By Leonard Orr
The ultimate cure for terrorism may not be to kill the terrorists, but to heal the root causes of it and to work consciously to prevent terrorism.
The cure is both an inside and an outside job. The cure begins with healing our own personal death urge, by healing the root causes of rage and anger within ourselves, by intelligently building and strengthening the Life energy in our body and mind, and by learning to express our feelings and share our enlightenment with our friends and neighbors. The most effective outside cure is neighborhood representation and the resurrection of the basic ideals and structures of democracy like the town meeting.
On the other hand, to kill all the terrorists with military action could produce cycles of military violence that could produce nuclear war that would immerse the entire world in the worst terror of the Armageddon prophecies of World War III.
The outside job does not ignore the value of the military approach. But the total destruction of the New York City World Trade Center building illustrates the impotence of the military approach. The greatest military power in the world is impotent against a few creative individuals. The destruction of the Pentagon building symbolized this.
New York City is not only a financial center, a center of materialism, but it is perhaps the death urge capital of the United States.
The unconscious death urge idea was perhaps most clearly presented by Sigmund Freud. Then it submerged back into unconsciousness until my own writings and books. I wrote the only book in the world specifically on healing the death urge. I also have written many correlative books (-see list at end).
Every country in the world has an abundant supply of totally vulnerable targets for terrorists.
What I am suggesting here is that we not react with blind rage and endanger the whole world with revenge cycles until we create nuclear war and devastation.
What I suggest is that we open our eyes and minds to a more expanded, enlightened view. Let’s try to see the Trade towers event from God’s perspective.
For example, think about this: Ordinary death urge kills over 99.9% of the world’s population every 50 years. This is 2% of the Earth’s people every year that are killed by ordinary deathist mentality. Did you know that when the first man walked on the Moon, crime nearly stopped completely for 24 hours? Evidently, all of the criminals were watching television. Statistics are not yet in, but suppose that the destruction of the NY World Trade Center towers released and healed so much death urge around the world that ten times as many people were saved from ordinary deaths than the number of people who died in the plane and buildings’ explosions. Maybe the NYC towers’ destruction drama on television processed so much death urge on the planet that ordinary death took a vacation for the rest of the week. The people who died might have been a temporary sacrifice for the people that were so interested in TV that they forgot to die when they were schedule.
Yesterday, Thursday, September 13, 2001, was a day of mourning for those who died in the terrorist acts of September 11, 2001. But who mourns ever y day for the people who die every day as a result of ordinary death urge? Who even cares enough to think about daily ordinary death? How do we prevent this tragedy? Is the solution the same for preventing terrorism?
Is our own mind the most dangerous place in the universe? Do we all create our own death? Is our own mind the source of terrorism?
Why did most of the people in the World Trade Center get out alive? Did it have anything to do with their Life urge?
Is working in a multistoried office building good for the mental, physical and spiritual health of people? Did the 6000 people who died in the September 11th tragedy die for us? Did the tragedy of that Tuesday save more people from death than it killed? Did this tragedy release millions of tons of victim-consciousness and rage from the planet? Rage and victim-consciousness are two sides of the same coin.
No one who has that image of those beautiful towers — a symbol of financial power — collapse into dust will ever forget it! That image will probably be one of the most enduring images of this century.
To think these thoughts does not justify nor approve of terrorism in any way. Just the opposite. The violence and death of that Tuesday was a total waste. It probably won’t permanently change anyone, even though everyone on Earth is temporarily affected by the event, NYC may still be the death urge capital of the United States. The "Big Apple", as it is called, is symbolic of eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that produces death as spoken of in the book of Genesis.
The U.S. President called it an attack upon freedom and democracy, but will the military solution proposed by him do more damage to freedom and democracy than the terrorist act itself? Indeed, will the military solution and revenge proposed by the president and backed by 90% of the American people kill more people than the terrorist act of September 11th?
Will our war against terrorism cause more injustice, intolerance, terror and fear than the terrorists themselves have the power to produce?
