The accidental Buddha

If life in a communist country can be summarized as “living in a zoo cage” capitalist life would be then most appropriately described as “the wildlife”
And the wildlife has but a simple rule: You don’t hunt you don’t eat!

That means that if you are a newcomer to the capitalist jungle and you have no “pack” to protect you, no friends and no relatives to teach and support you, your only help is your welfare check. Until you learn how to hunt you have to live on the crumbs falling from the table of plenty.

Welcome to America!

I spent the first thirteen months of my free life on welfare.
One month, navigating the bureaucratic paperwork required for all political refugees coming into the country and just being blown away, dazed and confused about pretty much everything America was; Six months to learn the English language and six months in an ITT vocational school.

I remember running out of money at the end of one month. The hardest month ever.
All I had in the fridge was a couple of slices of bread, a quart of milk and three large potatoes, one for each day until the welfare check would come in.

I would have a piece of toast and a glass of milk in the morning then I would go to school. I would come home at five, bake a potato and eat it with a cube of butter.
I would do my homework and then just lay in bed in order to conserve my energy.
I have never had a harder time in my entire life before or after that.

Coming to America I have left behind everything I ever had: The loved ones, my family, my friends all my possessions, my language and culture, my country my memories.
Here I was a stranger in a strange country leaving on welfare, three potatoes away from starvation; but I will tell you something stranger even than that.

Those thirteen months of my life as hard as they were, they were the happiest days of my adult life.

I would wake up every morning with a smile on my face. And that piece of toast and that glass of milk would be the best breakfast I could ever want. I wouldn’t have changed it for caviar and foie-gras because you see those thirteen months I was living on dreams.

Those thirteen months were the months of infinite possibilities. Those thirteen months were the months of miracles and wonder.
I have never been so focused in my life. I have never had such a clear vision, such a purpose, and drive.

I was the complete master of my destiny and like a conductor conducting a symphony, every note was in perfect harmony every action and every thought was intertwining in a flawless melody.
I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I was the fountain of my joy and happiness; I was the spring of infinite hope and inspiration; I was complete.

I was walking the streets of Hollywood an enlightened Buddha and I didn’t even know it.

Zen Tales: The Frog and the Scorpion

By the blue lagoon on the South of Hogtown, there lived a young frog name, Beth.

Beth was a teacher and she loved teaching and she loved kids more than anything else in the whole world and she hoped that one day she would get married and have a bunch of tadpoles of her own. The only problem was that of all the frogs she had kissed, none turned out to be the prince of her dreams. So she went back to her work and her quiet life until that fateful day when a young scorpion stopped by the lagoon for a drink of water.

He was a very handsome fellow, with his metal blue eyes and his square jaw and all those muscles bulging from every part of his body. But he had a very bad reputation. His venomous sting had left a score of dead and wounded hearts in the bayou and Beth knew all the horror stories. So the moment she saw him she leaped to the safety of her lily pad.

- Did I scare you? Asked the scorpion with a broad smile on his face.
- No, not at all. Said the little frog with bravado.
- Why should I be afraid of you?
- Well, - said the scorpion – I have done some terrible things in my life, and if you would look down on me, I would totally understand. But now my wild and crazy bachelor days are gone. I found my calling working with children.

That was true too. Beth had heard of his work with the boy scouts and it was quite impressive. So they start talking about kids and about life and things and what do you know? He turned out to be a very intelligent, erudite, charming young fellow, nothing like the jerk she had heard he was. So he came back day after day, never making a pass, never saying or doing anything wrong. Of course, Beth kept the distance and didn’t even dream of letting him on her pad.

Then the scorpion didn’t show up for several days.
Beth started worrying and started calling all her friends but nobody knew where he was. She almost lost all her hope when he showed up.

- Where have you been? I was so worried. She said
- I didn’t know you cared.
He said with that killer smile on his face.
- Besides I left you a note on your lily pad.

She looked at the lily pad and there it was. A note explaining his departure. How embarrassing – and she thought all those bad things about him.

- Anyway, - the scorpion said – I thought that we should celebrate, do something really special tonight. What do you say?
- Of course! Said the little frog hardly concealing her excitement.
- I always wanted to see the other shore of the lagoon. Since I can’t swim I thought you could carry me over there for a romantic dinner.

The little frog stepped back in horror.
- I know what you are thinking – Said the scorpion – but just think about it logically. If I sting you I would die by drowning.
That makes perfect sense. Thought the little frog and although her instincts told her no her mouth said:

- Ok! Hop on.
He jumped on her back and she took off as fast as she could.
It was a beautiful summer evening and in the fiery sunset, the lagoon looked magical.

Beth slowed down. She could feel his body pressed against her and that electricity flowing melting them into one blissful union.
And then when all her doubts were gone and she was feeling confident and secure. Wham! He stung her. The poison rushing to her heart, she muttered her last words.

- How could you do this to me? How could you do this to us? We both are going to pay for this dearly. I thought you loved me. I thought you changed…
- Sorry, babe! – he said – I am a scorpion, I can’t change.
That is my nature.

Redemption

"The doctrine of Redemption is the fundamental mystery of our holy religions, and whoso believeth in it shall not perish, but have everlasting life in which to try to understand it.”

In my search for God and spirituality, I stopped and chose Zen Buddhism for several reasons, one very important one being the fact that Zen Buddhism emphasizes the act of human enlightenment. The practice of Zen is not a passive one of ritual observance and brown nosing to the all mighty.
The practice of Zen aims at changing the individual and his life.

What about “people can’t change their nature” statement?

Nature is what we are born with. Like the color of our eyes, hair or skin. Things like personality, sexuality, talents, and abilities that are given to us by God – or genetic inheritance if you are inclined to believe so.

