What’s so Special about the Holiday Season?

What are you attached to?

If you’re like many of us, you might be attached to seeing your family.  This attachment primarily manifests as visiting them during the holidays.

Doesn’t sound so bad, right?

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The thing is, any attachment is enslaving.  Ultimately, the direction we’re moving in as we consciously evolve is towards complete detachment and therefore complete freedom.  Absolute freedom is our goal!

To achieve freedom, we must realize liberation from all the illusions that we may allow to enslave us.

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The Holiday Season, as wonderful as it is to celebrate and give gifts and gather together, also offers us the opportunity to become free from perhaps one of our greatest attachments.

The attachment to family can be incredibly destructive, largely depending on how you perceive your family.  And even if you perceive your family very positively and attribute them with qualities of kindness and generosity and unconditional love, the attachment can still be harmful.  At some point, who knows when, people die.  And then where are you left?  If you’re attached, you feel like you lost something and this might cause pain.  If unattached, you’ll still accept that something was lost, but you’ll be at ease with it, living in the Reality of death, not denying the inevitable 🙂

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This Holiday Season, i returned to Cincinnati to visit the family. I wouldn’t say i’m free from the attachment.  The great news – this is the moment for freedom!

This is the moment to stop the conforming, to stop the complaining, to stop the projection.  This is the moment to accept complete responsibility for everything about life and the experience of life.  Here and Now!  Accept it.  Own it.  It’s all you.

Liberation or Enslavement are qualities of the mind.  Heaven or Hell exists within you!  You choose.  You decide.

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The truth is – there is nothing you have to do.  Everything is conditional upon certain consequences.  Only if you want to keep leaving must you continue to keep breathing.  When you want nothing, there is nothing you must do.  If you are at peace with doing nothing and being no one, you can do that for the rest of your life 🙂

Wu Wei: nothing to do, nowhere to go.  Just be here, now!

Love it.  Live it!  It’s all you.

Every day, take steps towards liberating yourself. What enslaves you?  Write it down!  Write down steps you can take to progressively liberate yourself, more and more.  Be free!

What are the Best Prayers?

Let’s find out!

The Dalai Lama talks about prayer as a reminder.  A reminder of what really matters most, and perhaps a reminder about the true nature of reality.

Reading the newspaper the other day, there was an article about Mark Wahlberg, and it mentioned that every day he prays for guidance and strength.

Guidance and strength!

Guidance implies humility.  If you’re asking for guidance, you are humble enough to accept the presence of a Greater Governing Power in the world and in your life, the existence of a Power that knows better than you could know by yourself.  So that’s cool 🙂  Praying for guidance is accepting that you don’t know everything and you’re opening up to the Most High that does know, and guidance asks that you can know like the Most High knows, at least concerning your particular circumstances and path in life.

Strength!  Interestingly, Mark Wahlberg is quite the physically strong dude.  And, as much as I doubt he’s praying for physical strength, I imagine that his prayer for strength does ripple out to influence every area of his life in some way, including his physical body.  Hence, strength!

Strength, complimented with a prayer for guidance, suggests that whatever guidance comes, it will require strength to act upon it.  Here, strength mildly equates to courage.  Without courage and strength, how could we ever act upon Divine Guidance?

Or maybe acting upon Divine Guidance is easy if it guides us in an easy way.  But, then again, one might imagine that Divine Guidance is always guidance that leads to growth, for growth and expansion is somewhat the nature of reality.  Growing to become more like God, you could say.  So the guidance points us to new areas of growth and expansion.

Certainly, you’ve heard of the term, “Growing pains.”  Growing can hurt!  Physical growth hurts, whether its the body growing taller, transforming from a child to an adult, or whether it’s growing stronger, building muscle – growth hurts!  Yet, on some level we understand it’s purpose and believe that it is worth it.  No pain, no gain!  We want gain and growth.  Guidance points us the way, and only with courage, what you can call mental/emotional strength, can we consciously choose the path of growth and press on!

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Almost definitely, each one of us knows an area for growth in our lives.  We know a way that we can improve the quality of our lives, perhaps a new habit we could develop, yet we don’t.  Maybe we fear the pain and the change.  Yet, we know that it’s also good for us.  In this case, we’ve got the guidance.  What could really help us is the strength!

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Anyway – pray.  Think good thoughts.  Look for good.  Affirm goodness in people.  Affirm the abundance and beauty of creation!

‘Thy Will Be Done’ is always a good prayer 🙂

Relinquish the ego, surrender the small self, and open up the Will of the Most High.

Pray.  Remind yourself what matters most.

Love and Gratitude 🙂

One of the Best Ways to Elevate Your Behavior, Performance, and Being

Surround yourself with people who you’d like to become!

Surround yourself with people who you admire!

This is called the Sangha.  This is called the Reference Group.  This is called your Peers.

This is who you hang out, who you associate with, who you spend time with.

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One great thing I’ve noticed – in any person, you can emphasize both more positive and more supposedly negative qualities.  For that person to positively influence you, you’d be better off to focus on their good qualities that you admire, respect, and would like to embody yourself, and forget about any bad qualities.

For example, I know a person who practices great generosity financially and with giving precious time and attention to people.  This person practices humility and goes with the flow without rigidly attaching to particular ways.  This person is happy and humorous and very pleasant, also very nurturing!

So this person has all these positive, wonderful qualities I’d like to embody more fully.  Yet for some reason, I might tend to focus on the some of the qualities i’d consider negative.  And as much as i focus on the negative qualities and identify the person strongly with the negative qualities, i notice myself embodying those same negative qualities too!  For example, sometimes I think of this person as someone who eats unhealthy foods at the wrong times, like late night, and as someone who demonstrates little control over restraining themselves with indulging in sweets.  Sure enough, i find that same behavior coming out in me!

