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The Musician, the Surgeon and the Cure

2009-10-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about the nature of intelligence, our ability to collaborate, the the seductive quality of reactivity and what the world could look like if we each committed to our own optimal performance. From my perspective it is the protracted environments like the mentality on Wall Street, the suffering of Gaza, and the risk of disrespecting our planet that are the real test and calling of our times.

I have believed for a long time that a new way of engaging ourselves and each other may be emerging. I also believe that this emergence could lead to unprecedented well-being on a global scale. Crises are always a part of this kind of emergence because it is only in crisis that vigorous dialogue occurs. But what does this posture look like? How can we apply it to protracted commercial and political situations? And, how can we apply it at home with those we love and yet have become distant.

Two people on different parts of the earth with totally different histories and experiences may provide us with a clue - a musician and a surgeon both pushing the boundaries of thought. The musician proposed a new way to look at intelligence and how it operates. The surgeon offered a solution to overcome the chronic protraction of Gaza, most noticeably through his own example. With their thinking married perhaps we may have a cure...

The Musician

Brian Eno had this to say recently on the nature intelligence:

“I was an art student and, like all art students, I was encouraged to believe that there were a few great figures like Picasso and Kandinsky, Rembrandt and Giotto and so on who sort-of appeared out of nowhere and produced artistic revolution.

As I looked at art more and more, I discovered that that wasn’t really a true picture.

What really happened was that there was sometimes very fertile scenes involving lots and lots of people – some of them artists, some of them collectors, some of them curators, thinkers, theorists, people who were fashionable and knew what the hip things were – all sorts of people who created a kind of ecology of talent. And out of that ecology arose some wonderful work.

The period that I was particularly interested in, ’round about the Russian revolution, shows this extremely well. So I thought that originally those few individuals who’d survived in history – in the sort-of “Great Man” theory of history – they were called “geniuses”. But what I thought was interesting was the fact that they all came out of a scene that was very fertile and very intelligent.

So I came up with this word “scenius” – and scenius is the intelligence of a whole… operation or group of people. And I think that’s a more useful way to think about culture, actually. I think that – let’s forget the idea of “genius” for a little while, let’s think about the whole ecology of ideas that give rise to good new thoughts and good new work."

How Could Scenius Work?

In my experience, scenius can be cultivated if we instead seek not to own a truth, or identify ourselves with its origin, but act as its midwife or parent in the context of the way Kahlil Gibran explained of the role of parent to child in The Prophet.

Could this Age of communication and radical technology provide a unique environment for scenius to flourish? Furthermore, could this natural resource of wisdom be as accessible in a crisis like Gaza?

What Does Scenius Look Like in Practice?

Scenius invites disparate viewpoints and welcomes engagement on a new level of dialogue. One requirement in creating scenius is to respect the other person or other group. Respect is a discipline: to stay centered in our respect and not recoil into allegation, threat and defensiveness is not easy. Scenius requires that we welcome, or at least, permit each other’s history, each other’s ideas, and each other’s beliefs.

I have found in my own work that this dedication to scenius (even though I didn’t know of the word at the time) has enabled exciting levels of innovation and a deep commitment to the creative process. The respect for scenius put my ego and the ego of my colleagues into the right context for optimal dialogue. Our egos do not drive the process but are a subtext of it. Individuality is crucial to harvest the wisdom in multiple perspectives, and yet a respect for scenius ensures that perspectives do not dominate the outcome but contribute to it.

I have also seen this process transform my personal life and heal protracted issues within my family. Scenius was allowed to emerge when I jettisoned agendas, embraced my vulnerability (within myself and the other), and remained centered in my vision for a transcendent outcome. The more I committed to scenius the more the other person did too. It was a clear application of being the change that I wanted to see.

The Brain: Wired for Scenius?

It is interesting to see from the latest insights in brain science that people who focus on others are clinically happier. The data supports a neuropsychological model that proposes experiences associated with selflessness are related to decreased activity in the right parietal lobe of the brain. Researchers say “the implication of this connection means people in many disciplines, including peace studies and health care can learn different ways to attain selflessness, to experience transcendence, and to help themselves and others.”

I believe that this neuropsychological model can be extended into the daily experience. In fact I have seen the application of this model in my own life and the lives of my teammates. I believe that our commitment to each other, to the vision, and to the people whose lives we are committed to has been a cornerstone of our team culture and felt personally by each of us.

The Surgeon: Gaza's Call for Scenius

While scenius can flourish where mutual respect and a love of ideas exists it seems to me that where scenius is most needed and best tested perhaps is in protracted environments – from the challenged home where love has become distant to places of endemic misunderstanding involving whole communities like Gaza. Is scenius possible in these bitterly protracted conditions?

Perhaps Doctor Izzeldine Abuelaish holds the answer. In the recent attack on Gaza Israel television was galvanized by a studio presenter holding up a mobile phone live on air for five minutes so they could listen to the outpouring of grief from Dr Abuelaish. Israeli tank shells had just hit his home, killing three of his daughters and a niece. "What have we done to them?" the doctor cried. "Why, why?"

A week or so later Dr Abuelaish talked to his friend Rabbi Yitzchak Yellin: “Military actions,” said the Doctor, “are not useful between people… “.

The Rabbi replied: “So what’s the solution?”

“The solution is to listen to each other and to be serious.“Replied the Doctor.

“It’s too complicated.” Responded Rabbi Yellin.

Laughing, Dr Abuelaish said: “Oh wow too complicated, well make it easy. Can you make it easy?”

You can watch the story here or read the transcript.

The First Step to Scenius?

What must we do first? As Dr Abuelash exemplifies, the true fight lies in overcoming ourselves not overcoming others. When we apply this principle scenius becomes accessible. Every spiritual orientation including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Judaism say that the true way lies within. The true crucible and jihad (in the classical sense) lies in overcoming ourselves not overcoming others. When we apply this principle scenius can operate freely. The “seriousness” Dr Abuelaish calls for relates to overcoming not the intractable nature in the world, but the intractable conditions within our own hearts.

The second step is not to perpetuate the problem that we see, but to adopt the proven approach to be the change that we want to see.

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This post is dedicated to my friend Peter B and the scenius that emerged through our dialogue.

At freedomsway we build online tools, which help us to unlock the rich potential hidden in our lives and communities. These tools are free for personal and community use.

Ultimate Life: from Defined to Destined Being

2009-08-14T01:08:00.000-07:00

A quote I have spent some time with has spoken profound depths to me and is often quoted by researchers and practitioners of optimal performance and I wanted to share it with you. It is from a man called Martin Buber who wrote a book called I and Thou.

“Our thinking of today has established a more tenacious and oppressive belief in fate than has ever before existed. No matter how much is said about the laws we hold to be true of life …. At the basis of them all lies possession by process, that is by unlimited causality. But the dogma of process leaves no room for freedom whose calm strength changes the face of the earth. This dogma does not know the man who surmounts the universal struggle, tears to pieces the web of habitual instincts, and stirs, rejuvenates and transforms the stable structures of history.

The only thing that can become fate for man is belief in fate. The free man is he who wills without arbitrary self-will. He believes in destiny, and believes that it stands in need of him. It does not keep him in leading strings, it awaits him, he must go to it, yet does not know where it is to be found. But he knows that he must go to it with his whole being. The matter will not turn out according to his decision; but what is to come will come only when he decides on what he is able to will. He must sacrifice his puny, unfree will, that is controlled by things and instincts, to his grand will, which quits defined for destined being.

Then he intervenes no more, but at the same time he does not let things merely happen. He listens to what is emerging from himself, to the course of being in the world; not in order to be supported by it but to bring it to reality as it desires.”

The question is how do we quit defined for destined being? And, what does this shift look and feel like within oneself and one’s life? That is a big question and I have tried to answer those questions in my book Freedom’s Way and I have tried to convey the experience through the interactive tools at Freedomsway.net. However I wanted today to explore these two questions through Buber’s perspective and language.

Destined being – is not modeled on key performance metrics but on beingness, and having the vision, courage and patience to allow the project to unfold at its own rate. The project can be a life, a relationship, a product, or a business. The project cannot be disturbed by foreign standards – not my standard, not some outside authority, not my peer group (Nietzsche talked about the need to rise above disturbances in his prologue to Thus Spake Zarathustra and the three metamorphoses.)

Creating an environment that enables the vision for the vision’s sake is imperative. It is the razor’s edge of astute creativity and optimal performance because the idea that evolves is allowed to take form in all its potency – it is the vision’s voice, not our voice. Insecurities, fears, conditioning, anima or animus inflation have no place. What starts as an idea or a question incubates and starts to slowly take form. An interior critical mass develops around the idea or question within ones beingness. It does not happen from one day to the next but organically, decisions day to day start to quietly shift their focus, value systems begin to evolve, and priorities undergo a radical re-establishment.

As we begin to step into the tracks of our destined being fresh thoughts start to bounce against other thoughts unleashing a fresh outlook, inspirations follow generating another round of thoughts followed by evolved outlook. This spiral continues until the incubation matures to a point where we feel ready to implement.

Joseph Campbell, one of the great minds of the twentieth century, created a legacy with his message: follow your bliss. The world’s wisdoms teach us, he said, that if you follow your bliss, the world will begin to operate in a different kind of way. Doors will open, helpers will emerge, and paths will appear out of nowhere. This most certainly has been my experience of moving from defined to destined being.

One of the ways to identify whether the idea or question is real or meaningful is to ask ourselves whether it feels like a calling. Does the idea pull on your heart and enchant your mind?

In the case of creating a new product or service, if the question or idea is a calling and we decide to pay heed to the call, slowly the idea will incubate into plans and strategies – at its own time. At some point comes the task of turning those plans and strategies into something tangible. And the same spiral process begins again throughout the phases of building, testing, marketing and finally delivery (or sales*). Relationships bounce against relationships unleashing new contacts and meaningful exchange with like-minded individuals, new opportunities follow generating new pathways to serve. What started as an interior experience is reflected outwardly as the business unfolds - in its own way.

Dante’s layout of the journey in the Divine Comedy reflects this journey from inwardness to outwardness. The voyager begins his quest by traveling into the dark recesses (fear, insecurity, disgust, judgment, and torment etc) only to travel so deep that he finds himself emerge in the higher spheres where he is welcomed to Heaven. This is the paradox of optimal living: the deeper we journey toward our heart the more we come to be a meaningful part of the world.

Joseph Campbell said echoing the message of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita:

“Life as an art and art as a game – as action for its sake, without thought of gain or of loss, praise or blame – is the key, then, to the turning of living itself into a yoga and art into the means to such a life.” (Myths to Live By). It is a universal message and also aligned with good science.

The Bhagavad Gita, the core of yoga, said create for its own sake, absent of attachment. Love for love’s sake, create for creativty’s sake, and be for being’s sake. Stay out of the mind set of reward. If we stay pure to the craft and true to devotion to the vision, the rewards will follow – in their own way.

Business is no different – the most resilient companies of the world focus on what they want to create and how they want to serve, not what they are going to receive as a result of that investment.

When we locate our inner-coordination and turn our living into a yoga, we enable the world to respond in likeness – finally it can welcome the individual we were always destined to be.

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Footnote

*I like the word “delivery” as opposed to sales for two reasons. First, the word sales has come to hold a very definite meaning and culture, which from my perspective is often about selling the product to a consumer irrespective of whether there is any true value. It reminds me of a story a friend recently related to me. He had been talking to a person who had been a part of the mortgage sales boom in the States prior to the credit crisis. They were discussing the effects of a system of lending which we now know (and Warren Buffet predicted) contributed to the crisis and the destructive effect this style of lending had had on the lives of mortgagors and the economy. The mortgage sales guy said: “As I see it it wasn’t’ so bad. The banks made money and the salespeople made money. Two out of three aint bad.” (not to mention he failed to see it was actually two out of four when one takes into account the economy, and the effects we have all directly or indirectly felt).

We live in a culture that endorses either expressly or by our actions this kind of mentality. Enron and the behavior of its traders for example was a larger than life example of this undercurrent, which runs through modern business. We have been taught to think that the “sales mentality” is acceptable and the best way to work. Leading research into optimal business performance would disagree. (Take a look at Peter Senge’s ongoing work (embodied in The Fifth Discipline), and the work of Standford researchers Collins and Porras, authors of Built to Last). Real business with longevity and true value starts with the idea to serve society. I like the word “delivery” because it connotes serving the customer, and the implied usefulness of the product has been assumed months or even years before the product is even ready. The perceived intrinsic value inspires and drives the team to create something of truly significant value, and then to ensure its delivery and place in society.