You can’t change your nature simply means that no matter how much plastic surgery Michael Jackson will undergo, he will never turn from a black man to a white woman.
It means that no matter how hard I want or try, I would never be a talented musician because I was born tone death.

I was not born an asshole.
I don’t know why but I have done hurtful things to other people, especially to the people that loved me.
I have betrayed their love and trust, I have cheated and lie to them. I have behaved like a jerk.

The practice of Zen has brought me face to face with that inner jerk. I had become aware of the evil and ignorance lurking in the recesses of my soul and I have decided to change.
Have I succeeded 100%? Not at all.
Have I changed my own nature? Not a bit.

I see myself as one of those recovering alcoholics, locked in a battle with their disease for the rest of their lives.
I am a recovering asshole and I will be all my life a recovering asshole.
Maybe I should start an asshole anonymous group. …That will be really interesting.

So I believe that one can change their behavior, one can be aware of their demons and try to keep them under control, but I believe one can’t change his nature.
Even this behavioral change is extremely hard and rare.

How many people in the US have bad eating habits? - More than 50%.
If only changing one's habits would be so easy, we would all be trim, fit, healthy and successful.

So for practical purposes and to keep you out of trouble and being taken advantage of, I would say that assuming that people wouldn’t change just because you love them is a fairly accurate statement and it will serve you well in the wrong run. What if they change? I would say then, a nice surprise is better than a nasty one.

What about Jesus and believing in Jesus as a path to redemption?
If I tell you – believe in me and you will attain enlightenment, what do you think am I asking you to believe?
That believing that I physically exist will make you enlightened.
Or: That by practicing my philosophy you will attain enlightenment.

When Jesus was addressing his disciples and asking them to believe, he was not asking them to believe in his existence.
He was right there in front of them. He was asking them to believe his teachings are the path to salvation.

There is no one that believes in Jesus more than Satan. After all, how could he not, when he got his ass kicked by the all mighty so many times. So is Satan going to heaven because he believes Jesus exists and he's the son of God?
Hell no. Satan doesn’t believe in love, peace and turning the other cheek.
In other words, Satan doesn’t believe in Jesus and neither 99% of the so-called Christians.

To believe in Jesus and to be a Christian means to feel, and think, to talk and act like Jesus.
Mother Theresa is a Christian, not the Pope. Gandhi was a Christian, not Pat Robertson.

The notion that just by saying “I believe Jesus is my savior’ will give you a free pass to heaven is absolutely ridiculous.
This evangelical propaganda that you can do whatever you want without any repercussions as long as you hail to their dogma, has taken America on the path of moral decay and bankruptcy.
The right-wing, fear mongering, war loving, hate spewing evangelism, sweeping America today, is taking us straight to hell.

I believe there is a judgment day coming for all of us and I believe there are no free passes.
More of, I believe God is not a Christian, Muslim, Jew or Buddhist and on that day of judgment, we all are going to have a huge surprise.

On the Human Nature

"Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false."
                                                                                 - Dalai Lama

"On the highway of life, the secret of smooth riding is to avoid the potholes."
                                                                                  -Anagami

A long time ago I had a friend that was really bad with money.
He couldn’t hold a job for more than six months, was always involved in some get rich overnight scam, never paid his bills in time and always got in trouble with the banks.

One month, as usual, he was late in paying his rent and was facing eviction.
He asked me to lend him 300 $dollars until next day and somehow I couldn’t say no.
Well, guess what? I never saw my money back.

My question was not why he didn’t pay back his debt – that was his nature.
He did the same thing with every person he came in contact with – but why all the people got suckered in to give him money? Why somebody like me who thinks of myself as a pretty rational man, did not see it coming?

At about the same time I started dating a very nice girl.
Her best friend had a very nasty gossiping habit and I was quite shocked when my girlfriend started telling her very intimate tidbits of our personal life. I told her:
- Don’t do that! She is a gossiper and she will take that information and spread it around.
- No, she wouldn’t do that. She is my best friend. She replayed.

Well, guess what? She did just that.
So what is the moral of all this?
It looks like all of us have some sort of a soft spot, a built-in gullibility I would say.

We all like to believe that we are pretty special and that we deserved to be treated differently.
We believe that we can change the people around us, especially the people we like.

We get emotionally involved with those people and it becomes very difficult to see when we are suckered in.
At the same time, if we are not emotionally involved, it is much easier for us to see the true nature of other people.

The truth is that people cannot change their nature. A liar will be always a liar, even if he tells the truth when it is to his advantage.
A cheater is a cheater an ass hole is an ass hole as well as a nice person is a nice person.

If we could step outside of the emotional involvement and look at the true nature of our friends, relatives coworkers or other people involved in our lives we would avoid a lot of bad surprises.

Only if that would as easy to do as it is to say it…

The Age of Entanglement

Deep down at subconscious level, we are all connected.
There are very few people that understand that and even fewer people that have made that connection at the conscious level.

There are numerous accounts of the past in which this connection has been made.
Finding out who you are, the true original nature of “I“ was enough to awaken you at a higher level of conscious connectivity.

The sudden realization of the true nature of reality would trigger a chain reaction in which the illusion of the material world would collapse and the individual would be freed from the prison of reason reestablishing the natural supremacy of the Spirit over the Ego.

The Zen literature is full of accounts of people, Zen students, that have attained enlightenment, spiritual awakening or Satori, by simply breaking through the illusion of separation and understanding the nonduality nature of oneness.
It looks like that type of awakening is not possible any longer in our times.

I’ve never encountered or heard about another alive human being enlightened at the present time with the exception of few momentary spontaneous enlightenment, the most notorious and documented being the so-called “near-death experience” which I like to call more appropriately “near life experience”
But even these spontaneous enlightenment experiences were not powerful enough to create a permanent conscience change and reverted after a short time to the Ego-consciousness prior to the event, leaving behind only the memories of the awakening.

