Category: Guest Authors

By John Ptacek

When you go to a movie, you willingly suspend your beliefs for an hour or two. I’m only asking you to suspend them for a few minutes. This has to do with your happiness, so do pay attention.

You don’t exist. At least not in the way you think you do.

Oh, you’re a human being, alright, a physical contraption with a sophisticated brain that guides you step by step through your earthly journey. You had a mother and a father and perhaps a sibling or two. You’re married or you’re not. You have children or you don’t. You eat, sleep, have sex and recreate. One day you will stop breathing and either be incinerated or put into the ground. At your memorial service a lovingly arranged photo collage will capture the story of your life.

But was it really your life?

This sense of propriety is merely an illusion. The “you” that emerges as you rub the sleep from your eyes in the morning is a waking fantasy. While the figure reflected in the dresser mirror – the one sitting on the edge of a bed wearing a sleepy expression – is real, the idea that it is an independently functioning entity with a “you” manning its control center is a delusion. That “you” is pure fiction. “You” don’t control your actions any more than Homer Simpson does because neither of you exists beyond the borders of your imagination.

Since you no doubt fancy yourself to be a freewheeling individual, this can’t come as good news, at least not at first. Such a notion challenges the validity of your most basic assumptions about life.

The idea that there was a “you” controlling your actions was instilled at an early age. You were praised for smiling and burping, and not long after that you were scolded for throwing your food and pulling the dog’s tail. Well what else were you supposed to think after hearing all that contrary feedback except that you were choosing your actions instead of simply acting? It’s an idea that stuck, and since we were all babies once, we all grew up harboring the same illusion.

As you got older, your identity as an independent doer was corroborated by any number of sources. The concept of individual choice serves as the cornerstone of civilized societies, and why shouldn’t it? Lines governing social behavior have to be drawn somewhere, and individual choice is as good a concept as any to draw them around. If you steal someone’s car, you deserve a stay at the graybar hotel.

And then there’s the continuous drone of happiness gurus telling you that “you “should feel good about “yourself,” as if there are actually two of you squeezed into the same body – one enlightened and one clueless – in need of relationship counseling. That this split screen self-image breeds unhappiness seems to be lost on even on our most esteemed self-help experts.

So if you don’t control your actions, then who does? Why, Mother Nature, of course.

Evolution fated everything in its path, including you, who are but one of 5000 mammals within a larger group of 1.7 million known species. Your brain may be more advanced than a monkey’s, but all that extra horsepower doesn’t always translate into brilliance. How bright is it to conclude that human beings somehow subverted the will of the universe and wrested away control of their own destinies? Science fiction is a feeble substitute for science when probing for answers to life’s big questions.

Relatively speaking, of course, you make choices every day. You choose your hairstyle, your brand of toothpaste and the toppings to adorn your pizza. In the absolute sense, however, this is all a bittersweet fairy tale. You may think you’re choosing pepperoni over anchovies, but it’s your genes and environmental conditioning that are doing the choosing for you. There is no “you” apart from these natural building blocks. Free as you are to will what you do, you cannot will what you will. Like most mothers, Mother Nature insists on retaining some level of control over her children.

What’s all this got to do with your happiness? Only everything.

The source of so much of your unhappiness is your entrenched belief that we’re all choosing our behavior, and often choosing poorly. This belief is a stone in your shoe as you hobble through life judging everyone in sight.

You judge smokers for choosing to damage their lungs. You judge adulterers for choosing to destroy their families. You judge drug addicts for choosing to live in abandoned buildings and eat out of dumpsters. You judge distraught mothers for choosing to drown their children. You believe these people consciously chose tragedy over happiness. Of all the choices available to them, these miserable fates were the ones they really had their hearts set on.

And then you point your finger in the other direction. You judge yourself for choosing to eat too much, exercise too little and set your personal goals too low.

You drive yourself up a wall convinced that we’re all squandering our ability to make better choices.

Well now you can drop your distressing theory of human behavior and replace it with a new one: everyone’s doing the best they can with what life has given them.

It’s straightforward, compact enough to slap on your refrigerator as a reminder, and at least as plausible as any theory you’ve dreamed up so far. With that irritating stone removed from your shoe, you’ll discover a lightness in your step. You’ll stroll through life feeling grateful for what you have been given and sympathetic toward those who have been given less. Freed from the bondage of judgment, you will live in a perpetual state of forgiveness.

