Follow Your Passion, Success Will Follow You

If every day you go to someone else’s establishment, work on their schedule, do everything they say, and make money for them, then I’m sorry to bear bad news, but you might be a slave.  If you often awake to an alarm clock smothering your dreams to death with a pillow then you very well might be a slave.  If you went into debt so you could spend the best years of your life qualifying for a piece of paper to qualify for a salary-wage job, then you’re likely a slave.  Even if you work in a fancy high-rise building, a compartmentalized neck-tie drone in some sociopathic hierarchy, you might still just be an office slave, an expendable rung on the corporate ladder.

No matter how attractive the position, whenever you work for someone else, your financial means of subsistence, your ability to provide food, water, and shelter for your family, is completely in the hands of another person.  Regardless of pension promises or signed contracts, the real fact of the matter is there is no “job security” in working for someone else.  If at any time for any reason the boss has a problem with you, the market goes south, your contract’s over, the clientele fades, the account goes red, or the business goes belly-up, then you’re high and dry on your way to becoming an unemployment statistic.  Tenures get overturned, pensions get sucked away, and promises of rich retirements are rarely worth the wait.  Real job security and financial freedom means owning your own business (and refusing to pay any taxes, fees or fines from the mafia government that wants to keep you their slave).

The only true success that exists is when we find a way to make a living doing exactly what we want.  When you wake up every morning and create your day exactly how you dream it to be, that is success.  When your passion and your work are aligned, when you would do your job for free because you like it so much, that is success.  The root of “work” and “worship” are the same, and if you’re living your dreams aligned with your passions, doing what you were placed here on Earth to do, then your work really is like your worship, your service to the world.

Slave jobs are great for when you need quick reliable short-term income to get back on your feet or gather start-up capital for your next venture, but remaining someone’s slave for too long, even high-paid lap-dogs will eventually wish to leave their master. No matter how attractive the position, whenever you work for someone else, you will always be selling your time wholesale to someone who is profiting from you retail.  No boss can afford to pay any employee the amount of money which that employee brings to the company, as that would cause the business to bankrupt.  The only way to run a profitable business is to pay employees less than they're worth, usually far less.  So if you are working for someone else, your financial stability is completely in their hands, and it is guaranteed that they are paying you less than you are worth.

You can’t just up and quit your slave job without some serious planning and hard work though.  There are several steps that all wage slaves must take before riding the entrepreneurial underground railroad to financial freedom. 

The first step to quitting your slave job and manifesting your dream lifestyle is getting a clear picture of your life’s purpose.  What were you born to do?  What makes you happy?  What is your true passion?  What would you like to spend your days doing?  If money wasn’t an issue, what would you do with your life?  Once the answers to those questions form a clear image in your head, step two is imagining and creating a product or service aligned with your purpose.  For instance, if your absolute favorite thing in life is skateboarding, always has been and always will be, it makes you happy and it’s your favorite way to spend your time, then your step one is simple and complete.  Your step two would be deciding what marketable aspect of your passion appeals most to you.  Would you like to open a skate shop?  Would you like to manufacture skateboards?  Would you like to design them?  Would you like to teach skating?  Would you like to make skating videos or start a skating magazine?  How would you most like to express your passion and how can you use it to enrich, inspire, empower and add value to others?

Once your vision is clear, step three is to get free of all debt.  If you quit your slave job but still owe debts to the bank or anyone else, then you are no less of a slave.  So it is crucial that you pay off all your debts (and don’t take on any more!)  To pay off your debts, you must make sure your monthly expenditures always remain lower than your monthly slave income.  If your expenditures are too high you must find ways to thriftily cut corners so that you can always stay in the black.  Calculate your slave salary minus your monthly expenses equals the amount you can put away each month towards your debt.  Also note that if you are able to pay ahead on the principle (and not just the monthly minimum) you can exponentially cut down the total interest due. 

Once you are debt free, step four is to take the difference between your slave salary and your monthly expenditures and start saving it!  You will need to save up enough money to cover two important costs:  the start-up expenses for your entrepreneurial venture, and a savings safety net to fall back on.  To calculate your start-up costs add up all the expenses you will need to create and get your product or service on the market.  This includes things like materials, advertizing, transportation, consultations, shipping, rentals, any and all potential expenses necessary to start your venture.  Beyond this you will also need a savings safety net, enough money to cover your living expenses for several months kept away as an emergency fund in case any unexpected problems arise (which they will).  Calculate your average monthly living expenses and save at least 3-12 times that for use if you’re ever having trouble living off your business’ income alone.