Want to Make the World a Better Place? Be Happy.

2009-07-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

In city life it is easy to forget that simple small acts like a smile can make a significant impact. The butterfly effect has told us that we can effect radical changes in society through small acts but much of the “how” was a big question mark. A new study recently published in the British Medical Journal has revealed that human happiness is not the province of isolated individuals but quite the opposite, the health and wellbeing of one person affects the health and wellbeing of others.

Whether you are happy depends on whether others in your social network are happy. Happiness, according to the findings, is not merely a function of individual experience but is also a property of groups of people. Your happiness is associated with the happiness of people up to three degrees removed in your social network. Your happiness uplifts not just your friends but your friend’s friends, your spouse’s friends, your sibling’s friends, even your neighbors’ friends.

Indeed changes in your happiness can ripple through your social network and generate large scale in the network giving rise to clusters of happy individuals.

The twenty three year study reveals that:

Happiness spreads from person to person

Clusters of happiness form within social networks

Clusters of happiness result from the spread of happiness. It is not just a tendency for happy people to associate without other happy people.

This means that if you work at being happy, the benefit of this hard work is enjoyed by your local network, and other social networks, which orbit your network.

The quality of the connection

The research also revealed that the better connected that you are to friends and family the more likely you are to be happy in the future. We do not know why this is so. Perhaps it can be inferred that connectiveness sows the seeds of happiness. The degree to which one is connected right now determines the investment we make in our own happiness for the future. Connectivity encourages togetherness, sharing, vulnerability, affirmation, and love – all strong fertilizers for happiness. I can certainly say in my life, particularly over the last ten years, that my attitude toward connecting with others has certainly been proportional to my happiness and sense of wellbeing.

The happiness safety valve

You may be thinking, “does that mean I need to surround myself only with happy people! ” The answer is no. The beauty of this happiness phenomenon reflects what we have known intuitively for a long time - happiness is infectious, sadness a lot less so.

Happy friends, according to the report, have more of a reliable effect on a person’s happiness than the number of unhappy friends. Each additional happy alter (People who are happy in the local network) increases the likelihood of happiness, but additional unhappy alters has little or no effect. Happy alters consistently influence ego happiness (the happiness of each person in the local network) more than unhappy alters (people who are unhappy in the local network). The social network effect of happiness is multiplicative and asymmetric.

How happy?

The research suggested that when a person switched from unhappy to happy – the chance of other unhappy people becoming happier increased markedly. The probability of nearby friends being happy increased by 25%.

But this also gets more interesting. Not all “friends” regarded each other as friends. When the friendship was mutual, the likelihood of the unhappy friend becoming happy increased by 63% (the range was between 12 and 148%). When the unhappy person regarded the happy person as a friend but not the other way around the likelihood of happiness was not as high (I couldn’t find a percentage).

What does this all mean?

Even the writers of this report, seasoned scientists who can tend to be excessively skeptical about the impact of wellbeing on health are excited. They see this data as having far reaching consequences on public health. Increasing the happiness of one person, they say, could have a cascade effect on to others thereby enhancing the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the intervention.

The other interesting piece of news is that all of this data was gathered prior to the internet age. The internet as Van Wishard said is an “emotional conveyor belt.” The concept of “local” is not what it once was. We can use the internet to actively widen and uplift our network and thereby effect the networks orbiting our network and so on.

Social activist and global Elder Desmond Tutu recently said “Each one of us can make a contribution. Too frequently we feel that we have to do spectacular things, and yet if we remembered that the sea is actually made up of drops of water, and each drop counts – each one of us can do our little bit where we are and it is those little bits that can come together and can almost overwhelm the world.”

Why Forgive?

2009-05-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

This morning I picked up a book The Age of Unreason. I like to refer to it now and again. The author, a visionary business philosopher called Charles Handy, offers many stimulating ideas about where we are as individuals and as a society and where we can go. By chance I read a small section titled “The Missing Forgiveness”:

“ I asked an American the secret of his firm’s obviously successful development policy. He looked at me straight in the eye. “Forgiveness,” he said. “We give them big jobs and big responsibilities. Inevitably they make mistakes, we can’t check them all the time and don’t want to. They learn, we forgive, they don’t make mistakes again.”

He was unusual. Too many organizations use their appraisal schemes and their confidential files to record our errors and our small disasters. They use them to chastise us with, hoping to inspires us, or to frighten us to do better. It might work once, but in the future we will make sure that we do not venture far enough from the beaten track to make any mistake. Yet no experiment, no test of new ideas, means no learning and no change. As in organizations, so it can be in families.

The evidence is quite consistent. If you reward the good and ignore or forgive the bad, the good will occur more frequently, and the bad will gradually disappear. A concern over trouble in the classroom led to research into the way teachers allocated praise and blame. About equally, it seemed, except that all praise was for academic work and all blame was for behavior. The teachers were coached to only give praise, for both academic work and good behavior and to ignore the bad. It worked. Within a few weeks unruly behavior had almost disappeared.

More difficult than forgiving others is to forgive oneself. That turns out to be one of the real blocks to change. We as individuals need to accept our past but then to turn our backs on it. Organizations often do it by changing their names, individuals by moving house, or changing spouses. It does not have to be so dramatic. Scrapbooks, I believe, are useful therapy – they are a way of putting the past to bed, decorously. Then we can move forward.”

Interacting with oneself, one’s partner, one’s family, and one’s colleagues with an attitude of forgiveness is a powerful way to evoke change within oneself and the world. In my experiences working with people I have always tried to encourage rather than criticize. It is hard. However, it is incredible to see the difference that affirmative behavior evokes in a family or a team environment. For example in my life my brother and I resurrected an old bond we both believed in. At Freedom’s Way my colleagues and I continually affirm and forgive each other, which has lead to a powerful culture within the company driving audacious vision and innovation. We have a way to go too, we can always affirm more and forgive more which infers that we can make our culture and consequently our results stronger.

In stressful times it is particularly tempting to lose sight of conscious vision driven behavior and descend into base responses – criticism, a pessimistic outlook and impatience are indicative that we are out-of-center. Listen to these markers within yourself and stop. Step out of the space and take ten long deep breaths. In the morning spend ten minutes communing with your values and your vision. If you don’t have a vision or you are having trouble remembering it go and take the Vision Driver. As Joseph Campbell once said "a life with substance has to be earned and fashioned from within, not received from the world as a gift."

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If you would like to start thinking and acting at home and at work in the way discussed in this article we have developed a few tools. The tool for work is called the Freedom's Way Meta-Analysis for Work. The tools are free and have already inspired countless people from countries as far flung as Afghanistan, Australia, France, India, Iran, France, Mexico and the USA.

How to Make a Crisis Useful

2009-04-28T23:39:00.000-07:00

There is a Buddhist saying that it is much easier to put leather under the soles of your feet than to lay a piece across the earth. In our modern world, the temptation is to think that we will continue to live in an economic paradise where we will be safe and where people will be nice to us. However our modern world is engineered around insecurity and a systemic fear of uncertainty. One can see how this scenario fits the childlike desire to feel safe, and one can see how it is an attractive Maslowian strategy to advertisers and politicians. This article is not about forensic responsibility; it is about understanding where we are in order to picture where we can travel.

There is a valuable tradition in all of the world’s religions to see the people who upset us, challenge us, or create fear or insecurity in us as ‘teachers’. The key to freedom in challenging interactions with others, we are told, is not in confronting or fleeing from the other, but in challenging ourselves. What’s more, if we continually tend to recreate adverse situations like retrenchment, broken relationships, or aggressive interactions, we are also creating an opportunity to unlock a vital lesson. It seems so logical, yet, if we take a look around the world, it is rare to find examples of this approach.

The temptation to react in times of heated exchange is a primal one. When we get whirled up in an argument the allure to react – to go silent, to flee, or to say something hurtful - can be seductive. However, it is in this very moment that we stand to gain far more than we could ever lose by facing what lies before us and, more to the point, what lies within us. These situations offer us an opportunity to enhance our self awareness, to learn new ways of interacting with others, and to deepen existing relationships.

This approach not only applies to people but also to situations. Were the Buddha alive today he would point out that the recession is our teacher. He would point out that we were all part of the system that created the storm. Our insatiable drive to consume and consume and consume, he would tell us, can only eventually create a conflagration – be it economic or climatic. The Buddha would also then go on to propose that we could each play a part in evolving the system to a more balanced place, starting with some inner-observation. For example in the current economic climate, the temptation is to swerve and dodge our inner fears rather than stand before them; to discover how our need to acquire and possess without censure may be an extension of insecurity rather than power. Our flagrant need to build castles with our careers or properties while the world burns is perhaps based on a certain degree of disequilibrium within. This inner odyssey would carry us past our current thinking to a more productive and sustaining place.

This time is rich for reasons far beyond currency or certainty. It offers us the chance to evolve ourselves and our community into something more profound, inwardly resilient and centred. Perhaps as we start to live more in this way we will help our society to re-engineer itself from insecurity and a systemic fear of uncertainty to one of vision and of hope.

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Feeling Overwhelmed by the World?

2009-04-08T23:23:00.000-07:00

I once received a fortune cookie at the end of a satisfying dim sum (or yum cha). It said “may you have an interesting life …. Old Chinese curse.” “Thanks for the cultural translation” I thought. I suspect if we were to select a fortune cookie for our Times that fortune cookie would be a likely candidate. We live in an interesting age. Even my grandmother, a Holocaust Survivor, laments that she has never felt an age as beset with challenge. At the same time whenever we talk about these challenges I offer her two observations, which improves her outlook.

First, we live in the age of information. News from distant shores now seems like news from next door. The realities of the world have not changed, our sight has. Technology has provided a lens to the world that only fifteen years ago was inconceivable. News is being delivered to us at an unrelenting pace incident after incident, country after country, crisis after crisis. Because of the aura of urgency created by news and the internet everything feels closer, which creates a feeling of geo-political claustrophobia. The number of incidents have not changed the way we have access to them has.

Second, sure our culture is beset by challenges but is it as skewed towards hell as the media tends to imply. Yes we need to act, but surely keys to affirmative action and ways of measuring them is more useful than information, which does nothing more than to instill further fear in the reader. Fear sells because it triggers our primal need for survival. Subjects like climate change, terrorism, and financial decay are all threats to our well-being. All these triggers equal sales at the newsstands, viewers in front of Fox, and mouse clicks. On the other hand good news, in our modern world of consumption and acquisition, generates social lethargy and certainly doesn’t feed a need to consume information.

With the arrival of the internet, news reporting has reached a new high, as has our addiction to it. As far as mass media is concerned: the more catastrophes the better. Dramas are manufactured and data is mixed in exotic combinations to create realities which generate deep insecurity and therefore sales. As the Head of Crisis Group, a world leader in monitoring armed conflict, recently wrote: It is heartening to remember that whatever our newspapers seem to tell us about the ever-increasing scale and incidence of war and mass atrocity crimes, there has been in fact an extraordinary decrease - some 80 per cent - since the end of the Cold War in the number of major conflicts, the number of episodes of mass killing, and in the number of people dying violent battle deaths. When did you last see a piece of news as encouraging as this? Why would such a fact be deemed not worthy of mainstream news?

Take sanctuary in the fact that the neon reality we see today is not a true picture of life. Of course we face challenges unique to our Time, as has every Age, and the world will continue to call for active citizens and heroes as it has always done.

"Destiny" Revisited: Happiness and the Latest Revelations into How Your Brain Works

2009-03-30T02:03:00.000-07:00

Up until recently, western medicine taught us that what we came into the world with is what we will leave the world with. Your brain, said western medicine, is determined by genetic lottery.

Not so.

Thought is Medicine

Thanks to the pioneering work of scientists like Richard Davidson and a new technology called fMRI or functional magnetic resonance imaging we now know that you, your brain and therefore your life can change radically over a lifetime. It turns out that what teachers like Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad, and Lao Tsu taught are not just inspired teachings, but good medicine.

For example, last week, a new study revealed that a thinner than normal cortex, the outer layer of the brain associated with reasoning, planning, and mood, could increase the likelihood of anxiety or depression. The image above shows the cortex. The green and blue areas reveal where the cortex is thinner in people from families with a history of depression. Thinning is particularly notable in the right hemisphere. Coupled with this finding though is the result from another ground breaking study: you can make parts of your cortex thicker by meditating, particularly the parts of your cortex associated with happiness.

In the last decade the world of neurology has been turned upside down. Here are some of the things we have only just discovered about your brain. It is likely that it is contrary to everything you were told at school.

