People are searching for happiness. I hear it all the time. “As soon as this happens I will be happy.” This might be true, but for how long? You need to understand that happiness is your natural state of being.  It is the way you were born and the way you will die. We have forgotten this, and this is what must be rediscovered.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a fan of psychology. From what I have witnessed it often does more harm than good. This is not true in all cases but we tend to forget that this is a business. If you are cured you are no longer a patient. I am not against it, it does have it’s place. Caution is needed however.  Sigmund Freud stated that “Man is incapable of being happy.” This is a ridiculous and irresponsible statement made by a man who was a better politician than doctor. This is what creates a VICTIM MIND.

When we look at society Dr Freud did a good job of explaining his ideas. The norm in our world is anger and unhappiness. In fact if people see you being happy for no reason they question your sanity! If someone walks though a shopping mall alone, singing to themselves and dancing  everyone will stare at them like they are crazy! People will say “What is wrong with that guy!” However if you walk thought the same mall crying you will get sympathy and concern. Everyone will feel sorry because your life is hard, but no one will think you are nuts.

Sadness is not our nature. You need to quit believing the dogmas you are given and look inside to find the truth. Inside is the only place that truth can be found.  All emotions with the exception of happiness, joy and bliss are found in the PAST.  We are creatures of this moment, therefore anything other than happiness is unnatural.

If you want to be happy, really and truly happy, you must ALLOW it. You never become happy, you allow yourself to BE happy. Happiness and bliss are here, right now! And if the world thinks you are insane so be it! You will be in good company with all the others who are experiencing life the way it was meant to be, joyful.

“Happiness needs no cause. It is your simple nature, you are intrinsically happy. No cause, no purpose, no goal is needed. Life is in itself enough. It needs nothing else to complete it. It is complete! It is entire! It is already what it has to be. So there is no purpose in existence and no goal in existence. Existence is a sheer dance.”  Osho

Mind exists only in the past. We can also call this mind our ‘ego.‘ This is the place where our false self image is created. We search the past and find who we are. This definition is not a positive, empowering definition either. It is negative and self destructive.

We allow the mind to control our lives by it’s living in the past. Even as we dream of the future this is done with references to the failures of our past.  We wonder why the Law of Attraction disappoints us, let our references and points of attraction are all wrong.

The Only Moment that Matters is this one, right here and now.

Some will say this is an unrealistic view of life. I say the opposite. Looking at the past is unrealistic, it is gone and will not return. If you bury the past, and a great part of the ego with it, you will have a wonderful future.  Mind can only exist in the past. It shuffles though thousands of memories, most of which are inaccurate and distorted.  Even pleasant memories will cause pain and suffering because we want those times to return. All the while life is passing in front of our eyes, but we have a do not disturb sign on our doors.

All the suffering that is being experienced on our planet is the result of poor thinking.  This groups hates that group because you hurt us 500 years ago. Get over it! Wars are created with type of political controlling thinking.  What is the solution? People need to focus on the present.

You cannot be angry in the present. To be angry you must reference a past event. You cannot be depressed in the present either. The only emotion that can be found in the present is joy.  Joy, happiness and contentment need no past references.  So if you empty the mind and let go of the past and therefore the ego who are you? You are awake! You are the same person as always, you are also no one.  What is the most important thing? That you are the CEO of XYZ company, with a million dollar house and a Ferrari? Or that you are happy? Experience will show that EGO Centered People are not happy. But there is great news in this also. You can be CEO of XYZ and have all that, but still live in the present. The difference is you will love the experience!

I am not saying this is easy and does not take work. The resulting change in your life will make it worth while.  As I write this it is not something I am been studying, this is experience. It has changed my life in far less time than I ever imagined.

Recently on Facebook I was asked to join a group to hate some guy who was abusing animals.  The organizer of the group wanted to find a million people who hate this guy. I declined. I was also very surprised when I saw who had sent me the invitation. To my knowledge this person is a Buddhist.

“Show compassion for all sentient beings and if you cannot then do no harm.”

Obviously this person has forgotten these words. Now I will in no way condone what this man has done hurting animals. I also believe that society needs to follow it’s laws and punish this person appropriately. However to hate this person for his crimes borders on insanity! Now I am not the bleeding heart type. I fully understand cause and effect or Karma and this person will suffer great consequences for his actions either by the law or otherwise.  Do I feel compassion for him? No, but I will not harm him. However hatred and public support of hatred scares me far more than the crimes he committed. Remember Nazi Germany?

Love and hate are opposite ends of the same phenomenon. One empowers and one destroys.  When you love someone not only does it benefit the one loved, but it benefits the one who loves even greater! Being in love is beneficial for your physic health as well as your mental and spiritual health. Hate on the other hand destroys your own body! It causes it to become ‘acid‘ in PH balance and affects your heart and mind.  Hate is a self destructive emotion that does not harm the person being hated, until the extremes of violence come into play. Hate always leads to violence in some form.

