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.

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.

Happy Christmas – War is Over is a well know John Lennon song from the 70′s. It reflected his dream of a world of peace. Tragically Lennon died of the very violence he hoped to see end.

For the last 5000 years man and fought war after war, and the passivises have fought to prevent them. Each generation dedicates themselves to making the future of the world safer, yet we seem to be losing ground. Why is this?

“If people are happy, nobody can drag them into a war.” – Osho

Think about this for a moment. War is always motivated by repression or retaliation. Look at Bush, the USA and Iraq.  The American people were, and still are very volatile, at the time the troops took Baghdad.  War and the business of war was made easy by September 11 2001.  War is fueled by the  media and governments as they point out the differences in cultures and countries and why they must fight and kill for the good of mankind or to serve God.  The only reason it works is that the population of the earth is fast asleep.

The problem will never be solved by demonstrations, rallies of other acts. These have been going on as long as war has, and in case you didn’t notice they aren’t working. Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity? (doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result).  Man fights because he believes the lies that the politicians tell him, and he is unhappy to his very core. He is told he has nothing to lose and everything to gain. One group is told that the other hates them, when at the same time the other is saying the same thing. The people in the USSR were told that American’s hated them. American were told the same about the USSR. All lies.  American companies even make weapons for the ‘enemy.’ It is time to take the power away, it is time for a paradigm shift.

How do we make a shift. First realize that no amount of demonstrating is going to change anything. History proves this. First we must understand that man is violent by nature. We like to think otherwise, but this primitive impulse is in us all. If we can accept this then we can work to transcend it. We cannot transcend what we do not accept and acknowledge. With this knowledge we must come to understand that we are all special, divine by nature, not good or evil, but whole. Good and evil, love and hate are all part of one thing, one cannot exist without the other. This is the contrast in life and that is OK.

Real happiness in people will cause war to cease. There will be no cause for the effect of war to take place. If you are unshakably happy there is nothing a politician can say to you to change this. In my view politicians are the lowest form of life on our planet, they are not to be hated, but to be treated with compassion for their poor choices. If I truly love myself I will not hate other, I cannot hate another. I have transcended both.

As each person works on themselves to make themselves feel better hate and anger will slowly and eventually cease. If soldiers on the lines told jokes to each other it would be impossible to kill. If man worked on his own happiness and did not worry about others he would achieve it. We have been told it is always better to put the interest of others before yourself. I used to believe this garbage myself once. However this only creates resentment, deep within. Putting yourself first and being happy will allow you help others and feel good about it in the process. This is real compassion. If every personal was compassionate would there be war?

Christmas time should be a time of understanding. Down the street from me is a Muslim Temple, they had a sign on it this year that said “Islam loves Jesus.”  This is a start of a paradigm shift.  Because our thinking and beliefs are so bad, being products of years of conditioning, we only see differences and problems. Genetically speaking (DNA) we are 99.9% the same. Since there is no difference that is real on the outside we all need to look on the inside and discover who and what we are.

Before the New Year comes spend some time looking inward. Calm the mind and find the bliss that is life. Let’s all make 2010 the start of a new way of thinking.

What is the reason that we all chose to reflect the past so much? A long time ago I worked with a man who truly lived in his past. Now his attachment to the past goes far beyond that of the average person. Everyday he would tell me stories of the ‘glory days’ of old. He did so with much love and pride.  This was so very sad to see, but I listened to him intensely, which is likely the reason he told me about it in the first place.

Other people have different past drama. They talk about the hurt of their childhood, how badly they were treated by this person or that person.  They will relive the death of a loved one, or the joy they felt at the birth of their first child. Not all memories are bad, and human nature causes us to see them, but they are all a delusion and not real.

We have to understand that the past, like the future is a fantasy. In all likelihood our account of it is inaccurate at best.  Often times it is a completely false memory yet we believe it happened. Why do we do this?

At one time science believed our personality were created at birth. We are who we are and it was created by our parents.  Today we know this is false.  Most people create themselves based on past experiences. They assign ‘I’ from their memory of these past and inaccurate events. This paradigm needs to change.

We are not our past and we are not our future. Who we are exists in the NOW. The NOW is always changing and so do we. What we need to do is focus on the moment and just BE.

The past is a change to grab a part of the glory of life. But it is a false glory. People will seek out mystics to tell them about past lives. There is nothing wrong with this, unless it becomes part of your story. I was a ‘king’ in my past life, or I was a ‘worrier’ in my past life. I’ve never had anyone tell me they were a BUM in their past lives. If these ‘pasts’ are accurate, then let them be a curiosity, they are not who you are right now.

This moment is all we have. Remember you can never step into the same river twice. Life is about change because it is happening around you in every moment, yet we miss it.  Let the past be the past and live only for this moment. You will find you like who you are right now.

Fear is one of the strongest emotions we have. Understanding this emotion will help us on the path to becoming happy. Fear comes in many different flavors, but we mainly need to deal with one two.  The first is the type of fear that comes from impeding real danger, and second is the type that comes from irrational thinking.  In our class room we refer to this as False Evidence Appearing Real. (F.E.A.R)

What exactly is fear? Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. The brain causes the adrenal glands, located on top of the kidney’s to secrete adrenaline or cortisol into the blood stream. This causes many different effects in the body including increased hate rate, rapid breathing, more blood to flow to the larger muscle groups and less blood to flow to the digestive tract. (This is why butterflies in the stomach).

Having this happen in cases of real danger is great. It can and will save your life. The problem is when it happens continuously and for reason that are not impeding danger. This is the area we want to work with and learn to control. We cannot stop the brain from triggering the emotion, but we can learn to calm it down and control it. Learning to control fear, like anger will lead to a much happier life.

Irrational fear also leads to anxiety and worry. These are two extremely negative and psychologically damaging states of mind. An 8th century Indian Buddhist Teacher Shantideva spoke extensively about these states of mind and come to this therapy for thinking. What he taught was;

“If you look at the cause of the fear and can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?” Today’s cognitive psychology has adopted this ancient way of thinking.

To my mind there are two excellent ways of dealing with these irrational states of mind we all encounter at some point in our lives. The first is to spend some time in mediation or reflection on the problem, looking for solutions. The second is to share the problem with a friend or family member. Both are excellent method at relieving the stresses of life.

Welcome to the 21st Century. Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, at least that is what they told us.  But today we seeing people walking down the street, driving their cars, at the grocery store and even in the bathroom talking on their cell phones. So much for freedom.

We have become so attached to technology that we cannot imagine life without it anymore. The price however is the stress levels this technology is costing us. Do we really need to be connected all the time? As many of you know I run a martial arts school. Every month we have a belt testing. At the start of testing we ask parents and visitors to turn off or put their phones on vibrate. Each testing at least 2 or 3 phones go off. The parent, embarrassed run out to answer the phone. Was it really that important?

I think it is time for people to get their priorities in life straight. If you are one of these people that I am referring to your stress levels may well be out of control. How are you sleeping at night? How are your personal relationships? How is your health? You need to take a serious inventor and get focused on what matters before it is too late.

Here are some examples to help you detach from these attachments.

• Turn off your phone when you are eating or spending time with family
• Answer your email once of twice per day only
• Force yourself to take quiet time to reflect on how you are feeling.
• Get some exercise, go for a walk
• Spend time with family and friends.

Technology is great as long as it serves US. Your employer also need to understand that you are no good to anyone when you are all stressed out. If you need to get up 20 minutes earlier in the morning and do some meditation.  There is no better way to quiet the mind.