hurt in the crash? We need the banks to support Americans. Let us see how much they’re willing to help and bail us out. The country’s mortgages can be suspended. If mortgages are forgiven until the crisis is abated, then rents should also be forgiven. I know people who pay from one thousand to five thousand dollars a month rent. Will a stimulus check of $1,200 help them that much? I also feel for the small businesses who have mortgages and employees. The small churches who can not have services because of Covid-19. These churches depend on contributions to keep the doors open. Could the larger, may I say richer churches assist them to survive? We know that some of them can. Will they? Le’ts see, no let’s recommend it. I think the world is better if many of the better church philosophies survive. That is the positive religious philosophies and spiritually sound philosophies. The ones that give the congregation the power to think about their spiritual inner connections, and highest lives in the best light possible. Every person in the world can be taught to emulate the masters. The teaching of Jesus, Buddha, Babaji, Gandhi, Yogananda, Kahunas and the Bodhisattva. Plus there are so many more spiritual masters and great thinkers like Joan of Arc, Mother Theresa and others. Emulate the masters did and do what that inner wise knower directs. How do we do it? Meditate, meditate, meditate, to the meditator the universe is available. Tune in to spirit whenever we can. We are the soul. We know and create the past, present and future. When we live as the soul we know the desires and wants which are above the body/brain needs. As Soul we think and act with the highest of integrity and honesty. Will we do it exactly like Jesus, or Saint Frances of Assisi, or Gautama Buddha, or Parmahansa Yogananda, or Mahavatar Babaji or other saints and greats of our past and present? Probably not! Can we each do good things? We absolutely can. Leave no stone un-turned until you find your path to the good, true and lovable. Act as you’re a Christ, Buddha, Kahuna, Mahavatar, Saint. Focus Up Philosophers are now entreated to look for the good and become the good you perceive and believe in. Turn your believing to knowing. This is Easter and I trust each of us will celebrate in our own way. I ask you at this trying time to step out even further than me. I need to go so much farther that you so I may rise above basically being Ernest. We will be a different world a vaccination against the Coronavirus is available in approximately eighteen months. Microbiologists seem to agree that twelve months would be great and they hope no longer than eighteen months. We will work with each of our Focus Up Philosophers to assist you into a new reality of mastery. Let’s all become masters of our destinies living as soul, spirit, love. I trust we can all do it. Then teach others how to follow in our footsteps. As the doctors say about patient operations: ‘See one, do one, teach one.’ Build a strong and reachable happy place in the upper middle of your brain. One inch above and between the tops of your ears. See last weeks post if you want more info about this. Go there when you are making decisions. Prior to all decisions, focus up and become insightful before making all decisions. Do it whenever you want to be, do and create better decisions. Better decisions will improve your life in many ways. First of all, do not make money your deity. I mean the best of human endeavors want for making better decisions. Write, write until you have mastered the writing medium. Do you like poetry, mysteries, drama, screen plays the choice is yours. Mastery is much easier and more fun and interesting if it is in a subject we love. Speak, speak in public until you have mastered that medium. Practice on your family now that we are forced inside. Record your talks, today’s cell phones can do it. Critique your presentation(s), it will be good in helping you to learn how to do it. Understand that negativity only begets negativity. Honest critiques look at all sides of the presentation to allow the speaker to grow. Read good books. Try Shakespeare, Emerson, the synoptic gospels and John in the new testament of the Bible: Ernest Holmes who is quoted as writing, ‘There is a power for good in the universe and you can use it.’ He wrote the Science of Mind, and it’s grand. Also read Eastern literature Mohandes Gandhi, the Mahatma, 100 Quotes and others; Parmahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Back to other philosophy and history. Will and Ariel Durant’s history, especially The Lessons of History, that book is wonderful. Plato wrote, The Republic and asked us to question everything, Socrates; Aristotle and other philosophers. American poets like, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, T.S. Elliot, E.E.Cummings, Edgar Allen Poe, and the like. I received a communique from the library that in essence said that the facility was closed but books could be available on demand. Hooray for them. My wife, Carole recommends Carl Sagan, and Ann Druyen, husband and wife team. Try Woolly by Ben Mezrich. He tells us that the politicians fear and dislike scientists and we must change that. Possibly a goal for Focus Up Philosophers to tackle, yes? Change our lives, change the world around us. Become the change we want to see in the world. Those are some of my thoughts. I think many governments have failed us in this very serious dis-ease or ill-mess. We know that when the government fails the people that…… You finish the thought please and pick your countries. 1. A 2. B 3. C – you choose and let us know. focusupphilosophers@gmail.com Please, please do not give in to fear. Be the strength people need to heal and get well. We must and we will eliminate this challenge and I trust we can see it sometime as our opportunity. The opportunity is to win WW III without firing a shot at any sentient being on the planet. Blessings, Ernest
Post Script, PS. In this trying time we can and will build a better reality for ourselves and the world. Let this message reverberate from the mountains to the seashores. If you like our ideas please share them and this website. Entreat every Christian to be their own Christ. Every Buddhist to be their own Buddha. Every Huna to become a Kahuna-(Wise man). Interesting story about the Kahunas. They trained the Hunas. After the training they gave them an ounce of poison to drink. Those who lived were graduated. Those that did not were washed out of the program. It’s not as bad as that. Actually they were healed and sent home. Every Avatar in training to elevate themselves to Mahavatar in stature. I read that the movie Avatar will have a second coming. Avatar 2 will be out soon. Maybe Focus Up Philosophers can write Avatar 3 the Mahavatar-(Great Avatar)
Happy Easter all!