The Meaning of Life VII

A very interesting comment on my last post made me write this response.
Here is what “Don’t Feed The Pixies” said:
“An interesting post - because what I really, really want from my physical neighbour is to be left alone to get on with my life.
I have no particular need to be their friend or to be involved in their life and my approach to "love thy neighbour" is to give them that opportunity to live their life the way they want to”

Love is an expression of freedom.
Love is unconditional.
If you love some one you set them free, you do not chain them up.
If you love some one, you love them without expecting anything in return.
Other wise what you have is not love but just another dysfunctional relationship.

Here is a little example of what “love thy neighbor” is not:
USA invasion of Iraq in the name of democracy.
USA totally ignorance of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
Forcing ones values, life stile or beliefs on somebody else is not love, it is totally the opposite.
Ignoring somebody’s suffering and turning your head the other way is not love either.

Let me ask you this:
If you would see your neighbor house on fire or being robed by burglars would you call 911 or ignore it and not get involved?
If your house was on fire or robed would you like your neighbors to call 911 or would you like them not to get involved?

There is a fine line between letting some one be free and ignoring some one.
Give your neighbor freedom but do not ignore them.
Say hi to them and give them a chance to know you.
You do not have to get “personal” or “intimate” with your neighbor to be a good neighbor.
I guess “Love thy neighbor as you love yourself” meaning is not in the “love” part but in the “as you love yourself” part.
Treat your neighbors like you would like to be treated.

Being part of the social fabric is a fine and it seems to me lost art.
Having some one next to you in your moment of despair is the greatest blessing one can have.
If you have ever lost some one you love, or your job or your health, there is nothing more comforting more uplifting than somebody that tells you “Do not worry, I am here with you”

You can write the best book in the world, it will mean nothing if nobody reads it.
You can compose the most sublime music in the world; it means nothing if nobody hears it.
You can have the greatest success, victory or accomplishment and it will mean nothing if you have nobody to share that joy.

Yes we need our “neighbors” yes we need our family members and our friends.
Maybe not all of them, maybe not the ass holes we can not stand, but we need to do a better job on this, we need to treat each other better because we are in this together.

The Meaning of Life VI

A person should be more than just an individual.
A family should be more than a convenience union of people.
A community should be more than a bunch of families sharing the same neighborhood.
This country should be more than a union of states bound together by the same constitution.
And the world we live in should be more than a quilt of different countries sawed together at the borders.

We are all threads, fibers in the fabric of life.
The way we interwove in this structure is what gives us and our life meaning.

Show me a lonely person and I will show you a fearful, depressed and unhappy soul.
Show me a lonely human being and I will show you an abused individual.
Show me a lonely being and I will show you rage and hatred ready to explode.
Show me a lonely person and I will show you a wasted meaningless life.

In my practice I’ve seen a lot of lonely people.
They all have one thing in common:
They all believe their loneliness is a symptom, a result of their problems and the most difficult thing to show them is that their isolation, their separation and distance from the people around them is not a symptom, but the very cause of their dysfunctional life.

Show me a prejudiced person and I will show you a person that hates himself.
Show me a person that loves himself and I will show you a person that loves his neighbors.
We are to ourselves what we are to others.
The things we do to others are the things we do to ourselves.
The victim of today will be the aggressor of tomorrow.

It is hard to understand that in the spiritual world you can only have what you give.
For the “me” generation it is hard to understand that the less you give the less you have.
Just think about it:
If all of us are there to find some one to love us, to take care of us, to makes us happy then there will be no love, care or happiness in the world.
If all of us would change that point of view and live in this world to love and care and make the people around us happy, then this world would be a paradise.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is not an empty phrase or just a nice thing to say.
Love your neighbor, is the fundamental key of this spiritual world we’ve been talking abut.
Love is the knots, the glue that holds this fabric of life together.
Without it, everything falls apart.
Without it we are all doomed to a lonely, meaningless life.

I'm taking a break today :)

The Meaning of Life V

I was reading a psychology study on how culture determines the way we think and see the world.
The researchers gave a bunch of students a pile of pictures, let’s say a monkey, a goat, grass and a banana, and asked them to group the pictures together.
The Western students grouped the monkey and the goat together and the banana and the grass together, while the Eastern students grouped the monkey with the banana and the grass with the goat.
We Westerners see the world as objects while the Eastern people see the world as relationships.