People who hate and do violent acts in the name of a “cause” are missing the boat, and that is the boat called life! Even the word alone will change your bodies chemistry! Higher thinking requires we put an end to primitive ways. Hatred is primitive and needs to be seen for what it really is, SELF DESTRUCTIVE.

The only way there will EVER be peace on Earth is when man takes his mind out of the toilet and starts to actually THINK.  When you begin to look inside, rather than outside you begin to understand what love is. The more you focus on the inside the greater your love becomes.  This inner peace will cause the end of violent acts and wars. Nothing else will do it. No government, no army, no peace rally or treaty.

We all hold the key to end hate in our lifetime. It does not come with education, understanding or knowledge. It comes from looking within and experiencing the pure joy that is found there.

Wisdom comes from extraordinary common sense. Come sense does not come with knowledge only from experience.

People love to worry! The only reason for this is that they are not in control of their own thoughts on a day to day basis.  When the mind is in control, a person life can be a living hell.

The mind loves to create problems. It does this because it’s function is to think. When it runs out of things that are useful to contemplate it begin creating problems for it to solve.  We perceive there may be a difficulty ahead and the mind runs wild with possibilities and our stress levels go through the roof! When I was a child my mother would often tell me “Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill.” But I always did.

When worry arises there are 2 possible actions that can be taken. One is that there is something that can be done about the problem at hand. If something can be done, do it right away. Once action is taken the need for worry and the mind running wild looking for solutions is over. The second possibility is that there is nothing you can do about the problem. If this is the case then there is no need for worry. Again the mind can be silenced.

Worry is a hidden killer. It stresses the body and mind beyond what is reasonable. Plus there is no need for it. Using the above example the mind can be trained to let things go. There is no need to address anything that has no importance, and most of what the mind does from day to day is of no importance.

I say it often but learning to quiet the mind is the key to inner peace and happiness. There is nothing more important than being happy.

Our lives are very busy.  Is this reality or is it self imposed? See if this model fits your life in any way.  When you first get up in the morning you are tired and groggy. Your brain starts up instantly giving you directions on what needs to be done today. However you are tired and frustrated right from the start. You head to the kitchen to grab a coffee to put life back in your body.

You head off to work or school and find the day is full of activity.  You rush around here and there doing things. Soon you discover it is after 1:00pm and you still have not eaten. Your stomach is upset as you head out for a quick lunch, grab an energy drink and head back to work.

After the day is complete you come home, frustrated and tired. You yell at the kids, send them off to bed and get ready to start all over again the next day. When is it going to be Friday!

Now I know this is vague, but this is the way many peoples lives are, and that hate it! So why do you put up with it? Because that is the way it has always been. You have been taught from birth that to be busy is good.  However the life above is only a path to an early grave.

The fact is that death is coming, it is coming for each and everyone of us, the rich, the poor, the small and the great. It is as much a part of life as birth is. It is not the end, however on your death bed would you wish you had spent more time at the office?

What is the cause of this obsession that the west has with being busy? It was taught to us by society, and each person in society learned it from the mind. The mind cannot bear to be still! If the mind is still it does not exist. It can only function in the past and in the future. Anywhere else there is no room for it. It cannot move in the present. Over the centuries the mind has become the master, when it was once the servant.  It is time to reverse the role and become the master again. The master of your mind.

Silence is the sound of living in the moment.  There is only noise in the past and in the future. The present is silent.  In this silence is peace and joy. We have all experienced it at one time or another in our lives, but is was gone like a thief in the night.  How do we learn to silence the mind? We must become meditators, not just as an activity, but a way of life.  Now I can hear what everyone is saying. I don’t have time to sit and meditate! Kind of an oxymoron isn’t it? The cure for your problem requires the time you insist you don’t have.

You don’t need to sit for hours on end in meditation. All you need do is spend 15-10 minutes in the morning sitting and learning to become a witness. While sitting or lying quietly simply observe your thought as the run though the mind. Don’t pay any attention to anyone of them. Just let them enter the mind and move on.  You become a voyeur, only watching the thoughts. After some weeks of practice you can begin to apply this all day long. As your mind tries to distract you with irrelevant chatter and problems you can become the witness to these moments. Not giving any opinions or comments. Simply letting them sale by like a ship at sea.  At first these thoughts will escalate, because the mind will fight back for control, but soon it will begin to quiet and your life will start to wind down and become far less stressful.

