I have been thinking of the idea expressed in this Note to Self for quite some time.  I have determined that now is the time to publish an article about it.  Part of the discussion, of course, will be around my definitions of the words I used so that the idea I am conveying is clear.

First of all, disharmony, in the context here, refers to two parties acting in such a way that the relationship and the individuals involved are harmed due to a lack of respect by each party.

Tolerance, as I am using it, means to “put up with”.  It implies that one does not really like the one he is tolerating.  From this definition, it follows that if I am not crazy about another person (for any reason), he will sooner or later get under my skin.  The more I try to tolerate the person, the more he will bother me because toleration also implies a certain amount of insincerity on my part.  If there is one thing that life has taught me, it is that the Universe demands that each of us be true to ourselves.  If being true to oneself demands the dissolution of a relationship, then so be it!

Why would anyone tolerate someone they do not like?  There are many reasons, but I think it is safe to say that they all have something to do with an underlying fear of some kind.  For instance, “I should tolerate so-and-so because if I don’t, I’ll look like a bad person.”  This statement reveals a fear of rejection.  The statement “I will tolerate so-and-so because I have to work with her and I need my job to make my house payments.” reveals a fear of not being able to survive without a particular job.

As for compromise and settling, both are closely related.  Compromise, to me, means to make an agreement that appeases, to some degree, each concerned party in a disagreement.  Settling is where two parties come to an agreement in order to avoid an unpleasant situation.  The settlement does not appease all concerned parties directly.  It only need be less unpleasant than what would happen without the settlement.  Compromises, on the other hand, actually have elements that please each party directly.  The important point with both compromise and settling is that both leave all parties with a sense of dissatisfaction, despite what the compromise or settling may have accomplished.  This dissatisfaction is a subtle form of dishonesty because each party is tolerating their dissatisfaction!  In addition, if I know living creatures, they are organisms that are always on the lookout to fulfill their desires (and half-way fulfilling is definitely not satisfactory)!

Like tolerance, compromise and settling have at their base some kind of fear.  It seems to me that the most common reason that people settle or compromise is to preserve their lifestyle.  Think of such things as divorce settlements or political compromises.  In these examples and others, nobody is completely satisfied.

I realize that some may have broader definitions for tolerance, compromise and settling than I do.  That is why it was important for me to define the words as I did.  Of course, my definitions and focus to this point has been quite grim and I do not want to leave the article on a grim note.   So, are there some qualities that “doom” a relationship to long-term harmony?  I say, there is (and I’m glad you asked)!

Tolerance, compromise and settling (at least as I am using them) all imply antagonism and a hard separation between two or more parties.  Qualities which encourage personal satisfaction and long-term harmony in a relationship, then, demand an inherent unity between all parties, even though they may experience differences between them at times.  So, the comparable words to tolerance, compromise and settling that occurred to me that imply this underlying unity are acceptance, consensus and harmonizing, respectively.  Acceptance implies the validity of the person being accepted, even though a disagreement or difference exists.  Consensus is about completely satisfying all parties in a disagreement.  Finally, harmonizing, as I am using it here, means that all parties are working together for the good of all.

Now that I have laid out the alternatives to tolerance, compromise and settling, I would like to make it clear that acceptance, consensus and harmonizing do not guarantee that a relationship will be preserved.  Sometimes the best thing for two people is to part ways because their differences are too great to co-exist in peaceful harmony.  Nevertheless, when such a parting occurs, both parties can part in a state of acceptance of the other and they can come to a consensus that parting is the best solution to their differences.  In addition, their parting can be a way of harmonizing their differences.

So, to end this article, I present the converse of the Note to Self above:

Note to Self:  A relationship based on acceptance, consensus and harmonizing is destined to eventual harmony.

Over the course of my lifetime, I have become aware of myself at deeper and deeper levels to the point where I am now aware that my “real” self is not the body that appears in the mirror, but a “spirit” which is composed of three components:  a physical part, an emotional part and a mental part.  These three components are so intricately linked that the state of one matches the state of the others.  In other words, they all change together whenever they change at all.

The physical part of ourselves is an indicator of how we are in the present moment, while the emotional part indicates the influence or momentum of our past on our current situation.  The mental part is the part of ourselves that can create our future and possibly change the course of our momentum through the use of imagination and visualization.

I have noticed a “natural flow of influence” between these three parts.  The emotional part (our past) fuels change in our physical part (our present) which, in turn, fuels change in our mental part (our future) which, in turn, fuels change in our emotional part.  As you can see this natural flow of the parts of spirit matches the flow of linear time (i.e., past to present to future).  However, the flow of influence has an additional influence, namely that the part of spirit associated with our future influences that which is associated with our past!  This ultimately makes our experience of time not linear, but cyclical.

So how does one heal from a health challenge?  Traditional methods in American and European culture have focused so much on the physical level, often to the exclusion of the mental and especially emotional levels.  As a result, healing is short-term, at best.  In addition, it appears to me that traditional healing methods are sometimes backwards, with respect to the natural flow of influence.  If one has a physical challenge, traditional methods may focus on a mental approach to force physical change (for example, surgery is employed to force a patient’s physical body to conform to an ideal image, such as being “cancer-free”).  If one has an emotional problem, drugs (i.e., physical substances) may be prescribed to force one’s emotional tendencies to be in alignment with what is deemed ideal.  If one is deemed to have a mental problem (which is sometimes the case with geniuses or those who see things differently), then one may be treated with guilt to conform with a custom or with “the way things have always been done” (i.e., those with mental problems will be “cured” when they emotionally please those who embrace the status quo).  Another way to summarize these three examples of traditional healing is:  Use the future to change the present, use the present to change the past and the use past to change the future.  See how backward that is?