1. When you think about something you alter the physical function and structure of your brain. For example if you practice a small challenging task for a week, like a five finger piano exercise, the area of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements will rapidly cover surrounding areas of your brain. This phenomenon is called neuroplasticity.

2. The even bigger surprise though, is that if you simply imagined practicing that five finger piano exercise, keeping your fingers still, playing the music in your head and imagining how you would move your fingers the same area of motor cortex in your brain would cover the same surrounding areas. This phenomenon was recently called “Self-Directed neuroplasticity”. Your mind can literally change your brain.

3. We also know that If you meditate, you will accelerate your ability to develop your brain's function and structure.

4. If you work at being compassionate your brain literally will help you to become more compassionate. It is not just a learned skill but quite literally a change in your brain’s make-up. The insula, a key part of empathizing with another’s emotional state, and the right temporal-parietal juncture, which plays a key part in understanding another’s emotions, are more active and developed in people who practice meditation.

5. The right parietal lobe, is more active in people who define their lives around “me” and thinking centered around myself, my house, my work, my needs. People with less active “me-definers” are more likely to achieve a greater sense of stillness and well-being. The research infers that selflessness is a core tenant of the spiritual experience. While activities like cultivating a sense of love, singing and charity work quiet the me-definers, meditation and prayer are the most effective for radical stillness and connection to God or the Universe.

6. Another new discovery made only last year is that when we remember the past or envision the future the same processes and networks in the brain are activated. This is not what was originally thought, and is a radical breakthrough. The act of remembering the past and envisioning the future have a perfect overlap. Scientists are now wondering whether memory may be present in the same area as imagination because it is critical to you being able to envision yourself in future scenarios. They are even going so far as to now ask whether memory exists primarily to enable your future.

7. Because remembering and envisioning are activated in the same places in the brain, AND it has been established that meditation significantly improves memory and the ability to visualize, I think it a reasonable inference that when we eat brain foods like a low fat diet, including almonds, and fish, exercise regularly and take supplements like omega-3 will not just improve our ability to recall, but also to envision.

8. Intelligence and aptitude develop according to the attitude we choose. Those who believe they are born with fixed talents approach life with a “fixed mind-set.” In other words “I am as I was born.” These people tend not to challenge their destiny. People with a “growth mind-set” believe they can expand their abilities over time. In other words “I am who I chose to become.”The thirty year Stanford study reveals that growth mind-set people are ultimately more innovative and successful in all areas of living from parenting and romantic relationships to success at school and at work.

So what does all this look like in the form of a life? How are these insights applied to maximum effect within a lifetime?

Self-Generating Mind: From Right Thinking to Happiness

Last week, I read a profound exchange between Jesus and one of his disciples, which I had not seen before. It came from Islamic literature:

The disciple asked Jesus, “is there anyone on earth now who is like you?”
Jesus answered, “Yes, one whose speech is a mention of love, whose silence is contemplation of love, and whose every glance derives a lesson – such a one is like me.” (Abu Hamid al-Ghazai, Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din)

This struck a profound cord with me because this kind of approach to life is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls the autotelic personality. Autotelic living is a learned habit in which we can learn to create and experience a profound sense of flow in our lives and it has been referred to (in substance, not word) by other great psychologists. Victor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, demonstrated how this learned behavior operates in a Nazi concentration camp. Erich Fromm, one of the most profound psychologists of the 20th century called this personality the “productive personality.” When we choose to live with this inner-posture life is self-generating, presenting us with constant opportunities for stretching ourselves beyond who we are today, where our marriage to the world is ever enriched, even our experience of death.

It is extraordinary to think that only a few years ago there was a conventional wisdom that said the brain is fixed and that your destiny is limited by a “happiness set point.” The conventional wisdom said that no matter who you are or where you come from you will return to the same point on the happiness scale after the deepest tragedy or the greatest joy. “No point aiming for extraordinary” said the conventional wisdom of the day, “because you will always return to where you are now.” As a result psychology was more about helping you to return to your point rather than propel you into a new liberating experience of life. We now know that the part of the brain responsible for happiness, the left prefrontal cortex, is dramatically affected by meditation and adopting an autotelic approach to life.

It seems that as science reveals more about the phenomenal capacity of the brain we will witness a new dawn for human potential that our teachers always inspired was available to us – that to reflect, to wonder, to imagine, to ask, to see, to create, and to welcome through our thinking and actions is the most effective way to live and to become.

Thanks to Dr. Bradley S. Peterson/Columbia University for the image.
The quote from Jesus comes from The Muslim Jesus, Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature.
Would you like to know more about the brain and stay up to date on the latest discoveries? Articles on many of the discoveries referred to in this post are available in your Freedom's Way personal dashboard under Freedom's Way World News.

The Biology of Potential

2009-03-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

When we think about dreams, vision, and our potential we often see it as ‘otherworldly’ – a reality not existing in modern life. Dreams have become the property of genies and angels instead of the daily experience. When we look to our altars, to our gods, or to the Universe, we yearn to connect with it. Is this outward projection rational? Is it based on reality or doctrine? Does this projection best ensure personal happiness and the health of society?

If we were to take an electron microscope and focus that microscope within ourselves, a new reality would emerge before our eyes. We would discover that our bodies look very similar to the universe around us. Planets, stars, and galaxies would shine up through the microscope as convincingly as they do down from the night’s sky.

We would discover that within our atomic identity, biology, physiology and psychology is a pattern that extends to our inward depths and outward universe – infinite in both directions.

Before the arrival of modern thinking, great systems of thought that reflected this profound pattern were already operating throughout the world - from Australia to Africa, America to the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific to Europe. These systems were used to unlock the potential within the individual and society. And, despite these vast geographic distances the systems that operated were very similar.

Central to all of these systems was a pattern of living called “the adventure of the hero.” In the adventure tests were the order of the day, as were magical coincidences and miracles. The adventure was a creative process, which was used to transform a human being.

The adventure is not just a magical piece of our past but an invaluable part of our future. It is an organic process built into the very essence of nature and it is a critical part of the dna of living. It is also a critical part of our brain's development, which continues throughout our lives. The latest fMRI scans reveal that the brain continues to develop depending on the choices we make. The more we approach life as creators, the more we become creators. We evolve along with our choices.

In today's world we can use the pattern of the adventure to transform a relationship, a family, a company and a society.

Whether we choose to live in accord with this pattern, or resist it, is a choice. Choice is the point of departure for the hero in each of us: Do we choose to brave an optimistic attitude and not give into a pessimistic outlook? Do we choose to stay attuned to our vision, not our fear? Do we choose to aspire to achieve harmony in even the darkest recesses of the world? Do we choose to brave the real questions and welcome the answers? Do we choose to look for the lesson in every test – even the hardest? Choice is life’s way of initiating us for our dreams. It requires us to not just do the day but to create it. When we choose to create, the world can respond accordingly.

The Current of Life

2009-02-08T21:30:00.000-08:00

All the religions and mythologies of the world refer to a life force that moves within us and within the world. In India this energy is referred to as prana, in China it is called Chi, in the Arabic world, qudra, and many in America refer to it as the Holy Spirit. You can call a child by many names however she will always be who she is and possess her own identity. In the same way this force exists throughout all cultures and has come to be known by many names.

The big question though is how does this current wind its way through our lives? In world mythology this winding current is often represented by the symbol of a snake. In ancient India it was referred to as Kundalini. The Kundalini current is perhaps one of the most important elements in the personal development system of yoga. Kundalini is a bio-energetic force that lives within us and is stimulated by different types of mental and physical exercises. All forms of yoga is about getting flow moving through the body - whether it be for example, karma yoga (where we work with an attitude of service), hatha yoga (where we execute physical postures), or Vedanta (where we apply our minds to realizing the unity in all things). A healthy current creates a healthy body, a vital mind, and a resilient immune system and spirit. Understanding how this current works is useful for any religion or psychology. For example Carl Jung delved deeply into the science of Kundalini when creating his theories of individuation the foundation of modern psychology.

Kundalini works its way through the body by travelling up the spinal center of the spinal cord between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The shape of your spinal cord is a horizontal figure of eight, like this ∞ with each nervous system crisscrossing the other. While these two nervous systems have biological and neural relevance the yogis also observed that these nervous systems reflected a balance of our yin and yang energies, or what the yogis referred to as the sun and the moon (the ida and pingala): action balanced with stillness, intuition co-ordinated with reason, and the masculine harmonized with the feminine.

As these two forces synchronize a third force, the Kundalini, starts to rise from the bottom of your spine. It ascends through the center of your spinal cord, activating your main energy centers, as it rises. These energy centers are commonly referred to as chakras. Each chakra refers to a specific state of personality and force of character – for example the lower chakras relate to survival, material accumulation, and procreation. The “higher” chakras relate to compassion, empathy, assimilation, and unity. Obviously as this ascent of the kundalini occurs, the lower chakra life does not become redundant but enlightened, sex becomes love, accumulation becomes harvest, and survival becomes continuance. The more a person harmonizes, or achieves a state of living yoga, yoking their inner selves by concerted inner cultivation, the more she dances in the world; she still has challenges but she responds to a difficulty with an attitude of opportunity, lightness, receptiveness, and one-pointed action. She always looks for the lesson or teaching in the experience and sees the event as underwritten by a deeper force whether it is called energy, the Holy Spirit, or a mathematical fractal sequence leading to a bifurcation and explosion into a new reality. Sunlight infuses every event, no matter how chaotic, and a still wisdom is seen as ever present.

In the same way this journey happens on a personal level it is also, of course, a global passage. Each of us is a part of the world. And the world is the sum total of the individuals who make it. A current example is the economic frenzy of panic buying. This frenzy drove stock prices well below their true value and is reflective of imbalance and reactivity. Global reactivity is an indicator that we are out of our center and marks an opportunity to center on a personal and community wide level.

At the same time no society, just like no individual, is perfect. Our society has come a long way. For example, we are far less likely to go to war in a way we may have done only eighty five years ago. Take the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the consequent events, which violently threw us into World War I. While our markets may tumble our connectedness and collaborative skill on a geo-political level has matured. One of the world’s leading observers of Global conflict, Crisis Group, said late last year since the end of the Cold War there has been an 80% decrease in the number of major conflicts, the number of episodes of mass killing, and in the number of people dying violent battle deaths. While Yeats’ Beast may be slouching toward Bethlehem it would also seem a new consciousness is emerging carrying us to a place of empathy, global understanding, and an enlightened age of co-operation.

The green house effect, fickle economies and violent acts of terrorism and government oppression indicate an opportunity for systemic overhaul. We have come along way and many adventures lie ahead. The trials we face today culminate as a quest not just for you and me but for us on a global community. The current, of which we each make a part, will continue to flow. Every response, every action and every stillness will determine our future. Who you and I are today will determine what the world will be tomorrow.

Every fear holds a teaching

2009-01-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

I wanted to add to yesterday's post in light of a comment by a reader who reflected that it is interesting that fear is present irrespective of "whether we are on a path dictated by society or by our higher self." I decided to write a little more about the way fear works when we are walking a path chosen by our higher selves (to use the language of the reader).

There is a line in Freedom’s Way, which says “Every fear holds a teaching.” This line holds a lot of truth. Life is a journey of personal discovery. We are always peeling back layers of understanding either in relation to ourselves, our world, or more likely both. As a person grows, love evolves. A person who is vision-centered seeks to serve her family, her colleagues, her customers, and naturally, her community. Complexities develop, and love’s lessons are always waiting to educate us. In this way fear will always be present in those times we stretch our understanding of love and venture into unknown realms. Those who love will always question am I loving in a way that will best serve my son, or my sibling, or my friend, or my community. Fear is always a signpost to growth and new understanding.

Every time we are scared we have the opportunity to ask ourselves: why am I feeling scared? What is there to learn by this moment? And then sit in silence. After vision, fear is perhaps the most effective way that our emotions initiate meaningful inward dialogue.Every fear presents an opportunity to step within and recover fresh ways of seeing ourselves and the world.

The value of fear

2009-01-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

I think there can come a time in a person's life when the majority of their being becomes an idea based around society's personality rather than their own authentic self. What I mean by this is that their dreams, yearnings and inspirations together with their fears insecurities and depressions orbit a conditioned self not their original self. Their very being becomes identified with an outward reality - society - a reality not authentic to their own heart.

Fear is an interesting example. Fear is not excluded from the authentic path - the difference is that rather than being an obstruction it serves a purpose.

