Good
day!
Welcome to the
newest week in all of our lives! We hope that
this new set of days gives you many opportunities to
love and to
cherish, to lift up and encourage, to give and to
take, to dream
wonderful dreams and to make those dreams reality!
As
a people, until the 1960s we didn't believe in
metaphysical laws or "universal principles" so
much as we believed in the one great Game Plan: If
you did "what was right." If you didn't
question "authority," your place in society, or
the status quo. If you didn't lie, swear, cheat, or
"drink to excess." If you worked long
hours and saved your money so that some day you could pass
it on to your children. If you were loyal to your
country, the company you worked for, the political party
of your family, and your alma mater. If you
performed your duties as a housewife or a
"provider." If you attended your house of
worship and tithed regularly. Then "everything
would work out" and at some point you would walk into
the sunset.
This
unquestioned approach to life extended even to one's
personal choice in car companies, the dress styles of the
day, and one's taste in music and movie stars. The
key was sticking to "the plan," which everyone
more or less understood and agreed on. As a culture,
we were surprisingly consistent in our adherence to this
approach. We told each other stories of the rewards
of people who "worked hard and lived by the
rules." We cherished examples of what happened
to those who didn't.
No
one felt a need to uncover the laws of love or
success because our society thought it already knew
"how to conduct yourself" in ways that
allowed one's life to work out. That it was
possible for life to work out and that
"everything adds up" was never questioned.
Then
along came the Vietnam War and doubt began pouring
into our cultural psyche. Within a remarkably
few years, we no longer believed in a single game
plan, and at the start of the twenty-first century
we have come close to assuming that acting counter
to "the way things are done" gives you a
better chance at happiness than walking "the
path most traveled." Now devotion can
turn you into a "caregiver"; your family
can "enable" you to fail; your children
can impede "your dreams"; your company,
your religion, and the political leaders you last
voted for can fail to "meet your
needs." You should feel free to
experiment with different "lifestyles" and
"exotic" forms of entertainment. You
should be open to switching friends and family
members as you are to changing your job, location,
or hairstyle.
Although
it was inevitable that we would begin to challenge
the cherished "strengths" of our society,
we have paid a heavy price for going beyond merely
questioning our values to obsessively undermining
them. We have focused so strongly on doubting
our former approach to life that doubt has become an
end in itself. Most of us find that we can no
longer look at anything without anxiety,
uncertainty, and cynicism. The average person
can't even sit down and eat a simple meal without
conflict.
Understandably,
we now long to know what can be counted on,
what the basic forces and facts are. If
the old way doesn't get us the life we want, what
will? We hunger to know the rules and we want
them spelled out and numbered.
Fortunately,
this will never happen. If it could, we would
be locked forever in an unfair and loveless reality.
After
thousands of years of looking for them, it should be
obvious there are no hidden laws. The world
simply is not governed by a philosophy, doctrine, or
set of rules. No one's life is predictable,
solvable, or even reasonable. Once we
acknowledge this, a great and totally unnecessary
burden is lifted from our shoulders.
Unquestionably,
many writers and teachers claim to have discovered
the laws of happiness and success. But no one
agrees on precisely what these are. It's also
curious that in our culture, it is close to being a
tradition that our religious and spiritual leaders
seldom practice what they preach, which raises the
following question: Do they really
believe they have discovered the laws of happiness
and success?
Why
would we even want such laws? Isn't it because
we think the key to change is to change the people
and circumstances around us? We insanely
believe that the key to peace is war. Yet as
soon as we try to control anything, we split our
mind and lose our sense of inner comfort. We
can change what we bring to the people and
circumstances surrounding us, but we can't dominate
them.
Perhaps
the only approach that comes remotely close to a
rule of life is that when you are relaxed and
flexible, you are happy; when you are rigid and
controlling, you are unhappy. Therefore, the
key is actually to let go of our urge to get
people to behave and events to go our way.
No
matter how experienced the psychologist, how learned
the theologian, how wise the philosopher, or how
holy the saint, none of them can control a
two-year-old. Who among us can even predict
the weather? As someone said to me recently,
"The next time you think there is some
situation you can control, try doing it when you
have diarrhea."
The
simple fact is that you and I don't control the
tiniest events of our lives. Despite repeated
New Year's resolutions, most members of the human
species can't even turn down a donut. Thus the
idea of controlling our partner, teenager, in-laws,
or supervisor is ludicrous.