When a client comes to see me for a qigong healing session, the client’s focus is typically on a physical challenge.  Inevitably though, I quickly see corresponding challenges at the emotional and mental levels, too.  So, my approach to the healing process is to not only honor the natural flow of (cyclical) time and the natural flow of spiritual component influences, but also look at all components simultaneously in order to maximize the long-term effectiveness of the healing.  This is what holistic health is all about, after all!  So, in general, clients leave a session with me with new ways of thinking or looking at their situation (to continue the momentum of the session at the mental level), recommended exercises (to continue the momentum at the physical level), and a new energy state from my work with their qi (which closely corresponds to the emotional level).

My healing practice is based on what I have learned in my studies of qigong.  I have learned much from others as well as from my personal experience and insights.  What I have been taught is that the human body has three major energy centers called dantians.  The lower dantian resides in the belly, the middle dantian resides in the heart area and the upper dantian resides in the head.  What I have recently realized in this teaching is that the trinity of energy centers just described respectively serve as a kind of “seat” to the emotional, physical and mental components of a person’s spirit.  The linear flow of time from past to present to future, therefore, corresponds to the lower, middle and upper dantians, respectively.  The upper dantian is the seat for the mental part of spirit because this is where one exercises visualization, imagination and thought, in general.  The lower dantian is the seat for the emotional part of spirit because this is where one stores up qi and where one checks in with how he feels (“My gut says tells me that I should…”).  The middle dantian is the seat for the physical part of spirit because this is where one experiences being alive in the present moment (Nothing is more indicative of being alive than a beating heart).  I have also noticed organs that correspond to the three components of spirit:  The kidneys and ears correspond to the emotional level, the gonads and eyes correspond to the physical level and the lungs and nose correspond to the mental level.  These organs, unlike the dantians, reflect the quality of interaction with others (i.e., they are relationship-oriented).  So, by tuning in to the qi of these various organs, I can get a picture of the overall state of a person and gain insight on what is the best way to heal them.

One of the gifts that the three components of spirit provide is that if one is oblivious to the condition of one part of spirit, chances are he will notice the condition of at least one of the other two.  Usually the component which is easiest to notice is the physical component because it is hard not to notice when physical pain or discomfort is present!  The physical is easiest to notice also because it is the most dense and lowest energy of the components (Likewise, the mental component is the hardest to notice because it is the least dense and highest energy of the components).  So, healing is really about acknowledging the whole spirit and transforming all of its components simultaneously.  If one component is “out of whack” in some way, look for the other two components to be “out of whack”, too.  By treating all three components simultaneously, one can gather insights about the challenging condition at hand, and thereby, heal faster.

So, the healthier one’s spirit is (as indicated by the health of its three components), the better shape that one is in to conceive, allow and manifest experiences in a flowing manner.  Thus, life becomes more fulfilling and abundant and demonstrates a most amazing principle:  What one experiences in the outer world matches what one experiences in the inner world.  Of course, this amazing principle is true even if one’s spirit is not in a healthy state.  The results are just not as pleasant.  Hmm…Perhaps I have the beginnings of another blog here…

This thought occurred to me a while back, but I feel moved to write about it in more detail now.  When I think about what extravagance is, I think of a lifestyle that consists of the consumption of goods and services that require an inordinate amount of resources to create experiences which provide the utmost in comfort.  Because of the resource demands of extravagance, only a distinct minority of people are allowed by society to experience it.  The social criterion which decides who gets to live in extravagance is simply a variation on the Golden Rule:  Those with the gold (money), rule (can live in extravagance).

The fact that relatively few can experience extravagance points to a key principle that underlies the economic system which allows extravagance to exist in the first place:  Value varies with scarcity.  This principle is what gives gold, a relatively rare metal, great value while water has very little value because it is relatively plentiful.  It is this principle that places great value on the services of medical doctors and little value on common laborers, given that the former tends to make a lot of money and the latter makes little money (not to mention that there are a lot of common laborers and relatively few doctors).

Even the currency used in the economic system is (in theory) limited so that it can be in alignment with the idea that the more scarce something is, the more valuable it is.  Thus, if a currency is to maintain its value, it must be limited in supply by the issuer of the currency.  An unlimited or infinite supply of a currency would force the value of that currency to plummet to nothing.  This is why if every American was a millionaire, the value of the dollar would be a lot lower than it is now.  So, because a society has a limited supply of its currency, the existence of a rich person in that society implies the existence of several poor people and vice versa.

Because one’s economic status (how much money he has) is tied to a person’s value to society, those who are deemed to be most valuable to society are most deserving to not only survive, but to thrive.  On the other hand, those who are deemed to be the least valuable to society are least deserving of survival.  It is those least deserving that we call vagrants because they have no income and cannot afford a home.  Hence, a society that insists on having an economic system where value varies with scarcity will, of necessity, have few wealthy people and many poor people in order to balance out the money supply.  It is impossible to maintain economic equality in such a society because doing so would either eliminate economic activity or else violate the principle of value varying with scarcity.

