Deepak, did you notice you used the word assasination in your mentioning of Swift Boat Vets vs Kerry - you did not say "character assasination." Deliberate? Your personal prejudices and views (your own Memes) shine through strongly when you think along lines that everything Kerry is good and everything Bush is bad. Suppose God just so happened to be in control, not you, what would you think then? That means that Bush is part of God's plan too; but my memes perceive you as wanting to control and railing because you didn't get your way!
God Bless you, Deepak. Keep up the good work and let Go and let God. When we give up control to a Higher Power, higher consciousness can start to work through us. But you, just as everyone else, are only human and that sure comes through when you start talking politics!
Georgia

As hard as it might be to swallow, everything happens for a reason, and yes George is right, we are not in control, though we think we are. We are merely play actors. The world finds itself in unmanageable problems, proliferation of nuclear weapons, Iraq, middle east, Kashmir/Pakistan, terrorism, because we don't feel we have to or need to answer to a Higher Power. Is it as simple as that? Since when did we become so arrogant?
Thanks Deepak for all you share and your insights, even when it comes to politics and your own personal take on it. Thank you for giving us a space to connect here and share, even when we don't agree with one another.
Love, Shakti G.

Deepak,

To my mind, whether or not we can do without the meme would rest solely on the fertility of the soil it grows in e.g. the fact that we believe in a heaven or hell or the phenomenon of sin. It has all the characteristics you mentioned abovei.e.sticky, proliferates,magnetic etc. This is where the question comes in . We accept or we dont depending again on the tattvas we were born with or the gunas. sattvik,rajsik or tamasik.Its very difficult to weed out notions of this kind.

Further one would gather that as we go forward in our journey, we realise that what we had filtered out at another point, on recall, we would like to reconsider the decision. We will now like to include that meme since it fits into our present mindset perfectly. e.g.astrology is pooh poohed by many teenagers or so called page 3 variety. But as life unfolds her dark secrets and they find themselves at a loss, they now want to fervently adopt this last crutch which will give them a clue as to whys of occurrences.

Vivekananda once wrote that you can be born in a church, but dont die in one. One has to go beyond the prevailing mems at the given time .If I may say so , even our decision to filter out, whether conscious, subconscious is also a decision which arise out of how and where our focus is.

If it finally boils down to the bottom line then I would say that irresponsible filtering may damage us more than we can imagine.Why not just simplify our lives and JUST BE. If we need symbols to create our reality then we have missed the point of impermanence. With change being the only constant ,why build castles of sand anymore?

Deepak,
Yes, symbols are powerful. What is the meaning behind the enigmatic medical symbol, the caduceus? Could it be the Serpent Power, ie Kundalini, traveling up the spinal cord via Shushuma on its way to the thousand-petaled lotus, bramarendra. So we have this symbol seen by millions, used by millions, and only a few know its esoteric meaning. Yet the reality behind this idea has huge ramifications for the human race. Know yourself, they own true nature. Ramakrishna said there is no enlightenment without first awakening Kundalini.
Best wishes, Susan Grace
"Celebrate Unity and the One Human Race"

Deepak,
I would have liked to see the do-it-yourself part come out more clearly.
When we come into contact with a world event, our brain constructs a worldview of it and store it in its memory (the mind). Usually, the worldview includes a value judgement such as good or bad, beautiful or ugly, etc. and this judgement depends upon some past memories ( meme or not), already existing in the brain. In your previous article on this subject, and comments on it by readers, there was considerable talk about preventing the influence of bad memes in forming this worldview so that it represents the event more accuratey and does not contain unnecessary and undesirable inferences. This is in an effort to control propagation of bad memes in the minds of people. When I saw "Do-it-yourself" in the title, I thought you were going to expand on how one can do it.
Anyway, you probably read some of Jiddu Krishna Moorthy's works. He emphasizes independent thinking. He repeatedly says never make a statement because somebody else said so in the past. He is dead against "belief" and dead against religion because religions are based on beliefs. "See it yourself and remember it without making a judgement" is one of his messages. The do-it-yourself phrase reminded me of that.

Memes at work - 2 Pictures of 2 people wading through water in New Orleans. Caption with the blacks says they "looted food", while caption with the whites says they "found food".

http://content.ytmnd.com/136000/136547/image.jpg

In sanscrit the word " sanskara' would be the closest to a meme. A sanskara influnces cognition, perception,emotions,behaviour,relationships,social interactions enviornment etc.Furthermore since a sanskara is part of "store consciousness' it is in the soul.Since the soul cannot be squeezed into the volume of a body or the span of a lifetime;it reincarnates and recycles itsef.To be free of it would indeed be enlightenment. J Krishnamurty said it beautifully when he said"the highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgement" Carlos Casteneda in one of his books also speaks of Seers" who are unbiased witnesses incapable of judjement" Being incapable of moral judjement they become capable of understanding.The key seems to be stillness of internal dialog that allows us to see and understand with an intelligence that is contextual,nurturing,wholistic,relational,without a win or lose orientation,that goes beyond cause effect thinking and sees the inderdependent co arising of events. love deepak

In the Far East, when one dies, he checks in with Buddha.

In the Middle East, he checks in with Allah.

In the West, he checks in with St. Peters, who represents Jesus up in Heaven.

Tyan died & St Peters greeted her at the Gate.