For example the shifting face of fear in myself in my own journey has been marked. As a teenager and during early adult years I would sometimes have a fear of not being an impressive person within society or not meeting expectations, whereas now my fears are associated around interior 'tests' as I develop my self and walk my chosen path. Here fear releases me from my conditioning as I unfold. In the conditioned form, fear orbits compliance.

The two motivations of fear are very different - one is outward focused - "I need to keep up" - the other is interior focused - "I choose to overcome my history." History relates not just to our personal history but the history we inherit through our culture. Fear is the symptom of an emotional resistance as I journey inward to my true self.

Fear, like the downdraft on the wings of a plane, gives a vision lift. Fear provides the resistance by which we become courageous and learn. I think this is why fear is always a part of the journey - an initiation to freer consciousness and heightened ability.

Energy: How to See Yourself From the Perspective of the Universe

2009-01-09T19:57:00.001-08:00

Four days ago I had a conversation with my five year old niece, Sahara, or Sassy. My brother and his wife had flown in from overseas and had gone to bed early so I was putting the girls to bed. Just before sleeping Olivia, the seven year old, said

“Uncle Z, Sassy has some questions for you.”

Thinking it was a question about field mice, owls, or breakfast I replied

“Absolutely Sassy! What are they?”

Sassy, looked at me, smiled and sweetly said well Uncle Z “What is infinity?”

While I was still in a state of shock, she continued – “and I have another question…”

“Ok” I said …

“Why are there people?” I kept smiling (not knowing, at that moment, what else to do.)

“… And why are there animals?”

“Any more?” I asked.

“Yes … Why are there names?”

It is times like this one can give a stock response, or we can decide to forget the washing up, the emails, and whatever else and engage in dialogue. Generally I find that I learn just as much from the conversation as the child does.

“Do you know when you look at the stars and see the Universe?”

“Yes,” she said attentively.

“Do you think the Universe goes on forever?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Well that is infinity, or at least a part of it.”

I always like to wind these moments back to turning a fact into inspiration, so I added:

“And you are a part of infinity. You are infinite and therefore special in being a part of the Universe.”

“Do you understand? “

“Yes” she said.

Clearly on a roll, I continued: “as for names,” I said, “How would you feel if you could not give a color to a rainbow?”

She smiled.

“And as for animals, just like a rainbow, each person like each animal makes up a unique colour, which makes life. Does that make sense?”

She beamed a “yes” back at me, rolled over and went to sleep.

The questions never change, nor ultimately do the answers.

Sassy’s questions are reflected in our common primal desire to engage the world, and live out the answers we find fully.

Sassy understood the scope of the response, and in her untainted intuition was satisfied. It is no accident that Nietzsche in the prologue to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” said the “Superwoman” or “Overwoman” is when we return to the state of a child.

The more we abandon our intuition, the more we buttress ourselves with “reason.” As Nietzsche and every mythology and theology try to remind us reason is a wonderful thing in so far as it serves intuition and not the other way around.

Sassy’s intuitive understanding of the universe is no different from the conclusions drawn from quantum mechanics. The universe is infinite and we are an aspect of infinity. There is no separation ultimately in the language of the universe. As every mystic and quantum physicist will tell you tat tvam asi – thou art that.

In our journey to attain reason we have risked this Holy Grail insight. I believe that when we do lose touch with this insight - “thou art that” - as individuals and as communities we lose centeredness, and consequently love and self knowledge. The talk of Christ Consciousness, Quantum Consciousness, Nirvana, Satori, surrender, and enlightenment are all anchored to this wisdom – however a person who is aware of their eternal identity - doesn’t know, they act. It is what a person says and how they make you feel that determines whether they are illuminated. These people can energise a person with a look, a touch, a word, and even a thought.

In addition to space, infinity also relates to time. Contrary to our schoolbook Newtonian education a Master can be holding up the world without ever walking in it. If the world is energy, space and time are only a part of the reality of living. A master who was alive two thousand years ago in the Himalayas can be feeding the world with love today. Thought and intention transcend time and space.

Morphic Resonance: the biology of accelerated development

The current scientific explanation for much of this insight is thanks to the pioneering work of Professor Rupert Sheldrake. Professor Sheldrake, a biologist, coined the expression “morphic resonance” in his groundbreaking article in “Nature” and explained in “A New Science of Life.” He later tested the hypothesis in some worldwide experiments and released those findings in “The Presence and the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature .“ Rupert observed that every species is connected to one another via fields. As one member of the species learns the next member inherits that talent. For example if I am the first human being to learn to ride a bicycle, then the next member will learn a little faster, and then the next, a little faster after that. Naturally, variables, like my skill of balance and learning are taken into account, but overall there is an accelerated rate of learning.

This skill of learning is also anchored to places and experiences. For instance, as Nimmy’s (see Energy post (below) mother observed, a temple holds the resonance of that place which “fires” up her own consciousness and primal (or quantum) memory – that part of her, which transcends time and space. The space in a temple or a scent, like incense, Sheldrake says, can also trigger this primal consciousness. For instance, sandalwood or frankincense, used for eons for meditation and contemplation, has an immediate stilling effect. According to what we know about morphic resonance, this is not only because it has visual and aromatherapeutic appeal, but because millions of people have meditated and contemplated with it.

Most excitingly perhaps is this thought: every time you contemplate, meditate or pray you help others to improve their technique and cultivate a greater sense of stillness in their lives. Next time you sit down to pray or meditate, remember you are not only benefitting yourself but the human species for the rest of its existence.

Entering the quantum field

A physicist can also explain how a skill or learning can be anchored to a place. A thought or feeling is energy. A constant thought or feeling, repeated by people over a long period in a place like a temple will affect the molecular behavior of the matter that makes up the temple. In turn this resonance will affect both the energy of your body and subtle energy fields.

From the perspective of physics, everything is wound into everything else. Everything is connected on a quantum level and resonating at varying frequencies – each inflecting on and influencing everything else. If you saw the movie The Matrix, perhaps you can remember the character Neo, when he resurrects and sees instead of the world a grid of pulsating light. Nothing fixed, everything elastic and vibrating. I suspect if we were to stick on some quantum goggles this is how it would look.

The quantum world reveals that connectedness is beyond space and time. For example, if I take two electrons from an atom, place one on my desk, and the other on the other side of our galaxy, and spin one of them, the other electron will spin simultaneously, irrespective of the distance.

This inter-connectedness also applies to the observer and the observed. For example, if we set up an experiment to measure light as a particle – we will see a particle. Conversely, if we set it up to see a wave we will see a wave. Perception affects outcome. Experiments at Duke University in the 1950s revealed that a pessimistic attitude will negatively impact an outcome while a bright outlook will improve it. The underlying connectedness of apparent random events is a natural part of reality.

Frequency

What a quantum physicist would say on the behavior of matter a yogi would speak on the nature of consciousness.

The yogis in ancient India said everything is vibration. They break vibration into three frequencies Sattvic, Rajasic, and Tamasic - High, medium, low or to put it another way: pure, tempered and base. Personalities can be applied to this model, including food, music, and architecture. Everything in effect is co-ordinated around this principle of frequency. The yogis were interested in this natural phenomenon because they were passionate about raising their own frequency or consciousness. A high vibration evokes stillness and love – love towards oneself, others, and the world at large, a low vibration, on the other hand, breeds reaction, fear, confusion and lethargy. You may also like to think of it from the notion of communities – what would a high frequency nation look like as opposed to a low frequency nation? A high frequency corporation as opposed to a base corporation? A high frequency relationship as opposed to a low frequency relationship?

Gandhi’s call “to be the change you want to see in the world” relates to our relationships, family, job and community. As you start to behave in a high frequency way the frequency of your relationships, career, and immediate community increase. (There are also other aspects of science relevant to this principle, like systems theory.)

The key question is how do we hold a high frequency? We all know too well how easy it can be in the heat of an argument to drop from holding a “creative” frequency to reactive one. The ability to hold to a higher frequency state is imperative to high frequency living. You literally have to become a habitual attractor.

Attraction

Every person is an attractor. The question is: what are we attracting? People who are aggressive, attract aggressive people. People who love, attract compassion and sincerity. Depending on our emotional, psychological, intellectual and spiritual state we will create thoughts and beliefs that will optimize our surrounds or erode them. What we say, how we say it, the body language we use, and our silences all determine where our life is and where it is likely to go.

In the journey to create a sattvic or high frequency state of being there is a period in which we need to overhaul our own thoughts, assumptions, beliefs, and aspirations. Meditation is probably the most effective process for doing this. On a practical level you may like to see how meditation lifted the frequency of prisoners in this maximum security jail in India (video below). In my personal case, the teenage aspirations I held to become a lawyer became increasingly dilute as I increased my frequency. My decision to be a lawyer was based on reasons, which as I centered, became redundant. And the world started to reflect my inward change. The yogic term for this is maya – the world as an outward reflection of our inner-selves. This is not unrelated to quantum mechanics if you think about it. How we see determines what we create.

In a language I find useful, the more “metacentered” you become the higher your frequency and the greater your ability to love and be loved. Love implies creativity because we only love when we give something of ourselves to another. When metacentered you become a creative force in your relationships, career, and community.

Play

As we increasingly become conscious creators we increasingly develop an inner quality of detachment. The world, more and more becomes a dance, of which we and every living being and non-living being, plays a part – we enter into a eternity of play – a child’s laugh tickles our spirit, selling a product or helping a customer to use it becomes a moment of pride and service. With our attachment retreated, love emerges as the force of attraction, deflecting all that which is incongruous with it. Participating in the world becomes a decision – every argument, every purchase, every stillness, chosen.

The more metacentered you become the more your silences, thoughts and actions are chosen from a place of infinity. As you start to “choose”, the world responds to your choices, your learning accelerates, and synchronicities increase, all events – the dark and the light - feeding your intellect, emotions, body and spirit with a sense of expansiveness and love. By using the word “metacentered” and applying it to your daily life you learn how to attract what you want into your life.

A return to love

As Sassy’s questions intimated we come into the world wise. Sassy’s questions were by no means unique. Each of us is an inflection of the universe. The more we chose to live in a way aligned with this knowledge the more we will come to reflect and see the beauty and power present in the very fact that we are simply alive.

A compelling fact

2009-01-01T23:05:00.000-08:00

I read an encouraging fact, which I wanted to share with you. It was from the President of Crisis Group one of the most reliable watchdogs on global crises:

"In the midst of all the upheaval - both in international relations and the global economic system - it is heartening to remember that whatever our newspaper reading and intuitions seem to tell us about the ever-increasing scale and incidence of war and mass atrocity crimes, there has been in fact an extraordinary decrease - some 80 per cent - since the end of the Cold War in the number of major conflicts, the number of episodes of mass killing, and in the number of people dying violent battle deaths."

Even in the case of war and atrocity an audacious vision for peace works.

The Gift of Resistance - The Role of Society in Spiritual Growth

2008-12-15T20:47:00.001-08:00

In the last article, A New Mind, a reader disagreed with the statement: "The only force that is ironically against us is society." He continued by saying “though in a larger sense, we can say that it's society, on an introspective level, it is the "I" for each individual, which stops her from living to her fullest. Like they say, the only one to conquer should be yourself, once that’s done, you have conquered the world...” This is a great comment, and deserved a post in reply.

Until now we thought we had to leave or disassociate ourselves from society in order to transcend it, however society is the very place where the greatest opportunities for evolution lie. The best learning occurs when we have a context to place it in. Naturally society is an extension of “I” and “us” – how we perceive ourselves and the world is a matter of mind. To not engage life and not use life’s challenges as a context to leverage our personal growth would waste its rich offerings. Society is a reflection of who we are and what has shaped us. It can provide us with a looking glass into what is obstructing us from freedom – friendships, relationships, business, and community can be rich ways to learn about ourselves.

Naturally as you evolve your immediate environment will either create friction (resistance) and evolve or dissipate. Everything will shift and respond: your friendships, where you work, even how and what you eat will shift as you evolve and your world will continue to reflect who you are. Resistance is not a negative, or passive, but integral.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote a beautiful verse on the necessity of resistance and response:

Life fulfillment finds constant contradictions in its path; but those necessary for the sake of its advance.

The stream is saved from the sluggishness of its current by the perpetual opposition of the soil through which it must cut its way. It is the soil which forms its banks.

The spirit of the fight belongs to the genius of life.

I hope that helps.

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg and stimulate global thinking. Thank you!

A New Mind

2008-11-19T01:18:00.000-08:00

There is a special place that allows the world to dance in response to intention. This place is not somewhere out in the world but lying deep within us. Mythology and religion use metaphor to refer to this place. And then magically, so myth and religion tell us, the possibility to manifest a “kingdom” in the world becomes possible. This Kingdom is not literal of course – it is golden in a way that is authentically golden to each of us – whatever is joyous and meaningful in our personal lives.