So, a society that insists on having an economic system where value varies with scarcity will, of necessity, not value human life in general because some lives are deemed valuable and some are not.  This is anti-democratic because democracy, by definition, values all people equally.  Not only is such a society anti-democratic, it also is unable to experience true abundance.  It goes without saying that those who live in poverty do not experience abundance, but neither do the so-called wealthy or middle-class because the focus of each member of society is on scarcity, which means that one can never have enough, especially when one’s survival is tied to this sense of scarcity!  This encourages competition and conflict as “every man for himself” becomes the underlying modus operandi in society.

As someone who was born in the USA, I certainly am aware of the “American Dream”.  But the economic component of this dream is based on the old economic scarcity paradigm.  As a result, anyone who achieves the American Dream does so (unwittingly) at the expense of fellow Americans!  Not only that, but given that the USA is the wealthiest nation in the world and continues to take action (military or otherwise) to maintain its wealth, it guarantees that some nations in the world will remain dirt poor.  Thus, the American Dream turns out to be much of the rest of the world’s nightmare!

If a society were to value life and each individual, not only would it be more democratic, it would experience true abundance.  Because all individuals would be deemed as precious, no person’s survival would be threatened by society and in fact, society would be interested in seeing to it that each person thrives so that she will be able to easily give her gift to society.  Thus, society reaps the benefits of supporting each of its members.  The environment would not be stressed or degraded because nobody would be motivated to consume resources (as they are now), but instead be motivated to share resources in order to preserve environmental health.  Conflicts would be minimized because cooperation would be naturally encouraged (Why re-invent the wheel when it is already freely available to everyone?).

When each individual embraces the principles of abundance in each moment of her day-to-day life, society can easily move from a scarcity-based economic system that encourages consumption and competition to an abundance-based system that encourages conservation and cooperation.  This may take some practice (and courage!), since old habits are hard to break, but it is quite possible.  The details of the process of embracing abundance are likely to be unique to each individual.  So, use your God-given creative abilities and dare to “think outside the box” as you have fun in this process.  Above all, share your experiences with others.  After all, sharing is one of the most important components of living in abundance!

This note to self is something I have really come to appreciate in recent years, in general, and during my current time of transition, in particular.  I used to be a person who craved love from others, sometimes to the point of “selling my soul” to get the desired affection or approval.  However, as I have matured, the less willing I am to sell myself to the highest bidder (of love).  I am able to appreciate my specialness more and more as I increasingly realize that I am here to play an important role in the world!

As a result, the more I appreciate who I am (and that I am here to play an important role), the more talents I have discovered that I have.  In particular, I have realized that I am great at pushing people’s buttons!  While this talent certainly has a dark side, it can be used for constructive purposes, as well.  The dark side of this ability is displayed when one pushes another’s buttons for personal gain; the higher use of this talent can be seen when one who is consciously acting in a way that is consistent with his normal, natural manner invokes a negative response from another.  This most likely happens because the button pusher is reminding the button “pushee” of a truth that is not being embraced by the “pushee”.  After all, a person with buttons is a person with an unconscious fear of some kind, while a person with no buttons is a conscious person with no fear.

It seems to me that by definition, a person in a state of fear is being phony because he is not acting in a normal, natural way.  While this phony behavior may be useful to help a person survive a moment of danger, to maintain the behavior when that dangerous moment has past is to embrace the phoniness as if it were one’s true self.  An authentic person, by contrast, is by definition, acting in his normal, natural way in the moment and is therefore, not being fearful.

The human condition has shown me that it is far easier to come from a place of fear than of love.  I believe that this is because living creatures tend to unconsciously subscribe to the philosophy “It is better to be safe, than sorry.”  So, anyone who is consciously living authentically has most likely overcome a fear or two in the process of attaining that state of authenticity.  Therefore, those who have overcome a fear are likely to have compassion for those who have not yet done so.  On the other hand, those who do not even realize that they are in a state of fear, cannot appreciate the overcoming of it and are most likely to view those who have overcome it to be weird or distasteful in some way because such weird behavior does not match up with their (fear-based) perception of reality.

I have noticed a tendency between people to react to each other in like ways.  If one person is acting “negatively” toward the other, the others tends to act “negatively” back.  Likewise, if one acts “positively” toward another, the other will tend to act “positively” in return.  If one of the two people is acting consciously, the cycle of “reflective reaction” can be broken, but only if the less conscious person “wakes up” and realizes what is going on.  Otherwise, the less conscious person will remain in a state of fear and not appreciate the state of the conscious person.

So, if you find yourself reacting negatively to someone, your reaction is probably an indication that a button is being pushed and is ultimately reminding you that you are being phony in some way.  Are you willing to acknowledge this so that you may embrace your authenticity?

These are the first few lines of The Girl From Ipanema, a song I heard quite a few times growing up.  Despite always liking the song, I never really went “aaah” when I heard it, until that fateful day when the actual sheet music passed by me in a music composition class during my senior year in high school.  This, to me, was the beginning of “the dream”.  I became mesmerized by the song’s chord progression and quickly memorized how to play it on the piano.

By the time I reached college, I was not satisfied.  I wanted more than just one song.  Did Ipanema’s Brazilian composer, Antônio Carlos Jobim, write any more gems?  I began my quest to answer that question at local record stores.  The answer was a resounding “YES!”  I was surprised to learn that many of the songs I enjoyed growing up were bossa nova tunes written by Jobim:  One Note Samba, Wave, Meditation, Desafinado, and Quiet Nights.  I later discovered other composers of the bossa nova and their lovely compositions.  Whenever I needed to “get away from it all” (which I would do frequently), I would often play one of my bossa nova records and let those songs with heavenly melodies above infectious rhythms carry me away to a different world full of peace and joy.