Perhaps the lesson here is – be careful!  Focus on the good and you’ll see the good and you’ll be the good.  In any moment, there are more positive and more negative things you can think about. The choice is yours.  You are free to focus on whatever you want.  The key is to more actively become conscious of your great power to focus and begin to consciously focus more and more on the good that you desire.

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What’s one of the most powerful ways to elevate your behavior?

Elevate the people you surround yourself with.

It’s been said, we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time around.  Sure enough, I’ve been spending time around a lot of people who enjoy reading, writing, and eating, and that’s what i’ve been doing too 😉

Thankfully, the people i’m around are also very generous, and i’ve found myself being more generous too.

People rub off on us.  Positively and negatively.  The more consciousness we bring to creating our peer group and consciously choosing the people we hang around and emphasizing all of the positive qualities, the more we are consciously creating our future and becoming more and more that person we’d like to see ourselves as 🙂

Sangha!  Sangha!  Sangha!

Sangha is just like your group of friends or community, and yet sangha carries with it a spiritual connotation.  Imagine a sangha has your reference group and everyone is in it spiritually-oriented and identifies themselves as on the spiritual journey.

Sangha is so powerful.

We become what we think about.  Our thoughts create reality.  And people influence our thoughts.  Surround yourself with people who think in ways you want to think about, and who think about things you enjoy thinking about.  Lift each other up 🙂

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And, good news!  If, as far as physical people go, you find it challenging to find people you admire and would like to associate with more, that’s okay.  You can always read!  Reading about anyone for an hour a day, that person becomes part of your reference group.  Through books, we can ‘hang out’ with wonderful people from all ages of history, and the more we ‘hang out’ with them, the more we become like them.

Let yourself be lifted up!

Look for the good. Read.

Believe and Achieve.

Gratitude.  So much gratitude! 🙂

The Best Way to Wake Up in the Morning

Sin!

Wake up first thing in the morning and sin!

Why?

Because sin is illusion.

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Consciously sinning is essentially any activity we feel guilty about because it goes against what we currently know/understand/perceive as the best course of action.

For example, this morning, I ate a donut, and as I was eating it, I didn’t feel that good about it.  I prefer vegan foods, this donut was far from vegan, and far from what I knew to be best for optimal health and flourishing, so why the heck would I eat it?

Whatever the why, the fact was, this body was eating it.  And the attitude towards the action wasn’t all that great.  While eating it, the internal dialogue was something like, “I know I shouldn’t be doing this, but I’m doing it anyway.” So I was ‘should’-ing on myself, hence the feeling of shame/guilt.

After finishing the first donut, there was still one more remaining.  I took the first bite out of the remaining donut and then triumphantly said something internally like “Enough is enough,” put the donut back in the bag, and slammed it down into the trash.

I then decided I wanted to take the dog for a walk, but before doing this I went to see if the brother, who is somewhat sick right now, would like anything before I went on the walk.  After bringing up the food he requested, giving him a hard time about requesting turkey, and calling him a dickhead for citing that human beings have been eating animals for thousands of years as a good reason to continue to eat them, I went back downstairs to address the donut in the trash.

The perspective I took towards the donut totally shifted.  Instead of perceiving it as something unworthy, unhealthy, poisonous, toxic, temptation – I shifted to perceive it as a gift.  A gift!

The donut went from being temptation to a gift.

And so, filled with gratitude, I enjoyed the second donut.  Thoroughly enjoyed it!

Amazingly, I’m still alive!  Two donuts will not kill you.  Or at least, not this time 🙂

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What’s the lesson?

Sin is illusion.

While eating the first donut, I was operating from a perspective of sin and temptation and guilt.  This was not enjoyable, and the whole time eating the donut the thoughts were along the lines, “Why am I doing this? This is wrong.  This is stupid.”

Fast forward ten minutes and to a second donut, the thoughts while eating this donut were something like, “I am so grateful for this abundance!  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!  I dedicate this all to you, Lord.”

What I initially thought was temptation was really a gift.

And of course, it’s all perspective.

Hence, one of the highest teachings is Subjective Reality; to each his/her own.

Every one of us decides for ourselves.  No one chooses for us.  We decide.  We choose.  Individually.

And sure, we can be influenced by each other. I’ve been influenced by health books to think donuts are ‘bad,’ ‘unhealthy,’ even poisonous.  Meanwhile, I’ve been influenced by spiritual books and personal experiences to think that on some level, everything’s divine and totally good.

One way is not right and the other wrong; they are simply different ways of perceiving reality.  You choose!

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So why is waking up first thing in the morning sinning such a great idea?

Because, for one, you can then joyously proclaim the rest of the day, “I’m a sinner!!!” relieve yourself of the anxiety of feeling like you’re standing on some holy pedestal, and free yourself from the burden of judging other people.  Sinning first thing in the morning connects you with human fallibility and likely helps develop a forgiving, compassionate attitude towards all life.  Forgive us all Father for none of us know what the holy macaroni we’re doing 🙂

Sinning first thing in the morning might also lead to you the realization that sin is subjective, and ultimately, it’s all an illusion.  Sin exists when we think,”This is definitely right and that is definitely wrong.”  When there’s a this and a that and an ‘other,’ we think there’s sin.  We judge.  We determine this is good and this is bad.  And then we are lifting up the heavy burden of supposed omniscience, living like we know everything!  So then of course eating dairy becomes a sin, eating meat becomes a sin, getting angry is a sin, feeling annoyed is a sin, cussing at another is a sin, and so on.  And then we start ‘should’-ing on ourselves and we ‘should’ on others and the world we live in is pretty crazy 🙂

Great freedom comes when we consciously try to sin and then realize how difficult it is to do, and realize how much illusion we live in!

For example, I might wake up and try to sin.  Maybe I’ll run outside, ring the neighbors doorbell, then run back inside.  That sounds like a sin, right?  Ding-dong-ditch first thing in the morning?