As you work through this you will become much more productive, using far less time than before. The job you once hated will become meaningless as you begin to enjoy what life really has to offer.  You will devote more and more time to meditation because the benefits are immense.  You will enjoy each day of the week and not just Saturday and Sunday. You will find the joy in life and the peace in silence.

In silence the only sound is the joy of laughter.

Man needs a new consciousness.

A short time ago there was a sever earthquake on the island of Haiti. It is all over the news and we are all aware of it.  I received an email today from someone who talked about all the things we are doing to our planet to destroy it. People we will never destroy this planet! But it might destroy us! There is a big difference here.

Why are there so many problems like this on our planet. No, it is not because bible, Mayan, or Nostradamus prophecies are coming true. These problems have nothing to do with superstition. It is because of all the horrible thinking patterns that man has.  Man is the single largest influence on our planet! We are the only beings that have a conscious mind and choose our own paths. Yet the choices that 99% of the planet are making are poor!

Thought is energy, as pure as it can possible get. Negative thinking creates negative energy. Positive thinking creates positive energy. This energy will influence our environment because we are the creators of reality.  This is just like the planets and the moon influencing our tides. What and how we think matters on a global scale, especially when there is so much negativity. Hate, jealousy, greed and corruption affect not only individuals, but the earth itself.

I know a lot of people, and I have never met anyone with negative thinking who is doing well and are happy.   Some are making decent money, but all of them have miserable lives.  The same it true for the positive people I know. They may or may not have money, but what is inside is strong and for the most part they are very happy people.  Life has it up and downs because it is supposed too.  But the better you think the greater the ups are.

Man needs a new consciousness….This does not come from religion, causes, government or anything other than oneself.  I know people of every religion you can think of and most of them are very unhappy.  In fact often the more religious, the more miserable the person. This is true of ’cause’ people. Look at the activists in Hollywood, they are all very unhappy! I won’t even get into politicians! Why is this? Because they are all looking for problems ‘out there’ and avoiding looking inside where the only real problems are.

Let all stop being distracted and get down to business. What is outside will only change when we change what is inside.  Am I saying you should not speak out, help the people of the world who are suffering and in need. No of course not. But you MUST fix yourself first. A preacher who is banging the pulpit calling people sinners while he is the worst one in the room solves nothing.  The only person you can truly help is yourself! Yet nobody understands this.

A long time ago I gave a beggar on the street $10 bucks to get something to eat. That was what he wanted, food. I happened to follow him as we went to the liquor store and purchased a bottle of wine.  His problem is not that he is poor, or that he lives on the street or the wine is drinks. The problem is the cause of these conditions. The problem is his HORRIBLE THINKING.

Albert Einstein said “A problem cannot be solved with the mind that created it.” Understand his words and you will understand why things are the way they are.

I have always wondered why people can be so very unhappy.  Many go through life appreciating nothing that is near or dear to them, not seeing beauty in anything, and feeling bad all the time. Then it occurred to be, we have been taught to be this way since we were children.

This is not the fault of our parents, they only did what they were taught themselves.

From the time of our birth whenever we need something we made a fuss. As a child you cried when you were hungry, fussed when you needed to be changed, cried when you were tired and got angry when things did not go your way or come as fast as you wanted.

As you grow up you encounter other negative elements in life. You get sick, you get injured, your heart get broken.  You cried, complained and suffered. What happens from this reaction? Mom or Dad come to your aid, gave you sympathy and love. This is what a kind and loving parent should do, right? Of is there more to it?

As a child did you ever pretend to be sick or injured to get your mother’s attention? Of course you did, we all did.  The problem is that this is enforcing deep within us that being unhappy brings positive attention.

When a child is feeling good, healthy and happy the parents will often forget the child is even in the room. The reason is there is no issue to deal with. It is not that the parent loves the child less under these circumstances, they are just not demanding attention. Maybe this it the time when the attention should be given, and not under the negative circumstances. When a child his happy he doesn’t get any attention.

As adults if we wish to be happy we must rewrite our way of thinking and how we view the world. This ‘belief system’ has been long programmed into us.  When we change this system and start living in the moment happiness follows.

As for our children I think we must take a different look at our reactions to certain conditions. First we must fully understand the difference between sympathy and compassion. We must also understand that we need to show love and compassion for our children but they don’t need our sympathy.  We need to teach about being ‘happy’ and that happiness only comes from positive emotions. We must also learn to give our children even more attention when they are happy and on emotional highs. This will teach them that joy has rewards, not sorrow.

When I was down my father became strict and told me to get on with it.  When I was younger I did not really understand, except I did know I would get no sympathy. he always listened and offered advice but never sympathy.

Now I understand and thank him for his ways.

Whenever we think of freedom the status of our countries come to mind. Living in Canada and and the United States the freedom of the nations is well known. But this is not this freedom I am referring to.

