Posts Tagged ‘truth’

By Seamus Anthony

What follows is the massively-inspired, half-drunk process of me trying to finally define what “Rebel Zen” means in a slogan …

Rebel Zen: It’s not about being perfect – it’s about being alive.

or

Exploring what it means to be alive…

or maybe

Exploring what it means to be human…

or

… and the Glorious Art of Being Imperfect

Yes! That’s it!

Rebel Zen and the Glorious Art of Being Imperfect!

‘Cos to me that is the point – it is about what it means to be a human – warts and all.

What it feels like to be alive; the search for meaning, for authenticity, what it feels like.

The very thing artists strive to express – musicians, poets, madmen.

Forsaking fantasies of perfection – Zen as in “being here now”, whether that feels good or not.

What it feels like to be a human being, with all the inherent imperfection and beauty and baggage that comes part-and-parcel with it it.

What IT means.

THIS.

What THIS all means.

Meaning – and the absence of meaning.

The glorious, never-ending, futile, wonderful search for meaning and our compulsion to look forward when it, this, the answers are here now.

But they aren’t here now at all. They are elusive, or we would find already and stop searching.

The continual paradox of apparent meaninglessness coupled with our insatiable desire for meaning.

The Yin and Yang play-off of ‘Meaningless Life’ and ‘Awareness’.

What THIS feels like – and the validity of this experience.

This is what Rebel Zen means to me – if it must be defined – that we live, impermanently, meaninglessly, and that – surely – THIS is okay…

…but somehow it’s not,

….but somehow it is,

…and on and on without resolution …

Without resolution but with an aching wonder, a beauty, a Love…

… a dream.

…. a dream framed by razors and barbed wire

… and then framed again with clouds of forgiveness and Love …

… and on and on and on without resolution.

Until … ?

Yes … I bloody LOVE it … Rebel Zen … is

The Glorious Art of Being Imperfect

By Seamus Anthony

Part One

When Einstein theorized that space and time were not constants but were relative to the observer, no doubt there would have been those who dismissed his views as crazy talk. It can be hard to understand what he meant; he wrote and talked in terms of speeds and distances that are beyond our perceptive capabilities. Well, while unlikely to position me as a modern genius, the following article may similarly come off reading like the wacky ramblings of a nut-job as I try to understand, through the act of writing, God, no less.

More specifically, I am trying to get my head around my personal reunification with God and how I came to it by inventing my own theory of a Relative God and a Relative Truth.

Let’s start here:

If time, which we cannot experience as anything other than linear, is in fact not linear at all and also not separate from space (which, I believe – although I could have the whole thing wrong – is what Einstein hypothesized), then why can’t Truth be relative too?

Just because we can only perceive truth in certain patterns or manifestations doesn’t mean that these manifestations of truth or fact are invariable. And for that matter, what does ‘perceivable fact’ have to do with it anyway? It’s not like ‘the whole God thing’ has any historical basis in rational thought per se.

Existentialism, the term I prefer over the clunky ‘spirituality’, has more to do with emotions, mainly fear (of the unknown), and feelings of awe and wonder in the face of a big, beautiful, mystifying Universe.

Actually, no, we should really start back here:

I was brought up in a fundamentalist home where Truth was Truth as according to the Bible (or at least our particular Church’s interpretation of the Bible) and that was that.

This never sat well with me.

After doing a little research in the school library (no Internet then, crazy huh?), it seemed pretty obvious that on more than one occasion, entire civilizations have risen, prospered, declined and fallen without one single citizen thereof hearing diddly-squat about the Christian Gospel. Did those people, I enquired of the tall, wise ones in my life, go to Hell for worshiping false idols and otherwise failing to please the Christian God (who may or may not have been invented yet)?

The answer was “Yes, unless they accepted Jesus as their personal saviour, they went to Hell.”

“Well that seems hardly fair.”

