We now seem to base our decisions and actions on “credibility” rather than truth/reality /fact (or at least, an earnest attempt thereat). We have become too busy, time-pressured, information overloaded, apathetic and lazy to care about truth and reality, settling for the far lower standard of credibility, which is merely “believable, worthy of belief, convincing.” This lower standard opens the doors wide to those who profit from deliberate confusion, half-truths, misrepresentation and outright lies.. and in so doing they undermine society and democracy.

Modern, science-based society emphasizes Quantity at the expense of Quality (innate excellence/ depth/ value) and this gap has rapidly widened through technological advances and the ascendance, especially over the last 30 years, of unregulated Free Market capitalism. Advocates of the Free Market believe that “market forces” (profit/ $/ Quantity) will fix all social problems, except “law and order” which requires the police and military. However, even in the richest and most un-regulated country in the world, America, the middle class is being destroyed and social problems abound. The USA has fallen dramatically in most global quality-of-life indexes.

Why is this issue of credibility/ reality / truth important? If we (either individually or collectively) make bad or mistaken decisions, then life becomes more conflicted and difficult. At present, we seem so stressed trying to fix past mistakes, we give no time to inquiring why we made bad choices in the first place...so we keep on repeating our errors. On TV last night, a person-on- the- street being interviewed on the upcoming Canadian elections confidently declared, “Let’s deal with the budget and economic issues first, then we can discuss ethics.” But “ethics” (which includes values, ideologies, morals, ambition) mould the people who in turn mould politics and budgets! Some politicians want you to focus on small details like little tax breaks, so you don’t see the underlying policy shifts and big money grabs – like fighter jets, jails, corporate breaks, consultancy fees etc. Pulitzer Prize winner, Chris Hedges, believes that America has dumbed itself down and wrote an entire book about the process - Empire of Illusion: End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.

Increasingly, people’s opinions and values are formed by the mass media and the internet – lots of information and opinions.. again Quantity rather than Quality. Some celebrate this process as the ultimate form of Democracy, but there are several major draw-backs to this belief:
• The quality of any Democracy / society depends on the quality of the decisions made by citizens/ voters. Greater numbers of votes do not mean more quality/ truth/ grasp of reality. If you’re digging a hole in the wrong place, there’s no benefit to digging it deeper.
• If there is only quantity and no idea of quality, there’s no basis for making decisions – we become overwhelmed by the mass of info and opinions. We then try to short-cut decision-making by going with (unexamined) emotional or gut feelings. Professional “persuaders” – advertisers, political strategists etc – have long recognized that for most people, emotions trump reason. The neo-cons in America (aped by Harper’s Tories) have used this strategy effectively through focus groups, emotionally loaded words, talking points and repetition. The average person is still in denial (as many studies show), avowing that they are too savvy to be taken in.

• As Entertainment (popularity/ quantity/ passivity/ fantasy) seeps into every aspect of our lives, when we seek “expertise”, it’s often based on celebrity, recognition factor, sexiness etc. Increasingly, actors get elected in the USA – Reagan, Schwarzenegger etc. They appear on TV dispensing advice on all sorts of matters; Berlusconi’s Italian government is packed with “babes”; Oprah makes you an instant “expert “... but see Maclean’s mag recent cover – “Oprah’s Bad Advice – a surprising number of her self-help gurus are now admitting they are total screw ups”.

So how can we begin to turn this around? A few suggestions:
1. Recognize that there is a problem. We can’t change if we don’t acknowledge the need for it.
2. Pay attention to yourself and pay attention to others. This usually takes skill, perseverance and expert guidance; it’s skilful meditation rather than intellectual analysis or indulgently “tripping out”. Aldous Huxley wrote: “Knowledge is a function of being. When there is a change in the being of the knower, there is a corresponding change in the nature and amount of knowing”. A brief example of this re the political process – If an aware individual merely read a decent newspaper and looked at some decent TV news, it would have been obvious at the time that George W Bush was “cherry-picking” the facts to start a war against Iraq on false pretences... just as it is obvious that Harper is aping Bush’s tactics in Canada. In life, both individually and collectively, change can only incur in the moment...analyzing mistakes afterwards don’t mean anything unless it leads to real change, which must happen in the Now.
3. Act on the new information that your attention brings you. This may mean changing your life style, priorities, relationships, how you eat, what you buy etc. Genuine inquiry into “self” leads to a sense of expansion and interconnection.
If you want to get started on this process of inquiry, I have a couple of workshops coming up soon on Meditation and Mind-Body Personal Mastery. Check out these workshops on www.harmonydawn.com