To produce something that provides us with joy and meaning myth, religion and, now, psychology tell us that we therefore need to develop our inner-state if we are to be truly productive in the world.

Strange as it may at first seem, every relationship, every invention, every thought is a result of mind: the chair you are sitting on, the roof over your head, the building surrounding you, the neighborhood you are in, the infrastructure that feeds the building with electricity, the roads, the cars, the planes, economies, political systems, and philosophies and laws. From the moment you were conceived, to when you were born, to the moment of your death mind is translating your world, and creating it.

A mind can create only what it is capable of conceiving. Mind works on a local level – through you – and on a collective level – through us. And consequently if a mind is distorted what it creates will unequivocally be distorted, nature out of harmony with architecture, families out of harmony with love, business out of harmony with service, global economics out of harmony with enrichment and famine possible in a world that is meant to be founded on sound values. For example, if you doubt that mind is responsible for famine ask yourself how governments can suddenly, within days, find a trillion dollars to accommodate the greed and inefficiencies of institutions apparently founded on free market principles but cannot raise a minuscule portion of that sum or overcome bureaucratic wrangling to address climate change, famine, and genocide?

Conversely an aligned mind creates an aligned environment and an aligned world.

A good way to relate to our mind is to picture it as a spine. If the vertebrae of the mind is out of alignment then the body - the life – can only but be out of alignment.

After a number of years and practice I have come to the conclusion that there are five key areas to a healthy inward productive state. These areas are faith, attitude, vision and discernment and eternity.

Furthermore, I think, like vertebrae, each area has a specific position in relation to the other areas it supports, as displayed in the diagram above.

Each area is critical on the path to self actualization. If you think about it each element is elemental to the self actualization of an individual, company, and society.

Because labels are prone to misunderstanding, particularly words like “faith,” I have briefly defined each, below.

Faith is a word which can be interchanged with belief. As great yogis like Yogananda and Vivekananda said “You believe in God when you believe in yourself.” Belief or faith is God in action. There is no such thing as belief or faith in the true sense until there is an action to bring about its inception. Faith requires an act in order to be fertilized. Science reveals how miraculous we truly are. Physics, biology, and mathematics reveal the fathomless wonder of who we are and the world we inhabit. Like a butterfly’s wings one act has to be executed in order to bring about a miraculous effect.

Vision is the vehicle of living. Imagine a world without vision or dreams – can you even see it? Evolution requires a vision in order to bring about innovation and progress. Vision is the interface with imagination - where tomorrow is conceived. This process of conceiving tomorrow spans our entire existence, from our inner development, to our families, to the future of the world. From what I can see a true vision or dream is also the vehicle of love. It has the capacity to bring joy and fulfillment to others, and through exchanging that creative act with another the joy is returned tenfold. So part of the trick is to create a personally meaningful vision - to empower our children, to bring healing or joy to another, or to create products that improve the lives of others.

Discernment is the skill of application reason. It is the tool which helps us to interpret the world and determine our choices and courses of action. Discernment is used to steer the inception of the vision. A healthy reasoning faculty improves as it is exercised. Like the elder in a community, wisdom evolves through the application of reason across varying environments over time. The more we apply reason the more discerning we become.

Attitude is the our decision to see the world in a particular light. A positive attitude looks for the upside in crisis, a negative attidude inevitably looks for the downside. Attitude is a state of mind which is symptomatic of choices made within one’s interior. We are susceptible to both. The question is when we identify our attitude sliding what do we do?

Lastly, comes eternity. Eternity is a state of hightened wellness. “Eternity” can be interchanged with “flow”. When we are in flow we identify an electric unity with the ourselves and the world. We see our destiny and the destiny of the world as interlinked and we see ourselves inter-connected to all living beings. With our intuition improved and clarity enhanced our acton in the world feels more like a dance than a set of localized separatble actions. The reason eternity is in the middle of the mandala is because it is the key indicator of whether we are out-of-center, or what I often call out of our metacener. Meta-because the center is made up of multiple elements all conspiring to a transcendent to state of heightened well-being and optimal action.

For example: if I am having a stuck day where things just aren’t flowing, or I am feeling inwardly restless or fearful I stop. Obviously I am not in eternity or flow. I recall the mandala and internally visit each of the five areas or “stations” – faith, attitude, discernment, vision, and eternity. Every time - guaranteed – one of the stations has been left unattended. My faith is out, for example because I got caught up in the hurly burly of the day without doing my usual morning practice of centering, or my vision is out, again, because I have allowed myself to get caught up without doing my regular practice of picturing and recalling what I am working toward. Or I have lost discernment because I have not set aside enough time to think through recent strategies or decisions. A brief stilling exercise like mediation or contemplation can also quickly recalibrate my mind. The more you do this practice the more effective you will become at metacentering your mind.

In a recent book called Presence the authors said something which is echoed by many great observers of heightened living:

"When you discover what you're here for the forces of nature also operate in your service. When you see what you're here for, the world begins to mirror your purpose in a magical way. It's almost as if you suddenly find yourself on a stage in a play that was written expressly for you".

This state is achieved through rigorous practice. And yet it is achieved with no greater effort than any university degree or qualification that certifies us for a career. The only force that is ironically against us is society. If mythology is anything to go by this will not change. Resistance is a part of the process of maturity – that is how the oak is made strong and the hero made worthy.

Secondly, as you metacenter you start to naturally create around an energy around you – you become a cell of optimism within the organism of humanity. Until recently we knew this intuitively but now we know it definitively thanks to a twenty year research project. This study only just released in the British Medical Journal and reported in the New York Times says

“Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don’t even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you. There’s kind of an emotional quiet riot that occurs and takes on a life of its own, that people themselves may be unaware of. Emotions have a collective existence — they are not just an individual phenomenon.”

Affecting the world is not an erudite idea that is shared across café tables and book shelves it is a fact of living – the more we take responsibility for who we are the more the world will follow. The more metacentered we become, the more metacentered the world will become.

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Future-Making 101 – The Dawn of Generative Thinking

2008-11-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

The time we live in was predicted decades ago by futurist Alvin Toffler in his book, Future Shock. At the end of Future Shock Alvin gave us some advice:

The accelerative thrust triggered by humanity has become the key to the entire evolutionary process on the planet. …
Throughout the past, as successive stages of social evolution unfolded humanity’s awareness followed rather than preceded the event. Because change was slow, we could adapt unconsciously, ‘organically.’
[However an organic response is no longer adequate.] Instead of rising in revolt against it, we must, from this historic moment on anticipate change and design the future.

But how do we design the future on a personal, political, corporate and planetary level? This post is dedicated to that question.

Why the Mind?

While the turmoil on the planet is naturally an effect of economic systems, green house gasses, and religious extremism, I think we must go deeper if we are to benefit from the current crisis. If we only address the problem at the surface level, play with interest rates, make new regulations, and apply force to address discontent, it will be like bandaging a critically ill patient rather than rebalancing the immune system and detecting how the illness initially occurred. I relate the immune system here to the inner-state of the world – the mind-state, and I think until we address the mind the outward effects of the inward imbalance will continue.

To grasp the current inward balance we need to look back in time. Since the dawn of humanity two motivations have been paramount to material and psychological survival: belonging and security. The outward inflection of what these motivations look like has varied through the ages – the trends have changed – but essentially the motivations have stayed the same. In-groups and out-groups, shelter, food, and favor have been the main drivers of history and they will continue to be.

Tangled into the need for belonging and security however is the broken way in which we have comes to see the role of a spirituality or God in our lives. This hidden dimension can be a natural part of the experience of being human. However somewhere along the road of socialization this hidden dimension was stitched into our frailties instead of our potential.

Perhaps this stitching happened because of greed, perhaps politics, or maybe the fallibility that emerges in human beings with power, or perhaps it was just simply the hierarchical system that bred inefficiencies. Whatever the cause, the result was that society became disempowered through God and a broken theology. Understanding this entanglement introduces a new level of complexity but also opportunity in transcending the current global crisis.

Untangling the Hidden Dimension

I have noticed as I have talked to people in different parts of the world, that many good people expend their lives simply attempting to reconcile or deny a “God” within their life experience, for example reconciling how God can allow bad things to happen to good people, reconciling how to love God and yet participate in the capitalist world of dog eat dog, or simply just trying to live. I always ask them whether the God they are trying to reconcile or deny is a God maligned by institutionalism.

Perhaps we have come to listen to institutions rather than our own hearts: perhaps the only God or hidden dimension that we need is the one, which speaks to our heart; the sort of silence that speaks when we stop and look to the stars, or breaks through our despair. I am not saying that a church or temple should be excluded from a relationship with silence – but the institution needs to see its role as facilitating the eternal relationship in the mind of the aspirant. I can’t see the Prophet, Jesus, or the Buddha disagreeing with that statement.

If we can be open, in fact be willing, to rejuvenate this hidden dimension the current global rattle we are experiencing could become a catalyst to free up a state of mind that has been trying to remove its shackles for well over a thousand years. If we are to properly untangle the hidden reality, we need to explore a second key to the future – the way we think and the way we act as a result of that thinking.

The Forked Road

Every day, every moment, holds a forked road. One road leads to the way we have always acted: we generally choose this road because it is the road we are familiar with. It is the road that accommodates our conditioning. Every time we take this road we make an unconscious decision to reproduce the past. The alternative, less common, road is the road of the creative response. This road is less common because it requires intuition married with reason, and it requires the courage to break from what we are familiar. We could call this type of action - generative action. The opposite of generative action is prescriptive action.

Mostly throughout time religion, medicine, law, and most disciplines have sought to approach life prescriptively. A discipline built on prescriptive thinking is only renewed through the intervention of revolutionary thinking. Generally, revolutionaries are crucified, or risk professional or academic crucifixion by their peers. Ironically, while most disciplines are founded on insight and noble ideals, disciplines, like medicine, law and religion become weighted with arrogance, conceit, and stubbornness. When these characteristics become prevalent in a profession or institution they mark a discipline or organization out of balance.

Prescriptive thinking is valuable so long as it is seen as a means and not as an absolute. Overweighed prescriptive thinking is easy to fall into. Even in the field of quantum mechanics, a science based on probabilities, many physicists have come to see these probabilities as absolutes. Yet when we look at life on a basic intrinsic level we come to see that nothing on a molecular or even psychological level is as it seems to be. Reality is relative, and there will always be something new to understand and drive our knowledge deeper.

Through an overweighed application of prescriptive thinking, prescriptive thinking atrophied into what we have come to know as “rules.” Where the hidden lands of our thinking should remain limitless and extraordinary, these rules have seeped into our minds and created a destructive inner environment.

Rules are essential in the evolution of a mind and consequently a society. However rules are there to serve a vision. When rules lose sight of vision, imbalance becomes inevitable.

Rules have been hammered into us throughout our education and upbringing. Rules as a means of understanding the world better is wonderful so long as they are taught within the context of a wider teaching: you as a future-maker , as a creative and extraordinary being of limitless wonder capable of inventing new realities. I don’t know about you but that was not in my syllabus at school, nor university. In fact even in my metaphysics course I was dismayed to have yet another set of rules placed before me.

The role of questioning was never meant to dissipate as the rule was increasingly applied. Generative thinking and prescriptive thinking in their proper place should complement each other like yin with yang. The attempt to turn prescriptive thinking into a habit is part of the cause that has lead to the challenges we face today. Generative thinking sees the role of rules and their utility. However it also sees the necessity in challenging them.

Future-Making

The world as we see it is a product of mind. First it is a product of your mind – if you are depressed you will interpret it negatively. If you are upbeat you will see the sparkle even in crisis. Second, the modern world is a product of the modern mind - it is through us that we have cars, roads to drive them on, buildings, and satellites. If we change the way we see – we will change what we see on a psychological and elemental level. This is why mind, along with action, is the most important place to focus.

This period in history is a call for “regenerative thinking” – a place where we see every instance as an opportunity to tackle our own limited reasoning and paradigms of thinking and short-circuit the systems we currently live by – whether it be our relationship – how we love; our business – how we work; our community – how we serve; or our religion how we reflect and choose to see – be it a theological religion or the religion of science. Every moment is an opportunity to become something more than we were the moment before. Every moment is the opportunity for personal and collective rediscovery. If we can come to start to create a habit of “generative thinking” and “generative action” then we will start to not do the day but create the day, and in the process of creating we will recreate ourselves and the world we occupy. Rules come to serve inspiration, and our actions become the result of vision.