“The Bible says that all people get a chance to hear the word of God and choose to repent before they die.”

“The word of Christ specifically?” I asked, just to clarify. “From the Bible?”

“Yes,” came the self-assured answer. Case closed…

…but not in my mind.

As if some indigenous American or Australian or Chinese people way-back-when, before Europeans started sticking their flags everywhere they weren’t wanted, ever got to hear about the Christian religion! What crap!

But what if it was true that all people got to hear the word of a Universal God, expressed through a variety of languages, and even other mediums beyond language like Love and through Nature? That sounds a lot easier to swallow doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I couldn’t hypothesize such heresies aloud growing up around Born Again Christians – they were, if nothing else, uncompromising in their vision.

Church or Breasts? That is the Question.

So after a childhood spent being alternately comforted by the presence of a loving, forgiving God and terrorized by a ferocious God who was champing at the bit to burn me (and keep burning me forever) for sneaking an extra slice of cheesecake behind Mum’s back, I eventually went mad with confusion over my burgeoning teenage sexuality.

Sensibly, I chose to take my chances and spend some time investigating the allure of female bumpy-bits over those pesky Christians and their square-bear ways. This decision came with an added bonus: sleeping in on Sundays. It was a no-brainer.

From then on I wanted nothing to do with religion or spirituality and gave myself over fully to hedonism.

This was all very well until my mid-twenties when the true nature of my mortality hit home like a very rude comment and I entered into a dark night of the soul. While I had no desire to return to the Church, I began to look around for a different kind of spirituality to help me to get right with my life…

Continued in Part Two

Pic by Smudgie’s Ghost

I usually steer clear of “woo-woo” superstitious stuff, but the truth of the matter is that years ago I was visited by the ghost of a recently deceased friend and he gave me some advice that I have never forgotten about pursuing your dreams.

Read the story here:

Never Gonna Be A DJ – A Ghost Story

Seamus Anthony

By Seamus Anthony

Today I had one of those “Little Kensho moments” where I just suddenly saw things exactly as they are, and in this moment I truly realised the inherent truth and power in the famous Yoda quote:

“Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”

In my case what I was thinking about was my three main goals for this year – to lose weight/get fitter, to greatly improve my French and to re-establish myself as a regular fixture on the Melbourne live music scene.

Of the three of these, the only one I have really been doing properly is the latter; I have been getting out and playing lots of gigs, networking and getting right back into the groove of being a busy, active musician again. I am just doing it. There’s miles to go yet but I have started the journey; I’m doing what needs to be done.

As for the other two, well I have been learning some more French, and I have been doing some exercise and have at least not gotten fatter – but the truth is I have been making excuses. Excuses like “I find it hard to find the time to practice my French skills” or “I can’t enjoy life without (excessive amounts of) designer beer and fine food”.

And so at the end of the day, I just haven’t been “doing it”. To do it just means to do it. Simple as that. And as the wise green grommit said, you’re either doing it, or your NOT doing it, there is no middle ground.

Reading about how to do it, isn’t doing it. Thinking about doing it isn’t doing it. Talking about doing it isn’t doing it. Only doing what needs to be done in order to get the result you seek is doing it, everything else is just bullshit and excuses.

Moving Stones Around

The qualitive difference in my two experiences, “doing it” and “not doing it”, is marked. In the case of getting my music out there again, I feel a flow and a sense of satisfaction that I haven’t felt in years. In fact, yesterday and today I was even happy to do very little (in this area) for the first time in a while, without a nagging feling that I should be doing something more constructive. I felt free to rest for a bit because I know I have some good momentum going. It’s like a bike ride: it’s not all uphill, you get to coast down some hills here and there.

But in the two cases of French and Fitness, I feel blocked (or at least I did until today). I felt frustrated and like I keep trying but to no avail.

The mistake I am making? There is no try! Only Do or do not!

But why have I been “Not doing”? Well, I believe it has to do with what’s going on in my head; my internal dialouges and beliefs are getting in my own way.