That means that even for the people that have broken through the illusion of the material world and have made a total connection with the spiritual world at the conscious level, the awakening wouldn't last very long before reverting to the Ego reality set of mind.
This situation is the result of a very strong Ego dominance over our thinking that has exponentially grown in intensity in our time.

Zen Buddhism developed in Japan in the 8th century in a medieval society. 
Since then the world has become increasingly more interconnected and interdependent.
New modes of transportation and communication have made our world shrink. It took years to circumvent the world, and about as long for the news to propagate.
Now going around the globe has become a matter of hours and the news is transmitted at the speed of light to any corner of the globe. In the last decades, the information revolution has connected us 24/7.
We are practically going to bed with our phones and waking up with our phone in the hand. On top of that, the complexity of our social and economic life has also increased. We are in a situation that our brain is overused and have no free time left in the day. Paradoxically all this development has not brought us together but contrary has made us more isolated from each other and tied us stronger to the Ego material world.

You have to physically break away from any social interaction in order to escape the chains of entanglement.
As long as you are a part of the social system, being in this world but not of this world has become an impossibility.

Happiness

There is been a continuous fight among the scientists about the human nature. Part of the problem is that our science doesn't understand nuances. For the scientific mind, things are either black or white and anything that cannot be classified scientifically falls out of the scientific understanding.
But life doesn't obey the laws of science. Life is nuanced, infinite in complexity and constantly evolving.
You cannot understand human complexity as a simple play between nature and nurture. Life cannot understand, life can only be experienced.

We are continuously evolving. From the day we are born we are both biologically and spiritually evolving. Even scientists are starting to agree that what we think and feel are having an impact in changing our brain structure and our body functions.
We are continuously and constantly being bombarded with information. Our lives are becoming increasingly complex. The rhythm and pace of our lives continuously accelerating. The pressure on our physical bodies and our minds continuously increasing. The result of all these changes is that we are becoming increasingly stressed, depressed and generally unhappy.

So it is becoming trendy now that people are looking for ways to distress, to live more healthy and in general to be happier.
But what are the ways, what is the path to happiness?
It seems that in spite of spending more time, effort and money in the pursuit of happiness our lives, our relationships and careers are not much better than before.
Happiness is not practicing yoga or going to the gym every day.
Happiness is not chanting and meditating and burning incents and wearing crystals. Happiness is not having a safe space or passing new laws in Congress.

The problem with happiness is that we have been programmed to believe that happiness is something coming from the outside world, that happiness is something that you can "get".
We constantly see "happy" people on the media. Happy to buy a new car, happy to buy new things, happy to drink beer or happy for a happy meal. The idea being that having or doing something will make you happy.

If you believe that you need something to be happy then you are screwed, because you will never be happy. You will never have enough of what it makes you happy because even if you get it, the moment you got it you will need increasingly more.
It is the basic tenant of the Buddhist philosophy "desire is the root of suffering"
So how can we get this happiness thing?
You don't. You will never get the happiness you dream of.

Happiness is not something you get. Happiness is something you manifest. Go outside, look at the sun, let the warm sink in your body realize you are alive and let yourself be happy.
Look at a tree, be happy. Look at your family be happy.
When you allow yourself to be happy with everything and anything in your life your happiness will start to flow.

Happiness is this joy of simply being alive. Happiness is you being unbound, liberated from the idea that you have to be, or have to have, or have to do anything to be happy.
Stop looking outwards for your happiness, look instead inwards. You can feel your happiness bottled inside, trying to get out, and probably you will be afraid to let it go because you were never told that you could be unconditionally happy.

Start practicing expressing your happiness every day.
Allow yourself to be happy, to express joy to smile for any reason or no reason at all. Practice happiness until it becomes a habit. Be happy until you start annoying the people around you until they start asking "what is your secret, what makes you so happy?"
And you can tell them the truth "nothing!"

The Age of Righteousness

As we were discussing in my last post, in the Western culture we see time in a linear fashion, we see the society evolving on a never-ending ascending path, like climbing an infinite mountain.
That vision, of a linear timeline, is not shared by all cultures.
Some people see time as a circular trajectory, they see the society evolving in cycles of growth and decay and according to that philosophy, we are now experiencing an age of decadence, the Kali Yuga.

One of the symptoms of a decaying society is the polarisation of spiritual beliefs, part of a larger trend of social fragmentation.
The middle way of thinking has been abandoned in favor of the hard-line extremism.

According to Buddhist teachings, things and actions are not "good" or "bad" - for example, guns and killing are neutral.
You can use a gun to rob a bank or you can use a gun to protect the bank from being robbed. Or the second World War, the Germans use guns and killing to subjugate people and destroy democracy and of course we used guns and killing to liberate the subjugated nations and reinforce democracy.

So all things being equal, the middle path is always the wise path to follow.
That could be summarised in a simple statement:
"Everything in excess is bad" or "Everything in moderation is good"
This middle way path is a path of harmony, of balance rather than this, is "good vs this is bad" path of righteousness.

It is very hard to convince anybody that democracy is no better than dictatorship, that actually a political, social system is only as good or bad as the people that are running the system.
A democracy run by corrupt people is not a good thing at all, and we are starting to see that in our own government at this very moment in history,

A dictatorship run by intelligent concerned people will always be superior to a democracy run by corrupted politicians.
I know, that idea is very unpleasant and unacceptable to us Americans born and raised to worship democracy and freedom but the truth is that China, a communist dictatorship, is kicking our democratic asses, at this very moment, on all fields, economic, educational, healthcare, research and development and basically, military power would be the only thing that we could say we are better  at, but even that is a very relative assumption.