Several years passed before I began to seriously entertain the thought of someday visiting the land and culture that gave birth to the bossa nova and the samba.  For some reason , I was drawn strongly to Rio de Janeiro, so much so that one of my big dreams was to experience Carnaval in that city.  As a first step to nurture this dream, I attended as many Brazilian events in town that I could find.  It was at these events that I met Brazilians, and heard them frequently talk in their native Portuguese.  It did not take me long before I wanted to learn Portuguese.  To facilitate this, I would listen to my records and try to figure out the meaning of Portuguese lyrics by comparing them with known English lyrics.  Having songs in Portuguese was also great for teaching me correct diction.  A time came, however, when I wanted to learn more efficiently.  So, I purchased Portuguese dictionaries, grammars and readers and tapes.  In my spare time, I would study Portuguese a little bit, always dreaming that one day I would be in Brazil, fluently conversing in Portuguese.

Within a few months of purchasing my dictionaries and the like, I saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a meeting for those interested in attending a yoga retreat in Brazil in February 1996.  I attended the meeting for two reasons:  (1) I was interested in finding a yoga that fit my needs, and (2) I wanted to be around people who were going to Brazil so that I might pick up some ideas about how to make that become a reality.  Little did I know what was in store.  Not only was I introduced to a kind of yoga that felt like just what I was looking for at the time, but I also got extremely good vibes from all the people at the meeting.  To top the meeting off, the timing of this retreat was too perfect!

When I learned the details of the retreat, I began to feel as if it was custom-tailored just for me.  The flight to Rio de Janeiro (to me, a symbolic entry point into Brazil) would leave Los Angeles on the evening of February 9 and return on February 24.  I was going to be in San Diego for a Vedic astrology symposium on February 1 – 6.  Therefore, if went on the retreat, I would have a couple of days between the symposium and the retreat to do the “tourist thing” (like finally visit Mexico)!  The retreat would be in Paracuru, a little town in northeastern Brazil, during February 10 – 17, leaving attendees free to do what they wished during February 18 – 22 (the 23^rd would be the day to begin the voyage home).  Brazil’s Carnaval celebration was going to be during February 17 – 20.  This meant that I was free during most of Carnaval, giving me a prime opportunity to experience my dream:  Carnaval in Rio!

Having gathered all the details of the retreat, I began to look at the hurdles that had to be crossed before I could actually make it to Brazil.  First, I had about one month to obtain a passport, and the government was threatening to shut down in a few days!  Second, once I had a passport, I had to obtain a visa.  Lastly, I was unemployed with insufficient funds in the bank to feel comfortable going on a trip of this magnitude.  Despite being aware of the “realities” of my situation, a little voice inside me said, “Go for it!”  I, therefore, told the group about the hurdles I had to face, but committed myself to do whatever I could to make this dream trip become a reality.

Amazingly enough, the morning after the meeting, I was awakened by the ringing of my telephone.  It was an employment contracting agency.  They had a job interview for me at Microsoft that afternoon.  I went to the interview and was hired on the spot, despite my telling them that I would take the month of February off!  One hurdle down, two to go.

Since I had a week before I had to report to work, I spent the very next day, applying for a passport.  Although I had to jump through a few hoops to get that accomplished, it was not as difficult as it could have been (You know how bureaucracies can be)!  Unfortunately, the government shut down a few days later for a couple of weeks, halting all passport processing.  Fortunately, it re-opened about a week before I needed my passport and several days after it re-opened, I received my passport!  Hurdle #2 had fallen aside, making me the sixth and last member of the Seattle group going to the Brazilian yoga retreat!

While waiting to get my visa, I called my travel agent to see if I could get a hotel room in Rio de Janeiro during the week of Carnaval.  As luck would have it, not only did I get my visa, but I was able to reserve a hotel room in the downtown area at the “low” rate of $70/day (All other room rates were above $100/day).  To make matters even better, the airline that was to fly our group to and from Forteleza (the location of the airport nearest to the retreat’s site) allowed for the addition of one free stopover during our trip, if we so chose.  Of course, I elected to have about a week’s stopover in Rio.

As January came to a close and I prepared to go on the greatest adventure of my life up to that point, I realized how thankful I was to receive my job in the nick of time.  Nevertheless, I was not completely happy with the activity of the job.  Coincidentally, my boss did not want my project to go untouched during the month of February, so it was mutually decided that I would not return to this job.  So much for having a “security blanket” to land in when I return!

I had a wonderful time at San Diego and the Vedic astrology symposium.  I thoroughly enjoyed my first experience in Mexico during a daytrip to Ensenada.  But that time went fast, and I soon found myself on the plane to Brazil.  At first it was hard to believe that I was actually on a plane headed for Brazil.  When we landed, I was slightly dazed that I was on Brazilian soil!  Wow!  Approximately twenty-four hours after we left L.A., we arrived at our destination in Paracuru.  It was so warm for 3:00 am, that I took a quick dip in the pool at the retreat’s compound and then slept outside in a hammock, soaking up the weird and wonderful sounds and feelings of this new environment.  I was in total awe with the Brazilian night sky:  The constellations were either totally new or “upside down”!