Jesus said that the religious leaders, who later murdered him, were the children of the devil who invented death. Jesus called these religious leaders, who taught the inevitability of death rather than victory over death, "white washed graves with minds full of dead people’s bones". Is this still true of the political and orthodox religious leaders of today — 2000 years later?
In Luke 13:4,5, Jesus said, "A tower in Jerusalem fell on a group of people and killed them. Do you think they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, that unless you change your attitude and beliefs about life and death, you will die as they did!"
People who believe that death is inevitable and beyond their control, all die. People who believe that death is optional and self-created at lease give themselves a chance.
But changing our beliefs may not be enough. Repentance involves a change in Lifestyle. It involves learning and implementing enough spiritual and physical purification practices to keep us Living in the Presence of God. These practices keep us Living a Life of Grace and Love and righteousness — a Life of kindness and ethical behavior.
Is this enough to enable us to conquer death, disease and unhappiness? According to Jesus, it is. If the Christianity as taught in your church doesn’t work for you, keep looking for the answers until you feel satisfied. Jesus taught and demonstrated abundant Eternal Life in a way that included his human mind and body. He condemned the religious and political leaders who taught and demonstrated deathist mentality. Victims of the death urge create continual misery and destruction of all kinds. There is no freedom from misery, failure, war and death without spiritual enlightenment, spiritual and physical purification and spiritual community.
Are the churches’ leaders and its members of today any different than the death-oriented people 2000 years ago? If not, is there any reason we should expect a different outcome for our civilization?
If the terrorist acts of September 11th got your attention and started you thinking, keep thinking until you become enlightened about Life and death — about your responsibility to your community and world politics. Is it your apathy and lack of conscious citizenship that breeds terrorists?
Spiritual purification practices are the inside job that can save us from terrorists and prevent terrorism, but there is an outside job that is just as simple.
Republican democracy is dependent upon the ratio of representation. We must have an elected neighborhood representative for at least every 1000 people. Until we have elected neighborhood representatives, we have no way of protecting ourselves from the injustices, terrorism and abuse exercised upon us daily from our own government.
We are so addicted to being abused by our tax system - being slaves in our money system and the numberless ways our bureaucracies are stealing our freedoms- that we have forgotten what happiness and freedom really are! Intelligent citizenship is a lost and forgotten art!
Voting has become such a meaningless act in the United States that most people have such deep feelings of hopelessness and apathy and have given up and resigned from citizenship responsibility. Democracy without the People is not democracy!
A permanent year-round structure of grass roots elected representatives is the only answer. And it is very inexpensive and realistic. If we elect a leader for every 1000 citizens it only costs $10 per month from each of us to create a $10,000 budget to support our elected leader to be our full-time professional political representative. This person can function as a friend, a well-trained counselor - trained by us, a lobbyist for us - the voters, a spiritual leader and role model, a social-worker, an employment-counselor, a trainer in entrepreneurism, an educator, etc. Adult education may be the biggest need of this century. This elected leader can be a judge and protector as is described in Exodus 18 in the Bible.
Through this elected representative, we can support the best ideas in the world and implement them.
When this idea becomes universal, terrorism will naturally disappear. Peace and worldwide enlightenment will reign.
Whenever this kind of elected neighborhood representation gets implemented, violence and crime disappears from the community. Understanding, cooperation and communication replace crime and violence. Neighborhood organizations enable us to support and educate the poor, the sick, the weak and the ignorant. They enable us to tap the power of the strong, intelligent, rich and successful people in our neighborhood for the good of all.
Elected neighborhood representatives can meet monthly in a council for all the grass roots leaders for each congressional district. These representatives enlighten each congressperson or national elected leader. The National Congress of elected national representatives becomes governed by the best ideas of the people.
Government then, at all levels, becomes the servant of the people as was envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Apathy gives way to participatory democracy.
Humanity becomes governed by enlightened knowledge instead of ignorance, apathy, hate and violence.
The cure for terrorism is both an inside and an outside job.