That is just one example but the problem has become an epidemic. The "my way is the right and only way" philosophy is embraced by almost everybody.
You cannot have a decent polite argument anymore, therefore all the paths to progress and reconciliations have been shut close. The only solution left is the frontal confrontation. The only outcome acceptable is the total annihilation of the opponent part.

This polarisation of beliefs will continue covering the lad, will continue to grow, especially with the help of mass media that thrives on chaos and negativity.
The only good thing about this darkness is that will allow a lot of people to finally discern the light of spiritual teachings we have lost or forgot.

The Fascination of Time

There is a common thread in all ancient cultures, the very unusual fascination of the old civilizations for astronomy and time.

From the primitive paleolithic cultures like Stonehenge to the Greek antiquity, from the Mayan civilization to The Egyptian pharaonic empire, we have found very concrete and powerful evidence of their preoccupation and fascination with astronomy and time.
There is no doubt about it the only question is "Why?"

There are some attempts to explain it like "They need it to keep time because they needed to know when to plant their crops and when the rainy season will come" and stuff like that.
But that is a very weak argument not false but incomplete.

If you are familiar with the Vedic scriptures you have probably heard of the "Yugas" or cycles of time.
Yuga in Hinduism is an epoch or era within a four-age cycle.
A complete Yuga starts with the Satya Yuga, via Treta Yuga and Dvapara Yuga into a Kali Yuga.
Our present time is a Kali Yuga, which started at 3102 BCE with the end of the Kurukshetra War (or Mahabharata war)

Not coincidentally the Greeks divided the time into a similar 4 ages structure: The Golden age, the Silver age, the Bronze age and the Iron age.
According to the ancient wisdom, we are now living in the Kali Yuga or the Iron age which is the last of the periods - the end of time.

Two things.
One: the Yugas are based on the Galactic precession, the Sun circular movement around the galaxy.
How the hell that they know there is a galaxy and the galaxy is rotating. How did they measure it when we, the modern civilization, thought the Earth was the center of the universe till  Giordano Bruno and Galileo? 
What does the galaxy moving have to do with planting the crops or tending the cows, or anything else?
Why did they do it? There has to be an explanation for it.

Second: All ancient civilizations saw time as a cyclical occurrence not a linear one.
It is funny that even now at this moment 2018 AD we believe in a linear time. We believe that progress and growth just keep on happening forever.

That view is obviously false. Nothing keeps on growing forever sooner or later we will run out of natural resources and space to expand and a collapse of the of the human society is inevitable. ( I know; if we learn to live in harmony with mother Gaya we can attain a sustainable symbiotic existence. The humankind will destroy itself in a global war before we learn to live in harmony with anything.)

But the old wisdom tells us that time is cyclical and all are warning us of the inevitable decay of the human civilization.
According to the Sanscrit texts, we are now living in the Kali Yuga the age of the Kali goddess of destruction.

Kali Yuga: The final age. It is the age of darkness and ignorance.
People become sinners and lack virtue. They become slaves to their passions and are barely as powerful as their earliest ancestors in the Satya Yuga.
Society falls into disuse and people become liars and hypocrites.

Knowledge is lost and scriptures are diminished. Humans eat forbidden and dirty food.
The environment is polluted, water and food become scarce.
Wealth is heavily diminished. Families become non-existent. By the end of Kali Yuga, the average lifespan of humans will be as low as 70 years.

I know what you are thinking "this is the same BS as the Mayan end of time calendar" You are right in the sense that time cannot physically end but "the end of time" is a metaphorical expression, it is a warning that time is running out and we have to wake up before our civilisation will colaps due to our ignorance and greed.

The Chain

How clever an animal the human being is.
So clever he doesn't even know.

We take a baby elephant and tie it to the trunk of a sturdy tree with a heavy chain.
The baby elephant doesn't have the submission in his blood. He is a wild free beast, not a domesticated servant.

He tries to get free.
He tugs at the chain with all his might but the chain is heavy and the tree too strong to unroot.

The baby elephant grows up chained to the trunk of a tree.
After failing to free itself, again and again, he gives up his freedom.
He stops tugging at the chain. He believes that his situation is inescapable.

After years the baby elephant has grown big and strong.
The elephant handler uses him to lift up and carry heavy trees.
The elephant could easily escape his master and run in the jungle to freedom, but he doesn't.

After the work is done the master takes the elephant back to the village.
He ties a chain around the elephant's leg and the elephant stays there obedient.
In its mind, the elephant is still tied to a big tree with a heavy chain.

What holds the elephant from his freedom is not the flimsy chain tied around its ankle but the belief in his head that he cannot escape. The chain is just a clever make-believe, a trick of the master.

How clever an animal the human being is.
So clever he doesn't even know.

I've seen the elephant handlers logging the rainforest for precious wood.
They are poor people, uneducated people, doing what they are taught to do by their masters.
They have no idea of the impact they have on the lives of the elephants they have enslaved, the rainforest they have decimated or the planet we all live on.

The people living on the threshold of poverty in misery and slavery have no idea that they are free.
Free to take control of their destiny, free to pursue a better life, free to build a better future, a better society.
They have been brought up wearing the heavy chains of social rules they masters have put around their ankles.
They don't see that like the elephants they ride they have the real power, not the masters that keep them in slavery.

How clever an animal the human being is.
So clever he doesn't even know.

It is easy for us as Westerners to see what's happening to our brothers and sisters in the poor regions of the world.
Thou, it is hard for us to see how we the Western culture has created this social injustice and build our wealth on the back of the exploited nations.

Who has the money to buy elephant ivory trinkets and decorate our lavish house with furniture made of exotic rare woods?
Well somebody does and that is not the elephant rider or the logger cutting down the rainforest.