Reflecting on the idea even now, I can see how that might actually be a wonderful thing.  Perhaps you’ve been in a heated discussion with someone before and then the doorbell rings and you realize how the heat from the discussion was illusion, and it evaporates into thin air with the sound of the doorbell. Maybe that’s how my ding-dong-ditch served its purpose 🙂

Or maybe you wake up first thing in the morning and slap your face.  Ow!  That hurt.

But then, reflecting back on it throughout your day, you come to see how that was more of a funny way to start the day than a sinful one.  Novelty isn’t so bad after all!

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Consciously sinning might be the new big thing.  The more we bring consciousness to our supposed sins and really try to sin, the more we tune into the illusion of sun, and perhaps the Higher Reality of a basic goodness and divinity to all creation.

Few burdens are heavier to carry than the burden of judgment.  It’s a heavy load that implies complete understanding and omniscience of Reality.  Do you really want that responsibility?

If you consciously try to sin right now, it might be the thing that’s really best for you right now more than anything else.  Often times, I think what we might consider sin is really fear.  Are you claiming holiness and righteousness when really it’s just fear keeping you in your place?

The choice is between fear and love.  Choose love.

Ignorance is bliss. Knowledge is bliss.  Know nothing and be free!

love love love Love LOVE LOVE lOVE Love lovE Evolve EVOLVE love evolve Love Evolve love

Peace!

Obligation #1: Gratitude!

Obligation #2: Surrender to God 🙂

Rule #6: Stop taking yourself so goddamn seriously.

Commandment #11: Thou shalt not criticize, condemn, or complain.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s simple recipe for success: “Breathe, smile, go slowly.” 🙂

Why the Virgin Birth?

The virgin birth…

it’s about…

possibility.

Believe in the possibility.

It does not matter so much whether or not it happened.  What matters is believing in the possibility that it could have happened, and that it might even happen again!

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Imagine living back in Biblical Times.  People did not claim to know very much.  Science wasn’t as robust as it is today.  People might even tell you that they know very little.  However, if there’s one thing you can bet people know, just like people will tell you they know today – is where babies come from!

Everyone thinks they know where babies come from and how babies are made, generally speaking.  People of today as well as people of thousands of years ago understood that sexual intercourse was and is the means by which a woman opens herself up to the possibility of being pregnant.  Without the intercourse, being pregnant is impossible, right?

Not so!  There’s always a possibility.  And that’s the key.  Opening up to the Infinite possibility.  The one thing we might think we know is that babies happen from sexual intercourse, but not always!

Who really knows for certain?  Maybe people can get pregnant without sex.  Who knows??? Why couldn’t it be possible?

It could be possible!  It is possible!  Perhaps it has happened once or ten or a thousand times, who really knows?

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The Virgin Birth is about living with an open mind.  It’s living humbly, ultimately professing, “I don’t know…anything’s possible!”

Embracing the Virgin Birth is embracing infinite possibility, infinite potential, and the infinite creative power of God.  Sure, traditional science might tell us that babies only happen after  sexual intercourse, but opening to the belief that they can happen spontaneously, without intercourse, is liberating.

Liberate yourself!

It’s not about believing in a factual story about a person born of a virigin.  More significantly, i think, is to allow your mind to remain open to the possibility that it might have happened once and that it can certainly happen again.

Because who knows? Infinite Possibility!

Living in a world of possibility is fun.  To put it simply, close-mindedness is just you limiting yourself.  Dogma cripples.

Better to remain open, open, open, completely open 🙂

Based on the policy of openness, i’ve adopted the word “Flexitarian” when it comes to describing food preferences.  I originally heard about the term referring to Bill Cliton and how he categorizes himself regarding food.  The idea is, you can prefer vegetarian foods, you can prefer vegan foods, but ultimately you embrace flexibility – infinite flexibility!!! – to act freely in the Here and Now, to forever adapt, adjust, and accommodate.

The only dogma is non-dogma 🙂

Love and Gratitude!

p.s.  Been reading the World’s Religions recently, written by Huston Smith – great book!  Regarding Islam, he writes there are two fundamental obligations for Muslims.  The first, by virtue of being created, is to be grateful!!!!

Hear that? The first obligation is gratitude!!!

And second?  Surrender to God 🙂

The Wisdom of Children

‘My’ mom, Mother Eagle as i like to call her, once asked my two sisters, “What was the hardest part of being a baby?”  She asked them each this question when they were about 4 or 5, so this was many years ago!, and she found their answers so special that she wrote them down and retells the stories often.

When Mother Eagle asked Leslie this question,

“What was the hardest part about being a baby?”

Leslie’s answer, “Not knowing why i was crying.”

And there you have it!  Emotions happen.  Sometimes for reasons well beyond our understanding.  So what’s the lesson?  Who knows!  Just let it be.

Perhaps the lesson is…don’t get sad over looking sad.  Just because someone looks one way and like they are experiencing a particular emotions, like sadness through crying, doesn’t mean they are actually sad. So, we can always give people the benefit of the doubt!  Even if someone is crying, perhaps they are really joyful, or perhaps the body just really wanted to experience the tears while the mind and spirit are just fine.  We can ever know what is going on on the inside.  So why not assume the best? That’s probably more realistic anyway 🙂

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And now!  For Sister Julie’s response, which i initially took to be the more profound wisdom, and perhaps the greatest lesson for humanity.

“What was the hardest part of being a baby?”

Her response, when she was 5 or 6, maybe 8, who knows…”Not being able to tell anyone what you wanted, so you rarely got it.”

Boom!

Roasted!

Did you read that?

The hardest part of being a baby, “Not being able to tell people what you want, so you rarely got it.”

How can we ever expect to get what we want if we don’t tell people about it???

Are we expecting people to read our minds and know our desires without us verbally communicating it to them?

