Free Speech

Recently a famous talk show host made some racially and sexual charged comments about a group of girls.  These young women took a losing hand and played it almost to a championship.  This host made similar comments before.

 

When you enter the public arena be prepared for ad hominem attacks, or attacks on the person.  If someone cannot attack your ideas or what you represent, they will attack you.  For some reason, these people cause this host to fear.  So he responds with character attacks.

 

Another recent example comes in the form of defaming Al Gore’s character instead of debating his ideas about climate change.  I am in now way endorsing either view in this article. I do endorse healthy debate.  Can one debate the hairstyle or body art of an athlete?  Of course, one can try to debate anything. 

 

Yet one must frame the debate in a way that produces clear results.  Do I like the fact that athletes have tattoos all over them on the basketball court?  The question is not whether I like it or not, but what message I think it sends.

 

I can appreciate some body art or even piercings which augment an individual’s appearance.  Would I get more than one, or even many all over me?  No.  Does this mean that no one else should?  No.  Does this mean that they ought to be free from critcism?  No.

 

So my framing of debate is that anything is open to attack when you become a public figure.  The question for an audience though, is what purpose does the assault serve?  Why would someone belittle another?  Then the true debate begins.  Sometimes comments are honest jest, only the listener can decide what they feel the message is.

 

I would rather these things were said in the open than behind closed doors.

Perfect Paradox Method of Manifestation

Well, it is about time.  We have spoken of and danced around the idea of manifestation and reality.  Everyone is talking about a so-called Secret and how to change your perspective.  Now we show how we do it here.

 

Our method aims at releasing all of your old attachments and becoming what you were born as.  Think of it as abandoning all of your old useless or vestigial genetic traits for only those that apply to modern life.

 

Sannyasi is the act of renouncing everything and walking on faith.  Although I have done this and it is the fastest path to realizing your personal potential, it is also the hardest and most brutal.  It is not recommended for everyone and it may not even be necessary.

 

When I first returned from my path of renunciation, I encouraged all to wander its lonely and deep waters.  Yet this did not take well.  People feel deeply addicted to the physical reality and refuse to release its enticements.  This feeling comes naturally.

 

Think of the child who feels no attachment to clothes, food, or anything.  Then, we as parents convince them of the value of these things.  Once the years of indoctrination succeed, the youth becomes an adherent to the materialist argument too.

 

A rare few never really accept the idea that the physical world is all that exists, that only what can be measured through external scientific instruments exists.  These humans have extreme difficulty getting along in life.  Many people consider them mentally ill resulting in hospitalization and medication.

 

Yet we have a paradoxical road that we can walk between the two schools of thought.  This challenge is the human condition, how to balance the intuitive and logical.  Scholars devote study to creativity and methods of creation.  They find both logical and intuitive methods work together.

 

We are hybrid beings of both spirit and matter.  The ancient symbol of the cross, far older than any single religion symbolizes this concept.  The vertical line is that of spirit or intuition connected to source energy such as the sun or even the galactic core of the Milky Way.  The horizontal line signifies the linear path of physical existence.

 

We meet at the center, where the two lines intersect.

 

What we know, we know from within and above.  This is our perspective which we search the material reality for.  Our scientific instruments are discovering that thoughts precede stimuli in the senses.  Furthermore a nerve loop exists between any of the senses and the brain.

 

The eye for example has two loops connecting it to the brain, and one exists before the optic nerve.  This means that we actually perceive something before we actually see it.  Then we return this idea to the eye for processing.  Of course this example is extremely simplified to present the case:  We affect what we see prior to seeing it.  Now, one does not need instruments to know that we see what we want, study hallucinations.  How can one person see something that no one else does?  That person just sees reality differently.

 

In fact, everyone sees reality differently.  Our feelings differ as well.  So, again, the question arises, how to tighten the loop so much so that what we perceive and see and feel all align?  Here we enter our method:

1. Know
2. Think
3. Believe
4. Now
5. Feel
6. See
7. Receive

What you know you know from within.

What you think is how your mind reasons it out within.

What you believe is what you want to see with your personality from within

 

These are the first three layers.

 

What you feel is what comes in from without.