The lines of dialouge directly preceding the featured Yoda quote do a nice job of exploring this:

LUKE
Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally different.

YODA
No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.

In case you don’t remember or know, this whole scene tells the story of Yoda teaching Luke Skywalker to use the Force to raise Luke’s stricken X-Wing fighter from the swamp. Luke believes it is easy to make stones levitate but that he can’t use his mind to lift up the spacecraft.

And that’s what I have been doing, moving stones around instead of “doing it” for real. I have been going for a jog here and there, I stopped putting sugar in my coffee, but really it’s not enough to stem and reverse the middle aged spread that’s been threatening to engulf my hips. And I have been learning new French words at a nice steady pace with my little 16 month old daughter, but I still haven’t been knuckling down to learn all the “difficult” grammar stuff that will really mean the difference to my French language skills.

And why?

Because in my mind, these actions are associated with displeasure and negative beliefs. I believe I find grinding through French grammar “boring”. I believe I can’t enjoy life without eating too much cheese and sweet food and drinking too much beer.

In my mind, these hurdles were too big for me to leap, to which Yoda would say:

“No! No different! Only different in your mind.”

The truth is there is plenty of pleasure to be had from both these activities – but my mind has just gotten stuck in a couple of little dead-ends. If I am going to find my way to my destination, I need to reverse the old brain-car and meander back through the suburbs of my skull until I find the way through to the destination I want to end up at. There I will enjoy the pleasure of understanding what the hell all those Frenchies in my life are always rabbiting on about so effusively. There I will not feel like such a bloated old toad when I am on stage singing my little heart out. And along the way there will be plenty of enjoyable milestones too.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”

The funny thing is, a couple of years back I was in just the same mental dead-end with gig-hunting. I had convinced myself that the way I felt about getting on the phone and hustling up live music gigs was still the same as it was when I was a depressed, marijuana-addicted, slightly paranoid 23 year old (I hated it then). In fact this was not the case, and once I broke that barrier I have enjoyed applying all the skills I have since learned towards this task, and have had no problems at all with it, in fact I am enjoying it even more than I did when I was a gung-ho 19 year old kid.

So on the one hand, it’s all a process, and sometimes you just can’t rush things…

But on the other, that’s probably just another of those mental ideas that I need to unlearn in order to speed me on my way.

I will leave you with another pertinent bit of dialogue from The Empire Strikes Back:

LUKE
I don’t… I don’t believe it.

YODA
That is why you fail…

By Seamus Anthony

I am a big fan of spot meditations, which are quick meditations done “on the spot” that can take anywhere from an instant to a couple of minutes. Here’s a longer one that I sometimes do in the morning when I get up.

First thing I do is put the kettle on, then while I wait for it to boil I do a quick, relaxing meditation.

I have an old stainless steel kettle that we heat up on the gas stove-top which takes a minimum of five minutes depending on how full it is. You could do an electric kettle meditation but that would be a true ’spot meditation’ as they boil pretty quickly.

My kettle meditation technique isn’t complicated – just sitting up straight, focussing on the breath and enjoying the morning peace and quiet. Obviously I live somewhere that is peaceful and quiet in the mornings, I guess if you don’t then you’ll have to meditate on the noise – which can be ok also (but more challenging in my opinion).

Our kettle sings this lovely, warm two-note harmony when it boils which is great when I am doing the kettle meditation and nobody is home, but truth is I usually flick the whistle up so that it doesn’t sound, in order to get a precious hour’s writing in before the little ‘un wakes up.

I find this meditation useful on mornings where I want to get straight into writing first thing while my mind is fresh, but have that nagging voice telling me that it is also a perfect time to meditate. This way I get just a nice taste of that lovely, lush, pleasant feeling that washes over me when I meditate, and then I get to work with a nice hot cuppa tea at hand.

Ah, it’s a wonderful life!