Don't be too hasty to judge.
Yes, we are all just doing our jobs, doing what we are told.
We all have our ankles tied with flimsy social chains. We all obey our master handlers.
True some of us have better larger cages and get better food than the others but still, we wear the same mental chains.

Are you living the life you want and deserve to live?
Are you living in the place, the neighborhood, the state or country of your dreams?
Are you pursuing your dreams, working the job of your dreams doing what your inborn talent is?
Are your relationship, healthy and loving as you want them to be?
are you free to do and live as you please?

There is an unspoken feeling every time you try to escape your current situation. We all have been chained, domesticated, beat into submission by social rules and laws.
We are no better than the elephants we have subjugated.

How clever an animal the human being is.
So clever we don't even know.

The promise of spirituality

“We cannot solve the world’s significant problems with the same level of consciousness that created them”

Albert Einstein

I was having a picnic in the park with my family.

It was around the Easter and the kids were having fun hunting for the hidden eggs.

I was lying on the blanket next to the remains of the picnic feast when I noticed an ant coming searching for food.

I don’t know if the ant could smell the food, for sure she couldn’t see it, but somehow she knew the food was around and it was determined to find it.

The funny thing about this is that from my vintage POV it was quite clear where the food was and what the obstacles and the clear path was but the poor ant had no idea and no other way to find it than by trial and error.

Eventually after many trials the ant found a crumb of food but I was thinking what if the ant knew what I knew?

What if, just like the ant, we are looking around for whatever we are looking, unaware that all the information, all the knowledge we need for success in life it is already available?

What if we could have a different POV where all that information about life’s obstacles and the optimum path would be clearly visible to us?

This is the promise of spirituality:

To put us in touch with a higher source of knowledge and wisdom.

To transform one’s life path and experience.

To elevate the level of human consciousness to an optimum level.

This is the path I am looking for and if you are looking for the same thing you are welcome top come along on my journey.

But as Albert Camus said:

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend."

Choice

I have been asked many times:

“Have you ever seen God?”

“Have you ever seen a picture or any scientific proof of his existence?”

(For some reason people believe God is a dude :)

And invariably the other question:

“How can an educated and intelligent man like you believe in a superstition about something that doesn’t exist?”

“The same way I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

I like to reply.

You see, not everything that is important to me exist in a physical form.

Actually, of all the things that are really important to me only, health, clean air, and healthy food are of material nature.

The most important things in my life; love, happiness, and freedom do not exist in the physical realm.

But for me, they are more real than the things I can see and touch.

Here is the scoop:

I do not have the choice of the reality I live in.

However, I have the choice of my beliefs.

Do I want to believe that I am just an evolved monkey?

An insignificant part of a mechanical universe being banged around like billiard balls by cold mechanical forces and laws?

Do I want to run my life by biological animal instincts in the name of survival of the fittest?

Or do I want to believe that I am somebody and something special?

That I can overcome my animal instincts and evolve into something noble, enlightened, a beautiful human being?

It doesn’t make any difference if God exists or not.

If the universe is a stupid exploding bunch of rocks or not.

If there are heaven and hell, karma and reincarnation or just nothing after life.

Those things are not a choice!

They are or they are not. That’s all, but they are not something you can choose.

The only thing you and  I can choose is our beliefs.

Do you want to live your life according to what; the society, mass media, government, the scientific establishment, or the church has chosen for you?

Aren’t you tired of being manipulated, lied to, used and abused by the very institutions that were supposed to watch over your wellbeing?

Well, if you do, you ought to know that you have the choice to choose your beliefs according to the life you want to live not according to anyone else may tell you to do!

(Including yours truly Anagami)

The choice is yours.

Define your own reality!

The Simplicity of Problem Solutions

Initially, I wanted to name this post “The Simplicity of Problem Solutions and the Complexity of Systems” But that seemed a little bit too long. I just want to let you know that latter on the post we will talk about System and how they relate to problems.

More likely if you are alive you have some problems to deal in your life right now and (I know you don‘t want to hear this) your future is full of problems you don’t even dream about.

Also, I know that dealing with your problems is not always easy or pleasant.

I would even go as far to say that dealing with problems is one of life tasks people hate most.

Actually, this is a totally wrong sentiment, a myth passed down from generation to generation.

This is similar to the false rumor spread in the school system, that math is hard.

Math is actually very easy, so easy even computers do it if you know what you are doing.

So it is solving life’s problems super easy if you know what you are doing.

How can solving problems be simple?

Here it is:

You are hungry, you eat. You are tired you rest. Your job sucks, you get another job.

Your relationship sucks, you get a new boyfriend/girlfriend.

See how simple it is?

Solving problems is simply because at the basis of every problem there is a fundamental law of nature. It is the law of causality AKA the law of cause and effect.

This law tells us that for every effect there is a cause therefore for every problem there is a solution.

You get a splinter in your finger, that causes pain.

You remove the cause of the pain – pull out the splinter – the pain goes away.

And that’s the law. If you remove the cause the problem disappears.

Solving problems is very simple. Recognizing the cause-effect relationship is more problematic.

Let me give you some examples:

Poverty, war, drug addiction, Donald Trump, prostitution, terrorism and much, much, more of our social problems are actually no problems at all. They are symptoms. Hence they cannot be fixed because we are violating the law we just explained in the previous paragraph.

You can’t fix a problem by treating the symptoms. You have to remove the cause.

Donald Trump, to pick a hot and controversial issue, is not a problem like most people believe. He is a symptom.

By fighting DT we are not addressing the “cause” that propelled him in the White House.

We are fighting the symptom and the effect of that is actually exactly the opposite of what we want. The result is we are making Trump’s position even stronger.

In the 2020 elections, unless the economy goes into a recession, DT will be reelected possible by a landslide. And I am willing to bet on that.