What you see is what you want to come in from without.

What you receive is what you accept from without.

 

These are the second three layers.

 

Yes we skipped one.  We skipped The Now, or where the two meet.

 

When you align both the inside and the outside, you experience the eternal now, the past, the present, and the future at once.  Historically one had to bear his or her own cross to learn this path.  In this Age we can do it a bit more easily, though not without discomfort.

 

Our method shows one how to renounce while being in the world.  How to smoothly release the old attachments without getting a saffron robe and chanting all day.  Although, one can do this as part of the path if one chooses.

 

As we renounce our mental attachments, we streamline our thinking and learn what we truly believe, in the absence of physical conditioning.  Think of this as the seed of what you are.  The internal work allows one to discover one’s destiny in the absence of societal or familial expectations.

 

Think of the earlier stages of your life as familiarization with the human body, hot and cold, pain and pleasure, or growth and stagnation.  Once these things are learned, the rules of the child must be surrendered to discover one’s chosen destiny.

 

Now that you have determined from within, what it is you want, most people want to see it in the world around them.  Some notes require mentioning here.  Renunciation of the attachments built up over one’s life removes the pressure.  In fact, after proper renouncing, one really needs nothing from without.  That is why the method has so much power.  It allows you to need nothing.  So what you get now matches what you choose.   

 

In phase two, the subject practices feeling what it is that she wants to feel based on the character uncovered within.  Once she feels it in her heart, she starts to see that which supports her dreams around her.  Next she gratefully receives the bounty from the world around her.  An example helps here. 

 

Jennifer always wanted to be a dancer.  Yet her family consisted of farmers.  Whenever she mentioned dancing, they laughed at her and told her to stop daydreaming.  After years of farming and raising livestock, Jennifer has a major illness.  It causes her to reassess her life.  She comes to us to help her discern her fate.  We give her tools to uncover the gem buried under all that rock.  Once she uncovers it we help her to polish and facet it.

 

She has renounced as she has a terminal illness. She knows that nothing without will fulfill her life, that it has to come from within.  This mortality gives her the impetus necessary to streamline her thinking to discover what she believes, what truly matters to her.  Phase I is clear.  The process enters the Perfect Paradox where physical and non-physical meet.

 

We help her to release all of the old thinking patterns using logic and philosophy, and energy work with vibrational healing.  Most importantly we provide her unbiased support for achieving her dreams.  Jen now knows what she believes.  She remembers wanting to dance, feeling that the world was a giant dance of senses, a symphony of motion.

 

When she was a farmer, her mind saw everything in terms of production and delivery of sustenance.  She went to the mall and noted Hillshire Farms, and
Wilson’s Suede and Leather.  Now Jennifer visits the mall and sees the dance studio, and the fitness tights.  Her mind thinks of ways to support her dream only allowing those ideas in support of it into her conscious awareness.  This woman travels on the road to fulfill her dreams.

 

But there is one more vital step in the process:  Receive.  Many ask why this step is so important.  Without equivocation, if you take what you want, you are contradicting all of the work done during renunciation.  You will trap yourself back into a physical driven world of scarcity and consumption.  Using the idea of receiving also allows one to have adventure.

 

For example, after reading the above story, one may assume that Jennifer becomes some sort of dancer.  This is not necessarily her dream.  The concept of receiving puts her in a place of discovering how her life plays out.  Knowing exactly how your life plays out is not much fun, and renders life itself unnecessary.  The little variations make everything.  Our subject has aligned all of the layers of herself.  Now she awakens to her daily adventure where she sees how the physical fulfills her nonphysical dreams.

 

She begins to read about dancing and the mechanics and kinesiology of movement.  Then a man approaches her about renting space on her farm for horses.  Because she is thinking about dancing she asks what the horses are for.  He says that he boards professional horses for a variety of clients.  Naturally she asks if any of them perform.  He says “yes,” in fact.

 

One can easily imagine where the story is going; especially as we framed the vision in terms of her dreams, desires and goals.  She works with horse performers.  Imagine doing this with your own dreams and we can help you make it so.  Please, do not wait until the material world makes you ill because you are living a lie.