While in the saving phase, now is the time to start your business.  If you quit your job first then try to start your venture, it will likely fail to bring in enough reliable income to sustain you, since building a reliable, sustainable income usually takes time.  So you will essentially have to work two jobs for a while; your slave job from 9-5, and your dream job from 5-9 (and make sure to get enough sleep in there somewhere).  If your business sells a product then you will need to start manufacturing, advertizing, and making sales whenever possible in your down-time.  If your business sells a service you will need to refine, advertize and start providing your service on nights and weekends (or whenever you are free).  This process of promotion and building a loyal customer base could feasibly take anywhere from a couple months to a couple years. 

Advertizing and self-promotion is usually the most difficult, most time and money-consuming part of growing a successful business, but it is also the most important, because without finding some reliable and effective advertizing methods, you will never secure a stable customer base.  Once word spreads and repeat sales start coming in, the final step to financial freedom is growing the monthly income from your business until it exceeds your monthly living expenses.  When you’re making all the money you need to sustain yourself from your own business then you’re ready!  It’s time to quit your slave job and live your dream life! 

Life is too beautiful to waste living for someone else.  Work and play are too important to be separated.  If you love your job so much that you would do it for free then you are certainly on the right path, but anything less than that is selling yourself short.  When people say “there just aren’t enough good jobs,” or when governments and corporations act like they’re economic saviors by “creating jobs” for us, I can’t help but laugh at the fact that there are, have always been, and always will be just as many “jobs” as there are people on the planet!  If you have two functioning arms and half a brain then there will always be work that you can do.  What the governments and corporations won’t tell you is that it’s up to you to create your own job, find your own niche passion, add value to the market, and that’s the reality of “job creation.”  Being “employed” means being a slave, so don’t worry about the ever-rising “unemployment rate.”  In a perfect world every single person would be unemployed (and unemployable!) because they are already making an income doing exactly the work that they worship.

The Human Energy Body

During the 1990s three independent scientific studies brought to light the importance of DNA and emotions in creating quantum reality. The first major study performed by Vladimir Poponin and Peter Gariaev at the Russian Academy of Science was deemed the “Phantom DNA Experiment” and yielded some fascinating results. First they created a vacuum in a specially designed test tube, and then measured the location of light photons inside to see if they were clumped at the bottom, clung to the sides, or dispersed all throughout.  As expected, the photons were scattered randomly throughout the tube.  When a strand of DNA was placed in the tube, however, the particles acted as if drawn by an invisible force and spontaneously arranged themselves around the DNA strand!  Even stranger, when the DNA was removed from the tube, the particles stayed in exactly the same shape.  This is notable because nothing in conventional physics allows for such an effect, yet now we have observable documented proof that DNA, the substance that composes us, can have a direct and powerful effect on the quantum world around us.

“This experiment is important for a number of reasons.  Perhaps the most obvious is that it clearly shows us a direct relationship between DNA and the energy that our world is made of.  Of the many conclusions that we may draw from this powerful demonstration, two are certain:  1. A type of energy exists that has previously gone unrecognized.  2. Cells/DNA influence matter through this form of energy.  Produced under the rigid control of laboratory conditions, evidence arose of the powerful relationship that ancient traditions have held sacred for centuries.  The DNA changed the behavior of the light particles – the essence of our world.  Just as our most cherished traditions and spiritual texts have informed us for so long, the experiment validated that we have a direct effect on the world around us.  Beyond wishful thinking and New Age isms, this impact is real.  The DNA phantom effect shows us that under the right conditions and with proper equipment, this relationship can be documented.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (45-6)

Around the same time Poponin and Gariaev recorded their Phantom DNA findings, similar experiments were being conducted by the U.S. Army testing the power of emotion on DNA and living cells.  They hooked volunteers up to specially designed electrometers then played series’ of graphic video images (from comedy to torture to erotica) designed to create genuine states of feeling in order to collect a broad spectrum of emotional fluctuation.  Just as expected, peaks and dips in volunteers’ electrical responses coincided perfectly with changes in emotional stimuli. The big surprise came during the next phase in which they took tissue/DNA swabs from the volunteers, placed them in a vault several hundred feet away, and repeated the experiment.  Strangely enough, the tissue/DNA samples locked hundreds of feet away still registered the same electrical peaks and dips coincident with the donor’s response to emotional video clips. 