Even more, at least a baby has clear wants, sometimes in our grown-up version we really don’t know what we want.  What do you want?

Whatever you want…communicate it!  Broadcast your desires!  This is so key.  And ultimately, the great peace comes when you are so aligned with your desires that you will fearlessly share them with anyone.  You own your desires so much that you’ll fearlessly post them on Facebook, on a blog, on twitter, text them to all your friends – whatever!  No shame, no guilt, no anger, no pride, no fear, just love and peace and joy and goodness and a peace with your desires and a sense of goodness in their fulfillment!  Let us strive for these desires that we can and do fearlessly share with all the world!  Then surely, all the world will ever so gently maneuver its way to bring us exactly what we desire.

When our desires are fulfilled, we experience greater happiness, joy, peace, goodness, whatever you want to call it.  And each one of us, deep down inside if not on the very surface as well, want everyone to experience all the goodness.  We’re all in this together, and we all want what’s best for everyone, even if we won’t admit it 😉

The way we show that we want what’s best for everyone is wanting and working for the fulfillment of everyone’s purest, highest, noblest, truest desires – those desires that we’ll fearlessly broadcast to all our friends, relatives, networks, and beyond!

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So then…without further ado…the present moment – here and now! – seems like a perfect opportunity to broadcast some desires!

– I desire to become E-RYT 500 certified and from there to lead yoga teacher trainings…that would be totally awesome!

– I desire to lead street retreats as a means to freeing people from material realizing, discovering the basic goodness of all people and life, and overcoming fears of poverty or lack…to more fully realize the abundance and unconditional support of this wonderful creation 🙂

– I desire to live in a world where all life is perceived as friendly, loving, wonderful, beautiful, and divine, and where we treat all life as sacred, cherishing it fully, treating it with gentleness, kindness, and compassion.  This largely means desiring an end to slaughterhouses and the meat and dairy industry…perhaps replaced with more abundant industries growing fruits and vegetables, nuts and grains!  I also desire a world in which everyone feels physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually terrific!  Healthy, happy, holy, and flourishing!

– I desire to perceive the perfection of Creation more and more, and to realize Heaven on Earth in the Here and Now!  I desire to enjoy the fullness of this present, wonderful moment, while at the same time progressively realizing a worthy idea, working and playing and loving and giving for the good of everyone and everything, serving the Highest Good of All!

– I desire to be able to carry everything that i own. 🙂  Divine Simplicity

– I desire to live universally, an exemplary life, worthy of emulation – a holy, happy, healthy life – easeful, peaceful, useful.  Always giving, growing, serving, loving, expanding, evolving!

– Evolve! Evolve! Evolve!

– I desire to enjoy food as an ends in and of itself, not for greater enjoy but just for the joy of the experience, of it being what is happening in the Here and Now, when it is 🙂  To mindfully enjoy meals, filled with gratitude and deep appreciation for the collaboration of the entire universe and the history of all creation to make the meal, the feast!, a Reality, when it is 🙂

– I desire to become more and more growth and service-oriented; to forget the small self in service to the Higher Self, in service to the Greater Good!  To the glory of God, in the service to all humanity, all life, All That Is 🙂

– I desire that we all open our minds and cultivate an understanding for all the world’s major religions, and that this understanding is a pathway for universal peace, harmony, friendship, and brother/sisterhood.  Unity!!!

– I desire to see God in all things, to behold the Beloved everywhere!

– I desire to perceive reality accurately.  To live in and serve in the light of Truth 🙂

– i desire to inspire Yogihood, and compassionate, simple, spiritual living.

– I desire to play, to have fun, and enjoy!  Smiling, laughing, singing, dancing…in abundance!!!

– I desire to know and share an abundance of enlightening stories, tales, parables, quotes, poetry…and to listen to these stories being shared as well 🙂  To grow in wisdom, knowledge, understanding.

–  I desire to unconditionally love everyone and everything.

– I desire to live in a constant state of feeling so grateful and appreciative for the abundance all around, of the wonderful world, the amazing Creation, all life and All That Is!

– I desire to live a fully realized, dedicated, surrendered life to God, to Infinite Goodness and Glory, to the Ineffable 🙂

–  Maybe the last desire…for now…I desire desirelessness!  Just to be in the Here and Now, in the perfection, in the bliss, in the infinity and beyond!

p.s. broadcasting desire feels really good 🙂

Infinite Love, Compassion, and Gratitude

One of the Best Benefits to Choosing Vegetarian / Vegan Healthstyle

For anyone who sees the beauty in the philosophy, “Be the change you want to see in the world,” choosing to vegetarian and vegan foods seems like a fairly obvious decision, that is, if the change you want to see in the world has anything to do with wanting to see less violence and more compassion, less pollution and more environmental sustainability, or less disease and greater health.  Because yes, amazingly, the vegetarian/vegan choice is way more compassionate and more compassionate (less violent) than other food choices involving harming or killing animals, it is more friendly (less harmful/destructive) to the environment(as generally producing animal products require 5x as many resources, along with many other environmental reasons, like the lost energy by ‘feeding our food,’ etc.), and it is way healthier for human bodies, assuming you’ve educated yourself on how to properly care for the body and mind (aka…a multi-vitamin can help, iron from leafy greens, protein and omega 3 fatty acids from hemp seeds, chia seeds, flax, etc.)

There you have it!  Whether you’re wanting to be the change you want to see in the world via living more compassionately, more sustainably, or more healthily, the choice presents itself clearly.  The tricky part is enduring the short-term pain of weening the taste buds off animal products.  That requires patience – a virtue indeed!  Which is no wonder why Sri Swami Satchidananda said that one of the first steps along the spiritual journey is taming the tongue.  We’ve got to tame the tongue, so we control it and it doesn’t control us.

Anyway…what is this great benefit i mentioned in the title of the post?