St. Peters checked with his computer & said,
"What happens this time? Tyan.
Your Gleevec should keep you going for at least another 5 years or more!"

Tyan:-- "They make things so complicated on earth, I can't stand it anymore!
They even started a blog on F*&k#g & were spending hours on debating it instead of sending help to the hurricane victims."

St. Peters:--"I know. From the earlist Indian & Arcadian civlization, to the modern Islam, Christians, Buddhists, Confuscists, they all try to make things so complicated that only the most INTELLIGENT & the most STUPID can understand.
GOD know all about it. But why are you here??!!"

"GOD give us life, love, happiness, & compassion.
I want to stay simple, & happy, & compassionate, & I want to be with Celia."

"That is simple! Keep talking to the ocean, to the flowers, to everything & everybody that you are comfortable with, & to GOD. Keep your love of life, your compassion, & your passion & keep up your effort to connect with everything & everybody on earth.

And keep it simple!!!!"

So Tyan is back on earth & live happily hereafter.

"Belief regulates end."

Thank you Deepak ... for sharing. I love reading your posts, and I especially like watching you formulate and create. Love, Char

Divya--I found your link quite interesting as it relates to something I heard on the radio earlier that I have not been able to quit thinking about...

I did not catch the whole program but as I tuned in the "radio personality" was talking about why is it that everything that we are seeing and hearing about the devastation in New Orleans centers around blacks?

Could it be that 60 percent of the population of New Orleans are black and a large percentage of them have no money and no transportation, therefore they were the majority that were not able to evacuate? With state officials having the knowledge of a catastropic hurricane why wasn't an evacuation planned ahead for these people in an attempt to get them out?

Why aren't the media talking about any of this?

Answers anybody?

It wasn't the hurricane that did the most damage, it was the breach of the levees in the aftermath. The hurricane had lost it's full potential by the time it hit land. Do you think the officials in India could have done a better job of evacuating an entire city in time? They did the best they could, in my humble estimation. Nothing is perfect. Rescue workers are being shot at while trying to get help to the ground. Now let's see if the world comes to the aid of the American south, like Americans did for the victims of the tsunami.
Georgia

Deepak writes of "Seers who are unbiased witnesses incapable of judgment...Being incapable of moral judgement they become capable of understanding". That means when we lift ourselves above the material plane, do we see that all is one, and that everything happens for a reason. Now do you apply that wisdom to your own picture and judgment of politics, Kerry, Bush, Iraq ? That's the hard work and the challenge...practicing what we preach. A lesson for us all.
Love, Shakti G.

Dear Truth, a lot of people also chose to stay back. People are stubborn; granted, there are a lot of people with no means to get somewhere. Texas has sent buses for many of those people to bring them to the Houston astrodome. What you may not be hearing also, is that criminals were let out of jails, and gun stores were being broken into. We don't know the whole story so maybe we should reserve judgment for the time being.
Daniel David

Dearest Shakti I never said I was a Seer. Im not even a Shakti love deepak

If my comment sounded judgemental in any way that was not my intention. My question is why isn't the media giving us the facts? I just think a lot of what we are seeing could have been avoided if certain steps had been taken prior, whether it be years before (the levees being updated to today's realistic standards) or the day before (a mass transit to Texas or another state). OF COURSE, I totally agree everyone is doing the best they can. I just think that maybe if state or government officials would have put some logic and pre-thinking into all of it, some of what we are seeing might not be happening. That is all.

DEEPAK, sorry for getting off the topic. I just had my eyes open a little more today is all...

Gosh, Deepak, I thought you were a Seer. Sometimes you come up with the most beautiful, higher consciousness thoughts, and then you come down to earth and betray your humanity through the filter of your personal biased views on politics etc. Not that you aren't allowed your own views, you are, but sometimes I expect more of you, and that's my failure. You are still one of the best guiding lights we have to mediate eastern and western thought, holding a mirror up to us. That's why I continue to read you, and your readers, like me, are holding a mirror up for you also. That is what we do for each other...we are each other's gurus. Now back to my book "How to be a Seer/Shakti 101" :-)
Love You, Shakti G.

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Mr. Chopra,

It all started with

CALLING ALL BLOGGERS: THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Then, while I was spending a week talking to the ocean, they started the F Bomb.

And Celia(Is it the same Celia I am thinking about? There must be thousands in this world!!) said something I could never comprehend.

If somebody is fighting over me, then I feel real bad!

I don't want to feel bad!!!

Dear Deepak, you released me when you told me in one of your books that we are love, we are light, we are the source and the force of life. Right there, I could see my true self.
I realized that this physhical life is a dream and we only have a role to play. We can play a role of love without fear and taking sides. As Bible says in Ecclesiastes 1.14 - "I have seen everything done in this world, and I tell you, it is all useless. It is like chasing the wind."
The best way to create harmony is to show human beings who they truly are. It can release them from their strong holds.

Love,

Sarah

Dear Deepak-ji,

All these theories and world-view come into play and are important for a social underatnding. Are they useful in realising one's Self? I always had this feeling that is the major difference in the spirituality of the East and the West.

In the West, spirituality starts with the commnunity and ends with the individual. In the East, it always starts with the individual and ends up in society.