We have to liberate ourselves from the terror in our own mind - from our negative thoughts and feelings about our own Life.
And we have to implement this idea of electing a grass roots representative in our own neighborhood that is organically connected to the elected neighborhood representatives in every local community in the world through a system of district councils of elected neighborhood representatives.
Until the United Nations has a House of Representatives consisting of an elected representative for every one million people on the planet, we will not have worldwide democracy or a very realistic prospect of world peace.
A world without fear, without terrorism, even without poverty nor unconscious death is within our reach.
We must think globally and act locally!
The Death Urge
Another big part of the inside job to end terrorism is to improve the quality of our beliefs about death.
Which do you choose to believe now?
or
Is our personal death urge conscious or unconscious?
As long as we have a death urge, our own mind is the most dangerous thing on Earth. Our own belief in death is the basic source of terror.
But our minds can also liberate us and create Heaven on Earth if we choose!
If we are killed by our own minds, then we carry terrorism around within us all the time. We have the terrorism bombs inside of us. We are all terrorizing each other and ourselves every day. We are all terrorists waiting to kill ourselves.
Ordinary daily death is suicide. And homicide is the other side of the same coin. Death and disease are popular. Our own beliefs and ignorance of our natural Divine potential cause them.
If we are Children of God and God is eternal, why do we have to die? Why do the Bible and all Scriptures hold out victory over death as the goal of salvation, of Heaven on Earth, of enlightened human existence?
To prevent terrorism in the world, we have to overhaul and repair our basic belief system.
Terrorists are small-thinking people who feel unloved and powerless, hoping to accomplish something through their death that they couldn’t accomplish in Life. All acts of violence accomplish nothing that creative and intelligent communication couldn’t accomplish in a much healthier way.
Communication may be slower, but much more efficient. Violence destroys, and, unless it motivates a more beautiful reconstruction, it accomplishes nothing. On the other hand, communication that changes understanding and changes reality with the full knowledge and the full consent of the participants accomplishes things that have more endurance - that are long lasting.
If the recent destruction and loss of Life caused by the terrorist acts in New York and Washington don’t motivate us to:
then all those who died on September 11th, and those who will continue to die in future acts of terrorism, whether they are done by religious fanatics or military professionals, will just be another empty sacrifice for our ignorance and apathy.
The cure for terrorism is in front of our face! We only have to "repent" — to change our habits and Lifestyle in ways that support the personal aliveness and enlightenment of ourselves and our neighbors and our local community.
Remember this most powerful thought: "I am alive now, therefore my Life urges are stronger than my death urges. As long as I strengthen my Life urges and weaken my death urges, I will go on living in greater health and youthfulness."
Spiritual growth, spiritual community and communication constantly enrich the joy of Life in each one of us and in our environment.
This is the source of real safety and security!
Titles by Leonard Orr
To order: ($15 for each book post-paid) send a check or credit card information to:
Inspiration University
P.O. Box 1026
Staunton, VA 24402 - USA
Ph. (540) 885-0551 / Fax (540) 885-1230
Giving yourself a good dose of physical immortality philosophy is good for your mental and physical health. It can prevent violence and terrorism on all levels.
THE TRUTH ABOUT REBIRTHING BREATHWORK
Rebirthing Breathwork is not Attachment Therapy.
A little girl was wrapped in a blanket. The Attachment Therapist was using psychodrama to reenact her birth in the hope that she would bond with her adopted mother.
It wasn’t working. The mother left the room. The little girl complained that she couldn’t breath. She said she was dying.
The therapist said (the whole session was video taped), “Well die then. “Go ahead and die”.
Then there was no sound from the little girl for over 20 minutes before the therapist unwrapped the blanket and found the little girl had suffocated. The therapists were convicted and sent to prison.
The therapist broke many basic rules that are basic to good therapy as well as good Rebirthing.
1. The parents should do the work before the child. A good Rebirther would have given the parents ten Breathing sessions before working with the child.