In the Western culture we understand reality by taking it apart and putting everything in little groups.
We have medics for each part of the body and a branch of science for each part of nature.
We know everything about something but nothing about everything.
And that doesn’t even bother us :)

How would it be to see the world as a world of relations instead of a world of objects?
A whole working system, not as separate parts.

I remember when I was 6 or 7 I heard this riddle:
“What came first – the chicken or the egg?”
It bothered me tremendously because the only reasonable answer would be:
“There is no such a thing as a chicken and egg”
Yet growing up on a farm I was surrounded by chickens and eggs.

What? Do you think you have the answer? Do you think you understand?
Then try out this riddle: “What came first; life or death?”
See, we see life and death as two separate things, like the chicken and the egg, but also as tied together – you can’t have one without the other.
Now, what is the answer?

We see chickens as real and eggs as real but we can’t conceive a chicken-egg reality.
We can’t see this …chicken-egg-chicken-egg-chicken-egg… thing – for us, such thing doesn’t exist.
We can’t see our reality as a life-death thing.
We can see ourselves as part of a larger system, a meta reality.
We see my life and my death as different and separate from your life and your death.

We think of ourselves as appearing in this world from a black hole hanging around for a while and then disappearing back into that black hole.
But life is a continuum a …chicken-egg-chicken-egg-chicken-egg… thing not a random spontaneous act.
Nobody just pops out from nothing on a deserted island.
We might feel separated and independent but we are just a link in a chain.

Reality is not made of separate objects but of systems.
Each system is made of sub systems and each system in turn is part of a larger meta system.
It is easy to se how humans are in fact a digestive system, a circulatory system, a nervous system and all the other systems that make up a human being.
It is very hard to see ourselves as part of a larger system.
But there is hope as we have started to discover and analyze the natural ecosystems.
We are one step from discovering and analyzing the spiritual system of which we are all part of.

So looking from that perspective you will realize that the meaning of your life is given by the relationship you have with the rest of the links in this chain of life.
You can not love or be loved by yourself.
You can not be successful, famous or powerful by yourself.
You can not define who you are and what you are by yourself.
Your life has no meaning whatsoever if separated from this life continuum.

The Meaning of Life IV

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on Stumble Upon.
(If you have some time and would like to see my collection of Buddhist and spiritual sites, you can click on my Stumble link above the followers’ widget.)
Any way. One of things about Stumble is that people send you really odd stuff – like this video of a cowboy that is dragged and tossed around for a really long time before he finally decides to let go of the rope.
Watching this video made me think about the way we are holding on to the material world and even as we are being dragged and tossed around we just would not let go of a bad situation.

So how do we get hooked to the material world?
Let’s take a little example: Clothing and fashion.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we are very fragile beings.
Without a thick skin and fur to protect us from the elements we need clothing.
So we started to invent all sorts of things to cover our body and keep it warm and dry.
Some were on the history line we also invented fashion.

We do not need fashion to protect us from the elements.
We need fashion to make us feel good about ourselves, worthy and special – but then again so does crack cocaine :)
We go to the mall and find and buy, the latest and greatest of the new fashion and for a moment we are on the top of the world.
But just as a high from a drug, this “feel good” feeling, doesn’t last for long and pretty soon we find ourselves unhappy again and in need of a new “fix”

So basically that is the way we get addicted to the material world.
We screw up the dynamic between us and the objects that are supposed to serve us.
In the first place clothes were supposed to serve us, to protect us, to fulfill a function.
On the second, clothes take control of our feelings. We are no longer the masters; we have become the slaves of the fashion trends.
And that my friends, happens with all the other material things that take over our life.

So that brings up the ultimate question: are you the master or the slave of your material world?
Do you feel like all you do is trying to keep up your life style?
Are you pushed in life by your bills or pulled by your dreams?
Are you in charge of your life, or is your life spiraling out of control?

Many years ago I was “hooked up” to the material world.
As any emigrant coming to America I bought into the Idea of a better life.
After all, what else can be more alluring than the promise of a better life?
I wanted everything that was symbolizing the “better” life without realizing what a better life really was and what I was really doing.