There is a collecitve consciousness. The Western traditions try to work on this collective consciousness directly whereas the East is working on the individual; consequentially on the collective consciousness.

Which is better? I am biased. The Eastern method is better and does not need all these collective 'explanations'. Individual is the atomic social entity. We need all these discourses since we are talking in the currently relevant Western concepts.

Regards,
Chocka

Chocka ji .You are right! deepak

Dear Truth,

I cannot help but comment on your post about Katrina, briefly. This is what my mom told me a few days ago as I felt her heart empty. I have yet to turn on the TV, but I will tonight as I cannot stand being in the dark. Per my mom’s understanding, everyone left that could and the poor where left behind. These are people with no cars, and the ones with cars either had no gas money or their car was not working. And if they had a car and gas money, they had no money for a hotel and nowhere to go, so they stayed home or went to shelters. The cities governments started sending out buses for the poor, but they ran of buses. Oh, and the sick stayed behind as one man had pneumonia and was by himself and too ill to leave. Now what my mom said, is that the hurricane surprised them and it picked up power and hit, (i.e., they jumped in the car Monday morning as they were on the East side of the storm). You see, the month of September is the BIG hurricane season in the Southeast and these storms are typical and regular as the sun, rain, and snow graces our environment. Of course, by now, everyone knows that this was the worst disaster since 1906, so I have read on the internet ... or something like that.

Love,
Char

PS: There is a huge population of African Americans in the Southeast, so seeing a majority of dark skinned folks is common place. The high schools that I attended where about 75+ percent African American children and 25 percent Caucasians.

PPS: There are many Caucasians just as poor as the African Americans. This is a very, very poor area of the USA, i.e., Miss., Ala, N.O., & Georgia, etc. Of course, there are the well-off areas, but few and far in between as compared to the Bay Area of Cal, where I leave. And no, I am not one of the wealthy, but okay.

Hi Deepak,Meme is a new word to me. So I am trying to understand it.I did read stuff on Samskaras,I found it in the yogasutras of Patanjali.I found 3 meanings to it .
Is Impression (root impressions which control the actual state of the mind) the meaning you are looking for?

I have a question.You have used "Idiot savants", and savant syndrome, in a blog or two. I have heard you mention it in one of the cassettes,may be conscious universe.What is this syndrome? I have not found it in any syndrome books.Are you referring to children with autistic spectrum disorders?

Thank you .God bless.

I think Deepak is connected to God, so that is why many of us think that he is a seer, as he seems to know exactly what to say and when to say it to assist us in our journey. Deepak once said at one of his Renewal Weekends in CA, July of 2004, 'I just do what God tells (directs?) me.' Did I get that right? ... because that is what I remember hearing or something like that.

Or is it consciousness?

INHERENT PROTECTIVE REFLEXES AT BIRTH, BLIND TRUST OF PARENTS AND ELDERS DURING CHILDHOOD,RECEPTIVE INNOCENT MIND WHILE AQQUIRING EARLY EDUCATION,CULTURAL NORMS,RELIGIOUS DICTATES AND SANCTIONS, AND UNAVOIDABLE MEDIA EXPOSURE HAVE ALREADY STAINED THE MIND WITH MEMES BEFORE INDEPENDENT THINKING,REFLECTION,CONTEMPLATION CAN TAKE ROOT.
FROM REALISING THE PRESENCE OF PRELOADED PROGRAMMING IN OUR PSYCHE, TO EFFORTS AT BECOMING PROGRAMMERS, TO THE SCREAMING DESIRE OF BECOMING DISPASSIONATE OBSERVERS, OUR OWN CONCEIT, IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE PLAY A DEVIOUS AND HINDERING PART.THE USE OF SPEECH RUNS THE RISK OF SELF AGGRANDISEMENT AND CONDESCENDING DOGMA AND SILENCE IS AN OPTION NOT PURSUED SERIOUSLY.
SADLY THEREFORE WA ARE ALL VICTIMS OF WORDS.

Hello Deepak,
Thank you for being a beacon of light in a world that wants to look to the dark side of "ain't it awful" and pursues the muck of a victim mentality. You have never strayed from your teachings that we are always the creators of our own infinite possibilities and to take that giant step of personal responsibility. Thank you...joanna

I would like to make several points.

I think we are confusing reality with experience. Reality does not require any symbols or thought. Walk outside or watch a sunset over the water, and do not think any thoughts or label anything or anybody that is reality. What you create with symbols and labels is a fabrication. It is an extension to reality and it affects your experience and your response. The fabrication is like the fabric you clothe your body with. Your body is reality the clothing is an adornment it alters the appearance of your body. The fabrication alters the appearance of reality. Both however play a role in your experience. One you have control of, the other you cannot control but you can have an effect on it.

All Fabrication is MAN-MADE.

All Reality is GOD-MADE, and we might say Nature made.

This is a meme I made up which I think delivers a truth.

“Life is an illusion but the experience is real”

~Richard Thomas

And you can quote me on that.

I think from now on we might designate

~Reality~ with a capital as that which is made by God and Nature.
~reality~ with a small case as being the fabrication of man.

Hi Deepak,

Well you added some interesting perspectives. Good observation about the benefit part as it relates to meme selection.

Add this in there somewhere “crafting of experience”. Our prime objective in each moment is to “craft our experience”.