We have declared war on alcohol and drugs, on prostitution and poverty on inequality and terrorism, just to mention a few. We have not won a single one of those wars and we are never going to win any of them because they are not problems and because we are not looking at what causes them, which is where the real problems are.

And here is where the complexity of systems comes into play.

A simple cause and effect problem is easy to see and easy to solve.

You broke your glasses; you buy a new pair of glasses.

When it comes to complex systems like relationships or social and economic problems there is no simple cause and effect interaction but a series of causes all acting and interacting at the same time.

If you have a bad relationship in your life, you try to analyze all possible causes and eliminate them hoping to fix the relationship.

By trial and error, we can logically eliminate all the problems and make the relationship work.

This approach works for any complex system.

But even then you may not fix the problems and the relationship will fail

So you will try a new relationship and another and another.

If these relationship failures turn into a repeating pattern you have to stop and ask:

What is the one constant one feature all these bad relationships have in common?

Yup, that would be you. So fixing the problem would be replacing you with a better you.

Very simple. Yes I know it is very hard to change but I never said I’ll give you an easy way to fix your problems just a simple one.

And last but not list. Problems do not fix themselves and contrary to popular belief problems do not disappear in time if we ignore them, they just get even worse.

So catching a problem when it first starts is easier to fix than after it gets complicate.

Fixing your problem ASAP is the best way to deal with your problems.

Wolves

"If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.

This makes it hard to plan the day."

— E.B. White

There is this old Cherokee story:

One evening beside the fire an old man is telling his grandson a story

“Inside every one of us, there are two wolves in a battle of life and death.

One white, pure and good, full of love, hope, joy, kindness, generosity, compassion, and faith.

The other one black as the night, evil, full of anger, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment and hate.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:

"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied,

"The one you feed the most."

I couldn’t agree more but things have changed a little bit since the Cherokee Indian times.

We now live in a society of "entanglement" where personal boundaries are more and more violated.

I wake up in the morning full of energy and enthusiasm

I take a shower, brush my teeth, do a quick meditation, eat breakfast and then proceed to the daily chores.

As long as I stay inside my house, I can control my life with no problems.

The moment I open the door – the physical one or the informational one– the outside world rushes in bringing with it the inevitable negativity.

It could be some well-intentioned friend emailing me about a swine flu pandemic in Europe or Asia, news of war, death, and destruction or economic and political disasters.

It could be some guy cutting me off on the freeway or my boss in a bad mood.

Some colleague with some petty office quarrel or a million other irritating, useless garbage.

You try to stay positive.

You try to be the loving and understanding “good” guy.

You turn the other chick, you make amends, you forgive and forget.

In the end, you end up tired and polluted.

You go home, take a shower, do your meditation and go to bed hoping the next day will be a better one.

I have walked some distance on the path of spiritual enlightenment and by now I know very well I shouldn’t feed the bad wolf inside me.

The problem is all the other people in my life that are feeding it.

It is impossible to go through the day without being bombarded with bad news and negativity. The whole society is built that way.

We are constantly manipulated by the media to live in fear and uncertainty because people in that mind state are easy to control and manipulate.

I know it sounds like one of these far-fetched conspiracy theories but I lived long enough in fear and worry and I heard one too many times that the sky is falling.

And after all these years here I am still kicking and screaming.

So what was all the fear and the worries I had for all these years? Absolutely nothing.

I spent precious energy and time on illusory dangers and disasters just to lose focus on what was important in my life.

Do you know, or can you imagine what your life would be like if every day you would hear only the good news, positivity and optimism?

Can you imagine how that would feel?

Unfortunately, we can only imagine because we will never live that reality.

So, how do we stop our negativity from growing, our dark wolf from being fed in a world where we have no power or control?

Very simple – you just don’t give a shit about all the bullshit.

I used to try to avoid people and places just to protect myself from the bombardment of negativity and I have failed. So I did the only other option I had, stand up and fight.

Whenever somebody approached me with “have you heard of…?” I pulled out my guns and fire “I don’t give a shit!” and pretty soon none of my friends was feeding my wolf anymore.

If you feel overwhelmed like I used to feel, you should try it

I don’t give a shit! It is totally liberating and empowering.

Perspective and Perception

There is a story of a little boy that grew up near a municipal airport.
Although, for his parents living next to an airport was a nuisance, and the only reason they bought the house at that location was the cheap price, for the boy living next to the airport was an amazing gift.
The boy would spend hours and hours watching the planes take off and land and when he was not doing that he was playing with his favorite plain toy.

One day when he was about 5-6 years old his parents announced that they would go on vacation and that they will fly a plane over there.
Needless to say, the boy was in heaven. He was super excited, not that much about the vacation but because for the first time in his life he’s going to fly on a plane. It was a dream comes true.

So, after what it fell an eternity and after a sleepless night, the big day arrived.
The little boy could hardly contain his excitement.
They took a taxi, they went through the TSA line, they waited at the gate and finally, they boarded the plane. Of course, the boy got the best seat by the window.

And here he was, after all the wait and anticipation the engines roar and the plane rolled to the tarmac.
The boy was glued face to the window.
Finally, with a rush and a rumble, the plane took off.

After a couple of minutes, the boy became very agitated. He was looking frantic at the window and then at the passengers on the plane.
-What’s wrong? Asked his mother
-Are we flying in the air? Ask the boy.
-Of course dear, we are up up up in the air. Isn’t this wonderful?
- Yes – said the boy – but when are we going to get smaller?

Of course, as adults, we know planes don’t get smaller when they fly, they stay the same size, only our perception changes.
We know things do not change they stay the same unless WE change them. Like getting in a car accident. That will definitively change the car.

So things do not change by themselves they are changed by the wear and tear of use or by accidents but if preserved, like some artifacts buried in the funeral chambers of the pyramids, they will last forever.
What about things that are not material like love, hope, luck, opportunity, dreams and aspirations, fears and hopes? Do non-material things change by themselves?