To make a long story short, some were in the 90’s, during the last economical recession I found myself heals over head deep in debt.
I bought a house I couldn’t afford to buy, a car I really did not need, I maxed out my credit and all the money left I invested in the stock market.
In other words I was living the American dream.
Then one day the company I was working for decided to “cut the fat” and I got laid off.

And suddenly I found myself falling down from my castle in the sky without a parachute.
So I did what naturally all of us do in a situation like that. Try to save as much as possible. Try to hold on to it, like the cowboy in the video :)
I did not realize what was going on.

Banks are not in the business of “helping” people as the majority of us think. Banks are in the business of making “profits” and that is all they care about.
When you are down, you will not get a break, you will be pounded till your last drop of blood, till you have nothing more to loose.
Then you will let go. Then they will let go.

So I lost everything. My house went in foreclosure, my investments went into the ground I was basically back where I started coming to America.
But that wasn’t the bad part.
The bad part was going through that fall.
The nights I spent in fear, despair, anxiety, pain and stress.
That gut wrenching feeling in my stomach and my heart.
It wasn’t the material loss; it was the trashing of my soul that hurt the most.

So I put myself together and slowly I came back to life.
But during that period I had a long look at my life and what went wrong.
So I decided I did not want the “good” life anymore.
I didn’t want the big house in the fancy neighborhood. I didn’t want the fast flashy car.
I did not want to be rich, I wanted to be happy.

I want a safe, secure, peaceful, balanced and harmonious life.
I want true neighbors that care about me not about how big and expensive my house is.
I want a woman that loves me for who I am not for the fast flashy car I drive.
I want true friends that will be with me when the going gets tough not only when the times are good.
I don’t want things, I want to be happy.

So there it was; the fundamental shift in my relationship with the material world.
I am not any longer the slave of the things around me.
I might not have much material wealth but the things I have serve me, not the other way around.
I might not be rich but I have peace of mind and a good night of sleep.
I might not have much but I have less to worry about :)

But do not get me wrong; I am not asking you to live your life my way.
All I am trying to do is to open a discussion, to look at different points of view, to try to understand life, the way it works and ultimately to find its meaning.
Your life is your journey and you should live the life you want, the life that makes you happy.
As I will do it with my life.

The Meaning of Life III

Let's take two material objects: A lump of coal and a diamond.
At first glance it seems we have chosen two objects totally different.
One ordinary, insignificant and almost worthless.
The other one rare, exquisite and probable one of the most valuable and precious things on earth.
But here is the funny part of the story: Chemically speaking the two are identical.
Both the lump of coal and the diamond are made out of the same element; carbon.
What makes the diamond so different and special is not its matter but its structure.

As scientist are piercing deeper and deeper into the microscopic world we are discovering that all material things are made up from the same fundamental particles.
The difference between a piece of cheese and a bar of gold is not material but structural.
As a matter of fact there is not such a thing as cheese or gold only cheese structure and gold structure.
Deep at the subatomic level they are made of the same matter.

What gives the material world its “quality” is not material at all.
What gives the material world its form is the empty space in between.
That immaterial reality inside the matter is what determines what matter is.
In other words the spiritual part of the universe is what give the universe its meaning.
The material world it is just a canvas for the creativity of the spirit.

Let's take another two material objects: A house and a home.
At first glance it seems we have chosen two identical objects.
But anybody knows, or it should know, that there is a big difference between a house and a home.

We call home a place were our heart is.
Home gives us security, safety and peace of mind.
Home is warm, cozy and soothing.
Home is filled with memories, heirlooms and love.

It is not the material aspect of the house that makes it a home it is the spiritual meaning.
You can have a home in Beverly Hills or in the slums of Calcutta.
The size value or location doesn't matter and does not make a house into a home.
You fill a house with love and it turns into a home.
You fill a house with hatred and you turns it into a hell hole.
It is the spiritual reality inside the house that it gives it meaning.

So here you have it: The quality of your life is not determined by the material but rather by the spiritual reality of your life. And by spiritual I don't mean religious.

Do I want a nice home for me and my family?
Do I want nice clothes and nice things?
Do I want good food, clean water and air?
Do I want a rewarding fulfilling job and career?
Of course I do. I want a decent , good, normal life.