I am glad you’re excited. What is exciting about memes is that they have practical application which can alter reality in the typical sense of that word. The practical application is realizing when someone is trying to engineer your beliefs and not being a passive receptor but an inquisitor. The other application is that you help others engineer a productive belief system or simply destroy ignorance by propagating truth memes to collapse false memes. Then there is the good old question which sends a bad meme into oblivion by inducing insight.

Where does insight fall in the scheme of memes? Perhaps it is related to belief vs. knowing.

So now how about discussing the battle for Control of reality in the typical sense of the word or we could say control of the accepted fabrication?

I have been exploring what role do skeptics play in maintaining reality.

Dear Char, We all have the capacity and capability for inner guidance. We all can talk to God...it just takes quieting the intellect. I think when we get too involved in discussing things that require intense intellectual speculation, , we get a little further from our deeper core and truth. Though these discourses do serve a purpose, in understanding social conditions, etc as Chocka points out. I am wondering like Chokra if all these intellectual discourses get us closer to realization of our true self. Highly doubtful. Char, you are also connected to God just the same as Deepak. Of this I have absolutely no doubt. Just some, like Deepak, seem to express it with a special flair. He is no more special than you, and he would be the first to tell you that.
God Speed.
Shakti G

There is only one valid judgment in Life.

I like this experience.

I do not like this experience.

Nothing is good or bad it simply is and if not for it something could not exist. If not for something, nothing could not exist therefore "it" is. That is the why of the Universe. There was no creation, no beginning and no end.

Who among you can discern what was really just said?

~Richard Thomas

This is from the book Infinite Play

Truth asked "With state officials having the knowledge of a catastropic hurricane why wasn't an evacuation planned ahead for these people in an attempt to get them out?"

It simply shows how far removed the management is from the Reality of the many. It never occured to them because the know only their experience and not the experience of others.

We need new management.

Deepakji

Pranaam

All this talk on memes has got me thinking of the different ways spirituality is approached in the east and the west. Isn’t the entire personality simply an aggregate of beliefs at any given moment? Aren't we then at any given moment just a collection of memes? That these beliefs create our world view and hence our individual reality and a set of responses to our world etc etc is just tautology. The concept of ‘Sanskara’ in the East just makes us more aware of the power of ‘memes’ if you will, taking them even beyond time and space. Mind is ‘memes’ is both the message and the word of caution from Eastern wisdom and specifically Zen. To witness the ‘memes’, comprehend the reality they spin and empty the self of all ‘memes’ is their point. Only then will you rise beyond the duality they fragment you into and perceive the world as advaita or non-dualistic.

Fine! What confuses me is why we have to create new jargon and then begin to dissect that word all over again to go back to what is the basic fundamental of spirituality. Perhaps this is the critical divide between the west and the east. This constant desire in the west, to coin new words to flog the same horse. The need for articulating everything to a fault. When science takes precedence over faith the debate will always get reduced to words, definition and naturally opinion and judgment. In all this clamour, where is there room for the silence of contemplation and integration?

Since before anyone remembers
It has been clear
Shining like silver
Though the moonlight penetrates it
And the wind ruffles it
No trace of either remains
Today I would not dare
To expound the secret
Of the stream bed
But I can tell you
That the blue dragon
Is coiled there

- Muso (1275-1351)

Shakti G: Your "G" doesn't stand for Gawain does it? Your discourses with Deepak have a "hauntingly" familiar ring to them--if it is "you," then "your" name was just mentioned in a reading I did yesterday!

In any event--your posts are very...."interesting, and even 'enlightening!'" Thanks!--Dave

anusheh

There is a place where faith and science meet and neither is any longer required, for it is evident in the experience.

That is what is all about.

I beg to disagree Richard. Science is a preoccupation of the mind and faith lies in the realm of the heart where words and ideas silence into the great infinity of consciousness and 'knowing'. Mind and heart split is duality. Mind noisy with the intellect can never lead to confluence with the heart which excels at 'seeing' beyond the finite lines of language, definitions and opinion. 'Meeting'is not just tenuous but an impossibility.
"The key seems to be stillness of internal dialog that allows us to see and understand with an intelligence that is contextual,nurturing,wholistic,relational,without a win or lose orientation,that goes beyond cause effect thinking and sees the inderdependent co arising of events" quoting Deepak. Do you truly believe that the intellect can ever get there?
In my humble understanding, never!
love
Anusheh

Is there a site for dummies like me, "intentblog for dummies" may be.

until such time I am going to continue to do the following :
- witness my thoughts- just treat them for
what they are just thoughts
- not take me or life seriously
- never to turn spirituality into
an intellectual pursuit

and continue to BE happy all the time and dumb.

love
murali

Deepak I am going to paste my response to your request in part one of this theme here. I hope it doesn't disturb to much and I can't imagine you can continue to return to passed blogs as you seem to be very active in going forward (a very positive thing).

I however really did write this with the intention of specifically giving you some thoughts for your future blog on "peak experiences". Again sorry if it is redundant.

So here it is:

"As promised. 4 "Peak Experiences".

But first: Thanks Georgia. I always do that. It's a meme I've carried since my second grade english "teacher" tortured me (literally) during reading circles. It is "A Guy In A Diner". And I thought diner was something we ate.