If all this is a bit too much for you to swallow – and it probably is, given how long you’ve been clinging to the idea that “you” are in control of your life – don’t despair. I’ve got a Plan B that will afford you the same life-enhancing benefits. Adopt the idea that we’re all doing the best we can as a philosophy. Live as if “you” mulled it over and decided it was an idea worth acting on.

About John Ptacek:
My life has been enriched by the teachings of wise men and women, and my essays attempt to demystify these sometimes cryptic teachings so that more may be exposed to their wisdom. They appear on my website, On Second Thought, www.johnptacek.com. I live in Wisconsin with my wife, Kitty.

An Excerpt from the 25th Anniversary Edition of Living in the Light by Shakti Gawain

Most of us have been taught from childhood not to trust our feelings, not to express ourselves truthfully and honestly, not to recognize that at the core of our being lies a loving, powerful, and creative nature. We learn easily to try to accommodate those around us, to follow certain rules of behavior, to suppress our spontaneous impulses, and to do what is expected of us. Even if we rebel against this, we are trapped in our rebellion, doing the opposite of what we’ve been told in a knee-jerk reaction against authority. Very seldom do we receive any support for trusting ourselves, listening to our own sense of inner truth, and expressing ourselves in a direct and honest way.

When we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead for authority, validation, and approval from others, we give our personal power away. This leads to feelings of helplessness, emptiness, a sense of being a victim, and eventually anger and rage — and, if these feelings are also suppressed, to depression and deadness. We may simply succumb to these feelings and lead a life of quiet numbness. We may overcompensate for our feelings of powerlessness by attempting to control and manipulate other people and our environment. Or we may eventually burst forth with uncontrolled rage that is highly exaggerated and distorted by its long suppression. None of these are very positive alternatives.

The true solution is to re-educate ourselves to listen to and trust the inner truths that come to us through our intuitive feelings. Following our inner guidance may feel risky and frightening at first, because we are no longer playing it safe, doing what we “should” do, pleasing others, following rules, or deferring to outside authority. To live this way is to risk losing everything that we have held on to for reasons of external (false) security, but we will gain integrity, wholeness, true power, creativity, and the real security of knowing that we are in alignment with the power of the universe.

In suggesting that our intuition needs to be the guiding force in our lives, I am not attempting to disregard or eliminate the rational mind. The intellect is a very powerful tool, best used to support and give expression to our intuitive wisdom, rather than as we often use it — to suppress our intuition. Most of us have programmed our intellect to doubt our intuition. When an intuitive feeling arises, our rational minds immediately say, “I don’t think that will work,” “nobody else is doing it that way,” or “what a foolish idea,” and the intuition is disregarded.

As we move into the new world, it is time to re-educate our intellect to recognize the intuition as a valid source of information and guidance. We must train our intellect to listen to and express the intuitive voice. The intellect is by nature very disciplined and this discipline can help us to ask for and receive the direction of the intuitive self.

What does it mean to trust your intuition? How do you do it? It means tuning into your “gut feelings” — your deepest inner sense of personal truth — in any given situation, and acting on these feelings, moment by moment. Sometimes these “gut messages” may tell you to do something unexpected or inconsistent with your previous plans; they may require that you trust a hunch that seems illogical; you may feel more emotionally vulnerable than you are used to feeling; you may express thoughts, feelings, or opinions foreign to your usual beliefs; you may follow a dream or fantasy, or take some degree of financial risk to do something that feels important to you.

At first you may fear that trusting your intuition will lead you to do things that seem somewhat hurtful or irresponsible to others. For example, you may hesitate to break a date, even though you need time for yourself, because you fear hurting your date’s feelings. I’ve found that when I really listen to and trust my inner voice, in the long run, everyone around me benefits as much as I do.

People may sometimes be temporarily disappointed, irritated, or a bit shaken up as you change your old patterns of relating to yourself and others. But this is usually because as you change, the people around you are automatically pushed to change as well. If you trust, you will see that the changes are also for their highest good. (If you do break that date, your friend may end up having a wonderful time doing something else.) If they don’t want to change, they may move away from you, at least for a while; therefore, you must be willing to let go of the forms of relationship you have with people. If there is a deep connection between you, chances are good that you will be close again in the future. Meanwhile, everyone needs to grow in his or her own way and time. As you continue to follow your path, you will increasingly attract people who like you as you are and relate to you in a way that feels honest, supportive, and appreciative.