Principles before Physicality

As human beings in a transient existence, we perceive things inconsistently.  Sometimes we know something, and do not believe it.  Other times, we believe something and do not know it.  We may feel something but not know it or believe it.  These internal contradictions underlie much of our pain and confusion in this life.

 

Many methods for removing these logical inconsistencies exist.  Most of the methods find themselves scattered throughout the many educational disciplines.  Part of a method may be in psychoanalysis where we work on “unconscious desires.”  Other ones hide in spirituality, such as believing, faith and receiving.

 

The new movie “The Secret,” attempts to packaged a method of creating one’s perfect life.  Fortunately, the method is not really a Secret.  Unfortunately the method in the film is somewhat incomplete.  It states:

 

1. Ask
2. Believe
3. Receive

 

Now, this method works mighty well for most people.  Think about a child, this girl wants a pony.  She asks the universe for it.  Her mind is now training itself to only see options that lead to success.  Then she believes that it will come.  This releases her fear while keeping her motivated and focused.  Finally, receiving keeps her from becoming a tyrant and just going and taking something.

 

Yet for an adult, this process involves many other aspects.  For example, one has to feed and care for that pony.  A spiritual adult or adolescent has far more concerns that must be allayed before the process can work.  These adults may frustrate their own powers of acquisition.  Thus their will is divided internally and externally.

 

Furthermore, the process of manifestation is not truly for acquisition.  ALL MATERIAL OBJECTS ARE FINITE.  This means that anything loved in this physical existence will decay and die.  Absolutely everything.  To experience lasting peace, one must fix one’s mind, or awareness, on a principle.  While the actors fulfilling the principle may die or change, the principle NEVER EVEN FADES.

 

This means that while one may love a great judge as a lover of truth, the judge will someday die.  But truth will never die.  As long as one is fixed on this principle, he or she will never taste the disappointment that plagues one who puts faith in physical objects.  No pastor, prophet, or savior will ever fulfill an infinite need.  It is the IDEA that the person represents that provides the fulfillment.

 

So the question lies, how does one do this?

 

One learns to focus the mind through a variety of means.   In Vedanta we call this “single-pointedness.”  All spiritual exercises, such as those of the founder of the Jesuits, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, are designed with this goal in mind:  Reduce the mental agitations, and focus the will.  This is what mediation is for.  This is what service is for.  This is what a host of regimens teach.  They train the individual to focus the mind and body on one thing alone. 

 

Once the Seeker gains the ability to focus, contemplation must begin.  Now the individual removes all internal and external inconsistencies.  The process of intellectual refinement follows the physical refinement for most.  Though, some go the other direction.  Examples include the Brahmacharya who surrenders all physicality and goes mental-no pun intended, and, the Yogicharya who goes completely sensual.

 

Each uses a method to focus and eliminate external agitations.  Most of these agitations come from incomplete thoughts or attachments.  Regardless of the method, the Seekers must then focus the mind and will on removing any other logical inconsistencies.  The most common one is that the world or universe is unfair or unjust.  In the long run, all accounts balance.

 

By very definition what “is,” is what “should be.”  For what “is” dictates what is REAL, while what you imagine is the artificial construction.  Thus, the world is perfect, while our perception is imperfect.  Another way of presenting this concept, is to say that the world is infinite, while we are finite.  Our minds take a dependent snapshot of a moment of time of a process.  It is easy to look at a process and pick the incomplete part which justifies what we want to believe or feel.

 

Look at child rearing.  There are times as a parent where one must allow the child to cry in its crib.  If you caress the child every time he or she cries, the child is being taught, “crying is the appropriate way to get comfort and communicate.”  This child usually grows to be spoiled.  It cries whenever it wants something or experiences minute frustration, rather than learning to use the discomfort as motivation to change circumstances.

 

In the finite, the parent who allows the child to cry seems extremely cruel and unkind.  Ruthless and unforgiving.  This is not the case at all.  It may very well be more loving to allow the child a little frustration now rather than ENDLESS frustration in the eternities.  Focus on the principles of appropriate conduct, and one always has a goal and reward.  Living your own righteous principles can never truly be taken away, and requires NOTHING PHYSICAL.