It's
interesting that the great spiritual teachers of the
past did not control outcomes. Jesus couldn't
even get his disciples to stay awake for an
hour--although he tried twice! What made these
teachers great was that they devoted themselves to
the people before them wholly and constantly--even
though the results were disappointing. In
contrast, you and I have limited patience and
"can only do so much." If the
picture doesn't change, we bail out.
Most
people think they know the pieces that make up the
puzzle of their life. They believe that they
already have a few of them resting quietly in place,
and all they have to do is get the rest of them to
fit. However, even the ones that momentarily
fit are changing shape and soon will not fit, and to
those that float just out of reach, new ones are
forever being added. No one's life, including
the lives of the saints ad ascended masters, finally
gets ironed out and runs smoothly.
Jesus,
the Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and
Mother Teresa's approach to life is thought
by many to have come close to perfection. If
theirs was not a flawless, approach, certainly it
was about as good as it gets. Yet even their
lives often did not go well. If that is true
of individuals who by the end of their lives lived
impeccably, then nothing you or I do with our minds
or bodily habits can force our lives to run well.
We
have some
inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is
through the sale of books, either physical copies
or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the
online reader). All of the money that we earn
through them comes back to the site
in one way or another. Just click on the picture
to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and
non-fiction!
Life as we knew it is passing away, and something new
is emerging to take its place.
All of us are playing a part in a larger
transformative process, as each of us is being forced to
confront whatever it is we do, or even think, that keeps
love at bay. For as we block love's power to change our
own lives, we block its power to change the world.
Humanity is moving forward now, though in some ways
we are doing so kicking and screaming. Nature seems to
be saying to all of us, "Okay, it's time. No more
playing around. Become the person you were meant to
be."
We would like to, but it's hard. The problems of the
world today seem larger than they have ever been before,
making it easy to succumb to cynicism, fear,
hopelessness, and despair. Until, that is, we remember
who we are.
For who we really are is a power bigger than all our
problems, both personal and collective. And when we have
remembered who we are, our problems -- which are
literally nothing other than manifestations of our
forgetfulness -- will disappear.
Well that would be a miracle, you might say. And that
is precisely the point.
This book is about learning who we are, that we might
become agents of miraculous change. As we release the
fear-based thoughts we've been taught to think by a
frightened and frightening world, we see God's truth
revealed: that who we are at our core is love itself.
And miracles occur naturally as expressions of love.
It is said in Alcoholics Anonymous that every problem
comes bearing its own solution. And the gift being borne
by our current challenges is the opportunity to make a
large leap forward in the actualization of our own
potential. The only way the world can make a quantum
leap, from conflict and fear to peace and love, is if
that same quantum leap occurs within us. Then and only
then will we become the men and women capable of solving
the problems that plague us. As we leap into the zone of
our most authentic selves, we enter a realm of infinite
possibility.
Until we enter that zone, we are blocked, for God
cannot do for us what He cannot do through us. To say He
has the solutions to our problems is to say He has a
plan for the changes each of us needs to go through in
order to become the people through whom He can bring
forth those solutions. The most important factor in
determining what will happen in our world is what you
decide to let happen within you. Every circumstance --
no matter how painful -- is a gauntlet thrown down by
the universe, challenging us to become who we are
capable of being. Our task, for our own sakes and for
the sake of the entire world, is to do so.
Yet for us to become who we most deeply want to be,
we must look at who we are now -- even when what we see
doesn't please us. This moment is driving us to face
every issue we've ever avoided facing, compelling us to
get to some rock-bottom, essential truth about ourselves
whether we like what we see there or not.
And until we make that breakthrough in ourselves,
there will be no fundamental breakthrough in the world.
The world we see reflects the people we've become, and
if we do not like what we see in the world, we must face
what we don't like within ourselves. Having done so, we
will move through our personal darkness to the light
that lies beyond. We will embrace the light and extend
the light.
And as we change, the world will change with us.
We spend so much time on unimportant things -- things
with no ultimate meaning -- yet for reasons no one seems
to fully understand, such nonessentials stand at the
center of our worldly existence. They have no connection
to our souls whatsoever, yet they have attached
themselves to our material functioning. Like spiritual
parasites, they eat away our life force and deny us our
joy. The only way to rid ourselves of their pernicious
effects is to walk away ... not from things that need to
get done, but from thoughts that need to die.