Each day of the retreat was quite simple, yet very fulfilling.  We would do our main yoga session in the morning, eat breakfast, go to a beach (a different one each day), come home, do a mini-yoga session, eat dinner, and go to bed.  Some of the outstanding memories I have about my time in Paracuru include swimming in warm Atlantic waters at a different beach of beauty every day, a couple of twilight yoga sessions on the massive sand dunes around Paracuru (If you want to experience “true liberation”, try leaping off the sides of one of these dunes and rolling down its side!), and a Carnaval dance in Paracuru’s town square, in which I enjoyed getting to know total strangers!  Above all, I remember the people in my group.  I felt so at home with them that it was sad to leave them and go to Rio.  Nevertheless, I had a mission to fulfill!

When I arrived in Rio on the second day of Carnaval, I was quite surprised to find a city that was practically dead!  Apparently, most cariocas (Rio residents) shut down their businesses during this 4-day holiday and spend the time out of town or at the Sambodromo (the stadium-like street where most of the Carnaval parades take place).  I ended up experiencing some of the parades primarily from the “best seat in the house”, in front of my hotel room’s television.  Although, I enjoyed watching these parades on television, I felt that I got much more into the spirit of Carnaval back in that small rural town of Paracuru.

Having mentioned that, I must admit that I really felt at home in “Cidade Maravilhosa”.  The city, I feel, lives up to its nickname—it truly is a marvelous city.  I saw breathtaking views from its two most famous  lookouts:  Sugarloaf Mountain and Hunchback Mountain, where the Christ statue stands.  The beaches, though sparsely populated, looked like fun places to hang out, as many cariocas apparently agree, judging from pictures taken at other times of the year.

Looking back at my experience in Brazil, I often feel tears well up in my eyes.  It was the first time that I manifested a big dream and it taught me a lot about what is vital to manifesting any dream:  commitment, preparation and being in an alert relationship with the Universe or Life Process.  It also taught me that one has to trust the process of manifestation so that it can be as supportive as possible.  Despite taking many risks, such as attempting to engage in simple conversation with the natives or walking in unknown territory or committing myself to accomplish things I had no idea how to do at the time of commitment, I was rewarded with total support along the way.  Even though I read information to the contrary in my preparation, I never encountered pickpockets or thieves or anything of the like.  I believe this is because I was of such a mindset to enjoy this whole process that there was no room for such traumatic experiences to “spoil” it!

Of course, at the heart of this experience was that I was following my heart’s desire all the way.  There is power in doing this.  For doing so is merely an expression of true motivation, a union of divine and personal desire which is unstoppable!  May you manifest the experiences that are your deepest desires!

Here is my first new Note to Self that is being published in quite a while.  Like most of the notes I’ve published in the past, it has significance in my life now–enough so that I feel moved to elaborate on it.

Looking back on my life, I see a struggle to realize the “good life”.  What defines this “good life” has changed over the years as I got to know myself better and better through the experiments and experiences that are my life.  All along, I have had a sense that the so-called good life was different for each individual, and I would know when I had attained my definition of it.  The good life always seemed tied to whether I was being true to who I am at the deepest level of my being.  If I could be true to myself, then I must have been born with a self that had certain characteristics that demanded support and nurturing.

But who am I and what am I all about?  People have been asking such questions since time began.  While direct experience has taught me the most about who I am, observation of the experiences of others and the recounting of others’ experiences which I could not observe directly has also been educational.  How am I educated to understand myself better in all of these cases?  The one method that consistently helps me understand myself better than any other is to notice how I feel in the moment.  The emotions that I feel in any moment tell me if I am being true to myself or not.  If I feel “good”, then I am being true to myself; if I feel “bad”, then I am not being true to myself and am therefore, living a lie.  That is my “self-education” process in a nutshell.

It gets a little more complicated than that, though.  What constitutes a good feeling versus a bad feeling?  After all, if I am addicted to something, don’t I feel good when I appease my addiction and feel bad when I don’t?  I have found the answer to that question to be both “yes” and “no”, which has taught me to refine my sensitivity to how I feel.  If I feel good only for a short time, but then feel a craving for more of the same experience that provided the good feeling, then I am experiencing an addiction.  If my good feeling lasts a long time and I have a sense of peace regardless of what I am experiencing, then I am not only experiencing a genuine good feeling, but I am also actually being true to myself (to at least some degree) and therefore, experiencing at least part of the good life.

A further refinement is that if I am feeling love, I am being true to myself, and if I am feeling fear, I am not.  Now when I say “love”, I don’t mean the “falling in love” type of love.  That kind of love can actually be addicting.  What I am referring to is a sense of oneness with whatever is being experienced in the moment.  In a similar manner, my reference to “fear” is not referring to the kind of fear that keeps one alive in each moment.  What I am implying is a kind of agitation that results from memories or imaginings that have nothing to do with what is actually transpiring in the moment.  In other words, the fear I am talking about is a sense of separation from whatever is being experienced in the moment!

One thing that I have definitely noticed is that cultural and familial customs (and the authority figures that enforce the mindsets behind them) can play a profound role in a person’s quest to be true to himself.  These customs (sometimes labeled as “laws”) are the collective equivalent to personal habits.  Like a personal habit, a custom of a group is created to serve a constructive purpose.  Over time, however, it often outlives its usefulness.  It is at this point where some people realize that the custom would best be dropped (possibly in favor of a new one that is more appropriate to the current situation).  Others vehemently disagree, fearing that something terrible would happen if the custom is not respected.  Still others are neutral on the whole matter.  Regardless of which camp a person falls in, he can be true to himself by consciously looking at how he feels with respect to a custom and acting in a way that he can experience love (as described above), instead of fear (as described above).  Some people can follow a custom and feel love, while others cannot feel that love by following the custom.