For one, choosing vegetarianism / veganism is an ethical grand slam, and it certainly will enhance your peace of mind.  And, at some point you may battle with self-forgiveness, wondering how you could have lived all those years eating harmless animals.  At that point, just…forgive!  We’re all ignorant anyway, so the only choice we ever have is to forgive, and ultimately to realize that there’s nothing to forgive…because we’re ignorant! 🙂

And now here’s the real benefit: you realize you’ve made the fundamental shift in your behavior that results in you no longer living off the lives and deaths of other beings.  If there is one thing we seem to value as people, it’s life and death.  By choosing vegetarianism / veganism, you grow in reverence for life and death, and become aware that you don’t have to live by the death of others.  You can choose otherwise.  You are free to live from the abundance of fruits and plants.  No dead animals necessary!  So this realization brings immense peace and liberation.

This decision, i’m convinced, is one of the ultimate life decisions for a person to make – one that strongly distinguishes people.  Think about it – we enjoy food sometimes several times a day – so if every time you go to the table you bring your consciousness with you and ethically decide to eat one way over another, boom – that’s consciousness!  And consciousness is awesome.  And this awareness comes to you every time you consider putting food into the body.  Deciding to live this way impacts you every single day, possibly many times throughout the day, which is why it’s such a powerful choice.

Because it’s such a powerful choice that ripples out vastly, you may come to the awareness that there isn’t much else for you to do.  You may free yourself from thinking you’re obligated to do the 9 to 5 grind or endure doing work you despise.  You begin to realize your own power to choose and create the life you want, regardless of what ‘others’ think.  Come into your power!  Even if you’ve had habits for decades, you realize you can upgrade them to more energizing habits and ways of being. The choice is always yours, and you are responsible!

So long as you keep being the change you want to see in the world – you’re golden.  And you are responsible!  No longer required to deal with other people’s stuff.  You rise to levels of greater consciousness and compassion for all living beings, for the environment, and for the flourishing of the body and mind.  Isn’t that just awesome!??!?!  I’m stoked!!!

Breathe.

Empower yourself!  Liberate yourself!  You choose.  Experience the abundance of benefits yourself.

p.s. The way i began eating vegetarian and then later vegan were both by 30 day challenges, that is committing to try it as a way for 30 days to see if i enjoyed the benefits.  After experiencing greater vitality, connection, and peace, the choice to continue was easy.

Love and Gratitude 🙂

p.p.s.  Don’t put up with anyone’s shit!  You are responsible.

Hallelujah!

What is your Best?

Notice, the phrase is often, “Give your best,” and not, “Take your best.”  Giving is our best.

But hey – that’s not really what this post is about? Or is it? Who knows!  It’s 11:11!

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Me giving of my best…

is about fully telling the story, as openly as possible, so that as many people can learn from my experience as possible, and so that perhaps they will not ‘have to’ make all the ‘mistakes’ i made to learn all of the wonderful lessons.

So let’s go through the journey of awakening and coming to embrace a simple, sustainable, healthy, happy, lifestyle.  Note: it was not easy!  And there were lots of peaks and valleys along the way…many many valleys…all for the good in the long-run though 🙂

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Starting from the more youthful days…

5th Grade: This was the year i was introduced to Continuum, a computer game i literally spent over 3000 hours playing up through senior year of high school, and pornography, which i probably didn’t spend quite 3000 hours watching up through senior year of high school 😉  Nevertheless, i was introduced to both of these semi-addictive mediums of entertainment on the same day!  Quite the day.  And both of these activities, a computer game called Continuum and watching pornography, shaped much of my life until i arrived at college.  Thankfully, at college, the laptop issued by the school wasn’t quite compatible with Continuum, and there wasn’t so much privacy that watching pornography all the time was such an option…so Hallelujah!  Nothing like an environmental change to shake us away from destructive habits.

–>  What did I learn from about 8 years committed to steadily playing a video game and watching pornography

Starting with the video…as you can imagine, i got really good at this game. So good that i achieved the #1 ranking by some standards.  This video game was played over the internet, and i was literally competing with and teaming up with people from all over the world, so that was pretty frakkin’ awesome.  Even just thinking about it now kind of makes me want to play!  There is a TEDTalk on video games and their benefits for us.  Among other things, one of the benefits to us, and one of the reasons why they can become addictive, is because they give us a sense of grand purpose.  For Continuum, it’s a life or death spaceship battle!  It’s way fun.  The motto for it was something like, “Meet people from all over the world…and kill them.”  Video games also can give us a sense of prestige.  For me, achieving such a high global ranking, i felt like the man!  Even though i was maybe a freshman in high school, kind of chubby and pale, i felt like a champion on this video game.  And really, because i had such high self-esteem regarding the video game, i think this mitigated my desire for achieving social success or even academic success at school.  After all, i was ranked #1 in the world!  What could i possibly achieve in school that would equal that accomplishment?  Long-run, i’m not that opposed to returning to the video game – especially logging on and posting a link to this blog is kind of fun – and it’s amazing the quality of relationships you can develop with people just online.  Really, being on the same team with people – ‘squads,’ as they are called – is a lot like playing a sport, except online it is life or death!  You strategize and harmonize and fly together and watch each other’s back.  Like almost everything…video games such as Continuum seem to be good in moderation, which i did not really practice while playing it.  Then again, if i had practiced moderation, i wouldn’t have achieved such a high degree of skill and who knows how that would have shaped life differently.  Either way – so grateful for it 🙂  And for all the wonderful people i met on it.  20-30 minutes a day would actually be pretty healing, and probably help deter other forms of destructive behavior.  A video game, in moderation, can be relatively constructive.