To become a generative thinker, two “skills” are critical.

The first skill is the ability to be silent within our minds. Silence is the cornerstone of generative thinking. Inner silence is the one quality essential to every religion. When we have a relationship with silence flow and insight operate. Silence takes us beyond the dominion of rules and makes innovative ideas and solutions accessible.

The second skill is to question. Use your discontent. Venture into your hates, disdains, judgments, and fears. Don’t allow the past and the indiscretions of history to contort your mind and consequently your questions.

Question everything. Just because things are the way they are doesn’t by any stretch of the imagination mean that they are “correct” or the way things “need” to be. In fact where we see imbalance, discontent, inefficiency, or disharmony the need for change is imperative.

You, Future-Maker

You can start future-making now by taking this online experience. It is used by people from all walks of life, and can shift your thinking in a profound way. It will increase your feeling of empowerment, decrease any anxiety you may be feeling, and help you realize how extraordinary you actually are. (It is free and there is a good chance it will stay that way)

You may also like to read Freedom’s Way – eternal principles aligned to the realities of modern living.

Or listen to the audio companion.

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The Hero Deed for Our World

2008-10-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

If Joseph Campbell was alive today I think he would want to say exactly what he said in 1949:

“The problem of humankind today is precisely the opposite to that of men in the comparatively stable periods of those great co-ordinating mythologies which now are now known as lies. Then all meaning was in the group, in the great anonymous forms, none in the individual. But there the meaning is absolutely unconscious. One does not know toward what one moves. One does not know by what one is propelled. The lines of communication between the conscious and unconscious zones of the human psyche have all been cut, and we have been split in two.

The hero-deed to be wrought is not today what it was in the century of Galileo. When then there was darkness, now there is light; but also, where light was, there now is darkness. The modern hero-deed must be that of questing to bring to light again the lost Atlantis of the co-ordinated soul.

Obviously, this work cannot be wrought by turning back, or away, from what has been accomplished by the modern revolution; for the problem is nothing if not that of rendering the modern world spiritually significant – or rather (phrasing the same principle the other way around) nothing if not that of making it possible for men and women to come to full human maturity through the conditions of contemporary life.”

- The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

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Highly Effective Fifteeen Minute Breathing Meditation Practice

2008-10-10T01:26:00.000-07:00

Meditation is a key to happiness and optimal performance. It uplifts our emotions, attitudes, and mental agility.

This mindfulness of breathing meditation is an ancient Buddhist technique, which is a super effective way to feeling more at peace within fifteen minutes. I promise. While you will feel its impact after the first sitting, the key is to practice it daily. Cultivating mindfulness is like cultivating a field and your mind is that field.

It is also to beneficial to meditate in the same place and at the same time. Habit helps our bodies, and minds relax into the practice. Scent, like sandalwood or rose incense, or an aromatic oil, also helps because one of the best ways to influence the brain is through scent.

Sit for a few minutes before starting the technique (below) and relax, take a few deep breaths and fully exhale. Then start::

1) For the first 4 minutes – Focus on the inhale - focus on the inhale flowing in - inhale 1, exhale, inhale 2, exhale,…. Counting to 10 – then start at one and repeat. Continue for around three minutes

2) For the next 4 minutes – Focus on the exhale flowing out - inhale, 1exhale, inhale, 2exhale, inhale, 3exhale, inhale, 4exhale … to 10 – then start at one and repeat. Continue for around three minutes.

3) For the next 4 minutes - Focus on the first sense of the inhalation on the inside of your nostrils, then gently exhaling – continue for three minutes. (there is no counting at all in this stage)

4) For the last 4 minutes - Focus just gently on the breath flowing in and out. Rest into your breath – continue breathing – when your mind strays gently return to your breath.

When you do this exercise your mind will wander. This does not mean you are a bad at the exercise as most people at first think. The fact that you have recognized your mind wandering is FANTASTIC because it means you are finally looking in on your mind. The very part of you that is watching your thoughts is the eternal part of your mind referred to in all the spiritual orientations of the world. The value of meditation is discussed in other posts on Global-Thought. Thanks to functional MRI, medicine is now starting to understand how valuable meditation is to the human experience. Please don't hesitate to leave a comment if you have a question relating to your practice.

Happy meditating!

We, the Future-Makers

2008-09-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

In the previous post - Prashant asked:

I have been reading many books that say the age of Transformation has come.... Will there be a transformation or will it remain a fanciful wish?

Thanks for another great question prashant.

This is not the first time that people have claimed that an upcoming age is the eve of a new age. For the reasons I talk about in the previous post, this period definitely has the potential to be. One advantage to this period, as oppossed to the previous transformational periods, is that as each age comes and goes the consciousness of humanity is enabled on an evolutionary level. Even Christianity evolves because it too evolves through the inflection of Christian insight on the modern experience.

Another significant advantage, in comparison to the ages that have preceeded us, is Globalization, the internet, and the universal questioning of religion. I think that these three pressures, coupled with a new universal willingness to acknowledge what doesn’t work and seek out new solutions may perhaps be a time of more potential for transformation than ever before. But this wouldn’t be the first time that such a claim has been made. I think the most important element is that the potential is there. The next question is: How can we convert this potential to actuality?

The key renaissance of this age has to be the rejuvenation of personal power – a rejuvenation in the belief of what we can achieve as an individual and as a group. We sense that our potential is vast and know that the central message running through the myths, and core teachings of world religions, each of us is extraordinary. Even science is now reminding us of this fact. The fascinating thing is that while many of us “know” we have the potential to be extraordinary, few of us “act” like it. I think this time is a call to reconstitute the knowledge of who we really are and what we are capable of. This is a time for local heroes and exemplary action.

I think the key principle on the agenda of this reconstitution of self-knowledge is the principle of vision, the law of attraction, and the principle of centering. Each of us has the ability to attract a world of harmony, peace, and ethical resilience.

As many great people who have lived before us have demonstrated - by placing one's mind on a new reality we can bring about a transformation. It is up to each of us to reflect this way of right mindedness and commitment to the unseen.

So Prashant if this transformation comes it will be because people like you decided to embrace the reality of who you truly are. The good news is that the right mindedness of a few can effect the overall outcome for many. Every movement has a tipping point: the butterfly effect proves that, history reflects that, and our hearts intuit that so act!

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A Global Crisis or a Global Transformation?

2008-09-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

A key misunderstanding in the modern world relates to the dynamics of crisis. Our theology and our lack of enthusiasm to question have lead us to live in a way that is resistant to change and incapable of breaking from our assumptions – even the assumptions that have been empirically proven to be false. For example we know that money is not the key to life, nor consumerism the driver of happiness, and yet we persevere, largely numb to the impact these choices will make on our personal psychology or the health of the world. We continue to live like the world is flat only now the flatness of the world has been lifted from the geographical limitations of the earth to rest within the interior geography of the mind.

Is the world in a crisis (what kind of crisis – climatic – economic – terrorist - depends on which week we decide to ask the question)? The point is arguable, and the argument is launched daily with volleys exchanged between economists, lobby groups, scientific bodies, banks, and governments. What we do know is that if the world is not in a true physical crisis – we are, unarguably, in a crisis of perception. While we in the modern world who have had the most to dress, eat, and play, free fall into record numbers of depression and stress, we relentlessly hold on to our assumptions acting as if we know how to live. Maybe it is time to live in a fresh way that encourages the ability to question and even dare to assume that we don’t know….

I think that irrespective of whether the crisis is one for the world or our interior recesses – a global quest is emerging. This quest will involve our whole selves – I do not think the renewal will be partial. It will engage our psychology, our spirituality, and most important our ability to reason. Ultimately, I think, the renewal will occur throughout the very fabric of our psyches and the extensions of thought that reach inward – our beliefs, our assumptions, our confidence and our insecurity - and outward into the depths of the world – our homes, our nations, our financial systems, our foreign policies, our institutions.

It would be lovely to think that religion could be there to facilitate this passage. However I do not think that it can in its current form. Religion has become counter to the modern experience. I think any renewal must involve the question: what would a modern life look like that is ventilated with grace, a willingness to serve, and compassion towards self and others? What would a Human business, Buddha business, Christ business, Business of the Prophet, or a Business of the Talmud look like? And to add: How can a world hurtling toward a global culture accommodate disparate ideals and cultures, so we can assist each other’s journey rather than evolve despite it?

This inner-quest cannot be overestimated because its effect will be tectonic on the lives of those who brave it. However it is an opportunity to rejuvenate our relationship to the universe and allow this renewed intelligence to inform the modern experience instead of drive the chasm between silence and the insistent reality of modernity irreconcilably deeper.

Our priests, our rabbis, our bishops, our Imams, and spiritual teachers are facilitators to reach God not spokespeople for God. They are there to guide and facilitate our relationship to the absolute - to guide us on our way and then at a point to let us travel beyond the place that they can accompany us – where eternal principles and universal intention is coordinated to our unique and wonderful psyches and informing our actions and relationship to truth. I think they too, so long as they are human beings having a human experience, are also subject to this principle. We must remember that it is not God that requires renewal - it is our sight and judgment.

So here we find ourselves back where we started: the crisis of the world lies within ourselves. The world reflects the degree to which we are out of harmony. When we see life in this way the world becomes a mirror and the reflection a call to become more than we currently perceive ourselves to be.

Today’s transformation is rising as sure as tomorrow’s sun. I think the key difference as we move into this exciting period of history will be whether we chose to respond creatively to this crisis or resist it and consequently react eroding the very elements we are seeking to protect – our happiness – our relationships – our peace of mind – our security – and ultimately the opportunity for a radiant future.

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How to be a visionary

2008-08-10T01:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a great question I received from a reader, Prashant, and my answer. I hope you find it revealing and informative. Please feel free to contribute comment or debate.

I liked the previous post very much. You said:

"The practiced visionary is aligned, ultimately coming to see herself as a part of the turning of the universe, not separate and therefore in confrontation with it."

I am beginning to realize this truth. I would like to know one thing. How does a person practice to make himself a visionary. The thoughts of benevolence and subjugating one's ego to the real power. Would love to hear your comments on this. Prashant

Hi Prahsant and thanks for your question, and I think it is an excellent one. Actually your question hits at the very root of most mythic quests and the mystic heart of the world’s religions. For example, in the Bible it says “without vision the people perish” and in the Gita vision is at the heart of the yoga of action.

Despite being a beautifully simple question the answer is quite multi-dimensional because it relates basically to the whole of life: How do we step out of the way and let our being, our Self, our pure relationship to God or the Universe, lift us to the place that we see in our hearts?

Erich Fromm, possibly the greatest social psychologist and humanistic philosopher of our time, summed it up in two words, reflection and action. There is a place, reflected in all religions and mythologies, which encapsulates this dual dynamic. How we reflect and how we perceive varies from culture to culture but this dual dynamic is always present.

For an ordinary human being living an ordinary life being reflective requires asking questions inwardly – “was my act loving?”, “Was I reactive or creative in the way I dealt with that problem?”, ”Can I learn by this mistake” – and, secondly, action, where we embody those insights by acting in the field of living – career, relationship, family and community are coordinated around the questions that we ask and the insights that consequently flow from them. As you start to engage that way of living – reflect, act, question, act, think, act –you start to develop a natural momentum that steers you in the direction of the life you want to create. It is not easy, the experience of grace, satisfaction, and connection to the universe does not come with the modern notion of ease – it comes with a sense of “self-forging” and the world responds to that quest of self-forging.

Reflection and action works whether you are an atheist, Hindu, Buddhist or Jew. It is a universal dynamic relevant to all of us. We can coordinate this dynamic around a theology or simply around our quest for beauty. It doesn’t matter. We do know though from recent scientific findings that holding God or a state of grace in mind can amplify one’s meditation and sense of compassion.

As for some simple steps – I think practicing some mindfulness technique like meditation is very useful for becoming self-reflective and tapping the resources of your imagination - this is a great way to stimulate your faculty of vision. Meditation is not just a way to still – it is a way to ensure that we act decisively and with right-force. Second, once you start thinking about your vision you can start to build around it and act in a way that is consistent with your vision. Another thing you can do is the meta-analysis that I recently designed with my team at www.FreedomsWay.net . The meta-analysis can empower you to live in the way of reflection and action and to build that natural momentum.