Also thanks for the heads up. If I'm going to spend time in here I really want it to make a difference to myself and then anyone that might gain something from any "insights" I may have. I will reserve judgment for the time being but as I have been earlier advised, "guard the gates of my blah blah......" Thanks Georgia.

Second: Marek I truly appreciate your attempt to point out something to me. The quote you pasted from Deepak is brilliant. It aligns with something I already employ as a belief concerning free will verses determinism.

But please in your own coherent words, what is it "you" are trying to tell "me"?

As I stated to Georgia, I really do want my time here to be about moving forward and not banter.

If it is just general chatter that is ok. I, however, cannot keep up a dialogue with you if that is the case.

Please let me know and again in your own, calm, thought out, full sentenced words what it is you are trying to tell me. Thanks.

And now to my response Deepak.

First and for most I must deeply thank you for stirring something that has been "sleeping" within me for some time. I have had 4 definitive peak experiences. The last one being just yesterday (I am on Zürich Switzerland time) and the jury is still out as to whether it is still occurring.

Secondly I must say that this is for me more then you Deepak. It was your very request to share a moment of awakening that triggered my latest "opening". What has opened up to me I do not want to let close again. I have had these opportunities before and have squandered them. This time I mean to put them to use for the greater good. If anyone else gets something from this all the better but this spuds for me.

I will begin with this latest experience first.

Two nights ago I had been reading a travel blog written by an english man who had traveled, via land, along the silk route from Zurich, Switzerland to Southern India via Tibet. I was absolutely fascinated.

Having traveled extensively for 10 years, India for a six month period, I found myself planning to do the route in my mind over and over and over.

I decided to check out intentblog and when I began to read your comments Deepak I found all motivation drain out of me and decided to make a quick post concerning your first two paragraphs and then "get out of Dodge". I was just to drained by all the negativity and the psycho/religious mumbo jumbo your blogs were eliciting. I really think you have a great thing here. It's just that I am that kind of being that is built to read everything. I just don't think it's fair to respond without having all the points of view. They were however zapping me of my energy.

I made a quick post and went back to the travel blog. A part of my conscious mind kept pulling me back to read your blog. To give it a fair trial. I went back and read it (none of the responses) and the last paragraph unknowingly set off the beginnings of a peak experience ripe with hours of continual synchronic moments.

The past few years of my life moving, into the past few months, moving into the past few weeks, moving into the past few days had become ever more depressing, disconnected, in short, miserable. I have been a miserable person to be around and partly as a result of this have I chosen to isolate myself for longer and longer periods of time. While this isolation in an ideal situation would be of great benefit to me, I have been using it to further dig the bottomless hole I have been laboring in for years.

One would think that with all my knowledge of religion and spiritual matters and all my meditation "knowledge" and practice and with all of my involvement with western "pop" transformational "technologies" I would have avoided this position.

The casual observer would think that I was leading an ideal life. Wife (we separated on as good as terms as anyone could this January, we are treating each other as great friends since the separation); a loving, beautiful, brilliant 7 year old daughter; many wonderful adventures (including a career in Hollywood working with some of the most influential and famous people in the business, people I had simply idealized as a child); traveling to remote and "exotic" cultures for an unbroken 10 years and now an American citizen holding a passport and living in Switzerland the richest country in the world per capita.

That would be the appearance of things.

As I finished reading your entry my mind rushed to locate the three most powerfully transforming events in my short life. I left the blog open on my computer, returned to finish the english mans journey with full intention of returning to respond to you as soon as I was done with him. I was unexplainably excited.

I was watching my daughter as my wife was having a free evening out. The door to the flat opened with such loud, aggressive energy entering into the flat that at first I thought my wife had lost her mind in drunken revelry and decided to bring some guy home to flaunt in my face.

Needless to say I left my computer and went to the door only to find 3 inebriated people, my wife, her best friend and a male work colleague.

I was greeted with, Larry, kick this assholes ass. Huh? Apparently the guy had been harassing my wife's friend, had stalked her all the way to the flat. Although my wife's true intention was to engage my mediation skills, it's a forte of mine, by the time they got inside and due to the alcohol, they truly and seriously wanted to see his blood.

I told them all that I refused to even enter into a conversation until everyone calmed down. And more then pay lip service to this idea I meant it and they all saw that I did. It took them all of 3 minutes to get themselves into a shape that resembled civility.

Needless to say and to draw this section to a close, with alcohol on the agenda it is near impossible to create any positive resolution to a conflict but at least it ended with everyone talking instead of seething

He went home a bit less drunk (I fed them all a lot of water) and the friend spent the night at my wife's flat as I also did.

More important though I was in no shape to return to this blog. I had calculatingly got right up in his face with the promise to rip his head off if he ever called a woman a f••king b**ch in my presence again. A maneuver I believed would give him a taste of the mortal fear a woman can feel from the hostility of a man. I don't recommend that tactic as it left me feeling empty and I did have to apologize a number of times.

The change had begun. I had been designated someone that could mediate a conflict. In the back of my mind during all of this all I could keep thinking of is how much I wanted to share the three life altering events I had so judiciously buried into my memory banks. They were screaming at me for life. They wanted the light of day and the air of truth. I could literally feel them pressuring me to let them out.