The language a person uses can reveal whether he is a slave to a custom or not.  A person saying “I have to…” or “I must…” or “I should…” is very likely caving in to the fear of not following a custom and is hence, living a lie.  A person being true to himself, on the other hand, will tend to use language like “I desire…” or “I would like to…” or “I love to…”.  Interestingly enough, I have found that the people who are the most loving, healthy and moral are not living their lives according to a set of external edicts, but are simply being true to themselves.  They act the way they act because they see the value in acting that way and are hence, immune to any temptation to veer from the path they are on.  By the same token, the people who are the least loving, healthy and moral often live their lives according to a set of external edicts and struggle with temptation because at the deepest level of their being, they do not really see the value of the edicts which they try to obey.

So, as I have matured, I have slowly but surely become aware of the different values that I have claimed and slowly but surely realized which ones were truly in alignment with who I am and which were more or less attempts to look good in the eyes of others.  It has been a gradual realization that while some people may not like or understand my true values, all that matters is that I understand and honor them!

I first published the note above on Facebook and Twitter on August 18, 2009, but for some reason I am called to publish it again and expound upon it!

I realize that this Note to Self appears to fly in the face of what is commonly taught: Each person is empowered with the power to choose in each moment, and one’s quality of life is a result of one’s personal choices. This teaching is especially prevalent in those areas of the world that espouse “freedom” as a core value. It seems obvious that when life presents a person with two or more options, he must CHOOSE one of the options in order to proceed with his life. Even not choosing an option is seen as a “choice”.

If life is a bunch of random events, then maybe a person DOES have the power to randomly choose whatever options materialize. I do not subscribe to the belief that the Universe is full of randomness, though. I see each event as being born of a purpose. I may not know or understand what that purpose is, but that does not mean that purpose is absent. In a random Universe, it is easy to imagine that making predictions is totally impossible, whereas in a purposeful Universe, it is easy to imagine that making predictions is not only quite possible, but quite useful. I have certainly experienced making successful predictions whether through mathematics or intuition because life, no doubt, presents itself as a collection of recurring patterns.

So if I live in a purposeful Universe, each so-called choice that I make is made for certain reasons, of which I may or may not be conscious. What are these reasons? They are called my motive or motivation. At its most basic level, only two motivations exist: love and fear. If one’s motive is fear-based, then one will react to avoid that which is feared. On the other hand, if one’s motive is based on love, then one will act to enhance or embrace the experience at hand. This enhancing or embracing is what I mean when I use the term “right action”.

Is there a person among the sea of humanity who would rather be fearful than loving? I, frankly, doubt it. Who wouldn’t want to perform right action if it was known and fear was not an issue in any given situation. Given this innate understanding that, I believe, we all carry, it is easy to see that one cannot choose to be coming from fear any more than one can choose to come from love. It is simply a matter of one’s level of consciousness. Those who are fearful are in that state because they are ignorant (i.e., not conscious) of some aspect of that which they fear. As a result, they predictably react in such a way to avoid having to deal with the object of their fear, demonstrating that no choice is exercised. On the other hand, a person who is full of love in a situation, carries full awareness of the nature of that situation, totally appreciating it to the extent that he knows the most appropriate path to take in any situation, demonstrating, again, that no choice is exercised.

Thus, I have explained what I meant in my Note to Self. I realize that to not have the power of choice at one’s disposal might have initially sounded rather depressing, but if one is filled with love, maybe not having choice and possibly other traits ain’t so bad. At the very least, having no choice is a relief from inner debates and therefore, encourages peace of mind!

An adult’s solution to these conflicts is usually a command, reprimand, some kind of punishment or some reasoning. Whether the adult realizes it or not, what is being attempted in these solutions is to remind the parties in conflict that they are one, and that the harmony between them serves not only the best interest of each individual but the family/relationship as a whole. After all, I don’t know of anybody who likes to be in conflict or be around people in conflict, nor do I know anyone who does not like to be around people with whom they get along. The same principle applies in sports. Those teams that work in harmony together succeed; those teams that have infighting or have players that go to any length to make themselves look good, perform below par.

So what is this pattern that I have noticed that fuels conflicts and wars in the world? It is that some, if not all, people have not grown up emotionally and mentally in some aspects of their life. They do not yet recognize what is most important in any conflict: their underlying unity with humanity, life, the world and Universe. I want to emphasize here that I am not saying that it is “bad” to be a “child” and good to be an “adult”. Both have their place; each has advantages and disadvantages. They are what they are. We each have an inner child and inner adult and always have. Just like a sapling has a “blueprint” of the tree it is to become, children have a “blueprint” of the adult they are to become. Likewise, a full-grown tree has the experience of the sapling within it just as an adult has the experience of childhood within.

Given what I have observed, it is easy for me to envision world peace. Conflict may always exist as part of the human experience, but if we keep it at a personal level, war becomes impossible and overall peace can, therefore, be attained and preserved. But world peace truly begins within each individual. In my own life, I have noticed that I rarely get into conflicts with people because I have committed myself to acknowledging conflict when it occurs with another person, as well as within myself (i.e., when I feel “bad” about something). In addition, I am committed to master the ability to receive criticism and alternative ideas whenever they come without FEELING a need to defend my perspective or attacking others in retaliation (I must admit that this second commitment is easier said than done and I have fallen short occasionally, but so what).