Excerpted from the book Living in the Light – 25th Anniversary Edition ©2011 by Shakti Gawain. Printed with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com

Shakti Gawain is a pioneer in the field of personal growth and consciousness. Her bestselling title Living in the Light was just published in an updated and revised 25th Anniversary edition. Along with Marc Allen, Gawain co-founded New World Library in 1977. She lives in Marin County, California. Visit her online at http://www.shaktigawain.com.

by Bob Makransky
(This essay originally appeared in the Magical Almanac Ezine. Used here with the author’s permission.)

Whenever I hear some spiritual guru proclaim that all you gotta do is “just think happy thoughts!”, it makes me want to pop him one upside the head and see how long he can keep on thinking his “happy thoughts.”

Take as an example Miguel Ruiz’s best selling “Four Agreements”, which exhorts readers to “Be impeccable with your word; don’t take anything personally; don’t make assumptions; always do your best.” The degree of profundity or usefulness of this advice is beside the point; it does a disservice to the reader. No effort was made to explain why it’s impossible to be impeccable with your word (in a society based upon lying to other people and yourself); not to take things personally (when all your social training is pointed at inflating your self-importance); not to make assumptions (in a society which discourages thinking for yourself, or thinking at all); or why it’s impossible to do your best (in a society which teaches you to cringe helplessly and wallow in self-pity). In other words, fluffy writing just adds more guilt to the burden of self-hatred which people are already carrying by making people blame themselves, rather than their hypocritical society, for their unhappiness. Fluffy writing may sound soothing because it’s simplistic; but it’s of no real help to anyone.

Who is thinking happy thoughts? The evangelizing proselytizers with their toothpaste-advertisement grins and their used-car-salesman spiels? If those people were truly happy in their hearts, would they be running around trying to make other people like them (in all senses of that word)? Being in denial is not the same thing as being happy. NOBODY (except maybe a few lamas meditating in caves in the Himalayas maybe) can control their thoughts. People can most certainly run away from their issues by distracting themselves, but that is not the same thing as controlling thoughts. It’s like masturbation was in the Victorian age – everybody was doing it while paying lip service to denial; and then feeling ashamed of themselves for being so “perverted”. Similarly, people are being lied to about “just thinking happy thoughts” – and then are made to feel worse about themselves because they are incapable of accomplishing this unattainable feat.

It’s all a lie – this “Positive Thinking” baloney, like so much New Age cant (oh yeah, that’s another one: “never say can’t!”). If you are not happy inside, then 1) it’s impossible to think happy thoughts (unless you’re in denial); and 2) thinking happy thoughts isn’t the way to change your mood in any case (it works the other way around: when you are able to control your moment-to-moment mood – or better said, relax into indifference – THEN your thoughts naturally tend to be happy). What creates your reality is your underlying mood, not what you tell yourself (not your thoughts).

The pundits of Positive Thinking have their cause-and-effect backwards. And they exacerbate people’s problems by blaming them for being unable to control their thoughts – as if society doesn’t heap enough blame and shame on people as it is … now in the New Age people have to blame themselves for being unable to accomplish the impossible. To expect that YOU – l’il ol’ nose pickin’ and pastin’ it under the furniture YOU – should be able to control your thoughts (and then chide yourself when you fail to live up to this ridiculous expectation) is completely absurd. Positive thinking is just another of society’s lies designed to make you feel crummy about yourself.

People need to be told that it’s okay if they are unhappy; that everybody in our society is unhappy, and any appearance to the contrary is just that – an appearance. This is another of our materialistic society’s dirty tricks: constantly telling people “See – those guys over there who bought our useless products are happier than you are! Go for it!” Having us compare ourselves to other people is stupid, since everyone’s karma is so different. And since our superficial society forbids us to talk openly about anything that really matters, we rarely know what anyone else is truly feeling inside in any case.