To my surprise a pattern had been broken. Rather then return to the computer and respond to you Deepak, I went to bed. After what had just transpired I was really in know shape for spiritual matters. Or so I thought

For the past few years I have surfed the internet until 4:00 or 5:00 am and then woke up miserable and not wanting to face life.

I awoke at 8:00 a.m. instead of my usual 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. or more recent 1:00 p.m.. I felt refreshed. I felt alive. I felt like I should go out into the world and take care of a list of tasks, "critical" to my existence. Tasks that I had been putting off for some time. Nothing to difficult. Just stuff that I didn't even want to face.

I'm so glad I did. Life yesterday was effortless. Eastern block Kiosk women smiled at me and I realized I was smiling back. Trains consistently stopped with doors at my nose the moment I stepped onto the platform. Swiss bureaucrats said yes, with smiles, again and again and again and most important to me, my heart was smiling back.

I know that in the world yesterday there was much sorrow. Much war, much poverty and much suffering. I know that I am a part of the world. I don't want to sound hooky here but didn't some guy that wasn't just A Guy In A Diner say, "to be in this world but not of this world"? I get it.

Last night I went to bed at 10:00 p.m.. This morning I awoke at 5:00 a.m.. I would have resumed my meditation but I thought this was as important.

All day long, yesterday, I kept thinking about those powerful events that had happened oh so long ago in my life. Powerful transformational experiences. I don't want to and will not allow myself to go back into the dark of my cave and my ignorance. I choose life and light. Thank you Deepak. And to think before Larry King you were just A Guy In A Diner to me.

Experience one:

I am 4 years of age. The world is a much simpler place. I am lost in it. I am unsure of what or who I am. I am the product of a black (Jamaican) father and a white (Swiss) mother. I am living in the beautiful suburbs of Huntington Long Island, New York. Life should be good. It is before the assassinations of Kennedy, King and Malcolm X. Whites and blacks do not except each other in large part. I am a double reminder of this hatred.

On a sunny summer day I walk out of my parents home. I walk down the walkway to the drive way. Just before I step off the walk way it happens.

What it was I have never been able to explain nor have I ever talked about it. Everything becomes perfect. For no apparent reason. For only an instance. Total clarity of mind, vision and purpose and then it is gone. For life.

I don't really want to describe the moment to much. The temperature was not. It was as if it was my temperature. The green on the leaves were of such a nature that many years latter when I experimented with hallucinogenic substances (and back then on Long Island we were getting the real thing) the vividness of the leaves paled in comparison to what that 4 year old saw. The brilliance of the light was not blinding it was just perfectly clear. That is about as far as I am willing to go in way of a description.

So why do I consider this a peak experience. Because it left me with undeniable hope that there was something more then just trying to get to the end in one piece. It still serves me well. Every few years the moment rushes back as a powerful memory. I don't re-experience it but it is a clear guiding post. I don't will it to come. It seems to come when it is needed and it came back strong two nights ago.

Before I go to peak experience number two I would like to state that I believe the peak experience itself is not what is important. Fine if it feels good but it doesn't always and it isn't the experience itself that matters. Call it what you will. Call it Kundalini, call it trauma, it comes in many forms. What happens as a result of the peak experience is the key to whether it was a true peak experience. Is there a fundamental change in character, thinking, being? Does it leave "me" with more compassion for my world then before I experienced it? That's my measuring stick.

Experience Two:

I am 21 years old. I hate my life. I hate everything and everybody around me. Even my best friends I am envious of and secretly wish to see them fail. I my self am the biggest failure and yet I hide this from even myself. I blame the world around me, my family and most specifically my father for my state of being.

Up until I am 15 I lie awake night after night in tears wishing that all the windows and doors to my families house be sealed shut and they all be consumed in a great fire with me the lone survivor.

Burn the truth of my misery with them. Only then do I have a chance. Needless to say I'm a miserable human being.

Thank the universe ( or my past good merits) for my father. He has been doing work with an organization we are no longer involved with.

(I am not on this blog to discredit or endorse any "way". ALL ways lead eventually to the truth. Some "may" be quicker some "may" take more time if we ever actually do arrive at THE truth is entirely another matter.)

Thank the universe ( or my past good merits) for my father. He has been doing work with an organization we are no longer involved with.

It is called Werner Erhardt and Associates and it is the EST Training. I am sitting in the first day of the training begrudgingly. I am here only because my brother, who is actually more lost then me, has recently done the Training and I have seen a complete transformation in him. I don't want him to know that I have witnessed it but just incase, I enroll. In just a few months I have seen him grow in light years and lord knows I don't want to get left behind.

My secret mission? Stop this Erhardt guy. At just the right moment I will unleash on the entire room of 200 participants my "genius" and then like the pied piper lead them out of this pseudo pop psychological babble and into the light. I will show them all.

The first 6 hours of the Training cover 10 or so ground rules. Could I ever have believed it would take 200 people 6 hours to agree to follow 10 simple rules? What is with these morons? Don't they know we have to get through these quickly so that the Training can begin and I can hatch my devious plan?

The Training has begun. I am the one that is stuck. At one point the "Trainer" makes a statement. He says that in these next 2 weekends we will experience emotions that we only think we have experienced, "Yea right you moron", I think to myself. He tells us that most people only speak there emotions but never really feel them. "Whatever". "Can we just get on with it"? "You are definitely starting to piss me off".