I have found that to attain a state of peace within, I must embrace my “adultness”. This means taking full responsibility for how I act and react toward life events and personal encounters. It means claiming my own authority to discern what action to take in each moment to enhance the highest good. It means trusting the life process and trusting my abilities enough to act with courage when confronting fearful situations. Finally, it means I recognize the value of others and the value of whatever situation I experience. As one can see, claiming one’s adulthood is not to be taken lightly and it is clearly not appropriate for immature beings because children are not generally able to handle responsibility, discernment, and fearful situations, nor are they generally able to recognize the value of all people and things that life presents them. So, whenever one sees a person blame somebody else or blindly follow an external authority or fail to take appropriate action or promote the killing of people or other creatures (usually to preserve his way of being), one is likely witnessing the person acting as a child emotionally and mentally.

Carrying this further, an economic system that is dominated by a child mindset is one similar to what we have in the world today, where ownership is king (remember the child’s motto: “Mine!”), private property is defined and value is based on supply and demand, where it pays especially to have a scarce supply of something in high demand. Competition is encouraged in such an economy because the scarcity cannot support everyone. Only the “best” (i.e., the richest) are valued; the rest are left to live a life in misery or die.

On the other hand, an “adult economy”, which does not exist on any large scale as far as I know, would have instead of ownership and private property, the concept of “stewardship”, where resources are shared by all and used or cared for temporarily by individuals moment to moment. Such a system would require fewer resources to produce what is needed because adults generally feel no need to have exclusive rights to, say, an automobile. In the adult economy, cooperation would be king and as a result, everyone would be able to experience a sense of abundance, even with scarce resources!

A political system that is dominated by a child mindset exists throughout the most of the world in various forms. One characteristic of this system is the role of the “surrogate parent”. The surrogate parent may be a monarch or a dictator or an elected government (all of these are composed of “children” acting as parents, in reality). The purpose of the surrogate parent is to create rules for its “children” (i.e., the common people) to follow and punishes those who break the rules. It also has a judicial system in place to resolve internal conflicts (i.e., judges are surrogate parents telling the “children” who see them how to resolve their conflict). Typically, the letter of the law is upheld, rather than the spirit of the law (If there even is a spirit of the law! Laws are frequently made to favor a few, rather than the many). Another characteristic of a “child political system” is that it tends to divide the world up into regions (e.g., nations or states) in which each region has little interest in another’s well-being. As a result, land grabs and wars are common as the regions involved compete to maximize their dominance in the world or local area.

On the other hand, an “adult political system”, which does not exist on any large scale as far as I know, would have instead of a government that serves as a surrogate parent, an institution that brings adult stewards together in councils to work to manage a high quality of life for all. I see these councils embracing the true spirit of democracy, where everyone is valued, not just those with political or economic power. Actually, placing political or economic power in the hands of one or a few people would be non-sensical in such a system. In addition, while it is conceivable that the world would be divided up into regions in a world dominated by an adult political system, these regions would be for resource management purposes only. People would be free to travel from place to place as long as a region could handle the influx. It would be a given that travelers would gladly make a contribution to a region’s well-being if they were not just passing through.

Finally, I would like to look at spirituality. While I do not consider myself a religious scholar, I have examined a number of religions in the books and “out in the field”. What I have found so far is that they all have the same essence. Namely, at an abstract level, all religions say that we are all connected in one grand unity (however it is labeled) and at the practical level this is often expressed as something like “treat others in the same manner that you would like to be treated”. This is also true for people like myself who practice no religion but subscribe to their own personal brand of spirituality. So, while the essences of all religions appear to be the same, their expressions and practices are quite different. I view these differences to be like costumes. That is, regardless of what costume a person wears, the essence of that person stays the same.

I have noticed, then, quite a number of people who have demonstrated what a “child spirituality”. This is where the costume becomes more important than the person wearing it, as it were. It is seen when one separates their spirituality from their daily life. They go to church/mosque/temple every week and perform all the rituals prescribed by their leaders or scriptures, they contribute financially to the institution, in order to look good in the public eye or feel like they are a good person, but, in reality, they have no clue as to how those actions really will improve their lives, but they might tell themselves to “just have faith” anyway.

Those who practice an “adult spirituality”, if they practice a religion at all, understand the religion’s essence and live it every moment, to the best of their ability. They are genuinely enhanced by the deep meaning of their particular scriptures and rituals. They contribute to their institution (or world) not to look good or just feel good but out of an understanding that their institution (or world) is valuable and that they have a personal responsibility to nurture it. A person who practices adult spirituality honors others whose practice looks different from his. He has no need to convert anyone because (to use the costume analogy again) there is no costume better than another. Above all, he ultimately recognizes his own connection to God (or whatever he calls that grand unity). He needs no intermediary, be it a person (e.g., a priest) or scripture, although people and writings can certainly assist in deepening his connection.

While I have sketched out a vision for an “adult world” in this article, it is not for any of us to know how such a world would come into being. It is each person’s responsibility to know herself and therefore, know what she can contribute in each moment. That is enough work for any person to handle in a lifetime, and it is through these collective efforts that we can co-create a better world that works for all!

Peace out!