“For the DNA and the donor to have any connection whatsoever, there must be something that links them together.  The experiment suggests four things: A previously unrecognized form of energy exists between living tissues; Cells and DNA communicate through this field of energy; Human emotion has a direct influence on living DNA; Distance appears to be of no consequence with regard to the effect.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (49-50)

Dr. Cleve Backster more recently performed this experiment with a distance of 350 miles between the donor and his cells.  Even at this extreme distance, in experiments gauged by an atomic clock, the donor and his cells still responded absolutely identically, simultaneously!  The fact that a donor and his DNA 350 miles away have such coincident responses suggests that the energy of the donor’s emotions doesn’t “travel” anywhere but is already everywhere, as demonstrated by Bohm’s holographic universe metaphor.  This experiment also grants credence to such practices as prayer and energy healing, showing that emotion and intention can produce measurable physiological results at any distance.

“We’ve been conditioned to believe that the state of the DNA in our body is a given.  Contemporary thinking suggests that it’s a fixed quantity – we ‘get what we get’ when we’re born – and with the exception of drugs, chemicals, and electrical fields, our DNA doesn’t change in response to anything that we can do in our lives.  But this experiment shows us that nothing could be further from the truth … There’s absolutely nothing in conventional wisdom that allows for the material of life in our bodies to have any effect whatsoever on our outer world.  And there’s also nothing to suggest that human emotion can in any way affect DNA when it’s inside the body of its owner, let alone when it’s hundreds of miles away.  Yet this is precisely what the results are showing us.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (52)

The third relevant study conducted around this time was performed at the Institute of HeartMath in Northern California.  Scientists began by isolating human DNA in glass beakers then exposed them to “coherent emotion” which is an intentionally created physiological state achieved by practicing specially designed mental/emotional self-management techniques such as meditation and deep breathing.  Volunteers trained in applying coherent emotion directed it towards the glass beakers and actually succeeded in changing both the physical and chemical structures of the DNA!  Different directed intentions produced varying effects on the DNA molecules causing them to wind or unwind, change shape or even separate atomic/chemical components.

“In the first experiment, Poponin showed us that human DNA has a direct effect on the vibration of light.  In the second – the military experiment – we learned that whether we’re in the same room with our DNA or separated by distances of hundreds of miles, we’re still connected to its molecules, and the effect is the same.  In the third experiment, the HeartMath researchers showed us that human emotion has a direct effect on DNA, which in turn directly impacts the stuff our world is made of.  This is the beginning of a technology – an inner technology – that does more than simply tell us we can have an effect on our bodies and our world … it shows us that this effect exists and how it works!”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (53)

In further studies The HeartMath Institute found that our hearts actually have the strongest magnetic field in the body and that field has an effect well beyond our own bodies.  When we feel love or joy the heart’s magnetic field relaxes and unwinds DNA, but when we feel anger or frustration it tightens and winds up.  Furthermore, when tested for immune response, researchers found the relaxed DNA performed far more proficiently than the control group while the tightened DNA performed far worse.  This proves scientifically that positive/negative emotions alter both our DNA and our immune systems, which means our emotional states are significant contributing factors in our physical health and wellness.

“If you are someone who thinks sad, angry or negative thoughts most of the day, you are weakening your immune system. The chemicals in your body which fight off infection can be clinically shown to decrease.”  -Cathy Chapman, Ph.D. “Strengthening the Immune System”

“All these experiments suggest two similar conclusions, which are the crux of this book: 1) There is something ‘out there’: the matrix of an energy that connects any one thing with everything else in the universe.  This connective field accounts for the unexpected results of the experiments.  2) The DNA in our bodies gives us access to the energy that connects our universe, and emotion is the key to tapping in to the field.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (53)

“When quantum physics was first becoming accepted as the mechanisms by which the universe operates, the physicists had trouble with this themselves. They could say, ‘Well, I can see these ideas working at the level of atoms and molecules but I can’t bring that kind of weirdness into my life.’ So there was an arbitrary decision back in the 1920s to say, ‘Let’s restrict quantum mechanics to the world of atoms and molecules and use Newtonian physics to describe the rest of the world.’ That is why biology went on its merry way using Newtonian physics. Yet we are today beginning to see work by very reputable scientists that says the universe is created by our observations; we create the field and the field shapes the particle. The big lesson is that what you think or ask for is what you are going to get. It is not a coincidence; we are actively involved in physically shaping the world that we experience.”  -Dr. Bruce Lipton, “How Your Beliefs Control Your Biology”

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The Four Pillars of Dharma

Four Dharmic ideals which I constantly strive to embody, embrace and express are Truth, Freedom, Peace, and Love.  I think of these four ideals as the immutable pillar stones necessary for an impeccable moral foundation.  Morality and Dharma are on the decline in our current age (Kali Yuga) and the only way to change and improve things externally is to change and improve ourselves internally.  To manifest the ideals of Truth, Freedom, Peace and Love, first we must stop manifesting Lies, Enslavement, Violence, and Fear.