Pornography!  Great – let’s talk about lessons learned from watching tons of porn!  Well, initially, i think access to porn caused several problems.  For one, it probably led to be more sexual thoughts about everyone in school that i would otherwise have, and maybe i could attribute all the random middle school boners to too much porn, or maybe that’s just hormones.  I also think all the porn probably made me more shy around women and ultimately decreased self-confidence.  Porn isn’t something you watch in the open or tell everyone about…why is that?  Because it’s somewhat shameful, at least if you think it is.  And if you think it’s shameful, and you do it anyway, then you’ll feel shameful!  And shame decreases self-confidence.  So, generally, a great way to boost self-confidence is stop watching porn.  Additionally, i think porn hit my self-confidence levels lower because of the relatively huge penises every guy has in porn compared to mine.  Watching porn, i think it’s safe to say the average penis size is above the actual male average.  At the same, i wasn’t aware of this, so basically just thought i had the smallest penis ever, without realizing that many of the guys in the porn i watched probably went into it in the first place because they had big penises.  Alas, the idea that i had a small penis shattered my confidence with women for many years.  So really…you can see the many harmful effects of porn.  The one benefit, i will say, is that when i first did have sex, i think i was ‘pretty good at it.’  I say this because i remember the girl saying, “Is this really your first time?”  Haha, anyway 🙂  Significantly, one of the major keys for me to overcome the fear of having an inadequately sized penis was to educate myself.  Literally reading books about sex helped so much to boost my confidence and self-esteem regarding the matter.  One of the books that changed my life was a little pink book my brother had sitting on the floor of his room, titled something about sex.  I read it in about a day, and with that i was armed with all the knowledge i needed to be ‘skilled in the sack.’

Interestingly, nowadays i’m more towards the celibate side, partially because i’m focusing on training the mind and developing my meditation practice, as well as developing a totally awesome lifestyle, but also because i’ve found what i’d call greater, more sustainable joys.  Sex is pretty short, and comes at a bit of cost. Enjoying the Present Moment, on the other hand, is free, and all it requires is awareness 🙂

Also, after reading the Bhagavad Gita and the Celestine Prophecy,  i’m somewhat hooked on the idea that having only one child make a lot of sense, if you have any.  The purpose of sex is to create children, not have fun.  Besides, you can have fun doing anything!  No need to have sex to have fun.  And, it’s also very liberating to be free from the desire to have sex.  It makes life simpler and easier.  And, if the perfect partner happens to come around, then so be it.  I’m also open to celibacy life.  Attached to nothing!  Free to enjoy everything 🙂

…

Well then, since that somewhat adequately documents my days of being a champion on an online video game called Continuum, being addicted to porn, and overcoming small penis problems, i think that’s probably enough for now.

Ha!  Abundance 🙂

Hallelujah!

so grateful

p.s.  In future episodes of “What is your Best?” you can look forward to lessons learned from drug dealing and joining a fraternity.  Also, God Willing, lessons from abstaining from alcohol, meat, dairy, and wearing the same clothes every day!  So many wonderful lessons 🙂

Before i Die, a Few Thoughts..

Could be today, ya never know 😉

On Vegetarianism / Veganism

– Primarily, please continue to behave in a way that you know helps keep the body ideal.  More than keeping it alive, though, let it flourish! Thrive!

– Educating yourself regarding health optimization is a good investment of time and energy.  Because, as education ideally results in behavioral changes, these types of behavioral changes will lead to even greater health and energy and feelings of vigor, strength, vitality, and goodness! It’s a win/win/win for everybody and everything 🙂

– We live today in an interconnected world where we no longer have to eat animals to survive.  And really, instead of eating for mere survival, we have the opportunity to eat for thriving and flourishing, as some like to call it – surthrival.  Or, as i’ve read, “I’m eating for health.” So, we no longer have to eat animals to survive; we can eat fresh fruits and vegetables from Peru if we want!  It’s amazing.  Bananas from Guatemala sitting in the kitchen right now. Miracles abound!

– Nonetheless, if you still want to eat meat and perhaps don’t feel called to realizing greater levels of health, energy, vitality, as well as greater compassion and connection with all living beings, please continue to eat other living beings and dairy products.  Better to have you alive than not 🙂  Besides…someday…who knows…maybe you’ll make the switch.  It took me about 21 years to wake up enough to experiment with vegetarianism.  All by grace 🙂

– Insisting on not eating other living beings is kind of like living in the illusion of eternal life on earth.  Bodies – whether human, animal, insect – all die.  Not eating someone or something isn’t going to keep it alive forever.  If one thing is immortal, it’s immortal being the body it’s contained in here.  So, i think we’re better off embracing the Reality of death, meanwhile by no means actively promoting it, but if it’s what you want…and it brings you peace…then maybe go for it!  At the same time, i will say it’s still been difficult for me to sit peacefully in the company of dead animal flesh being consumed by human bodies.  i’m much more at peace running by a dead rabbit on the sidewalk than at a dinner table with dead chicken.

–  All the while, remember that every dollar you spend – even every penny! – is casting a vote.  Money votes.  That’s how economies work.  Supply and demand.  We vote every time we spend money.  The more we spend money on, the more of that is produced.  Every cent counts.  What are you voting for?

On Pooping 

– For me, pooping can be one of the most enjoyable or painful experiences of the day.  The key to the blissful poops…simple meals.  If you eat a meal with only one or two ingredients…like say cucumbers and tomatoes, maybe sprinkled with cinnamon…you’ll likely have an amazing poop.  Just saying.  Or like for the 7 days when i hate only dried apricots and hemp seeds…amazing poops!  Like effortless.  Or the 4.5 days of eating only bananas, so easy.

– So for easeful, effortless poops, move more and more in the direction of a mono diet. One food per meal.  Also, supplement magnesium, a probiotic, and digestive enzyme totally help.  The Source of Life multi-vitamin is also amazing.  Alas…earthly things 😉

On Longevity

– If you want to live a really long life, less is more. That is, less calories leads longer life.  Calorie restriction is the only known consistently proven method of elongating lifespan.  That means, eat less food.