External freedom is one thing, and it is an important thing, but far more important is internal freedom, a freedom that can only come when the mind is the slave and not the master.  For most people on this earth the mind is the master and it is running wild.

You find yourself awakened in the middle of the night with the mind running wild. Sometimes it is going over the events of the previous day, other times it is thinking about an event coming in the future, worse yet it is worrying about this, that or the other thing. Totally undisciplined and out of control.  Yet we allow this to continue, either because we believe it cannot be changed, or we are just too lazy to do it.

Imagine being in a very hot room. The temperature is unbearable.  You go over to the thermostat and turn on the air conditioning. You wait and wait but it just does not seem to be working.  It seems to be getting hotter so you remove some article of clothing and compensate for the temperature increase, you learn to tolerate the conditions. The real solution is to leave the room, and you can always leave the room!

This is just like the way we are with our minds. We learn to tolerate the way things are, then the mind will naturally accelerate it’s behavior and things will be worse again.  The only solution is to quiet the mind and silently take control. Note I am saying silently. You cannot beat the mind into submission, you must dominate it will deliberate thoughts, and not acknowledging the trash thoughts that come into existence.

The mind loves to play VICTIM. Victim almost seems to be it’s natural state. It will reflect on the past to give you a 1000 reasons why the future will be do different. You create a desire in your mind and something inside says “don’t be stupid, you can’t do that. ” The problem is you listen to this mind and not your heart.

There have been many Buddha’s in our world since the time of the historical Buddha Gautama. Many enlightened men and women have lived and do live on our planet. A Buddha is not born they are self created by disciplining the mind, thus finding peace and understanding within themselves. This is within reach of every person, if they will take the time and effort to start the journey.

So many people make other peoples lives their mission and ignore there own life. We are famous in the west for interfering with other countries who are happy within themselves and don’t want our help. We look at their ways of life and decide we need to fix them. Yet we ignore ourselves, thinking we can change the world without changing US first.  You cannot give something you do not have. We love to make judgment about others happiness, never reflecting on our own lives. This is not being selfless it is being egotistical.

Like all people on this Earth you create your reality. If you are tense, stress, overwhelmed and unhappy it is of your doing and no one else’s. You create your world and your reality with your dominate thoughts, and you do it every moment of every day.

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change.”

Are you happy with your reality?

The yin / yang symbol causes people in the west to become confused. People will see it as two images, opposite colours flowing into each other. The fact is that it is only one image, something that is complete.

Our world is dualistic, which is to say that it is made up of opposites. We have man and woman, good and evil, up and down etc, etc. This view will lead people to great confusion and conflict in their lives and they don’t even know it! Which brings me to all things being relative.

Every experience you have is judge by other experiences. There is not absolute good or bad, only a point of view of each. Let’s say you are having a bad day. You got to work late, the boss yelled at you, you missed a deadline. You go home at night feeling sad and dejected.  You say to your spouse, “This is the worst day I can remember.”

Your next door neighbor on the same day decides to paint his house. It is a beautiful day outside so he climbs the ladder to start. Something goes wrong and he falls. Later that day in the hospital he is told his back is broken.  Who had the worse day? By your view he had a worse day than you, to him you had a great day. All experiences and things are relative.

Now something that is interesting, for the man with the back injury, a traumatic injury, after about 6-8 weeks he will begin to have good days again even though he cannot walk anymore.  All experiences are relative.

What is the point to this? We need to stop judging our life experiences and just live them. To just live your experience you must be in the moment. If not you will compare it to something in your past and dilute the experience.  Living in the moment there is no dualism.

Next time you have a bad or a good day, remember all things and experiences are relative.

I recently had a phone call from someone at the bank my martial art school does business with. They call themselves financial planners or something, but wanted me to come in so he could show me how to make lots of money.  He told me his credentials (degrees etc). I asked him what his personal net worth was.  He told me that he really did not wish to talk about this. My question to him was, “How are you going to make someone rich if you have not done it yourself?” He had knowledge, but no experience.

It is like in my martial art school. I have Black Belts in 4 different arts, to multiple degrees. I have been teaching since I was a Green Belt. I have also promoted about 150 people to Black Belt. I know how to create Black Belts because I have experience doing it!

People today love to give advice and try to help other. This is fine, but will often lead to misery for the person following the advice.  This is because knowledge and experience are two different things. People often mean well, but this is really not much consolation.

One of the most important experiences we all need is with ourselves. Looking inside to see our true nature and who we are.  Understanding this will help you transcend the ‘good opinions of others’ and allow you to gain your own experience.  When a problem arrises no matter how big or small take a look within. If the solution is not evident then look for someone with experience to share.

Wisdom comes from experience, never just knowledge

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