If I wanted a life of devotion I would have shaved my head, put on the orange robe, join the monastery and spend the rest of my life studying the holly scriptures.
So living this normal life rather than a holly life implies dealing with the material aspect of daily existence.
After all we all need a place to stay, cloth to wear and food to eat.
We might be spiritual beings but as Madonna said “we are living in a material world”

It is dealing with this material world that gets us into trouble.
It is the art of balancing the spiritual and the material we have to master
It is the understanding of the dynamic of the two aspects of reality that will put us in control and ultimately give our life meaning.

The Meaning of Life II

I am a very practical man.
For me spirituality is a very practical thing, not lovey – dovey nonsense.
I see spirituality as a way of looking and understanding reality and life.
I see spirituality as a set of tools for changing and improving life.
Other wise I would stop burning up brain cells and pick up a hobby.

So when I wrote my first post of “The Meaning of Life” I wasn't thinking of starting an academic discussion or a scientific debate.
The point I was trying to make is that reality as we see it and experience it, has two major principles at its roots.
The creative, constructive principle on one hand and the destructive principle on the other.

Out of the interaction of the two principles, out of the dance of creative and destructive forces our reality takes shape.
The destructive principle – entropy – is a quality of the material, physical world while the creative principle – life – is a quality of the spiritual world.
Out of the interaction of the two principles we, human beings come into existence.

But as some wise man before me said:
“We are spiritual beings having a material experience, not material beings having a spiritual experience”
And although a majority of people see themselves and identifies their being as spirit rather than body, a large majority of us worship the material side of reality not the spiritual.

There is a quite know saying that exemplifies that worship and philosophy:
“The guy that dies with the most toys wins”
Why do we think that a guy that dies with a billion dollars in a bank is a winer and a guy that dies with a billion dollars in debt is a looser?
To me, if material possession was a factor, I would say that the guy that dies in debt is ahead in the game. But that isn't even the point.

The point of this entropy vs life debate was that the material world is impermanent, ephemeral illusion and the only eternal existence is the spiritual one.
All the material things that we value and worship are transitory.
The great pyramids will crumble to sand, empires will rise and fall, given enough time the sun will grow cold and die and in the end even the universe will cease to exist.
Yet the simple truth of these words will live forever.
The spiritual world I am trying to make you aware, this truth I am talking about, existed long before the universe was born and it will exist eternally after the universe is gone.

Holding on to the material world is not only superfluous but it is a major part and cause of our human suffering.
Understanding that you can not hold to the “impermanent” part of reality, that holding on to material things is a formula for disaster and pain is a must step in the spiritual awakening.
But I do not want you to do it because it is “immoral” or because the bible said so.
I want you to understand why it is so, I want you to see that the spiritual things; love, truth, beauty, harmony and peace – just to name a few – are the true eternal values of our reality.
The love, the truth and for that matter the suffering and lies of your life are the only wealth you have, are the only treasure you will always poses.

Everything else is just an illusion.

The Meaning of Life - I

This post is a tough one, so I am asking you for a favor; give it a chance :)
It is a tough read but I believe that in the end the patient reader will be rewarded with a new understanding of life in general and his or her personal life in particular.
There are endless blogs out there talking about the meaning of life; to the point that any concepts on the subject matter have turned into clichés.
So on that note, let’s take a path less traveled and look at life from a different perspective.

The general consensus is that death is that specific event in time when life ends, in other words death is the passing away moment of our life.
But look at it carefully and you will see that death is not merely a moment in time.
Death is a state that existed long before our birth; it is interrupted for the duration of our life journey and resumes its course after our passing away.

From that perspective, life and death are two exclusive ways of existence of the universe.
The “dead” or inorganic existence and the “live” or organic existence.

Due to extensive scientific work in the last decades we have come to know a great deal about this “dead” material existence and unfortunately very little about the “live” or as I like to call it; spiritual existence.
We know that the physical universe is ruled by physical laws.
One of my favorite of the many laws concerning the physical universe is the law of entropy.

According to the law of entropy the universe has a tendency to attain the maximum of homogeneity in which all matter is at uniform temperature – or level of energy – also called heat or thermodynamic death.
To put it in lay terms the fundamental principle of the physical universe is “death”

Anything that exists has a tendency to degrade, break down, crumble, decay, die and turn into dust.
The brand new car you just bought will be old in 10 years, in 20 it will be junk and in 50 an antique!
Like a wind up toy, the universe will spend up all its energy and come to a stand still.
(At least that is what the law of entropy tells us :)

One question the scientists never ask and therefore never answer is; who the hell wound up the universe in the first place?
If the pyramids will crumble to sand it is because somebody built them in the first place.
If my hair is falling off, leaving behind a dignifying bold spot, it is because I used to have a full head of hair.
You get the idea; in order t have destruction you have to have creation in the first place.