From time to time the Trainer asks the room questions. "How many people have ever experienced what X has just shared"? Like sheep they raise there hands and to my amazement each time the Trainer takes the time out to count each and every hand. He's actually counting there hands. "Where did they get this guy from"?

And then I see my opportunity to strike. The next time he asks a question that needs an individual response I'll raise my hand. He'll pick on me and although it will be about these stupid rules it doesn't matter. Whatever I say I'll show them all that I'm smarter then him except.......

Every time I feel sure I can stump him he doesn't call on me. Many times he looks in my eyes and then calls on someone else.

Every time I feel like a fish out of water I raise my hand but so that he can't see it behind the head of the person in front of me. It is at these very times that I know he will pick me.

And now this guys is really starting to piss me off. I am definitely feeling an energy that I never felt before well up inside of me. I am going to have to kick this guys ass if he doesn't stop F**king with me.

And then it happens. He asks one of those general questions. I raise my hand for the count with the other sheep except this time my middle finger proudly extends to full attention. I am sitting in about the middle of the room. As he begins counting from my left to my right this unbelievable unbearable heat starts to well up in the area of my abdomen. He's getting closer to me and the heat turns to fierce burning and it now wants to find a path to exit. I can feel it building up momentum. As his eyes meet mine the heat can be contained no more and it shoots like a rocket up and out through the crown of my head..........and he continues his count unfazed by my gesture.

My hand falls into my lap and my head sinks to my chest and I am defeated. I am empty. I am exhausted. As I hear the count proceed past me and to the right I feel as if all my life has been a total waste of time. I want to be no more.

With my head still on my chest staring at my hand limp in my lap I hear him finish the count. And then I hear something else. I hear my name. "I got it Larry" he says. A different kind of comfortable heat enters my entire body as I slowly lift my head to meet his eyes and as we connect he says' "And that's why your life doesn't work" and I find myself confirming this statement with an ever so subtle nod of my head. He continues, "You got it didn't you"? and I must most honestly say yes.

I could have walked out at that moment. For the rest of the two weekend seminar I had a great time watching other people breakthrough situations they had grappled with for years. For me it came only once in the first six hours of the Training in the form of what I can only believe was a "kundalini like" release, something I never want to feel again.

At the first break I called my family and told them how much I loved them and I really did. I realized in that one instance that my whole life was in my hands. It was the greatest turning point in my life and I never looked back at the miserable hater I had been. Oh yes I did rediscover misery but never back to that state. And my relationship with my family has maintained a level of love that still feels like the shift just occurred yesterday.

Peak Three

It is 1995. I am in Switzerland. I am once again lost. I have been managing the hottest music club in the entire country and my ego and the club are one. The owner decides he has had enough and one night takes the cash, boards a plane and disappears along with my ego.

I hate Switzerland and I hate the Swiss. Really I hate myself. I have come from America, a country where if a white woman looks at me with out thinking rapist I'm having a good day, to a country where because of my skin tone I am a commodity for sexual pleasure. Instead of appreciating it I am like a kid in a candy shop that knows he doesn't have enough money but can't stop eating cause it's just soooooo goooood!!!!!

My girl friend has left me. I am a womanizer among other things. Something I abhor. So now I have to get out. But where? Taos? No. Been there to many times. Jamaica? Been getting to hostile. A voice in my head clearly says "India", and I am shaken.

First of all I don't believe in voices unless I'm sleep deprived or really wasted and second of all I am definitely not ready for India. I have been there a thousand times in books and magazines and have always wanted to go but I'm not ready for a land full of short brown people. (By the way I am 5'7" and very brown).

For two weeks this voice does not leave me alone and because misery is driving me to the edge of insanity I succumb. I guess I'm going to India. It will be the first time that I travel alone and with no one to meet me on the other end. "Am I out of my mind"?

Jokingly my friends keep insisting that I am "going to find myself". This really pisses me off because I hate people that have to go anywhere to find themselves. If you can't find yourself where you are you've got no business going messing up somebody else's space. If anything I'm trying to lose myself.

The best thing I have ever done is go to India. All the spirituality stuff I've read about in books in New York or any other place in the west, all that fantasizing about gurus and the soul and attaining a perfect peace and and and and. And then to put the books or seminars back on the shelf and walk out the door into our western world. What a crock. What a comfortable way to handle western mediocrity.

I walk out of the airport in Delhi, the air encompasses my body and for six months my worst moment is ecstasy in comparison to my best moment in the west. It remains true to this day. Spirituality IS India. It can't be avoided.

Anyway I digress.

By what appeared to be complete chance and at least was in no plan of mine I found myself sitting in a 10 day Vipassana meditation course. I had read a lot through the years concerning meditation but had never sat. I even thought that if you weren't from India you really couldn't get benefit from it. Was I ever wrong.

The peak experience happened at day 7 but to call it a "peak experience" is to cheapen it in western terms. In it's simplest description I went somewhere. I don't know how long it occurred and the only reason I know something occurred is because I "came back". I know that sounds a bit unclear. But for a non locatable period of time it was an instant and it was always. Or maybe it just stopped. And I was everywhere and I was nowhere. And that's it. And then I was "back".

Two things I would like to say before I close concerning this.