Most people resent the idea that their actions may be ruled by personality, since they see themselves as free-thinking and unique. Yet every day on both the individual and collective levels, predictable and powerful personality dynamics are on display (if you know how to look) and these cause us to go round and round in circles.
I favour the Enneagram personality system (http://www.torontotaichimeditationcentre.com/TheEnneagram.html), which was used by the mystic Sufis and introduced to me by my own meditation teacher, Dhiravamsa. It has proved invaluable in all my relationships and in those of my students and intimates who have investigated their own personalities.
The election of Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto as well as the constant bullying tactics of the right wing (both in the USA and Canada) constantly remind me of the Enneagram personality #8. Here are excerpts from my book, “The Conscious I”: #8s see the world as a hostile environment where justice must be enforced through strength. They seek power so that they can stand up for themselves and for those under their protection. Many leaders and bosses are #8s. They not only gravitate towards positions of power but are often physically strong and imposing. They tend to be combative, assertive and forceful, generally unselfconscious about displaying anger....Although #8s are good at fighting external enemies, they are not so skilled at combating the internal ones. They tend to suppress or avoid anything within themselves that they associate with weakness - tenderness, sensitivity, compassion, yielding. In so doing, they choke off their capacity to love and be loved; they isolate themselves. #8s try to fill this self-created void with sensual excess – sex, alcohol, drugs or food. #8s also avoid introspection because it might undermine their simplistic notions of right and wrong...They want to know who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys”. In their minds, they are of course the “good guys”.
Recognize anyone in your personal life, at work or in politics? #8s often elbow people out of the way to get to power positions, but we often let them or in politics, we often elect them or follow them because they seem so sure and their message so simplistic and righteous. They don’t back down and are often abusive in trying to enforce their will. Many of us understandably see these as leadership qualities, but in an era of increasing (if not overwhelming) complexity, simplistic and forceful solutions are inadequate (sometimes very destructive) and often lead to escalating conflict. What we need now in this era of global challenges is not more conflict and polarisation, but cooperation! Obvious #8s on the current political scene include Rob Ford, Rush Limbaugh (and most of Fox News shout-down team) and Gadhafi. Hells Angels, bosses in the workplace and lawyers are often #8s.
The American neo-cons (slavishly imitated by Harper’s Tories) have adopted policies and attitudes that largely conform to the #8 personality (with a good dose of the #6 personality paranoia):
1. Simplify the problem/ solution, using clear black and white terms: No regulations, no taxes, “family values”, elevation of the army etc.
2. Make positions extreme and polarized, staking out he position as the “good (All-American) guy: With us/ against us, American/ Un-American, Ordinary people/ Elites, Free Market/ Socialists
3. Never back down or apologize. Always go on the attack, even when attacked. Attack ads and verbal abuse (often spiced with unfounded “facts”) in the media are no surprise in this respect. Neo-cons count on the fact that people will forget their outrageous antics and pronouncements.. but mud sticks...bullying wears you down.
4. Grab as much power as you can: appoint your own people to power positions; cut funding to causes you don’t like and fund your own; use powerful friends to advance your cause and repay them with political favours; change the rules in your own favour.
Originally, the Enneagram was used for spiritual purposes – to help spiritual seekers understand the inner dynamics that sabotaged them. Each personality (there are 9 in all) has both positive and negative qualities. The aim is not to celebrate one personality over the other but to be able to learn from all personalities, which are all aspects of truth but not the whole truth...the One.