We have a tendency to believe that immaterial, ideal, things change by themselves, A classical example is luck. When somebody wins something we believe their luck has changed. But is it the luck that has change or the person?
We say that things like opportunities will come our way. But is it that the opportunities are moving or that opportunities have always been there and we are moving towards them?

Do things come our way or do we move towards them or away from them?
This is a fundamental question and depending on how you answer it you will give yourself control over your life or take control away.
Things do not change unless we change them and that rule applies to all things material and ideal
Most people will not agree with that because deep down to their core they are afraid to take the responsibility for their lives.
People will live in the superstition of luck and destiny. They will look at life like the little boy looking at the planes. They will say things like “look at that successful person, how lucky they are” but are the people getting lucky or is just our perception that it does?

Once you take control of your life and realize that things will not come your way, that you have to move towards the things you want, your life will start changing.
People that are following their dreams will find themselves getting lucky, having people and opportunities coming their way having answers and solution to their problems magically appear at the right time.

But that is just a perception, Things do not change. All the opportunities, the people the money, the  luck, the answers and solution to your problems  as well as the bad luck the traps and accidents the negativity and all the wrong answers are already existing out there
Getting them come your way or not is a matter of you walking towards or away from them.

 It is a matter of you moving instead of waiting for things to move your way.

The Pearl of Wisdom

This is the story of little Ozzy.

He was the 4456th son of Mother of Pearl and of all his brother and sisters he was the smallest oyster in the bunch.

He was always a little slow – as oysters go – and nobody thought he would accomplish anything in life.

As expected, when the time came to pearl out little Ozzy turned out to be a failure.

All his brothers and sisters proudly displayed their pearls but no matter how hard he tried little Ozzy came out empty.

He was the laughing stock of the oyster culture and ashamed of himself he decided to run away and save his family from the humiliation.

One dark night he sneaked out and went into the open ocean.

When the first rays of the sun started shining, tired of pulling his shell all night, he stopped by a big rock and started sobbing.

- Hey! What’s with the crying?

It turns out that the rock was just an old turtle doing his morning meditation.

- I am a total failure and disgrace to my family. I am an oyster without a pearl.

Would you please eat me and put me out of my misery?

- Well, I am a vegetarian – said the turtle – But I tell you what.

I will give you the pearl of wisdom so you wouldn’t be a pearless oyster anymore.

- The pearl of wisdom, what is that? – asked Ozzy

- It is the most magnificent, amazing, perfect pearl in the ocean. - said the turtle.

It will give infinite wisdom to anyone that wears it. Just open up and say aaa!

As Ozzy open up his shell the turtle picked up a round pebble and shoved it in.

- How do you feel? – Asked the turtle

- Wow! That feels great, big and heavy. I shell go back and made my family proud.

- Wait, wait! You cannot go back to your family. – Said the turtle.

- This is a magic pearl and if you show it to anyone it will turn into a rock.

Very disappointed but very happy at the same time, little Ozzy thanked the turtle and left to look for his fortune in the underwater world.

He decided to be a monk and spend the rest of his life helping the poor and the sick.

Ozzy went from place to place imparting his new found wisdom to anyone he met.

Soon his reputation and fame grew and creatures from all over the ocean, the poor and the rich, the humble and the powerful, came seeking his wise advice.

He was a great teacher and counsel and many generations of disciples followed him.

In time his pearl of wisdom became legend.

After years and years of travel, feeling that his end is near Ozzy decided to go back home.

News of his return traveled fast and all the oysters, his brother and sisters and his little nephews were waiting with great anticipation.

It was a triumphant return and they gave him the highest honors.

They all gather around in the town square to listen to his life story.

At the end, his nephews shouted.

- Uncle Ozzy can we see the pearl of wisdom, can we see it pleeease?

Oh, what the heck. Said Ozzy to himself. After all, I don’t need it anymore.

So he opened up its shell for the first time since he had met the turtle.

And there it was, whiter and more radiant than the angels' skin, glowing in brilliant radiance:

The most magnificent, amazing, perfect pearl in the ocean.

Love Love

Love has a very bad reputation.

Love has been accused, put on trial found guilty and condemned for a crime it has never committed.

That crime has been written in books and poems, sung in songs, painted in paintings and depicted in movies so much that it is taken for granted.

Love is a heartbreaker.

But has Love ever break your heart?

Don’t just jump to the answer. Before saying “YES” think about it.

Have you ever had so much love that it actually broke your heart?

No? I didn’t think so.

Love never broke any heart.

We broke it and instead of pleading guilty, blame it on Love

First of all, we don’t know what Love is.

You may think what it is but your puny infatuation and libidinous lust are not love.

You have to go to an animal shelter and rescue an abused or abandoned dog.

Only people that have done that know what Love is.

Only an animal can love unconditionally

We, humans, can’t.

We used to know what unconditional love was, but then we became “civilized” and losing Love was part of the price for the “civilized life”

The promise of “civilization” to make our lives better was a lie.

Instead, we have become slaves to the “civilization”, to the system.

I remember when my daughter was born.

I was in love from the first second I saw her face.

I thought I knew what love was but I was wrong.

I would have given her everything, my blood my organs my life, but not my unconditional love.

She was about 2 years old. I was ready to go to work when she came to the door and grabbed my leg.

-          Daddy, please don’t go! She said with big wet eyes.

Did you know what I did? I turned around and went to work while she watched me with tears rolling down her face.

She was 2 and I broke her heart. I broke her heart, not Love.

Don’t give me the bullshit that love has broken the heart s of the people you loved.

That you have never done it.

Love has never broken a heart.

It is time we set the record straight. It is time to atone for our crimes.