– Think about it – the digestive process the body undergoes is the most energy-intensive process that it does.  You put in a green smoothie on one end, and 12-36 hours later…it comes out as brown logs.  It’s magic!  Imagine how much work your body does to complete that transformation.  If you want to see miracles, look no further than in your toilet bowl.  Literally, you can say, “That shit is amazing!”

– Give the body a rest.  Lighter, less dense foods like fruits and vegetables are easier to digest.  Especially if you blend them up, that’s like doing an abundance of the digestion that the body would normally have to undergo in the blender.  Then again, i think there is something to be said for eating foods as they occur in Nature…which is…eat them 🙂  Blending is cool, too.  Just, if you can, try and enjoy the smoothie mindfully.  You can see the sun in all of your food!  And in people too, and basically everything.  Everything grows and lives with the help of the sun.

On Religion (its awesome)

– Study it.  Beliefs are powerful.  And so are people who willingly die for a cause.

– You can choose your beliefs.  Choose them wisely.  Choose beliefs that empower you and grow you in love.  One of my favorite blog posts of all time that i’ve probably read over 100 times is Steve Pavlina’s Empowering Beliefs.  For a 30 day challenge, i read all of his empowering beliefs aloud every morning.  It was awesome!  Still is.

–  Allow leaders from all religious traditions to inspire you.  No need to pick just one.  They are all wonderful examples, and all many paths leading to the same Ultimate Truth.

–  Understanding different religious traditions helps us understand and appreciate people and culture.  It also helps us love more abundantly and perceive the unity of all things.  It also helps move towards that truth of “not knowing.”  Meanwhile, don’t get swamped up in library, overwhelmed by looking at all the books, thinking, “I must read all of these!” No no – the truth is in the experience.  Meanwhile, read for Peace, in Peace.  Studying is pretty much always a good thing.  And ultimately, know, you are that!  You are that!  You are that! Om Tat Sat.

On Walking

– Do it. Enjoy it.  Smile and walk.  Breathe and walk in harmony.  10,000 steps a day is a common prescription for happiness.  Make each day your masterpiece and walk!

On Laughing (attitude, beware of fun police)

– Laugh abundantly! And if someone tells you whatever you’re laughing at isn’t a laughing matter, feel free to laugh even more.  Or, you can stop.  Either way.  Beware of the fun police. Ultimately, i think one of the highest perspectives is to realize that everything’s funny and the Divine Comedy is always playing out.  God is the Cosmic Comedian!  Tune in and you’ll find abundant humor all around you.  Smile at it, laugh at it, play!  Delight in Creation and enjoy the flourishing life all around you.

–  Laughing is healthy.  And Liberating.  One of the most liberating experiences of my life was attending a Laughter Yoga class.  Additionally, a 30 day challenge where i intentionally laughed for at least 15 consecutive minutes at a time proved super liberating and expansive.  Really helped tune into the Divine Comedy…

– Also, regarding tuning into the Divine Comedy, laughter coincides with beauty.  During the 30 day laughter challenge, a lot of the moments when i found myself laughing was while admiring the beauty of a rock, a leaf, or mindfully listening to the sound of a chain dangling on a fire hydrant.  Present Moment Awareness is so powerful!  Joy is in the Present Moment.

On Relationships

– People are in abundance!  No need to approach any one relationship with any one single person as something rare, coveted, or scarce.  It’s abundant!  And the real relationship is always with the Present Moment in it’s infinite variety of forms.  You might also say it’s the relationship with God, the Eternal Relationship!  Cultivate the eternal relationship and all relationships with individual people naturally take care of themselves.  The key is…Love your Moment!  And appreciate it for being so awesome 🙂

“Think About One Thing Only”

–  I said this to Mother Eagle last night.  Her response was, “What?”  Like asking, “What is the one thing you want me to think about it?”

– I told her it wasn’t for me to decide!  It is your choice.  You decide what the one thing it is to think about.  Is it Jesus? Buddha?  Salvation? Enlightenment? Nirvana? Truth? Freedom? Peace? Love? Goodness? Om?  You decide!

– Focus is so powerful.  Whatever you focus on, consistently, you will realize more fully in your life.  Every thought counts!  10 thoughts of “Peace” are better than 9, if Peace is what you’re looking for.  And, amazingly, enough thoughts of Peace assuredly do bring Peace.

On Responsibility

– “I want to accept more responsibility for everything I experience.”  This is a quote i read the other day on Steve Pavlina’s blog, and it totally inspired me.  It’s so powerful!  Did you say? Say it!

– We all benefit when we accept responsibility and stop playing the blame game.  It’s easy to paint our selves as victims, but it’s far more rewarding to accept responsibility for everything we experience, and to fully embrace being the change we want to see in the world.  If we have a problem with the world, we can fix it!  Or, we can change our perspective and watch the problem dissolve 🙂

– The affirmation “I am responsible” in many ways is the first step to awakening.  I learned of this affirmation originally from Brian Tracy, then found it on a YouTube series about Awakening as the first step of twelve or so to Awakening.  The series was also big on self-education.  Nevertheless,  you are responsible!  This empowers you.  You are free and responsible to create anything and everything you desire, as well as perhaps realize that blissful state beyond desires, where you’re just basking in the perfection and glory of it all 🙂

On Hugging Trees

– Do it.  It’s healing.

– When you hug a person, a tree, anything – realize how thought somewhat cease.  Yet, if you hold the hug long enough, perhaps they come back.  And maybe they wander to what you’ll be having for dinner, but wait!  That’s so rude, isn’t it?  To think about dinner while you’re engaged in this wonderful loving expression of a hug with another being?

