Susan - You asked: "if you were to totally live your highest beliefs-- spiritual, political, moral, ethical-- whatever you call them-- What would you do differently IN YOUR MUSIC?"

Okay. I find that the main problem is that my beliefs keep shifting and changing. My focus keeps changing. I am interested in so many things that I can't keep up with all of them, and I can't decide whether to commit to this or that or the other, so I bounce around between them...and none of them get done according to my highest concept of what I would like to achieve in that regard.

It's frustrating.

It's one thing to talk about your HIGHEST beliefs, but how much of that is projection...or wishful thinking...based on vague desires and sssumptions around some theoretical ideals...which may seldom actually be put to the test in daily life?

I think it might be more useful to examine one's CORE beliefs...one's underlying beliefs that are taken for granted. It is from those beliefs that one tends to act. So...if you believe that money is the most vital factor in life, for instance, your behaviour will be very much affected by that. This is true of probably a majority of people nowadays.

Therefore, I would suggest that their ruling god in that case IS money. So they have a lot of faith in what money can do for them...and a lot of fear regarding what may happen if money (their chosen god) turns its back on them, and they don't have enough of it!

I know this worries me a great deal, and I am not the most prime example of this type of person, but still it is on my mind a lot.

Then there's aging. People worry about getting old. That's another core belief that affects people's consciousness daily, and yet the highest esoteric teachings suggest that we are potentially ageless and timeless beings in our true nature.

And there's love and friendship...and loneliness. If people truly believed in God they would never feel alone, now would they? Unless, maybe, they figured that they weren't worth having God's company? I bet there are a lot who feel that way. I have felt that way at times, but I know it's an illusory feeling, because everyone is entirely worth God's company...or they would not be here in the first place.

My "Highest Beliefs"? Well, like I said, they keep changing...or my consciousness of them keeps changing. The only thing I can say for sure is that my highest beliefs are generally revealed in my songwriting, and how I sing the songs. That changes too, because sometimes I go through a period where I don't do any writing for awhile.

I don't find any easy answer to your question.

- LH