Life and death are two opposing forces in the universe.
Like the mythical Sisyphus life pushes existence up while death is trying to tear it down.
Like the universe our human existence and everything in our life is the result of this “dance” of life and death.
Understanding this principle and its far reaching effects will put your life in a different perspective.

“Life is suffering” – Buddha
“Not quite so” – Buddha of Hollywood

(Actually I believe that the master did not say “suffering” and what we got actually is a bad translation :)
Any way: Life is a continuous effort against this infamous “entropy”
That makes life arduous, challenging, demanding – but does it make it painful?
No, not at all.

What makes us suffer, what makes life painful is lack of love.
Conversely what makes us happy, what makes life wonderful is our love.

Going to work to a job that you hate makes that job into a painful ordeal.
Going to work for a job that you love makes that job into a rewarding experience.
A relationship with a person you don’t love is a burden and a pain.
And of course, a relationship with a person you love – no matter how demanding – makes it into the most wonderful thing in the world
Take for example raising my two daughters: It is a very hard demanding thing but I wouldn’t exchange it for anything in this world.

So next time something breaks down in your life – a car or a relationship – don’t look at it as bad luck, look at it as “entropy” in action.
Realize that life is a continuous effort and that effort is both the source of your happiness and satisfaction as well the source of your pain and suffering.
Life is not merely being alive, breathing and having a pulse.
Life is the dance of creation and destruction.

To be continued…

The Spiritual World

For some reason when I talk about the spiritual world I get the impression that some people think I am talking about the world of ghost and ghouls, monsters and vampires.
(It must be the Halloween coming up soon:)
So I have to write a short post about my spiritual world, just to keep the two separate.

Thousand of years ago when the human race started to develop thinking skills we look around and assessed our environment as been both spirit and matter.
In all cultures as far as we can see, we have always seen our world as having the same two components making up the reality – the hardware and the software.
That is until about the 19th century when science took the leading role in human thinking and we declared God dead and the world as a pure mechanical one, where only mass energy and space were real and everything else was bologna.

Well, that is not quite accurate. The scientist couldn’t dispense of TIME a very inconvenient element because it does not exist but without which you couldn’t develop the scientific dogma so we shovel it in the material world, although nobody has ever proven its materiality.

Things got a little out of hand because you can dispense of God and faith but you can’t dispense of all spiritual world.
We still have feelings, emotions and concepts that you can’t dispense of because they are part of us.
You might be an atheist and believe there is no God but how can you not believe your depression, anxiety, love or hate?
So we try to materialize them and force them to conform to the dogma.

We turned the spiritual world into a material one by making everything be chemical reactions and electric circuits.
According to this new doctrine children were manufactured in uterus as cars are manufactured in factories.
We came out of nothing and at death we turn into nothing, because emotions and memories and thoughts did not exist.
They were just a figment of our mind of our imagination – which did not exist as well.

Things started to get a little out of hand when we started looking at the intimate structure of our material world.
To our surprise our material world was not as material as the new science made us believe.
Our material world is more nothing than something.
Peering through the electronic microscopes we found out a lot of structure but no mass at all.
The latest scientific view consider mass and energy as “qualities” rather than as stand alone “things”

We discovered DNA the fundamental building block of life.
And DNA is nothing more than encoded information.
After all babies were not made but grew out of structure, information.
After all we are software with a body not a body with electrical circuits.
Chemical reactions do not determine anymore our emotions, but our emotions determine the chemical reactions in our brains.

We discover Quantum mechanics and for the first time we realize that the reality is not what we observed but rather the result of our observations.
We entered the communications, computer information age and suddenly we had to deal with software with information and programs.
Our world is turning rapidly in a world of ideas, connections and interactions rather than the world of brick and mortar of our parents.

Like it or not the world we live in is a dual one of both spirit and matter.
We are at a crucial point in human understanding of this reality.
Science the way it is right now is not equipped to deal with this spiritual aspect of reality, and the old religious and spiritual believes are so old so antiquated that makes anyone that calls himself a spiritual person look like a nut or a charlatan.