Lies are broadcast daily from our governments, mainstream media, big pharma, the public education system, pundits, politicians, lawyers, actors, and advertisers all making a living from lying.  To take our power back from the liars we must be devoted 100% to honesty and integrity in our own lives.  We must make a 24/7 habit of absolute sincerity, standing strong in our truth, striving to express as eloquently and articulately the truth as we know it.  We must refuse to believe the lies and help to expose the liars.  Refuse the temptation to lie to make our lives easier and never cheat on our spouses / partners because that is a form of lying too.  We must refuse the notion that some lies are acceptable because "the truth would hurt" too much.  If there is ever to be an actual "Truth Movement" it can only happen through radical, unconditional honesty and integrity.

Slavery is practiced by governments, corporations, banks, private prisons, insurance companies, factory farms, bankers, politicians and lawyers who all make a living from enslavement.  To take our power back from the slave drivers we must be 100% free and sovereign in our own lives.  We must quit our wage slave jobs, stop paying taxes, stop obeying unlawful legislations, get free of debt, learn self-defense, acquire tangible assets, get off the grid, grow our own food, create our own jobs, become entrepreneurs and freemen on the land, start our own interest-free banks and local currencies.  We must completely refuse to be enslaved, refuse to enslave others, and help one another achieve true freedom.

Violence is practiced by governments, corporations, militaries, police forces, private security, prisons, gangsters, mafias, mercenaries, factory farmers and butchers all making a living from violence.  To take our power back from the bullies we must be 100% peaceful in our interactions.  We must refuse to be employed as a soldiers, police or mercenaries.  We must end the animal holocaust.  We must stop domestic abuse and practice peaceful parenting.  We should never hit, harm or even raise our voices to others, especially our friends and family.  All interactions between parents, children, siblings, friends, and strangers alike should be free of all force; even passive-aggression is still aggression which we must personally refuse to manifest.

Fear is employed by governments, corporations, militaries, police, banks, insurance companies, factory farms, mafias, private prisons, politicians, and lawyers who all make a living off victims of fear.  To take our power back from the fear-mongers we must practice unconditional love.  As Jesus, John Lennon and many-a-martyr will agree, no one word, no one concept is so powerful and unifying as Love.  Love is the main immutable pillar for a truly moral foundation.  If you have developed true unconditional love, then you already have the other three pillars of Truth, Freedom and Peace as well, because love is certainly honest, free and peaceful.  Cheating or lying is not true love.  "Loving" a bird enslaved in a tiny cage is not truly loving the bird.  And forceful or "violent love" cannot be called true love at all, in fact it's called rape or domestic abuse.

So before saying or doing anything, remember the four pillars:  Is it true?  Does it promote freedom?  Is it peaceful?  And is it loving?  Or if you're short on time just check the fourth:  Is this a loving thing to say?  Is this a loving thing to do?  Adhere to these and we will be on the Dharma fast-track through morality to another golden age.  All we need is Love.

Practicing the Highest Compassion

Thanks to Druv for sending me this excellent video from Dharma Central elucidating the true meaning of compassion/love, and the Asuric demonic psychopaths who lack these genuine emotions.

The Search For Beauty

Thanks to Edelweiss Pirate for writing the following article. I have felt many of the things he pointed out here, but haven't been able to put them into thought/words so eloquently:

The search for beauty is the preoccupation of every human and living creature in this material world. We search for beauty outside of ourselves for what is within we fail to appreciate and generally take for granted. It seems for most of us, that we must seek personal happiness and validation outside of ourselves. And so we venture further into materialism and further from the source of personal wisdom. We can never ‘know’ another person as we know ourselves. We can never achieve wisdom from another person because knowledge and awareness lies within our own consciousness. Some of us corrupt what is within, due to a lack of insight or personal damage of some kind, and what is within themselves appears rank and poisoned and the inner beauty is lost.

So we project our love and desire outside of ourselves, like plants reaching their leaves to the sun, we hope to find sustenance and a purpose for living in someone else.

This makes no sense spiritually because the person in whom you are trying to find this beauty is also looking for the same thing in you, yet the fact that both of you are looking for something which you lack, in someone else, means neither of you possess what you are searching for, because if you did you wouldn’t have to look for it in others.

Superficially, women are attractive and men are handsome, yet this only appears to be the beauty they are searching for, but it is only a configuration of physicality, it is more materialism. It has no deeper meaning and is only a cipher for beauty but not the real thing. The attractiveness and charm which some see in others is often enough to make them love them, but rarely is it enough to make the person possessing these qualities love themselves to the point of self completion.