This importance of education, a mental process, is born out of a culture that values rationality and the mind. Wisdom, on the other hand, transcends the mind and the individual. It involves a different kind of “thinking” from rational thought. It is sometimes described as “opening one’s heart”. It is accessible to everyone from the day they are born and requires no formal credentials. While our culture is not oblivious to wisdom, I have noticed that we do have a tendency to ignore it a lot. Why is this?

It seems to me that when one is born, he loses his sense of oneness with his mother and begins a process of learning how he is a separate being from other parts of the Universe. He learns about limitation and boundaries. He learns that sometimes his desires and intentions are not fulfilled and eventually that he is mortal. No wonder why people might believe that the world is a hostile place! Hence, it is, perhaps, unavoidable that we are full of fear.

Education, then, in addition to quenching one’s curiosity (another result of the human experience of separateness), can be used to deal with this seemingly hostile world. We can learn how to maintain our existence by manipulating Nature to do our bidding (e.g., science, engineering and medicine). Within a society, education can also be used to manipulate its members in order to help preserve the existing social order (e.g., history, law, and religious doctrine).

In the examples I gave above, I see an absence of wisdom in the educational process, in general. Even though wisdom is always available to each of us, humanity on a large scale has been ignoring this access, given the incredible problems we face. While each individual is ultimately responsible for remembering to access wisdom, teachers can be of great service to students by shifting their curriculum from an emphasis on facts to an emphasis on wisdom. I am sure that students will be more successful in a wisdom-based education than a fact-based education because in large part, a wisdom-based education is a reminding of what one already knows at a deep level, whereas a fact-base education is more of a presentation of material that is relatively alien to a generic human being. Note that I am not condemning the learning of facts. I am merely saying that the learning of facts would best serve us when they are subordinate to wisdom.

So, for example, instead of teaching the “letter of the law”, emphasize timeless principles of social justice and how a region’s laws may or may not fit into supporting these principles. Instead of memorizing scripture for the sake of justifying one’s actions, seek out its deeper meaning with others in order to transform your actions for the betterment of all. Instead of learning about what an organ does physically in order to determine if one can live without it if it “misbehaves”, observe how it behaves with relation to a person’s whole being–physical, emotional and mental. Instead of studying how to manipulate a crop’s genes in order to make it invulnerable to “forces of nature” that would destroy it, study how the crop interacts with its surroundings and how it is affected by the presence of other organisms in order to work with Nature, instead of against it.

This reminds me of a truth that I have learned (or rather, remembered) in life. It is certainly relevant to education, but it could also apply to daily life, in general. If I encounter resistance to my intention, I am at that moment working against Nature. So, the choice at that moment becomes: Do I become arrogant and angrily attempt to force my way through the situation or do I humble myself and open myself to the truth that the Universe is demonstrating to me. Choosing the latter represents the essence of what I mean by a “wisdom-based education” and can also represent the first stage of a “wisdom-based scientific method” that is not just concerned with physical phenomena but also subtler phenomena.

Instead of seeing education as a means to better compete with others economically, treat it as an opportunity to learn to live in harmony with others and Nature as we each contribute to the good life of all. Remembering our innate wisdom brings us a sense of peace when dealing with life’s challenges and fortunately, it is contagious when we share it with others!

You see, just prior to gaining the insight to my fear, I was feeling a little empty inside, despite just living the most enjoyable year and a half of my life.  During that time, I made a conscious effort to maximize my joy in each moment.  In other words, I “followed my heart” like never before.  Yet, there I was, approaching the last weekend in March, feeling that something was still not quite right with my life.

Attending the Green Festival that last weekend in March helped to remind me of one passion of mine that I had been neglecting even during this joyous time in my life:  Sharing my perspective with a large number of people.  Heck, looking back at my life, it seems that it was rare that I share a thought with more than maybe a couple of people!  I had always tended to keep quiet in social situations even if my “blood was boiling”.  Why was that?  It dawned on me that way back in my early school years I learned that if I was to be accepted by my fellow classmates, I best not “show them up” in the classroom.  I would excel in my studies quietly from that point on.  It was not until high school when I began to have confidence to express myself in public to some extent.  The trend certainly has continued to this day.

Now that I think of it, though, I remember learning in high school that I had to be careful not in terms of being “too good” academically but in terms of being “too different” from the way my social group thought and behaved.  Fortunately, as I have matured, my concern with my differentness has diminished.

Nevertheless, this pattern of “fear of standing out” was still lurking in my being in 2009!  What’s a guy to do?  Here’s what I came up with:  Because I love myself enough to take the responsibility to fulfill myself; I do not need the love of another to fill me.  What others think of me really is not important to me.  Therefore, this fear is merely an old habit that no longer serves me; its time has come to pass.  I realized that one relatively easy way to help the passing of this habit was to “face my fear” and look for any opportunity to express myself and commit myself to take advantage of those situations no matter how different from the social norm my expressions turn out to be and no matter how anxious I might feel about expressing myself.

Given my commitment to look for opportunities to express myself, I realized that I had committed a personal sin by delaying the creation of my blog, especially since it is a fairly easy way to express oneself publically.

I now realize that this blog is, at the very least, an outlet for my passions, which I know I am meant to share with the world.  Ultimately, it matters not if anyone else reads or likes these entries.  I do suspect that if my writings are filled with passion, others will feel it and find the writings interesting and meaningful to their own lives.  In any case, I welcome feedback.  Who knows?  The feedback might even steer the direction of the blog!