I am a spiritual person because I believe reality is both software and hardware.
I think the key to human evolution depends on how we learn and understand this dichotomy.
I would like to be one of the people that pioneer this new understanding – although I lack both the time and the finances to conduct such an exploration.

So for now, I consider myself an “amateur” metaphysician, one that experiments on himself and that looks for like minded people to share their experience, their understanding and knowledge on the subject.
I do not have anything to sell nor do I look for people to follow me.
I am not pushing any religious belief and I am not trying to convert anyone.

I accept all debate and challenges to my opinions expressed in my blog because I believe that only through intelligent, rational debate we can come to a better understanding of our world.
Anybody is welcome to post on my blog if you feel you have something pertinent to say.
Anybody is welcome to express their opinions and participate through the comments to our discussions.

Manifestations III

How do you grow a third eye, develop a sixth sense or connect to the power and wisdom of the universe?
To put it in the simplest way: You don’t!
Other wise the series would be titled “Metamorphoses” instead of “Manifestations”

To manifest one self is to become oneself.
This process of manifestation starts when an individual becomes aware that he or she is not living at the full potential of his talents and abilities.
To live at your full potential it is not a supernatural transformation, it is a spiritual one.

We are human beings – that means we are both spirit and matter – body and soul.
When a soul comes into this world to inhabit his body, it comes in as pure spirit.
As pure spirit we are connected to the spirit world 100 %
However we are just entering the material world and that implies some changes.

The new born child believes anything is possible – as in the spirit world there are no material limitations.
We have to teach the child the limitations of his human body.
We have to teach them that you can’t fly, you can’t jump from a building, you can burn if you put your hand in a fire and you drown if you fall into water.

Some of the teachings are good:
Like learning how to walk and talk, eat or swim.
Some teachings are not so good or even bad:
Like telling a child he’s stupid or that he’s never going to amount to anything, or that he or she are ugly.

In time that initial connection we have with the spirit world with the universe becomes to narrow.
I imagine the flow of power and wisdom as a river that runs through us.
As soon as we start throwing negative thoughts into it, doubts and fears, the flow starts to subside.
We get clogged in doubt and that makes us loose even more faith.
It is a snow balling, going down degradation that feeds and perpetuates itself.

I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful and enlightened childhood.
That means by the time I was in my 20 I was still full of faith, hope and energy.
I still believed I can do anything, that I can change the world, that I can make this world into a better place, that I can bring my positive contribution to humanity.

Then the reality settled in: The humanity did not want my contribution.
The humanity wanted me to buy things so the big corporation can make a hefty profit.
The humanity was not interested in love and happiness the humanity was interested in making me comply to the rules.
By the time I reach my 40’s my energy flow and my connection with the universe was dead.
Anxiety and depression and the hopeless feeling that there is no place to go, no escape, settled in.
At a point I even contemplate suicide – but I felt like an old sour looser – suicide looks good on a young man not on a middle age one.
So that got me thinking: What ever happened to the young, energetic, enthusiast, hopeful, creative, invincible guy I use to be?
What ever happened to all my dreams and all my plans?

I realized that I have changed; that instead of doing my thing, playing my play, I got caught up in this stupid rat race that I was pushed by my bills not pulled by my dreams, that I have exchanged faith for doubt and courage for comfort.

So I started cleaning up the mess.
Removing the doubts and fears one by one and as I continued to do it I felt that flow of energy, that creativity, that intuition, the hope and courage coming back.
The dreamer was awakened once again.
Once again I was in the flow of the universe.

So it is not that you need anything to do this, to reconnect to the infinite power and wisdom of the universe.
The connection is there already!
You can do as I did; pick up a constructive, transformative philosophy and practice.
In my case; Zen Buddhism and the practice of meditation.

Here is how it works:
The no mind and mindfulness concept.
The meditation state empties your mind of all thoughts – positive or negative – of all fears and doubt – it is like removing all the debris from the river.
When all the garbage is removed the mind fills up with the natural flow of the universe.
You have achieved the mindfulness state.
Of course that needs a lot of practice to become effective.