The person having the qualities of attractiveness or charm knows that these things are not the real person they are, yet they seem sufficient to make the other person love them. These things are merely tools to enable the person to obtain emotional, sensual, material or financial security. But love is the dream, but it comes from within the self. Why is another person needed to produce a feeling which originates within the self. What is love?

Love is a form of attention. Love takes the attention from ones own personal inner problems and gives one something to focus on outside of the self. But what happens when attention goes outward? The material world expands and grows as the all knowing inner being reaches out into the void. The reality is short lived because true love requires timeless understanding and a still mind. Within a human relationship these things are unobtainable in this world which by definition is constantly in flux and full of a thousand distractions. There are financial pressures, communication failures, misunderstandings. It is easier to find love in yourself and keep it there than it is to search for it in someone by reaching across the void to another consciousness. Why reach across the void at all?

So we all reach out of ourselves because we feel dissatisfied with our own inner beings, and we seek to expand our inner light into the darkened void. The consequence of this is human reproduction, which is actually a form of entropy, or widening chaos. Materially, having children is natural, from a spiritual perspective however it is not.

Reproduction is the consequence of our failure to find God, it is a consequence of a spiritual hunger for completeness which we think the material world can solve for us. But it cannot, it can only offer the temporary excitement of desire followed by a slow loss of the self at the expense of assuming a role as head of a family.

We fracture and divide ourselves. And so from the original harmony we have ‘difference’, we have tribalism, peoples, nations, conflicts, wars which are inevitable when different universes occupy the same world. Reproduction is shattering the hologram into a thousand more holograms. Marriages are not easy and often fail because eventually we realise that we can never really find love outside of ourselves, except as a kind of dozing domesticity, but if we really look into ourselves we will realise that what we were looking for was inside us all along.

Dan the Man with the Master Plan for Peace

Dan McDonald is a raw vegan man on a mission trying to bring the message of fruits, vegetables and love to the world. In these great videos above Dan "the man with the master plan" talks about how to bring about true, lasting inner-peace.

Breaking the Illusion of Limitation

“I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.” -Helen Keller

“Our demons are our own limitations, which shut us off from the realization of the ubiquity of the spirit. Each of these demons is conquered in a vision quest.” -Joseph Campbell

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” -Patanjali

Thousand-Hand Guan Yin

As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart
A thousand hands will naturally come to your aid
As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart
You will reach out with a thousand hands to help others

Leija and Felipe

Leija Turunen and Felipe Sparx both had their own very interesting YouTube channels about raw food, vegetarianism, energy healing, spirituality etc. when they happened across each others' material February, 2010. After getting to know each other through videos and emails for a couple months, they met, fell madly in love, and on August 4th, 2010 got married. Now they make beautiful videos together under their new channel, The Schmoopies2012. I recommend subscribing to all of their channels for some great inspirational and positive videos.

Lion Luvin

I love to see people showing love and respect for all living creatures. Animals know that us despotic humans need more hugs and cuddling, but they're usually so put off by our lack of compassion that they'd rather just keep their distance.

A Short Story of Love, Tragedy, and Forgiveness

This is a great video reminder to be mindful, peaceful, compassionate, forgiving, and unconditionally loving at all times.

A Short Love Story in Stop Motion

Here's a great clip from Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio show put to video an awesome segment about love, living a life that matters, and dying a noble death.

Forgiving Yourself and Others

Here are some great videos by Rich2150x demonstrating in real-time an example of forgiving self and others. Think of what needs to be forgiven and keep re-wording it until it makes you laugh. Laughter is the release necessary for true forgiveness to take place - anything less is mere platitude. Also check out this great forgiveness video by Dan the Man.

The Way of the Superior Man

Thanks to Yolanda for sending me this excellent free ebook, "The Way of the Superior Man" by David Deida. This book has really opened my eyes to many important truths about relationships, spirituality, masculinity/femininity, and love. Even though it's called "The Way of the Superior Man," I highly recommend it for both men and women, as the wisdom transcends gender. Click the link above or have a look at some of my favorite quotes below. This post is dedicated to my #1 fan for 18 months :D Love you