As for benevolence, I wanted to address this separately. Benevolence is very much an ethical notion and varies from culture to culture. What we regard as benevolent in one culture can be the opposite in another. Having said that I’ll interpret the word in this respect less from an ethical standpoint and more from a place of service – because I think that in the mind-set of service lies something that is universal. How we serve again depends on the environment in which we seek to serve. As gandhiji and Albert Schweitzer said, if we hold an intention to serve we will have our greatest chance for happiness – I think it is in a mindset of service that reflection and action also is united. So benevolence becomes a consequence of envisioned action rather than a forced act. For example a Christian cannot but be kind if they aspire to emulate the precepts of Jesus, and a Buddhist cannot but be compassionate if they aspire for nirvana. One cannot be a true Christian or achieve nirvana without kindness, compassion, and love encircling their behavior by the very nature of what they seek. In the same way one cannot hold an attitude of service if kindness, compassion, and a quest for equality is not present (but remember that these qualities are expressed differently from culture to culture). A practiced visionary is off the track if they are not benevolent (through the eyes of their culture) not because they should be benevolent but because benevolence is symptomatic.

Lastly, and this is important, the ego can only be truly subjugated when the vision is authentic. If the vision is not authentic then a schism will appear in either the building of the vision or within the aspiring visionary. For instance, when we look on at a practiced visionary and think: “wow! I don’t know how that person keeps going, they have been working on that project for years!” The visionary is held by something almost magical, their commitment isn’t related to the money that the project may generate, nor the fame, nor the praise but to a sacred almost mystical relationship beyond words. Peter Senge, author of The Fifth discipline, and his team from MIT have spent many years researching the relationship that a practiced visionary has to their vision. Take a look at the post I wrote a few months ago. Peter’s research is consistent with the experience of a seasoned practiced visionary called Joseph Jaworski - I think you may like a recent post, particularly the last couple of paragraphs. And lastly, I would like to refer to the research from Collins and Porras, the authors of the brilliant Built to Last and Good to Great. Their research reveals that the practiced visionary is not so much an inspirational leader, pushing, driving, cheering and chastising the troops but a “clock-builder” - enabling, inspiring others through action rather than words – coordinating each part of the vision in to place. In the clock-building model the vision and the mission hold center field not any one individual. Take Gandhi for example. The emphasis was always on the vision, and the vision was always lucid. Every action was coordinated around the vision, and Gandhiji always enabled the vision and others through his wisdom and humility. He was possessed by an almost other worldly stamina and was a splendid clock builder – just take a look at India today! He was methodical, precise, and his ego was ever-subjugated to the vision, which he enabled through his philosophical mind, sense of activism, and understanding of common law. Gandhiji was a practiced visionary. As for an example in business, I have always respected Jeh Tata. From what I understand he was ever focused on enabling Tata Corp and bringing prosperity to India. I think Jey was also a clock builder: his ego was subjugated to a vision and his motivation was never money or fame but the development of a capable organization and the betterment of India. Jeh found a vision and a way to serve.

Perhaps to be a practiced visionary is the real meaning of what it means to be rich because we have found meaning in our lives and live to see that sense of meaningfulness evolve and serve the world.

Thanks Prashant – I hope that helps. Please feel welcome to ask for clarification or additional explanation. We will also have a new tool up shortly at Freedom’s Way called a vision-driver that will help you to find your authentic vision and to help you actualize it.

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The Clash Between Gods

2008-08-05T01:31:00.000-07:00

I have been fascinated by the clash between beliefs that has happened over history and continues to happen today – Muslim against Christian, Protestant against Catholic, Christian against Jew, Sunni against Shiite, new-age thinker against tradionalist. The question ‘why?’, has always fascinated me because of an intuition: every faith is intrinsically correct. How can one’s path be “wrong”? The claim of “wrongness,” and the search for rightness and wrongness, seems to me to be an argument made in the field of opposites – black and white, positive and negative, right and wrong. By the very question, the answer will be unavoidably limited to the field of understanding from which the question sprang. I believe that for a Christian or Muslim who believes the only way is through Jesus Christ, or the Prophet, is unequivocally right. I have seen many beautiful lives and families created under this system of living (and believing) and I think it is pure, unadulterated, and beautiful. At the same time I also believe the pluralistic approach – all Gods and ways are one – is beautiful, prolific, rich and of equal utility to those of us who hold and apply that belief. The error does not lie in the way, it lies in our thinking. Why, in an extraordinary universe bound by laws outside our understanding – even ultimately beyond the concept of laws – because laws are a human notion in order to bridge fields of human understanding - can there not be a co-existence of opposing views. Even our experience of light as a particle is seen as a particle when we decide to see it as such, and when we decide to see it as a wave we experience it as a wave. How could the concept be any different to what we call God? Of course as some of us read this statement our mind is tempted to react and leap – “NO! God is this! Or, No! God is that.” For you and I perhaps, yes, but for another most definitely no. Many things in our ordinary day are beyond our mortal reasoning. Physics still cannot explain why an image is inversed by a mirror or why a bumble bee can achieve flight despite its weight to wingspan ratio. We can only draw a circle around what we can see, the rest remains outside our field of understanding awaiting discovery.

What about a third way? Not the existence of one God, nor the existence of many, but a dazzling multi-verse not a universe – because there is more to what is unseen than seen – that your view and my view no matter how different can co-exist – or better still “trans-exist” - views consistent in a transcendent reality: beyond the field of black and white. Yes there is One God and to know Him is through Jesus Christ our Lord who died on the Cross for us: I believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and I believe that the trinity can be known by many names like Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva: The way is the Tao and to know the Tao one must live the Tao: The Zen way is no way: The only way to God is through surrender, praise be to Allah: Truth is one we know it by many names. Perhaps in this diamond spectacle the greatest bedazzlement of them all is to become a spectator of what we all agree is a miracle called life.

This post is dedicated to Nimmy on her Birthday.

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The Practiced Visionary

2008-07-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Vision comes from a source within us, which defies words. It is the chemistry of dreams and while we do not know where it emerges from, we do know how to help it work more effectively through right thinking. The practiced visionary knows the difference between a goal and a dream, a like and an inspiration, they know the inward movement that stirs their heart and animates every cell toward making inspiration reality. The practiced visionary understands the need to cut off the affluent fat of mediocre relationships, unrewarding interactions, and tepid entertainment making room for flow and luminous experience. This does not mean that mediocre relationships or unrewarding interactions must be eliminated but more rewardingly they must be restored to a place where they can again have the opportunity to be meaningful. The practiced visionary orbits restoral: she does not make, build, create, or destroy – she restores through making, building, creating, and destroying. The practiced visionary understands that the vision which compels her in every interaction is owned by the universal flow and not by her limited likes and dislikes. She subjugates her ego to the welfare of the moment. Ultimately the practiced visionary is not heroic, because fear ultimately retreats. The practiced visionary is aligned, ultimately coming to see herself as a part of the turning of the universe, not separate and therefore in confrontation with it.

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How to create your future: the physics of predictable miracles

2008-06-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

It is funny the full circles that happen as our lives spiral toward a dream. I recall my latter years as a lawyer when I was getting ready to embark on my journey. I was doing some preliminary research in a bookstore. I came across a book by a French Cognitive Scientist called Francisco Varela. Francisco’s writing was a little beyond me at that point. But I have since rediscovered him in dialogue he has had with the Dalai Lama and Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and in the book I referred to in a previous post called Synchronicity. Francisco is one of those rare scientists, like physicist David Bohm, who understands the leading fringes of science and can extrapolate those conclusions and apply them to the field of human potential.

The central insight of Francisco is that cognition is not a representation of the world “out there” but rather a “bringing forth of the world through the process of living itself.” In particular, as humans, the only world we can have is the one we also create together through our language and interactions. Even more important: this knowledge compels us to see that our world, our communities, our organizations will change only if we change.

Thankfully Joseph Jaworski had the opportunity to sit for eight hours and talk to Francisco about the science of predictable miracles and achieving dreams. What transpired are some of the finest pearls into our understanding of human potential. (If you have read Freedom’s Way you will see how these insights have been translated into the concept of what it means to be metacentered.) I have tried to share a few of these pearls below over the next couple of posts. Don’t be intimidated by the text, take the time to read each pearl, and to reflect on it. I think it will open you to new thought and insight. I have broken the pearls into separate headings to help digestion. For clarity each pearl should be read consecutively:

- All matter is constantly in motion and is insubstantial. The picture of a rock or a board or a human being as solid matter does not comport with reality. The notion that the world and our universe are made up of separate “things” is an illusion and leads to endless confusion.

- There is an emergent quality to the universe. You can have a group of simple components that suddenly act together “like an orchestra without a conductor” to give rise to something new, with quite different qualities. Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine demonstrated the capacity for certain chemical systems - called dissipative structures - to regenerate to higher levels of self-organization in response to environmental demands. These emergent properties have been found in fluid vortices, genetic networks, immune networks, neural networks, ecosystems, and social systems. All of these phenomena have one thing in common: in each case a network of interacting elements gives rise to the emergence of a new entity with completely new properties. If you try to pinpoint the ‘conductor,’ it is nowhere to be found. You cannot pinpoint it.

- Once you appreciate that the nature of our world, our universe, is nonsubstantial, yet exists, then you immediately open up to the possibility of change. There is an enormous opening for possibilities – possibilities to create and to change.

- Since the world is open – nonsubstantial - the question arises, How do human beings experience it? Unless we understand this, we cannot begin to understand how we interact with the world and how these “predictable miracles” occur. The fact is our language and our nervous system combine to constantly construct our environment. We can only see what we talk about, because we are speaking “blind,” beyond language. Language is like another set of eyes and hands for the nervous system, through which we co-ordinate actions with others. We exist in language. It is by language and recurrent actions or human practices that we create meaning together. This is what I call the enactive view of knowing the world; we lay it down as we walk on its path.

- The development of language was like the discovery of fire – it was such an incredible primordial force. We have always thought we used language to describe the world – now we can see that we create the world, because it is nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way, we don’t describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe.

While it may be trite, I can’t help but recall the Bible “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God ….” If we are worried, or in a place of fear, or perpetual stress, to what degree do we perpetuate that contorted world? Conversely, what would an alternate world look like if we could invoke a discipline or attitude or inner-craft to see potential and beauty everywhere – a beauty forever in the process of creation and re-creation - no matter how traumatic the event?

Next Post: How to translate these insights into your every daily life.

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A key skill for enabling your vision: detached creativity

2008-06-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

Today I want to refer to one of the most important skills for living – detachment to the means by which to achieve your dream.

Detachment is a hard skill to master; in fact it is so tricky it is more of an art than a skill. I’d like to share a quote with you that beautifully describes the mind-state or quality of detachment and emphasizes why it is important. The quote is from an outstanding book called Synchronicity by Joseph Jaworski. I like Joseph’s book particularly because he has lived everything that he writes about.

One of the cornerstones for making your dreams happen is what Joseph call’s “the creative orientation.” He says:

“It’s critical that you focus on the result and not get attached to any particular process for achieving the result. When we are in the process of creating something, we must have the flexibility of mind to move with what needs to be done. What allows this to happen is precisely the fact that we’re not attached to how things should be done. It’s a little bit like sailing. If you’re focused on your course rather than your destination, you’re in big trouble. If you were to be blown of course, you would never simply return to the course you were on. No one would sail that way. Rather, you would focus on the destination and set a new course. But that’s the way we live our lives. We get attached to our assumption about how things should be done, and we lose sight of what we’re trying to create.

There are actually two aspects to this cornerstone idea. The first part is the distinction between focusing on the intrinsic result we care about versus focusing on our assumptions about how we need to get there. And the second result is the orientation toward the result itself. Most people think of achieving a result in order to get something for ourselves. If we have a dream or a vision we are committed to, and if we look deeply into why we want this vision, we may answer “Well, if I have that vision, I’ll be happy.” Or “If I build this enterprise, I will be respected …. I will have made it as a manager … We will make a lot of money.” These are the ordinary responses to why we have a dream we want to fulfil. It’s actually very rare that people focus on what they want to create for its own sake. That’s the deeper territory around this principle of focusing on the result. Are we deeply committed to creating what we truly want for its own sake? Robert Frost once said “All great things are done for their own sake.” When we see our visions and our dreams this way, it’s a subtle but most profound shift. And it’s under these circumstances that the hidden hands” phenomenon begins to occur, and doors open for us that are beyond our imagination.”

Focusing on what we want to create for its own sake is a skill that is central to the yoga of action. It is also synonimous with the Mystic Christian path and the way of St Michael. Creating for its own sake is a skill of ancient heritage. Your aptitude for detached creativity comes with silent stillness a quality which is central to every religion and mystic art. The more you can silently still the more you will start creating with the ineffable pure force within you.