1. When I say everywhere, I don't mean like everywhere in this universe and then there's that place where eternity begins... or there was this big bang but before that there was... or there is the creator but who created the creator. That's to much mental masturbation for this guy in a diner. I mean everywhere.

2. I was not prepared for it.

Since that day and that course I have not given up on the possibilities for humanity. I have been searching. I now "know" it is possible to escape the misery. It does take work and I did stop working.

Even up to two days ago as I sat in abject misery I sat with a high degree of possibility that it could all turn around and it has.

I thank you for this Deepak and more than that I thank myself for passed paramis.

May you all continue to find the truth that works for you."

TO a Guy IN A DINER THANKS FOR THE SHARING DEEPAK

Sanskara is not a synonym for meme. Deepak said that is the word that comes most close in meaning, not that one can switch one for the other. Memes are cultural genes. Sanskaras on the other hand also carry emotional content, so if you have a tendency to anger or jealousy or love you will carry those tendences with you through your life as well as from birth to birth.

I liked the "do- it- yourself kit" in the title. A great meme :)

If you are aware of this mechanism, of how the mind is creating reality according to the instruction "fulfil deep needs", if you know what memes reside in your mind, if you even become aware of your deep needs by paying attention to which symbols/archetypes resonate with you, then you can really construct your own reality. You just pick the ones you like.

The tricky part is that memes have a life of their own. Toltec shamans called the body of memes that keep us stuck in suffering "The Parasite" (a sticky symbol, isn't it?). They also explained that this Parasite works through our emotions, in the same way as Eckhart Tolle's "Pain Body".

Emotions are very interesting to explore in this context, I think, because it's the emotions that make reality feel so "real" for us. It's like when we watch a film - if emotions flow, the film feels very real. So emotions are like strong glue that keeps the meme in place and makes you feel like you couldn’t change your world (that is, your memes) no matter what. And if you are to try to "do-it-yourself", you’re sure to notice how sticky this glue can be. The meme/parasite/pain body will probably protect itself with an entire arsenal of emotions, from "you should drop the bomb" to "you should swallow all those pills", lol. Tricky indeed, but not impossible.

If you at all times keep an eye on your emotions and through them, on your memes (what Toltecs call "Stalking the Parasite"), you will be able to remain the observer of the film, and not get entrenched in this constructed reality, unless, of course, you happen to experience something you prefer to lose yourself into. Just make sure that you remember the way out :D

If everyone understood how the Parasite works, we would all live in heaven, except those of us who’d like to experience something more challenging.

Anusheh,

I totally agree with your perspective. Sounds like Infinite Play. It seems that you are saying the intellect can never achieve X. You are thinking I am saying it can. I am not sure we defined X or perhaps I did and did not know it. Or perhaps you did but it was different from my X.

The definition I find for Intellect:
The ability to learn and reason; the capacity for knowledge and understanding.
The ability to think abstractly or profoundly. See Synonyms at mind.

But anyway if we are equating "beliefs" with "intellect" then I agree.

other than that it could just be limitations of the language.

Anusheh,

Are we saying that the fact that you don't live in cave an dig for root and eat nuts, and live like the Bonobos is somehow not spiritual? Or that you are typing in a computer or can look at pictures from Mars is not spiritual?

If you are then I would disagree. I would say that that is part of the problem with the world and the conflict with science and intellect.

All that I listed is part of the unfolding that you speak of.

Aurora,

What you said was all very good.

Thoughts > feelings > emotions > actions

And it is all really about attention. A meme has no existance if you do not give it some.

~Richard Thomas

It's true, Richard, it's about attention, but there's a catch 22 here. You cannot give attention to something you don't perceive and you can't perceive what you don't put your attention on.

We can only perceive what our memes/beliefs/programs let us perceive. It's hard to introduce memes that are not related to those you already have, that's why pioneers like Deepak have such a tough job. Most of us walk in our sleep, dreaming our own separate dream and completely oblivious of something else. It's only when something manages to penetrate the barrier, to break the probability and draw your attention, that a new unrelated set of beliefs can enter the mind, and that is what they call "a quantum leap", because it's not a gradual process. You don't perceive something, and suddenly, you do. Until then, the new reality knocks at your door through improbable or synchronistical events during your waking time and through stubborn and symbolical dreams in your sleep. If it weren’t for the needs that keep getting deeper and deeper, requiring new sets of memes, we wouldn’t have evolution.

Aurora

Catch-22 is a meme.

You know what though. The Universe is sort of a catch-22

Something would need to create it, but then what would create the creator?

But you know the answer to that catch-22 right?

I'll answer that with a smile, Richard.

Anusheh,
In regards to the issue of the critical divide between the East and the West,the domain of dominance is obtained either through the toil of originality, the blatant incorporation of previously established philosophies and view points as your own without acknowledgement of their source of origin or,through investment of language,vocabulary and "cross-cultural" exchanges so that the ensuing texts will then carry the names of "New authors".
While digressing in this field of unpleasant duality [ours v/s theirs] I may add that subtle contribution to this process has also been caused by the over anxious mingling of eastern scholars in the past without having any followthrough means of obtaining minutes of those meetings or saving transcripts of the course with bibliography.
Hopefully this new medium of communication will eliminate this unpleasant reality and direct our minds towards tranquility.
I am always amused as to how the sphere of spirituality finds it so difficult to free itself from the magnetic pull of commerciality.