"This book is a guide for a specific kind of newly evolving man. This man is unabashedly masculine—he is purposeful, confident, and directed, living his chosen way of life with deep integrity and humor—and he is sensitive, spontaneous, and spiritually alive, with a heart-commitment to discovering and living his deepest truth. This kind of man is totally turned on by the feminine. He loves to take his woman sexually, to ravish her, but not in some old-style macho fashion. Rather, he wants to ravish her with so much love she is vanished, they both vanish, in the fullness of loving itself. He is dedicated to incarnating love on this earth, through his work and his sexuality, and he does so as a free man, bound neither by outer convention nor inner cowardice. This newly evolving man is not a scared bully, posturing like some King Kong in charge of the universe. Nor is he a new age wimp, all spineless, smiley, and starry-eyed. He has embraced both his inner masculine and feminine, and he no longer holds onto either of them. He doesn't need to be right all the time, nor does he need to be always safe, cooperative, and sharing, like an androgynous Mr. Nice Guy. He simply lives from his deepest core, fearlessly giving his gifts, feeling through the fleeting moment into the openness of existence, totally committed to magnifying love ... It is time to evolve beyond the macho jerk ideal, all spine and no heart. It is also time to evolve beyond the sensitive and caring wimp ideal, all heart and no spine. Heart and spine must be united in a single man, and then gone beyond in the fullest expression of love and consciousness possible, which requires a deep relaxation into the infinite openness of this present moment. And this takes a new kind of guts. This is the Way of the Superior Man." -David Deida, "The Way of the Superior Man" (Intro)

"If a woman suggests something that changes a man's perspective, then he should make a new decision based on his new perspective. But he should never betray his own deepest knowledge and intuition in order to please his woman or "go along" with her. Both she and he will be weakened by such an action. They will grow to resent each other, and the crust of accumulated inauthenticity will burden their love, as well as their capacity for free action. You should always listen to your woman, and then make your own decision. If you choose to go with your woman's suggestion even when deep in your heart you feel that another decision is more wise, you are, in effect, saying, "I don't trust my own wisdom." You are weakening yourself by telling yourself this. You are weakening your woman's trust in you: why should she trust your wisdom if you don't? When you deny your deep truth to please your woman, everyone will feel your lack of authenticity. They will sense that your false smile hides an inner division. Your friends, children, and business colleagues may love you, but they won't trust you, since you don't trust your own core intent. And, more importantly, your own sense of inauthenticity will burden your capacity to act with clarity. Your actions won't jibe with your core. However, if you listen to your woman, taking everything she says into account and making your own best decision, then you are acting in accordance with your core. You are saying, in effect, "My deepest wisdom is leading me to this decision. If I amwrong, I will learn from it, and my wisdom will have deepened. I'm willing to be wrong, and grow from it. I trust this process of acting from my deepest wisdom." This attitude of self-trust engenders others' trust in you. You may be wrong, but you are willing to find out, and thus grow from the experience. You are open to listening to others, but in the end, you will take the responsibility for making your own decision. There is nobody else to blame. However, if you give up your real decision to follow your woman's, then you will blame her for being wrong if she is wrong, and you will feel disempowered if she is right, having denied yourself the opportunity to act from your core and grow from your mistakes. Be open to changing your feeling based on whatever your woman might reveal to you—through her words or her body language—and then make your own decision, based on your deepest intuitive wisdom and knowledge. You may make the right decision or the wrong one, but whatever happens, it is your best shot, and you will strengthen your capacity for future action." (15-17)

"A woman often seems to test her man's capacity to remain unperturbed in his truth and purpose. She tests him to feel his freedom and depth of love, to know that he is trustable. Her tests may come in the form of complaining, challenging him, changing her mind, doubting him, distracting him, or even undermining his purpose in a subtle or not so subtle way. A man should never think his woman's testing is going to end and his life will get easier. Rather, he should appreciate that she does these things to feel his strength, integrity, and openness. Her desire is for his deepest truth and love. As he grows, so will her testing." (47)

"Every moment of your life is either a test or a celebration. The same is true about every moment with your woman, only doubly so. Not only is her simple existence a test for you, but one of her deepest pleasures in intimacy is testing you, and then feeling you are not moved off course by her challenge. The most erotic moment for a woman is feeling that you are Shiva, the divine masculine: imperturbable, totally loving, fully present, and all-pervading. She cannot move you, because you already are what you are, with or without her. She cannot scare you away, because you already penetrate her in fearless love, pervading her heart and body. She cannot distract you, because your one-pointed commitment to truth will not bend to her wiles. Feeling this hugeness of love and freedom in you, she can trust you, utterly, and surrender her testing in celebration of love. Until she wants to feel you as Shiva again. And then the testing will begin anew. In fact, it is precisely when you are most Shiva-like that she will most test you. Perhaps you have been working toward some financial goal, and finally you have succeeded. After months or years of effort, you have creatively earned a large amount of money. You feel happy, full, successful. You feel great. You come home to your woman and want to share the news with her.

"I just made a million dollars today."

"That's nice."

"That's nice!!?? You know how hard I've been working for this."

