Another Final Statement
Taking off for MilehighCon in three hours. Any time I’m flying, I’m aware my life is out of my hands, and try just a little harder to answer the question: if this was my last post ever, what would I say?
I can never get it perfect. But I’ll never stop trying.
####
From a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the history of the universe has been one of increasing inter-connection and growing complexity, whether you are talking astrophysics, chemistry, biology, or society. And…there are always shock points along the way. I doubt amoebas were thrilled about joining together into tapeworms
“Sand lines my soul which is filled with the breath of the ocean.”
― A.D. Posey
Everything I have in my life, for good or ill, is a matter of my daily habits. These reflect my strategies and emotions. For this reason it is CRITICAL that I program myself EVERY SINGLE DAY, because the average of all the messages you receive over the course of the day is aiming you at average results.
1) If you were born with disadvantages, and want the average “American Dream” you CANNOT merely take the “average” programming: you will end up in a hole.
2) If you were born with normal advantages and disadvantages, but want extraordinary results, you cannot take average actions.
3) Most importantly, if you were born with disadvantages, but want extraordinary results, brothers and sisters, you will have to shut your mind and heart TIGHTLY to the typical instructions and urges offered to and generated by the general population. You will have to work harder, longer, and SMARTER than those around you. And will have to manage your emotions powerfully enough to resist the “crabs in a bucket” phenomenon, as well as the attacks by those who benefitted by (and sometimes created) your disadvantages.
You will have to be better. Stronger. Have greater clarity and courage.
The first step is to love yourself. If you don’t, you will only be able to motivate yourself with fear. But this means that as soon as you are 80% there your fear and pain will diminish, and you will slide back to your old habits. Your ego LOVES this.
But if you love yourself, and love at least one other person, you are on a different path, one of growth and evolution. When you learn to motivate yourself with JOY rather than FEAR, the harder you work the more joy you feel. If you have been wise enough to position yourself so that you are advantaged by your service to others, the happier you are the more service you give, and the more rewards you get internally AND externally.
One powerful key to this is the Three Gates: asking “Is it True? Is it Kind? Is it Useful?” before every word or action. Yes, SHORT term it can be more efficient to be dishonest and cruel, but LONG term that is not “useful” if your goal is to escape suffering and embrace joy and service.
Short term, you can steal money…but unless you desire that road, feel that you want to surround yourself with people you will never be able to trust…beware.
Yes, you can hurt others, close yourself off to their pain. But where is your intimacy? On their deathbeds, people NEVER say they wish they’d spent more time at the office (although they DO say they wish they’d had the courage to pursue their dreams). The most common wish is to have had greater connection to their loved ones and families. If you have ever had a hug from a loving, trusting child you adore, you’ll know there is NO amount of external fame or money you would trade that for. If you feel that, then every day you need to be preparing yourself for that moment of truth. That means that you have to find a way to achieve your external goals in alignment with your highest values.
You simply cannot cheat this. There are no short cuts. Many people are fooled into thinking that the fame, or power, or wealth are more important than that hug. Let me say this clearly: they are chasing fool’s gold. There is no cheese in that maze.
No matter if you have to take an extra step. No matter that from time to time you will realize you have been less than fully honest, or been unkind, or that you wasted your precious time and energy in a way that did NOT reduce suffering, increase joy, or provide service. That is human. But pick yourself up and take the course correction.
Really, its that simple: think of a hug from a trusting child you love. And on the other hand, think of that same child you love being REPELLED and FRIGHTENED by you, dreading your touch.
That is the risk you take. Of course, most times it isn’t that severe: just a slow loss of intimacy and connection, a slow sense that you chased “power” or “money” at the cost of your heart, thinking that somewhere out there is a form of success that will make everything all right.
On Prince’s “Gold” album there is a song that speaks to this. That he went to the mountaintop, got all the fame and acclaim and money….and it meant nothing. He’d have given that all up for a loving wife and child. A family. People who loved him for who he was, not for what he could do for them.
People who would love and shelter and feed you if you had NOTHING.
This is one of the powers of the “Ancient Child” meditation. If you have a difficult decision, visualize the child you were, and go back far enough to find a version of yourself that is an avatar of peace, joy, love, and potential. Some have to return to the womb. Still others will need to visualize a previous life — it can get that bad.
Now…visualize the elder you will be on your deathbed. You are entering the “last 10,000 breaths” territory. All need for external validation, power, control are gone. It is you and your soul. Masks have dropped. It is you and your heart and your breath. What is important to THAT person? What do they see of the patterns of life? If you can visualize that being at peace, it suggests a way of being, living in alignment with your values.
Go to a quiet space. Meditate and visualize these two beings, the youngest and oldest.
Now: the “child” self has all the creativity, optimism, faith, curiosity and natural energy. Have that child ask any questions it needs answered of your “elder.” Then, just sit quietly AND LISTEN to their conversation. Keep your damned ego out of it. All that matters is that that child have the best life possible, and the elder have a good death.
What you will hear between them will almost certainly align with the Three Gates. All the excuses and rationalizations to ignore them will drop away. The advice shared between them will be the strongest, wisest, more effective and efficient you have ever experienced.
Is it True? Is it Kind? Is it Useful?
Do you escape suffering? Embrace Joy? Be of service?
Are you respecting your body? Heart? Mind?
Is the “Elder” speaking from their heart to their most beloved “child” self?
Taken deeply enough, this is one of the most powerful exercises you can do, and will never let you down. It is HARD, but it IS hard to strive for an extraordinary life. Even those who criticize you are secretly hoping you will succeed in a way that helps them find a way out of their own emotional traps. They wish they could embrace joy, but the best they can do is…temporarily…escape suffering. And you know what? In the history of life on this planet, that really ain’t bad.
But you want more. You know it. You feel it. And there is nothing wrong with that, as long as your actions are within the Three Gates. And if you are committed to helping your family, your tribe, the world? Then your personal quest becomes a spiritual one, not necessarily in a religious sense, but in a “remove all illusion” sense.
I wish you more than peace. I wish you joy. And those of you who wish to escape suffering, embrace joy, and be of service…
Don’t think you can be dishonest and cruel now but one day you’ll make it all right. That is building a palace atop a cesspool. Things will crawl up out of the depths and bite your children as they sleep.
The path out starts today. Now. With your next breath. Don’t you dare think today is unimportant, and that “tomorrow” you’ll be better. Tomorrow never comes. All there is is today, now, this moment, this breath.
BREATHE. And strive every day to be honest, and kind, and effective.
That child you were, and that elder you will become, are both watching. Honor them.
Namaste
Steve
www.realherosjourney.com