A really fast way to do it is to surrender to a higher authority – God.
You recognize your inability to deal with the overwhelming problems of your life and you surrender to God.
But here is the catch – Most people surrender the problems to God not their soul.
You can’t do drugs and beat up your wife, cheat and still and pray to God!
To surrender to God is to live the life of the prophet – might that be Moses, Jesus, Mohamed or Buddha.
So a leap of faith might be a short cut but it has to be a real leap of faith not just pretend.

Of course this is been my experience but that leap of faith might have a thousand forms.
I now of a guy – friend of mine – very nice and talented, that got his wake up call from falling in love.
He found a girl that literally turned him from a geek to a successful confident man.
So I don’t know what might work for you but I know for sure that you have everything to succeed in life if you have faith.

Manifestation II

Every time I write a post like my last one, I get a lot of people very excited.
Of course that excitement doesn't last too long and by now all the enthusiasm and euphoria are probable gone.
So being the very practical guy I am, I have to come back and talk a little bit more abut “manifestation” in the hope that it will cement better into your understanding.

Your mind is a window.
Through that window the universe comes into fruition.
Through that window you manifest the changes in your life.
Pretty simple, no? - Maybe too simple.

What people do not really understand and fully grasp is that our “reality” is the effect not the cause of change.
The real cause of change is your mind.
You will not change your “reality” until you change your mind.

What we usually do is to focus on changing our life our reality.
We want a better life, a better job, better relationships, better health or whatever we want.
Very few people understand that our life, our reality is the product of who we are.

People expect that the changes in our life, our reality, will change who we are, the way we are and feel.
We expect that by getting a new job, anew car, anew house or lover will make us happy, or that if we loose some weight will make us more self confident.

It doesn't work like that at all.
Like somebody said: “You have to become the change you want to see in the world”
You have to become the cause of change in your life.

This becoming of the source of your transformation, means simply that you have to drop the old way of thinking and get a new one.
To change your life you have to change your mind.

Here is where the opening of your mind to the infinite power and wisdom of the universe comes into play.
This is the key you have to turn, the “secret” sort to speak, of your manifestation.

Opening the “window” of your mind doesn't require a monumental effort.
It is simply a matter of faith – or in some cases, of utter desperation.
We all have done it at one point or another in our life.
You should know already what I am talking about because you've been there before, haven't you?

If you have never experienced this “opening” of your mind you are kind of screwed because it is impossible to explain it - it is like talking to a virgin about sex – bad example, I know, but it is late and I'm getting a little tired.
So I'll end my post with a little prayer for me and for you my friends:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Manifestation

We are a creation of the universe. We are not separated entities.
The universe manifests us like a tree that blooms in thousand flowers.
You are a flower but behind you there are the branches, the leaves and the roots.
You are the universe supreme creation but you are not alone.

When you see yourself as the “ego” the “I” or “me” you see yourself separated from the universe.
You cut yourself off from that connection and you become alone.
Alone you are weak, alone you are scared and lost.

But all that separation is just an illusion.
The universe is fragmented in billion manifestations but none stands alone.
We have been fragmented, created but never separated.
Separation can not possibly be – it exists only in your mind.

And by the way – this concept that sounds like grand new age bull shit is one of the few things that science will agree and concur to.
Just get off your chair and jump. You will see that you are tied by invisible strings to the ground.
No matter how hard you will jump you will always be in the space time continuum.
You can not break free from that “glue” that holds the universe together.
Actually the scientists say that a black hole might tear a hole in the universe and allow travel through other dimensions but until then I think it is fairly accurate to say that you are just a part of the big enchilada.

But that is great news!
That means that you are connected, that you are part of the infinite.
You are not alone. You are not weak and for sure you don’t lack resources.
The whole universe, which means infinite energy and wisdom, is behind you.

Forget about the “secret” and all the empty promises of the servants of the “ego”.
Ego is a weak master and an even worse servant.
You say you want abundance in your life?

There is infinite abundance ready to manifest through you.
But you have to become the conductor of that energy and wisdom behind you.
You have to let the universe burst through you.
You have to let abundance flow through you.
You have to become a live wire.

Alone you are weak, lost and scared.
Choose to be the whole instead.
Feel like the whole.
Think like the whole.
Act like the whole.