Wherever You Go, There You Are

Try to imagine a world where you are not.  Is it even possible?

 

Those quick to answer, “Yes,” do so without thinking about it.  Yet in reality, they are wrong.  They talk about times in history where they did not exist.  But it is impossible to cognize anything without using you.  That’s right.  Everything you see or read about has you involved, for you are thinking about it.

 

So the one thing ever present wherever you are, is YOU.  In fact, the only thing that you can be sure of in life is one thing; that you exist.  Everything after that is negotiable.  Ask any schizophrenic and they will tell you this.  Yet how is this useful?

 

The way the concept becomes useful, is that it gives you a liberty in your life that you did not even realize.  In fact, even this article is a function of how you look at the world.  Every time you see red, you may see green, and vice versa, no one would ever know.

 

The trick is to be internally and externally consistent with your logic.  When you render all the inconsistencies out of your thinking, you become a master of your reality.  You gain an ability to manage your thinking, feelings, and actions not available earlier.

 

No longer do you react from a bundle of autonomic responses.  Your life reflects deep seated steadiness when you align your thoughts, feelings and actions.  This is true integrity.  Like the well-forged beam, your molecules align and are able to transmute any force.  It vibrates through you and dissipates into the atmosphere.

 

Analogously, when unaligned, your molecules vibrate inconsistently and bounce into each other.  Forces wreak havoc on your system as it reacts with varying and opposing responses.  In short, you fight against yourself and that which is around you instead of flowing with it.

 

In short, the method that I use for my clients is to render the unconscious conscious first.  This is often the hardest part as most people refuse to acknowledge the darker sides of themselves.  Animals carry one trait, like the loyal dog, or that cowardly rabbit.  While humans on the other hands, we carry every trait beautiful and terrible in our world.

 

It lies upon the individual to choose how to manifest these traits and most importantly, when to.  Every trait has a useful implementation.  For example when in suicidal despair, anger can pull one out of the pit of hopelessness.  When angry, the feeling of laughter or humor can reduce the agitations. 

 

The whole point of this process of self-realization is to bring these ideas to the forefront and to acknowledge them so that we no longer behaves as a victims of our own unconscious desires.  Once we bring our ideas to the surface, we can acknowledge them and decide how to use them, and when or if.

 

Thus the statement “Do not judge lest ye be judged,” refers directly to these ideas.  Most people try to start by not judging others.  Yet your judgment of others is truly just a judgment of yourself which you cannot acknowledge at this time.  Remember, you reflect all the meaning that you see onto the world of the inanimate.  Once you accept the ideas about yourself, you no longer need to see them in the world around you.

 

Once you see that you have the capability to be judgmental, intolerant, prejudiced, etc, you no longer have to imagine that those are “everyone else’s” problems.  The world changes most quickly from the inside out.  So, in closing, accept your illogic, and render it logical.  Or, in other words, remove the inconsistencies between your thinking and behavior and become liberated.

 

Choose your fate.

Mandukya Upanisad with Karika

Today this blog will discuss an interesting concept which allows one to discover the nature of reality. Last evening I went to a great concert from a band called Veruca Salt here in Albuquerque (ABQ). The District hosted the show outside on its patio.

One of the great things about ABQ is its familial atmosphere. If Reno is “The Biggest Little City,” we are the “Biggest Little Town.” There were only a hundred or so people, so it felt like a private party just for us. Several acts performed including a great local Blues singer named Lea Black.

Yet not only did I get to hear excellent hard rock and roll at a small personalized venue, I also met two wonderful Seekers. These are seekers after truth and the nature of reality. This couple consisted of a man who worked at Sandia Labs and his French wife who worked in Computers.

We engaged in a spirited discussion of his history and the nature of reality. He was one of the rare individuals who could actually remember the moment of his birth. He said that it was not a thought, but a “feeling,” or “experience. This lead to a discussion of a more universal experience to discuss what one really is.

For him to remember entering a body shows that he must have existed beforehand. Nonetheless, the common experience we used comes from a great work of Vedantic philosophy called the Mandukya Upanisad with Karika. It discusses the waking state, the dream state, and the state of deep sleep.