"I know. It feels like I haven't seen you in months. Did you remember to pick up the milk on the way home?"

"Oh, sorry. I forgot. But who cares? We could buy a dairy farm now!"

"I asked you to pick up the milk three times this morning, and I put a note on your briefcase. How could you forget?"

"I said I'm sorry. Look, I'll go get the damn milk...."

Why is she being this way? Because she simply wants to deflate your success? No. She is challenging you because your success doesn't mean shit to her, unless you are free and loving. And if you are free and loving, nothing she says can collapse you. She wants to feel you are uncollapsable, so she pokes you in your weak spot. Of course she knows how much this moment of success means to you. This is precisely why she is negating it. Not because she wants to hurt you. But because she wants to feel Shiva. She wants to feel your strength. She wants to feel that your happiness is not dependent on her response, nor on you making a million dollars. She wants to feel you are a superior man." (47-49)

"Keeping your word" is a masculine trait, in men or women. A person with a feminine essence may not keep her word, yet it is not exactly "lying" In the feminine reality, words and facts take a second place to emotions and the shifting moods of relationship. When she says, "I hate you," or "I'll never move to Texas," or "I don't want to go to the movies," it is often more a reflection of a transient feeling-wave than a well considered stance with respect to events and experience. On the other hand, the masculine means what it says. A man's word is his honor. The feminine says what it feels. A woman's word is her true expression in the moment… Whenever you are surprised by your woman's actions, and you say to her, "But you said...," you are forgetting that she has a feminine essence. What your woman says is like a cloud passing in the sky: well-formed, coherent, and unrecognizable moments later. The cloud is an expression of the precise physics of water, wind, and air. Your woman's words are expressions of the physics of her feelings, your relationship, and the nuances of the present situation, seen and unseen. A moment later, these factors will change, and so will your woman's expressions. You might ask her, "Do you want to go to the movies?"

She might reply, "Not really."

Then you hug her and spin her around and say, "Let's go to the movies!"

And she says, "OK!"

She is not talking about her desire to go to the movies. She is talking about the feeling of your relationship in the present moment. If after she said she didn't want to go to the movies, you said fine and sat down to watch TV, you would be missing the point. She is not really saying she doesn't want to go to the movies, even though that is what she's saying. This is not lying. For a man, or for anyone speaking in the masculine style, to say something that is not true is lying. But, for the feminine, truth is a thin concept compared to the thickness of her flow of feelings. The "truth" of the feminine is whatever she is really feeling, in this present moment." (56)

"When a woman gets emotionally intense, a mediocre man wants to calm her down and discuss it, or leave and come back later when she is "sane." A superior man penetrates her mood with imperturbable love and unwavering consciousness. If she still refuses to live more fully in love, after a time, he lets her go. If you are like most men, you probably aren't too fond of feminine bad moods and hysterical emotions. You may find yourself wondering, why is she so complicated? What's her problem? You may find yourself saying, "Just calm down and take it easy." The feminine bad mood is so foreign and dark to you that you may actually find it somewhat repulsive. And when your woman really goes wild, a part of you is afraid of the damage she might do. Her emotions are so much more wild and less predictable than yours that you'd rather not be around them. Basically, most men are afraid of, or disgusted by, feminine emotions. That's why you try to fix them or escape from them. "I'll come back later when you can act like a reasonable human being," you might say. One of the deepest feminine pleasures is when a man stands full, present, and unreactive in the midst of his woman's emotional storms. When he stays present with her, and loves her through the layers of wildness and closure, then she feels his trustability, and she can relax. The way you relate to your woman's chaos reflects the way you react to the chaos of the world. If you are the kind of man who needs everything placed neatly in its nice little box, then you will also try to box your woman's emotions. If you are the kind of man who would rather hire other people to take care of the chaos in your attic, or the chaos of your finances, you would probably also rather leave it to someone else to take care of the chaos of your woman. You can, however, train yourself to master the world—financially, creatively, spiritually—by learning how to be free and loving in the chaos of your woman's emotions. And you do so by standing your ground and loving so strongly that only love prevails. You can't quit when you seem to fail, but rather, you must learn from your failures and return to love. Give your gift. Like wrestling a steer or surfing ocean waves, mastery involves blending with your woman's powerful energy and feeling the rise and fall of the moment, without lapsing in presence for a second." (73-74)

"Your woman says, "How can you spend so much time in front of the TV when our rent is due in a few days, we're behind on car payments, and you just lost your job?"

"Don't worry about it. I have a job interview tomorrow."

"Well, why don't you get off your butt! You said you were going to clean out the garage weeks ago. I can hardly get to the car!"