Training Wheels

This past weekend my little daughter reached that milestone we all reached at a point or another – riding a bike without the training wheels.
I can’t tell you how proud she was and I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I was.
As I was running behind her huffing and puffing like a steam locomotive, waves of fond memories flooded my mind and my heart filled up with melancholic joy.
(My daughter is not a baby anymore :)

I also realized how growing up involved leaving behind the “training wheels”
And I don’t mean just learning how to ride a bike but learning everything.
In every step of our developmental growth we have - at some point - to leave behind our “training wheels” and do it on our own.
That is at least until we take the last set of “training wheels” off and leave the safety of our home nest becoming independent adults.

At that point something happens; we settle down for the comfort zone.
We find a place where we feel comfortable and safe and stay there pretty much for the rest of our adult life, unless of course something major happens that forces us to leave our comfort zone and start growing again.

As adults we loose that natural curiosity, that thirst for knowledge, that adventurous spirit of exploration.
Or maybe it is just because there is nobody behind us anymore to push us to learn more.
We become dogmatic, pragmatic, boring and predictable.
Life becomes static with every day after day repeating the same old routine.
We can feel it and we sometimes complain about it but we hardly ever do anything about it.
We are stuck in being us

I don’t know, maybe I’m just talking about myself and everybody else is very happy with whom they are.
Not that I am not happy with who I am, just that I feel that there is so much more to life, so much more to me than this.
I know that doesn’t sound very Buddhist of me wanting more, but I am not asking for more things in my life, I am asking for more me in my life.
Is that as wrong?

I want to enlarge my horizons, to learn new things to explore new possibilities.
I want to challenge this old body to push the boundary of my physical and intellectual limits.
I do not want to fade quietly in my golden, old age.
I want to get excited about my life, like a little boy getting excited for his new bike.
I want that wild ride feeling again even if it means leaving my comfort zone behind.

The older I get the less I fear dying, the more I fear not living enough.

Beyond the "Secret" V

“I am that I am”
God
“I am that I am”
Me too

Has not life offer you opportunities?
Has not life posed you challenges?
Has not life given you love?
Has not life given you grief?
Has not life filled you with joy?
Has not life stricken you with pain?

Have not you being successful?
Have not you failed?
Have not you loved?
Have not you hated?
Have not you laughed?
Have not you cried?

What a wonderful life you have had!
Yes, it could have been better.
But look behind. Why wasn’t it better?
Is it because life, the universe has deal you a crooked hand?
Or is it because you have made mistakes?

Then, think:
What was the secret of your failures?
You got the wrong knowledge, the wrong information; you did not know any better, you did it wrong.
What was the secret of your successes?
You had the knowledge; you knew what you were doing, you did it right.

Think:
What will make you a success in the future?
What will make you a failure in the future?
Same things that made you a failure or success in the past.

We all know that our thoughts determine our lives.
We all know that to change our lives we have to change our thoughts.
There is no secret in that.
You have to go beyond the secret.

Beyond the secret is to work in harmony with the universe.
Beyond the secret is to understand the cause and effect relations.
Beyond the secret is to become the cause of successful action.

Nothing happens without an action.
Money will not appear in your bank account from thin air.
Somebody has to put it there.
Sitting in front of your computer the love of your life will not fall from the sky.
Nothing happens without action.
And nothing successful happens without “right action”

Hey, “right action”!
Where have I heard that before?

Beyond the "Secret" IV

THERE IS NO MAGIC
Some things might appear to us as magic but that is just because we do not understand them.
If you want to understand “magic” you have to look behind the curtain – where the wizard is pulling the ropes.
That’s why this series of posts are called “Beyond the Secret”- neither before nor beside.

Let’s suppose for a moment that you have become a master of the “secret”
You wish for $1000000 and the next day you receive in mail a check from an anonymous benefactor with the million dollars you asked for. – hey, it is magic!
Would you take that money?
Do you think you deserve that money?
Would you use the secret to gain things you do not deserve?
Do you think that is cheating the universe – God?

If you think you would use the “secret” to only get the things that you deserve, I got good news for you.
You are in fact getting what you deserve.
You might not agree or like what you are getting but that's exactly what you are getting.
God is a very fair guy – trust me.

“For every action thou shall have an equal and opposite reaction”
God
“There is no free lunch”
Dad

By understanding the laws governing life we can gain insights and power over the events and course of our lives.
By ignoring these laws or by abusing them we can put ourselves in harms way, as individuals, as groups or countries.
What else are wars, social and economical crisis but the unavoidable result of human prejudice, ignorance and greed?