This is not to say that people don’t have to take complete personal responsibility to get themselves out of the messes they find themselves in. Just that there’s no need to feel guilty for not fulfilling society’s expectations (including being able to “think happy thoughts”), since society’s expectations are impossible to fulfill; moreover, the rewards for fulfilling them aren’t even worth it. This realization is the first step on the spiritual path.

Clue Number 1: Your image of what the spiritual path is all about is wrong – absolutely wrong. Completely off the mark. Not even close. When you finally do get “there”, you’ll realize that the things which you thought were of the essence, aren’t; and the things which are, weren’t part of your thinking at all (they were too subtle, so you overlooked them at the time). What spirituality is all about has to be felt in your heart, not conceptualized. When don Juan finally explained his teachings to Carlos Castaneda (just prior to his leaving him forever, at the end of “Tales of Power”), he told Castaneda that he had been deliberately misleading and sidetracking him all along during the apprenticeship, keeping Castaneda’s thinking mind focused on irrelevancies, and making light of the issues which were indeed the crux. This is because the thinking mind only gets in the way on the spiritual path. The thinking mind is of utmost importance in getting along in society, but it is actually a hindrance in pursuit of the spiritual, which is why don Juan averred that the best sorcerers were either completely stupid or completely crazy. Isn’t it true that in our society the most spiritual people (most open-hearted) are usually either retarded or lunatics?

Clue 2: If you find the spiritual path enjoyable, you ain’t on it. The spiritual path sucks – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Do you suppose St. John of the Cross was just kidding around when he spoke of the Dark Night of the Soul? On the spiritual path, as in the gym, no pain means no gain. Why do you suppose that gurus such as Sri Yukteswar and Gurdjieff and don Juan (and don Juan’s teacher don Julian) were so abusive to their disciples (except for the disciples who were pretty selfless to begin with)? Why do you think don Juan recommended finding a petty tyrant – an oppressor who spits on you and stomps your self-esteem into the mud – as the most important element of spiritual training? Self-importance is not eliminated by having other people envy you or pat you on the back and tell you how great you are; or by having all your fantasies and daydreams come true. It’s eliminated by having your self-images – everything you crave and strive to uphold – trampled into the dirt.

The spiritual path lies in the diametrically opposite direction from the path society has conditioned you to travel. The spiritual path – the deconditioning process – involves prying your grasping fingers loose from everything society has conditioned you to cling to. This is not pleasant at all. Moreover, nobody is going to give you any reward or recognition for your spiritual accomplishments: depending on your karma (people who are pretty selfless to begin with have it easier than the rest of us), probably most people around you will do everything in their power to frustrate you, be jealous of you, or belittle your efforts. As don Juan told Castaneda, “A warrior has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country; he has only life to be lived, and under these circumstances, his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly.” Anybody who is really on the spiritual path (unlike the happy-thought thinkers) is usually crucified by society and the people around them.

The point is that the true spiritual path is entered by facing things squarely as they are (not by denying your reality by “thinking happy thoughts” or otherwise running away from yourself); and then by just accepting your situation – giving up the ghost, stopping all the struggling and fuming, getting off your own case and other people’s case and God’s case. There are no shortcuts on the spiritual path. There definitely are techniques; and it is necessary to find congenial techniques which you can practice daily, to focus your intent. But there is no way to change anything by snapping your fingers or taking a workshop or just thinking happy thoughts.

To tell someone who is in great pain to “just think happy thoughts” is like telling someone without legs to just get up and walk. Deconditioning and reconditioning your mindset requires a tremendous amount of time and endurance – it’s not something you can “just do”. It’s also why magicians aver that there is no point in even considering undertaking the task until you are completely desperate. True spiritual growth is basically just a matter of exhaustion, of complete wipe-out, of coming to realize the futility of it all. But there is no way to hurry anything up. No way. The sooner you give up trying, or lying to yourself by “thinking happy thoughts”, the sooner true change will happen.

About the author:
Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, computer programmer and professional astrologer. He lives on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest and is head of the local blueberry growers’ association. Check out his free downloadable Mayan Horoscope software, free downloadable Planetary Hours calculator, free downloadable Primary Directions / celestial sphere mathematics textbook, complete instructions on how to channel by automatic writing and how to run past life regressions, articles, books, stories, cartoons, etc. etc. at www.dearbrutus.com.