2. Attachment Therapy is not the same Movement as Rebirthing Breathwork. Rebirthing Breathwork teaches people to breathe, it is not psychodrama.
3. Rebirthing is client centered. The Attachment Therapist was not listening to the little girl.
As the founder of the largest Rebirthing Breathwork Movement, I have never been interested in psychodrama or techniques that force people into their trauma and drama. I have always felt the people have enough drama and trauma in their everyday lives and my goal is to teach people to relax and go for peace. One Year Seminars and all Rebirthing workshops and trainings in the Movement which I established are oriented toward spiritual enlightenment, spiritual psychology, and spiritual community. We give people tools to heal themselves so they can be spiritually self sufficient.
The style of “Rebirthing” used by Attachment Therapists may have originated from a woman named Elizabeth Far in the 60’s, if my memory is correct, who constructed a tunnel out of mattresses for her clients to crawl through.
There is also such a tunnel in the San Francisco Museum of Science which has been a great attraction for decades.
Birth regression work is also common among hypnotherapists.
The kind of Rebirthing Breathwork I represent is also called Conscious Breathing, Intuitive Breathing, Energy Breathing, Spiritual Breathing, etc. Its origins are the Christian tradition. Although the methodology is more like prana yoga, the power of moving Divine Energy by doing a relaxed, gentle, connected breathing rhythm is more like charismatic Christianity. It is well described by Jesus in the New Testament Gospel of John, chapter 3.
In the 28 years of Rebirthing Breathwork history, I have noticed that the worst quality Rebirthing is usually done by people with credentials.
There have been lousy Rebirthers and Breathworkers without credentials, but they usually don’t last long enough to do much harm. They fail and do another kind of work. However, Rebirthers with academic credentials and some kind of State licenses for various kinds of therapy are interested in making money from their credentials and they often last long enough to do much harm. This is well illustrated by the Attachment Therapy crimes.
The tendency seems to be that the more that therapists charge in their fees, the more drama and trauma they have to incite to justify their fees in their own mind as well as their clients minds.
My basic ethic is to allow the client to set the fee at the end of each session based upon the value they received.
The little girl was suffocated because of the technique and insensitivity of the therapist. Intuition and gentleness were not present.
You can see by the above comments that the Attachment Therapists had no decent training in Rebirthing Breathwork. Yet their behavior damaged the reputation of Rebirthing which is a very fine high quality work.
Rebirthing Breathwork has spontaneously spread to millions of people since I started the movement in 1974 almost without incidents of any kind. Learning to breathe better is totally harmless and health enhancing.
Rebirthing Breathwork is so successful because it is so simple. Everyone who experiences ten high quality sessions is amazed by its simplicity and power. Most clients of a good Rebirther Breathworker feel the spiritual peace that passes understanding after the very first session. Sometimes they feel exhausted from releasing so much tension and stress, but usually relaxed and energized. Most people who learn it enjoy sharing it with all their loved ones and friends. Teaching high quality Rebirthing Breathwork is easier than riding a bicycle, prayer, cooking, or playing basketball. It can never be legislated nor should it be because learning to breathe the Breath of Life is our birth right as children of God. Even young children and teenagers often give Rebirthing Breathwork sessions to their parents. I’ve trained many elderly seniors, even in their 90’s to be Rebirthing Breathwork practitioners.
However, I am glad that laws, if necessary, are being passed against using force in any therapy as well as therapists using their position of trust and intimacy to take advantage of their clients sexually or financially.
Good Rebirther Breathworkers only guide a person’s breathing rhythm into the most natural way that humans can breathe. It is a gentle, relaxed, connected breathing rhythm. We teach people to breathe the way newborn babies breathe and the way that we breathe in the middle of deep sleep. This breathing rhythm is what keeps us alive.
When we learn to do conscious connected intuitive Energy breathing voluntarily as a personal or spiritual practice, we have a very valuable ability. We are cooperating with our Creator’s design for breathing freely, fully, and properly.