Crossing the bridge to a better world begins with
crossing a bridge inside our minds, from the addictive
mental patterns of fear and separation, to enlightened
perceptions of unity and love. We're in the habit of
thinking fearfully, and it takes spiritual discipline to
turn that around in a world where love is more suspect
than fear.
To achieve a miraculous experience of life, we must
embrace a more spiritual perspective. Otherwise, we will
die one day without ever having known the real joy of
living. That joy emerges from the experience of our true
being -- when we detach from other people's projections
onto us, when we allow ourselves permission to dream our
greatest dreams, when we're willing to forgive ourselves
and others, when we're willing to remember that we were
born with one purpose: to love and be loved.
Anyone who looks at the state of the world today is
aware that something radically new is called for -- in
who we are as a species and in our relationship to each
other and our relationship to the earth itself. Yet the
psychological fundamentals that hold this dysfunctional
world in place are like sacred cows: we are afraid to
touch them, for fear something bad will happen to us if
we do. In fact, something bad will happen to us if we do
not. It is time to change. It is time to do what we know
in our hearts we were born to do.
We are here to participate in a glorious subversion
of the world's dominant, fear-based thought forms.
There are only two core emotions: love and fear. And
love is to fear as light is to darkness: in the presence
of one, the other disappears. . . .
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
The true end of education is not only
to make the
young learned,
but to make them love learning;
not only to make them industrious,
but to make them love industry;
not only to make them virtuous,
but to make them love virtue;
not only to make them just,
but to make them hunger and thirst after
justice.
"Simplicity,
simplicity, simplicity!" wrote Thoreau. "I say let
your affairs be as one, two, three and not as a hundred or a
thousand."
The art of
simplicity is simply to simplify. . .
Simplicity
avoids the superficial, penetrates the complex, goes to the heart
of the problem and pinpoints key factors.
Simplicity
does not beat around the bush. It does not take winding
detours. It follows a straight line to the objective.
Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points.
Simplicity
does not elucidate the obscure, it emphasizes the obvious.
Simplicity
solves problems. Listen to the testimony of Charles
Kettering, a genius of modern research: "The problem
when solved will be simple."
Simplicity
discovers great ideas; a swinging cathedral lamp inspired the
pendulum, watching a tea kettle led to the steam engine, and a
falling apple revealed the law of gravitation.
Simplicity
is the mark of greatness. "To be simple is to be
great," wrote Emerson. Only little people pretend; big
people are genuine and sincere.
Simplicity
has given all the big things little names: dawn, day hope,
love, home, peace, life, death.
Simplicity
is eloquent: it is the Twenty-third Psalm and the Gettysburg
address.
Simplicity
uses little words. It practices the wisdom of Lincoln, who
said, "make it so simple a child will understand; then no one
will misunderstand."
Simplicity
deepens life. It magnifies the simple virtues on which
people's survival depends: humility, faith, courage,
serenity, honesty, patience, justice, tolerance, thrift.
Solitude
can become your most
meaningful companion and it can
assist you in
being a more giving
person in your spiritual partnerships.
Rather than regarding your partner's
need for time alone as a
threat,
see it as a time of renewal that you celebrate. Make
every effort to
help each other have that space.
Treat that
space as sacred.
How many of us get up in the morning feeling truly
grateful for the day? Most of us wish we could turn the
clock back and keep sleeping. The truth is, when you are
happy to wake up and are grateful for the day, your life does
change.
Each new day is an opportunity to pray for your loved
ones and to act in a loving manner towards them. I start out
by saying my prayer of thanks and asking for guidance and help
from all available resources. I find I am always grateful
for the new day, no matter how hard it is or will be, because I
know I am not ready for my days to end. After all, the
alternative to waking up and facing another difficult day is
death. For all I know, after death the unenlightened may be
sent back to wake up to the glory of the new day and its
opportunities.
I want to experience more days and the difficulties
and opportunities they will bring. I want the chance to test
myself. Maybe this makes me a glutton for punishment, but if
I can help one living thing get through the day and not hurt
anyone else in the process, I go to sleep thankful for the time I
have been given and eager to awaken to tomorrow.
You can
search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more
deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person
is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody
in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
the Buddha
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
™