"OK. OK. I'll clean the garage this afternoon."

Your woman stops talking and goes about her business, but you can feel her simmering anger and tension. You don't like to be around her when she's like this. You want to get out of the house. "I'll be back in a few hours and I'll clean the garage," you say, as you grab your coat and head for the door. You hear a glass break in the kitchen, so you go in and find your wife furious. "I can't take this any more!" she wails.

"What? I said I'd clean the garage. What's going on?" you wonder.

"I just can't take it!" she cries out, pulling away from you, closing up, and not letting you touch her.

"I don't get it. I said I'd clean the garage. I have a job interview tomorrow. Everything is going to be fine. What do you want?"

You've probably had some version of this conversation with your woman. It holds a key to masculine growth in freedom. And it reveals a common mistake men make with their women. The thing your woman is complaining about is rarely the thing she is complaining about. It is a mistake to believe the content of what she is saying, and then respond to her complaints, point by point. When she complains about financial issues, she is usually feeling a lack in your masculine capacity to direct your life with clarity, purpose, integrity, and wisdom. The money itself is secondary. If you were poor but totally conscious, happy, full of integrity, fearless, humorous, loving and giving your fullest gift to the world and to your woman, she wouldn't complain about lack of money. When you say you will clean the garage, and then weeks pass by and you haven't, her complaint isn't really about the garage. Sure, she'd like a clean garage, but this is a superficial issue. The deeper issue is that you didn't do what you said you would. You gave her your word, and you didn't follow through. She can't trust what you say. And this hurts her, deeply. She might seem to be overreacting to you. Why is she so hysterical? It's only a garage. But she can feel your lack of integrity. Not having cleaned the garage yet seems like a small thing to you, but it shows that you don't follow through with your word, with your purpose. Your word is a demonstration of your purpose, of your masculine core. When you don't follow through with what you say you are going to do, she feels that your masculine core is weak. She feels let down. She can't trust your masculine direction. And so she feels a great loss. Over time, she will begin to build up her own masculine protection against your lack of integrity. She will begin to guard herself against the hurt that your lack of carry through causes. She will harden herself, becoming angular and tense. To you, the garage seems trivial. To her, you have failed at your word. She can't trust you." (118-120)

"If she can't trust you with living your life from your deepest wisdom and fullest capacity, she can't trust you with her life. She can't trust your masculine impeccability, so she naturally will compensate by overdeveloping her own. She is not only being masculine for herself, now she's being masculine for you. If she's got to remind you of the job interview or the mess in the garage, she's supplying the masculine direction for the both of you. And this results in stress. Her body will begin to show it. She will become less radiant and less relaxed in her feminine power and glory because she has to compensate for your failure." (122)

"A man's track record means nothing to the feminine. A man could be perfect for ten years, but if he's an asshole for 30 seconds his woman acts like he's always been one. The feminine responds to the moment of energy, forgetting her man's history of past behavior. A man's past behavior is irrelevant to his woman's feeling in the moment. But men base much on another man's history of behavior, so they think their own track record should count for something. But to a woman, it doesn't. For you as a man, it is probably easier to forgive and forget an occasional mistake made by another man who has a great track record. What pisses you off is when a man lacks integrity and continually fails at his word. But even big mistakes are fairly easy to let go of when made by a man who is otherwise impeccable. You know he really does his best, and this mistake was a rare exception. But, for the feminine, the past is entirely irrelevant. One wrong word in the midst of a five hour lovemaking session that was otherwise perfect could collapse your woman as completely as if you had spent two hours making mistakes. Instead of getting angry because she's so upset that you made one little mistake in a long series of successes, instantly shift the energy between you. Remember, history is irrelevant to the feminine, so your mistake is as easily forgotten as your successes. As soon as you see she's upset, immediately assume happiness. Shock her with your love." -David Deida, "The Way of the Superior Man (127-8)

The Story of the Baboon and Tiger

This segment from a National Geographic documentary is really touching and thought-provoking. If we think animals' internal worlds of thought, emotion, and morality are any less than humans', we may be deluding ourselves.

No Arms, No Legs, No Worries

Interesting and inspirational. Check it out.

Love Wins

What happens when humans raise a lion cub, set it free in the wild's of Africa, then come back years later for a reunion?

Words of Wisdom

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Be good anyway.

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People need help, but may attack you if you try to help them.
Help them anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.

-Mother Teresa

Vivek - The Homeless Prophet

This is one of my favorite clips I've ever found on YouTube. It is a unique and fascinating video of a homeless man called Vivek, a truly sincere and free-thinking individual with some interesting ideas on spirituality, virtue and the nature of reality.