Joseph’s quote is well worth a regular re-read. Consider bookmarking this page, or sending this quote to yourself as an email and putting it in a “daily inspiration” folder in outlook or on your desktop. It will help you stayed anchored to your dream and detached to the means by which to achieve it.

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Why surrender?

2008-05-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

Parzival spent over ten years in the gap seeking out the Grail. During this time he was separated from his beloved, isolated from everything that was familiar, and eventually, he believed, forsaken by God. Finally in a state of spiritual exhaustion and mental calamity Parzival let go of the reigns of his horse. It was then that the Grail revealed itself.

Surrender doesn’t mean giving up, it means letting go. Parzival didn’t turn his horse around and head back to his beloved, even though he wanted to, nor did he abort his quest. He finally abandoned his limited knowledge and allowed a deeper meaning to carry him beyond the contained mind. Sometimes we have to let go of what we believe life to be and allow life to show us.

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Freedom’s Way - a new approach for remembering our dreams and making them happen

2008-04-30T06:58:00.001-07:00

I think every religion has been an attempt to pave a way for the people of the land to align their daily lives to an all informing field of pure intelligence and potentiality. I don’t believe the principles really change, only the manner in which they are related. Truth is one, says the Vedas, the Sages call it by many names.

I remember travelling back in 1995 across the foot of the Himalayas and coming across a column on which was engraved the eternal principles of each of the world’s religions. The column was standing on a cliff edge adjacent to the Ganges, which was roaring out of the mountain side. The column held a stirring truth against that majestic backdrop. For me this moment was an extraordinary one, which only now as I write, do I truly realize the inspiration it held for me. Each religion or world philosophy is a response to the times in which it is born. Jesus brought his truth forward in response to the environment of Israel, Muhammad, Arabia, and Siddhartha, India. Every time was one of spiritual unrest. Every time required a fresh angle which could revolutionize a person’s mind and allow a new knowledge to illuminate them. In all three times the people were thirsty for a fresh way of thinking and interacting with the world which would give them new vitality and freedom.

Today in our world, because of the pressure applied by globalization to the fusion of cultures and the dizzying acceleration of technological development, I believe it is a time more insistent than any other for not just tolerance, but a renewed quest for understanding and shared insight. Surely the best response to our times is for solidarity and alignment. I think there is also a third element to this new millennium’s call - the golden necessity, as Albert Einstein reminded us, to “not stop questioning.” I think our ability to question is a golden necessity because it is when we stop questioning that love can no longer extend itself, and our potential becomes a memory rather than an ideal. I believe the courage to question is imperative if a dream is to unfold.

With the golden necessity in my mind I left my career as a lawyer a number of years ago and wrote a book called Freedom’s Way, which I released as a first impression in India. I did this because India’s philosophy of unity spoke clearly to me, and it is a place where many of the world’s religions are cherished. For me it was a deeply symbolic moment. Afterward I travelled to other parts of the world to assemble a team with a group competence capable of creating a suite of tools which could help a person or organization, of any faith or culture, center their life, awaken their dream, and then actualize it. I believe these three steps are integral to life and the attainment of happiness. Furthermore, I think these three steps are biological needs not just altruistic or spiritual ones. The concept of balance and vision recur throughout the world, they are not just a modern ideal.

In Freedom’s Way I apply five empirical observations that articulate a simple but powerful way to open a life I believe every human being is entitled to:

(1) There is a field of pure intelligence and infinite potentiality of which we and all that is seen and unseen in the universe is a part.

(2) This field is a part of our daily lives. The ways that the field is felt is through our intuition, insight, inspiration and imagination. It is experienced during flow like moments and synchronicities. I call this personal relationship to the field: your metacenter.

(3) We can choose to co-ordinate ourselves to this field through every thought, feeling, and intention. We can allow ourselves to feel fully and learn to listen to our hurts and vulnerabilities, dreams and aspirations. The more we metacenter the more awakened we become.

(4) When our life is blooming through our heart – when we live a life which is aligned with our bliss – we are metacentered. Being metacentered does not necessarily mean that the vision is fully realized, nor does it mean that we don’t feel pain or fear, but that we are comfortable with where we are and that our lives are aligned with our intention to achieve our dream. Like a tree extending into the earth and expanding outward into the world we achieve greater self-knowledge and presence.

(5) As we metacenter we develop our personal meta-consciousness and the meta-consciousness of the world. We now know that the more you practice stillness exercises like meditation or yoga, the more adept your brain becomes to achieve metacenteredness. Your pre-frontal lobe and cortex literally increase in size, and the amygdale, which is associated with fear contracts. So the more we metacenter the more metacentered we become, and the more metacentered we become the more we give our dreams the right environment to flourish. We also now know that as we learn and master ourselves, we help the world to learn and master itself. The more you metacenter the better you get at it. The more you metacenter the better the world gets at it. The more the world metacenters the better you get at it. When you metacenter - the relationship you have to the world is mutually enriching.

My dream is to enable your quest and in so doing enable the quest of the world. One of the things that excites me about marrying the internet with the awakening and fulfillment of dreams is that our products can access the collective wisdom of the world and create something truly extraordinary and useful. The more people that use freedomsway.net the better it will become. Like any compelling dream it will take a life of its own. For me this is an exciting time to be alive and to see what we can create together as a global family.

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Revisiting The Road Less Travelled

2008-04-17T20:18:00.000-07:00

I know you have probably read Robert Frost’s poem countless times but like any luminous writing there is always something new to discover ...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

In the topsey-turveydom of city living it is easy to forget that every time we interact we have an opportunity to take a road less travelled. The ancient yogic concept of maya and Christ’s teachings in the Gospel of Thomas remind us that very rarely is life as it seems to be. That is the value of cultivating mindfulness – to see deeper into moments where we can discern beauty, and act from a deeper place of truth.

Every moment holds a forked road: we can elect to see the beauty in ourselves, and the truth in what we hold to be important and compelling. If we are with another, we can elect to look beyond the script and turn the conversation into a quest. Next time you have an argument, or you are feeling low, will you choose to be swayed by your anger or low confidence or will you choose to take the less travelled road?

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Feeling Worried or Scared?

2008-04-09T21:25:00.000-07:00

Over the last two weeks I have spoken to two very different kinds of people who have both had something in common. They are stepping out of their comfort zones in brave ways. One is stepping out of his comfort zone in his journey to love his partner fully. The other is ending a relationship, leaving her home town, and embarking on a new career. Both are scared, however both are excited and can feel the promise of what lies ahead. In both cases I decided to inspire them with an Arthurian myth, which has held enormous value in my own life. I thought you'd enjoy reading it. This myth was a favorite with the great mythologist Joseph Campbell who was the inspiration behind Star Wars.

A beautiful story is told about King Arthur and his knights called La Queste del Saint Graal or The Quest for the Holy Grail. Picture Camelot: perched, as some say, on a misty, rugged coastline on a remote cliff top called Tintagel, where the winter wind feels like splinters. The sun had all but sunk below the horizon and King Arthur and his knights were seated at the Round Table, preparing to drink and feast. As the wine was being poured and the knights were laughing, sharing tales of bravery, the flares suddenly dimmed, and despite the closed doors, a gentle breeze blew. Thunder cracked, intense light splintered the room, and out of nowhere appeared the Grail, covered by a delicate, satin cloth and carried, so the myth says, by angelic miracle. It emitted a gentle glow, and a heavenly fragrance floated through the room. The Grail levitated for a moment over the Round Table, holding the knights’ gaze. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it vanished.

King Arthur and his Knights were, understandably, ecstatic. Each sat deep in awe. But then Sir Gawain stood up and pointed out that the vessel had been veiled, and he said,

Before we drink, I propose that we each make a vow. I propose that we each go in search of the Grail and behold it unveiled, and that each of us enter the forest where he feels it darkest, and where there is no path.

That proposal stays with me still: where it is darkest and where there is no path. I have always envisioned each of the knights riding hard toward the forest, the clash of hooves, the spray of mud, then alone, at the last moment, each umbrellas out and punches the foliage, swallowed by the darkness.

A life worth striving for is never handed to us. It is an initiation. I relate to the dark forest as ourselves when we puncture our zone of safety propelled by the vision of who we can become and what we can create. By having the courage to enter into the darkest parts of our interior, we can emerge awakened and renewed. Your life is a quest, a modern day rite of passage.

Every time you feel scared or insecure, try to recall the message of this Grail myth.

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A good message

2008-03-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

When I was in Bombay my colleague gave me the following advice:

“A good message can always bear repetition.”

It is now four years later and I have seen Anthony's advice withstand the test of time, so I would like to convey to you a good message I heard recently and a profound experience, which occurred afterward.

As mentioned in my previous post I was recently on a retreat. During this retreat the conversation turned (quickly) to relationships, marriage, and the psychological conditioning that occurs through childhood. My friend Thierry, a Frenchman, shared an interesting point of view:

“Everyone,” he said, “is a victim of a victim.”

Now, I would encourage you to read this again. Don’t leap too soon into the field of judgment. Think about it. I did, and his words struck me profoundly.

A few days later I spent a couple of precious hours with my father and we talked about his childhood. For the first time he drew for me a map detailing where he grew up. I am thirty seven, so one could say it has taken some time to have this dialogue. He explained to me with a laugh how his parents, decent people trying to make it work in post-world war II Denmark, built a small sandpit, ten feet by ten feet, surrounded by a pinewood fence with a gate. He then, on further probing, told me that he and his brother were enclosed in it for up to several hours at a time. Now, unbeknown to his parents, the nanny was sleeping with the deputy manager of the sawmill next door, so their periods of enclosure were further extended to accommodate the nanny’s sleeping arrangements.

I then asked my father:

“Did you feel that you got the love you needed as a child?” to which he replied:

“I don’t know if, at that time, my parents were asking that question.”

He didn’t mean this resentfully, only that they were doing all they felt they could. At the end of this exchange, when I was waving my father good-bye, he gave me a hug, and it was a big hug. His story makes a lot of sense to me – it explains a lot. It also reminds me how important it is to stop, take a moment and truly ask and then truly listen.

How much do you know of your parent’s journey? Just perhaps there is a gateway ready to be opened…

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A key step to living our dreams

2008-03-23T22:59:00.001-07:00

I was at a retreat on the weekend with a couple of friends and the conversation got onto the topic of vision and extraordinary organizations. We talked about a quote which, according to Peter Senge, author of the Fifth Discipline, is relevant to people who want to evolve a company (and I’d add a relationship, family or even community) around a compelling vision or dream. The quote is from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, and it talks about the relationship between parent and child. Senge's research says that a successful visionary relates to their dream in the same way as a parent, as described in the Prophet, relates to their child:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life longing for itself.
They come through you, not from you.
And though they are with you, they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
But strive not to make like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And he bends you with his might that the arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies,
So he loves the bow that is stable.

Kahlil Gibran

This quote for me is profound because it represents a quality of mind which is not attached to the end result but rather a quality of mind which seeks to enable the goal. The whole idea of “owning the vision” seems almost antiquated when seen from this perspective. It is more a relationship of being a custodian of the vision. There is no role for possession, property or bull-headedness in seeing the vision fulfilled but rather a purposeful intent to serve the vision. Here the vision or dream is no longer an extension of our limited ego but rather something self-generating, which accommodates serendipity and collaboration.

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stillness

2008-03-15T08:19:00.001-07:00

I was thinking about how to start this blog off and naturally the answer fell into my lap this morning. I usually walk my office in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. One of the great joys of this walk is my approach to St Mary’s Cathedral which sits in the foreground of the cityscape. It is a striking sight. The cathedral provides an impressive contrast: the frenetic dynamism of the global economy juxtaposed with the stillness of time. The contrast to me is not a stark one but somehow complementary. I think harmony is always a dance between stillness and action. I always stop for a moment and sit in the cathedral and take some time to still, remember what is important and what I am working toward each day, and finally to remember the mystery and magic of life. Today I stopped to get my coffee and I struck up a conversation with the Maitre De a lovely middle aged lady. It is the Eve of Easter and somehow I mentioned to her that I had just been at the cathedral and I heard a tenor singing in latin, smelt the frankincense and took it all in. She said, “I have been here since 1952 and yet I only went into the cathedral for the first time three years ago and I couldn’t believe it – it was so beautiful.” I replied “yes, I am not catholic but I like to take in the stillness.” “Yes” she said, “I am not a Catholic either, but I get something special out of it.”

Stillness is a resource not exclusive to a church, ashram, temple or synagogue, however these places are like farms for it – they cultivate and harvest this quality and then make it available. These institutions are a lot closer in essence and quality than we may at first think – sometimes I think it is more accurate to feel a space than to look at it.

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