I asked my new friend what the common element in the three states was, and with only a slight pause, he responded, “self-awareness.” Rarely does one even answer this question correctly. Rarer still are those that do so this rapidly quickly. It enlivens my heart to meet people of this caliber.

They easily understood that in the waking state you experience this physical “reality,” that everyone assumes is “real.” In the dream state though, these same people experience another “reality,” that is considered no less concrete during its cognition. Finally in deep sleep, the awareness knows, “that I know not.”

When you ask someone who slept well in a dreamless sleep where they went, the natural response is “I do not know, but it felt great.” This state of awareness WITHOUT COGNITION is the foundation for one’s natural state. Ironically the Frenchwoman mentioned the great Descartes, Cogito Ergo Sum, “I think therefore I am” earlier.

While this sentiment above is again rare in the masses, for they do not even think, there is a state even beyond this. It is a state of knowing without thinking. Mandukya refers to this state as “Thuriya,” a state where all three experiences merge. During our conversation I used an unconventional method of showing this state.

It comes most quickly through the practice of “eye gazing.” Although I had done this before with one of the great loves of my life, it can be done between anyone. This radical method of self-realization is outlined best in a book referred to me by one of my clients. It is called “Rumi, Gazing at the Beloved: The Radical Practice of Beholding the Divine.” (Johnson, 2003)

So while on the outdoor patio in our beautiful Albuquerque spring air, I took his hand at one point and felt his mood. While feeling his mood I looked into his eyes until he felt my mood. That mood that I had was one of steadiness and openness to whatever came. After a few seconds his state felt the same as mine.

I asked him if he felt the difference, and he answered, “Yes.” I then released his hand and shared that if he aimed for that feeling in his life, he would find what he was looking for more quickly and more easily. When he went to the bathroom, I did the same with his wife. She was tougher because she is the structure of their relationship. Without her earthy genius, his fiery genius would float away. Yet we got to a similar feeling too.

In life we all seek this feeling of connectedness and oneness. Another “outside” of us is unnecessary to experience this state, but it not only helps, it is joyful. Some self-masters sit on a slight pedestal where Seekers can gaze and share the feeling. (Johnson, 2003) I like it in the first-person, one-to-one. No pedestal between equals, and we are all equal aspects of awareness if not in physical strength and intelligence per se.

References:

Johnson, Will 2007. Rumi, Gazing at the Beloved: The Radical Practice of Beholding the Divine. Vermont: Inner Traditions International

Tend Your Own Garden

Many times I have seen people encourage service. This is a noble and laudable goal. Service moves one down the path to personal perfection, or self-realization. It enables one to subordinate the personal in favor of the universal.

One can serve in many ways: feed the homeless, join the military, do social work, give medicine to the poor. Yet one thing that I notice time and time again, is people who are generous and noble to those outside their immediate circle and cold or even insensitive in their personal relationships.

It is easy to be nice and understanding and compassionate to those you do not know, you have no personal stake. It is much more difficult however to offer this same compassion to those you know and who know you.

Individuals in these relationships know the good and the bad about each other. This makes it harder to exercise compassion. When you know your brother never pays his debts, it is hard to give understanding. When it is your own son, it becomes even harder.

I have neither all the answers, nor do I believe that it is easy to do these things. What I do know, is that enlightened detachment and compassion are truly harder to exercise in one’s own personal relationships as opposed to at work, or under some organizational umbrella.

Yet when you learn to be open, accepting, and understanding to those close to you, you truly gain an understanding of what compassion is. This opens you up to a whole new world of fulfillment. So, before you are so quick to point out the weeds in your neighbor’s garden, pull some of your own. Or at least do the two simultaneously.

Food is a Drug

Substance abuse and alcoholism has a history in my immediate family. People have suffered cirrhosis induced by alcoholism and severe drug addiction. During my studies I learned that there are five key addictions:

1. Drugs
2. Alcohol
3. Gambling
4. Sex
5. Food

People are most familiar with numbers one and two. While growing familiarity with number 3 comes from our now ubiquitous casinos all over America; four and five are largely neglected by our society. In general one can get addicted to anything which produces pleasure inducing endorphins. Thus, one can find exercise addicts and adrenaline junkies as well.