–  Imagine you’re embraced in an Eternal hug with the Present Moment.  You’re always hugging something, even if it’s just air.  So, keep those thoughts focused, sending love and kindness, peace and joy to whatever it is you’re hugging.  When you’re sharing love through a hug, it only makes sense to give of your very best, which means focusing your thoughts on the highest good, whatever that is to you 🙂

– Also, recently when i’ve been hugging trees – the thought struck me, “I could do this forever.”  Or, “I could do this until i die.” There is immense freedom in loving gestures.  Whether it’s hugging someone or something, writing letters, greeting people with warmth and affection, smiling at people…all of these acts are supported by all humanity.  Humanity loves love!  So if you love, you’ll always be provided for.  Or, even if you’re not – there’s nothing to fear! Because you’re loving – which in any moment is the best any of us can do – so be free 🙂  Free to Love!

& Gratitude!

The Quickest Way to Get Rich and Manifest Financial Abundance

Give it all away!

That’s right, the quickest way to get the perfect amount of money for you is to first give away all the money you already have.

Essentially, in giving your money away, you’re acting as if you are already financially abundant, and sure enough – you are.

Give, give, give, give, give, and you shall receive abundantly!

…

Part of me is speaking from experience, and then also, just this morning – my suspicions were confirmed.

Brian Tome, pastor of Crossroads Church, a church that began with only 12 members  15 years ago and today hosts more than 12,000 people- that’s huge! – he runs his church by spending all the money they receive, pretty much immediately.  At a recent talk he gave, he shared that the church saves enough money to keep it open for three weeks.  Other than that, it spends all of it!

And think about it – how inspiring is it to hear that someone is willing to receive your money and save it up for a rainy down?  No one wants to hear that!

People want to hear that their money will be well spent and put to use immediately.  The rainy day we are saving for is today!

The very best is upon us, today.  There is no need to wait to pull out the finest china, and fancy glasses and embroidered placemats.  Today is the day!  Today is a day worthy of all the best we have to offer.

And today is the perfect day to give, give, give, give!  Invest in the future.  Investing is active; saving is passive.  No one is inspired by saving!  People are inspired by investing in a more abundant and wonderful future, and people will give to people fearlessly give themselves.

…

From what i understand, Gandhi essentially lived without money.  And, from what i understand, he gave away more money than probably 99% of the world’s population today.  Because he demonstrated detachment from money and had no desire to keep for himself, people wanted to give him money by the truckload! And he would ride around trains in India just throwing money out the window.  That’s how abundant he was.

…

Especially operating from the perspective of Oneness, and embracing the idea that we are interconnected, interdependent, and interbeing – giving is the best thing you can do for the whole.  And, giving to anyone is giving to yourself.  So there’s never any loss.  Giving is simply an abundant behavior, and the more you give the more receive, whether physically or metaphysically.  The gifts always come back around!   In serving, we are served.  In giving, we receive.

Imagine someone giving you money who you know has little to no money.  Like, you walk on the street and a poor person offers you five dollars.  For one, you’d be stunned.  For two, you might not accept the money.  And three, you’d probably be then inclined to give him money!  He’s showing you how financially abundant he is – demonstrating that he has more than enough – and because he shows you how he abundant he is, his abundance moves you to want to demonstrate your own financial abundance as well.  And, even if you don’t end up offering him any money, at least you would walk away from the experience questioning your relationship with money and why someone who apparently has very little money would offer you what little he has.

…

It’s like the story from the Bible of the woman who gave 99% of her fortune, which was maybe only a dollar, or a few pennies, in contrast to the man who gave 10% of his fortune, which was maybe $10,000.  But the one who receives the greater reward is the woman who gave only the pennies, because she theoretically gave more of herself.  The more we give, the more receive.

Giving is abundance.  If we want abundance, we’ve got to feel and act abundant.  And that means giving.  That means not desiring but instead appreciating what we already have, and realizing how much we have to give and to share.

…

Here’s my plan for manifesting financial abundance this Christmas.

What little money i do have, i’m giving it to people.

And i know that they’re going to be somewhat shocked that i have any money to give them in the first place.

And then they’ll probably think, ‘Well golly, this guy who has practically no money just gave me an abundance.  And here I am, who thought i was the one financially prosperous, and i barely gave him anything…what’s that about it?  I guess I can give him more, certainly at least i can give him more than he gave me!”

And even if that isn’t the receiver’s stream of thought, and even i don’t receive any financial abundance in return, i’m totally at peace with that, because either way i am financially abundant.  The beautiful thing is abundance is all a matter of perspective.  And, like the wonderful song goes, “Tis a gift to be simple.”  When you live simply and have very few desires, you can experience financial abundance right now.  In fact, right now we are all already financially abundant, and we are also totally scarce and lacking.  See, it’s all perspective, and it can even change moment to moment.  Giving is a definite way to affirm the abundance of Creation that is our birthright, whereas hoarding/saving is a way to live more in the realm of scarcity and lack.

For abundance, give!

God provides.  No matter how much you have, your body isn’t going to live forever anyway.  Besides, the experience beyond the human one is probably totally awesome anyway, just like this one 🙂

The key to abundance is to realize you already are abundant. And embrace your abundance!  Consider, how would an abundant person act?

They would give, give, give, give, give!

Brian Tome runs Crossroads, a totally abundant megachurch that hosts thousands of people weekly, and he only saves up enough money to keep the church running for 3 weeks at a time.  Other than that, all he does with the money is give, give, give, give, give!

Giving is inspiring.  Giving inspires more giving.  Your example of giving will inspire more people to give more abundantly too, and slowly but surely we will always realize more abundantly our own abundance 🙂

Love and Gratitude!

p.s.  so grateful for this abundance!!!

p.p.s.  The number one relationship to work in your life is your relationship with the Eternal, the Permanent.  And your relationship with the Eternal might not be that much different from your relationship with the Present Moment.  Basically, more and more, love your Present Moment, love the Eternal.  If…if…you want to experience love and abundance 🙂