Before it is too late we have to remember, learn how to love unconditionally.

Before we lose our humanity completely we have to bring it back in our lives in our society.

I think it is time to let the machines do the work and for us to return doing what we were supposed to be doing in the first place.

Let’s put back Love in the formula of our society

Life, Love, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

No Regrets

Living your life with regrets is like driving a car looking in the rearview mirror.

You may have good intentions, think positive thoughts and envision a better future but the “aim” of your actions will be determined by your view.

It is all the could have, should have, regrets that are guiding your course, not the I am and I will.

We all have made mistakes, we all are making mistake and we will continue to make mistakes no matter how hard we try to avoid it.

Life is a continuous learning process and just when you think you have figured it out it will throw a new challenge at you. So don’t sleep on your laurels and don’t expect boredom in your future.

As long as you live life is a constant challenge.

But that is not a problem. I love challenges and I don’t understand the people that go out of their way to avoid them, to do nothing.

I don’t agree either with the people that work all the time and never stop to smell the roses.

I mean after hard work and struggle everybody deserves a vacation.

I also believe that the only bad experiences are the experiences from which we have learned nothing.

And that seems to be the big problem; we keep on making the same mistakes again and again.

These bad experiences accumulate in our mind, in our memory, as negative luggage as regrets and after a while, these regrets will drag us down.

So from time to time it is necessary to go through this negative burden and throw it out of our mind any regrets we may have.

You should live your life with no regrets.

Whatever you have done you have done. The past cannot be changed no matter what you do.

The only thing in your control is our present and in how we handle this present is the secret of our future. So stop driving your life looking in the rearview mirror. It is just a recipe for more accidents to come.

There is an interesting study done by the phycology department at Cornel University.

The researchers have looked at videos of Olympic medal ceremonies and compare the way the winners reacted.

You would expect the happiness to be tied to the value of the medal but your assumption would be wrong.

Of course, the gold medal winner will be happy but to everybody’s surprise, it was the bronze medal winner that was most excited and the silver medal winner that was the list excited. Why is that?

We look at ourselves by comparing us with the other people around.

The bronze medal winner is looking down. One second less one small difference and he could have not been an Olympic medalist.

The silver m medalist, however, is looking up. He is thinking one second, one minute difference and  I could have been the gold medal winner.

It is the regrets that take all the joy out of our experiences.

We torture ourselves with “I should have” and “I could have” while keeping the same mistakes again.

I remember an incident in my high school years.

We were having a dance ball.  It was an annual tradition for our school to invite the neighbor high school which happened to be a girls-only high school.

Needless to say that all the boys in my school were looking forward to this dace.

I can still see us, the boys, aligned on one side of the ballroom and all the pretty girls aligned on the opposite side.

The music started and with the exception of a few boyfriend-girlfriend couples, nobody was brave enough to invite the girls to dance.

I started making fun of all my colleagues. I was the unofficial class jocker and it was my duty to ridicule them.

I was having fun calling them names until one of them fired back. “If you are so smart and brave why don’t you do it?

I realized there was no way out so I did the best I could think of.

I said I’ll go and ask a girl to dance but no matter what happened they all had to go and ask one girl to dance. They also had no choice but to accept the challenge but to make it even harder for me they asked to pick the girl I have to invite.

So they picked out what they thought was the most beautiful girl guaranteed to refuse me and shut me down.

Here I was walking to a certain defeat and humiliation but determined to do it just to take them down with me.

I reach the girl and blurred out the prepared invitation and to my shock, she said yes!

So here I was slow dancing with the most beautiful girl in the room looking at my friends looking at me from the side. Life couldn’t have been more wonderful.

So I learn a very important lesson that evening: It is better to regret making a decision than to regret never making that decision.

It was a very good lesson and it served me well in all my youth and young adulthood but somehow somewhere I lost it.

I became fearful of the future or just too complacent, too lazy. I got stuck into a dead end job and inevitably found myself on an unemployment line.

I let regrets taking over my emotional life and pretty soon worries and negativity joined in to take me down to the deepest darkness of depression.

Do not let regrets of the past determine your future.

If you have any regrets write them down. Look at the list and for each regret write next to it the lesson you have learned. Post that list on a visible spot on your desk or where it would be impossible not to see it every day.

At the top of the list write in bold capital letters:

I WILL LIVE MY LIFE WITH NO REGRETS

Words to live by

If you are not willing to learn, nobody can help you.

If you are determined to learn, nobody can stop you.

Action without knowledge is futile and knowledge without action is useless.

Don’t despise what you’ve been through. You needed the lesson

All things happen for a reason.

God made you for a reason. Your task is to find out why.

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

You don’t need a new day to start things over; you need a new mindset.

Only two people are happy in this world: The mad man and the child.

You have to be a mad man to achieve what you desire and to be a child to enjoy what you have.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

You cannot control what life throws in your path but you can always control how you react.

Pain is unavoidable; suffering is your choice.

The key to being happy is knowing you have the power to choose what to accept and what to let go.

No! You cannot have the cake and eat it too.

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

The “old you” has to die and a “new you” has to be born in order to change

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

At the end of life you will not regret the mistakes you have done but the mistakes you have not done

Rather than always focusing on what’s urgent, learn to focus on what’s really important.

The Ego says “once everything fall into place, I’ll find peace”

The Spirit says  “find peace and everything will fall into place”

What would you do if you knew today was the last day of your life?

The deeper the darkness; the brighter the light of God.

You cannot win an argument with an ignorant person. Only an intelligent person can accept a new idea.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Is better to have an intelligent enemy than a stupid friend.

Challenges is what makes life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Don’t practice until you get it right.  Practice until you can’t get it wrong.

The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.

Never lie to someone who trusts you.

Never bite more than you can chew.

Never say never