Why I mention these addictions, is that when you create food that has no nutritional value, like diet soda, you are creating a form of drug. The imbiber gains endorphins from the consumption, with no nutritional or caloric gain. Imagine what this does to the body which thinks it is getting food?

It usually tries to digest this synthetic sugar or fat. These artificial substances have no record in DNA of how to digest them or what to do with them. So the body naturally uses its normal processes. In the long run, I am sure that we will find that much synthetic protein is dangerous to your health. Notice the rise in digestive problems throughout America.

Yet this piece focuses on food addiction. People in America overeat. It is not a question of will per se, that is the old argument given to alcoholics. “You are weak willed,” they were told. Then came Bill and Alcoholics Anonymous, and a mass of studies which show that alcoholics cells act different towards certain substances then the mass of the population.

Regardless, there is one addiction humans cannot quit. I often joke that it is sex, but it is actually food. We must eat food to survive. Hence, our dilemma in advanced industrialized nations. How do we deal with this “obesity epidemic” as it is being called?

I am not suggesting regulation, or anything of this sort, as it does not change consumption for long periods of time. Note the changes in Driving Under the Influence (DUI, DWI) and drug abuse. When harsh penalties are enacted a temporary slump ensues, only to dissipate in a short number of years. In other words, people go back to business as usual.

What I suggest is education about the dangers of food addiction, and the acceptance and understanding that it is normal to get into this cycle. Our children’s chemistry is being changed at a young age through barely tested synthetic foods and inundation with processed junk of poor nutritional value.

Again, I do not want regulation of food, or a return to eating nuts and berries. I suggest that people are shown that food is addictive and can be managed through emotional work and structure. We are often fearful and stressed in the modern world. In response to this, we eat because it is easily and cheaply available.

But these are the exact foods that one wants to avoid while stressed. They encourage a person to store more fat and slow metabolism for the coming stresses, whether real or imagined. Ironically, the more stressed one becomes, the more important the diet is. There are ways to eat food and to think about it that change one’s metabolism and habits.

It is not easy, but many of my clients, including myself at one time, have changed the way they think about food, the way they eat, the way they feel about it, and the way their body feels. These clients have cut their fat and weight to levels nearing or exceeding the quality of their body when in the best shape of their lives.

Your thinking has been shown to affect your entire chemistry and healing. Imagine that just changing what you eat will not produce success. We are coming to a time where human consciousness will reign supreme where it belongs, at the center of your existence.

This is not mind control.
Think about it.

Take the Hint

“A person will get well when he is tired of being sick”
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Holisitic medicine and philosophy dictates that one must treat the entire person to heal any ill. Ancient philosophies tell us that when a person is ill, it reflects an imbalance somewhere else in their lives. This is a difficult thing to tell a sick client, and even more so when the client is terminal.

Yet, this is true nonetheless. In general, our mind and body tries to tell us when something is wrong subtly. For example the computer guy who no longer has enthusiasm for his work. Whereas he once arose in the morning with fire for his task, he now nods lethargically at the alarm clock.

Since discipline has taught him not to be lazy, he powers through the hints. He next starts to be late and make mistakes in his chosen career. His backups do not run, or the clients fail to get their emails. Still though, he does not realize it. Traffic in the morning gets worse, he crashes his car on the way to work.

If he still does not listen, he may get laid off. During the job search, he may start to deplete his nest egg. Eventually he finds another job but starts to get carpal tunnel syndrome. His hands will no longer work on the task that he is forcing them into. He fears for his family, his health and wellbeing.

Now we reach the crossroads. The consultant must decide whether to continue forcing himself through these pains until worse ones arise, or he can change his life path. Many people keep pushing till the terminal illnesses arise. Others take the hint earlier. Either way, the client now has to deal with mental, physical, and emotional pains.

In the beginning it was only mental, then emotional, now the client has to treat all aspects of the human experience. Part of our work at Perfect Paradox is to bring this person back from the brink. Or even better, to help them change their lives without getting the terminal illness or losing their all or part of their families.