It is totally inappropriate to label Rebirthing as harmful when most Rebirther Breathworkers only teach people to relax and release stress.
It is as wrong to blame Rebirthing for the death of Candace as it would be to blame education or the public schools for the Columbine, CO High School murders.
It is as wrong to blame Rebirthers for the action of low quality Attachment Therapists as it would be to blame school teachers for the action of the students who shot their fellow students.
Furthermore, Rebirthing Breathwork is a spiritual work closer to the rebirth experience described by Jesus Christ in John 3, than psychodrama. Rebirthing is a beautiful and powerful experience of Divine Energy that includes Spirit, Mind and Body. It is a self healing tool that gives people peace and productive Life Energy for handling successfully the stress of every day Life.
Attachment Therapists have served a few thousands of clients. Rebirther Breathworkers have served millions of people all around the planet – without any such tragedies, nor incidents.
On the other hand, Rebirther Breathworkers leave a trail of happy, productive, gentle, loving, healthy people who were their clients behind them. I am just beginning to research Attachment Therapists and have read about some who do good work. It is unfortunate that bad therapists smear the reputation of those who do good work.
It is just as unbalanced to smear all airplanes because one crashes, or to condemn all automobiles or drivers because some crash. Or to close all public schools because of the murderous shooting in Columbine, CO and other places. Or to close all Christian churches because they teach “rebirthing”.
Maybe the legislators are unconsciously protesting their own birth trauma.
I am as saddened and upset by bad people in any profession. Medical doctors and nurses according to USA Today kill over $100,000 people per year by accident in hospitals. Even Attachment Therapy is safer than this.
I have personally always campaigned against group Rebirthing. I feel it is low quality, insensitive work, motivated by greed and power.
I always recommend that people seeking a good Rebirther Breathworker should interview three Rebirthers before choosing one to do ten sessions with. Clients and students of Rebirthing Breathwork should learn from someone they feel good about and feel safe with. Most Rebirther Breathworkers are gentle, loving, intelligent people.
I’ve trained medical people, psychotherapists, ministers, priests, nuns, body workers, school teachers, yoga teachers, and people in all professions. I’ve lectured at NIH on the subjects of Rebirthing, Breathwork, and hyperventilation as well as in hospitals, medical schools, and universities around the world.
Rebirthing Breathwork is normally taught in ten high quality private sessions about one week apart. Each breathing session is done in a reclining position so that the student can feel comfortable and safe. Each session normally lasts from one to two hours. During the ten sessions, people experience a basic transformation of their breathing mechanism as body memories and tension is released. People also learn to breathe from the Breath Itself – which is God, the Source of our Life Energy. The average session is a spiritual experience, an emotional experience, and a physical experience. It is an experience of Loving Divine Healing Energy.
It would be good for legislators, media people, and community leaders to get accurate information and to experience ten sessions before condemning it or trying to make laws about it. Rebirthing, in the main form that is practiced around the world, is as basic to human health and well being as good nutrition and exercise.
There are many good books about Rebirthing in many languages. My two latest books are Breaking the Death Habit and the Story of Rebirthing Breathwork – the Power of God for Peace, Healing, Energy, and Success.
I have maintained a full time training center since 1974. This training center offers high quality 5 Day and 9 Day Trainings every week of the year so that high quality trainings are always available to interested people. This training center has always practiced a liberal scholarship policy so that money has never been a barrier to the healing power of conscious breathing.
In some cases, loving, intelligent, and intuitive Beings who have a predisposition to success can be trained for a new successful career teaching Rebirthing Breathwork in only three weeks. On the other hand, some people take 5 to 10 years to become successful professionals.
People who have the right combination of gentleness, love, combined with intelligence and intuition can become successful even if they never had a conscious breathing session before starting the training. The full time training enables these gifted people to integrate their first ten sessions by doing three sessions per week during their weeks of training.
There are also training centers in many countries throughout the world.For more information, check www. Rebirthingbreathwork.com or leonardorr.com.
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Last Updated 10/05/2002