Speaking of the blissful feelings that meditation can bring on, we have just released a 60 page e-book this week about just that. Please visit our Psychedelic Meditation website to find out how you can enjoy a blissful Cosmic High by meditating.

By Seamus Anthony

Did you know you can practice meditation in pretty much any situation?

If you lead a busy life and find it hard to make time to meditate, then you might like to try meditating while you get some “mindless” chores done. I do it when I am washing the dishes. Here’s how …

Turning Mindless Chores into Mindful Chores

We usually think of housework as being pretty mindless work. That’s why some people like it, they find it relaxing, and why others (like me) hate it. I dislike it because I would much rather be somehow engaging the grey matter a bit more (by doing something creative).

Why do I feel the desire to be doing something more creative? Because I have an idea in my head that this is more worthwhile – but the truth is no action is more or less worthwhile in life – they are just what they are no more no less.

I know this in theory – but nevertheless I have always tended to get frustrated and irritable when doing household chores. That’s why (as my wonderful, long-suffering partner will attest) I avoid them like the plague.

And that was how I intended to live my life out; I never really thought I’d come to a place in life like I am now where the amount of household work I am required to do has massively increased.

Newsflash: Children Create Havoc, Mess and LOTS of Housework!

Seriously, as we were wistfully looking at the growing bump and contemplating names for the impending bundle of joy, I never for a moment twigged that with the joy of becoming a father would come a gigantic increase in the amount of crap that needs doing around the home.

It creeps up on you too, at first having a little bubs seemed like a walk in the park, all she did was sleep, eat and poop. But now, as she enthusiastically carves a path of destruction towards her first birthday, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time wiping, washing and tidying up. And that’s just me, save your sympathy for my darling partner. As I type away in some kind of warped attempt at breadwinning, I can see her out my window hanging yet another load of washing out to dry. It just never stops – and we’ve only got one kid!

Yeah, So Like, Whatever Gramps – What About the Meditation Lesson Already?

Oh right, sorry. Got carried away.

Mindfulness is a term used to describe the process of focussing only on what it is that you are doing now in the present moment. This skill is pretty much the basic skill of meditation (although there will be various opinions on this statement no doubt).

So whether you’re processing customers at the fast-food counter, perfecting a new skateboard move, coding the next Facebook, or in my (sad) case, doing endless piles of dishes, you can quite realistically meditate while you work.

Here’s the ‘Housework Meditation’ technique:

1. Focus only on the task at hand
2. And your breathing
3. Breathe normally, just pay attention to it
4. And the task at hand
5. Try and catch yourself when you start thinking about something else, something irrelevant to the task at hand
6. Then – without berating yourself for losing concentration – move your focus back to the task at hand
7. repeat until the task is done.

Boring – But Beneficial

Remembering that the idea is to remain focussed on your task as much as possible, this process will be easy if you are enjoying what you are doing, or if it requires a lot of concentration.

It may prove more challenging if the job you are doing is dull, repetitive and, in itself, not challenging, but the benefits for practising this “moving meditation” are plentiful.

• You will do the job better (and potentially faster).
• You will be exercising your “focus muscle”, i.e. your ability to concentrate.
• And, with any luck, you will hopefully notice an increased level of relaxation and inner peace.

This last benefit is why I try to practice meditation while I do the dishes. Otherwise my irritation at this never-ending, boring chore starts to wind me up and before I know it my mind takes this bad attitude and runs with it. Next thing you know I am seething about “what she said” and “what he did”, and this kind of thinking my friends, is bad news. Very bad news indeed.

On the other hand if (on a good night) I manage to relax and clear my mind of bullshit while I clean those (wonderful, lovely) pots and pans, I find myself infused with a Universal perspective and a sense of gratitude. Then when I turn around to see that the little horror bundle-of-joy has created some gigantic mess and the darling wife is losing the plot over it, I am more likely to be able to help diffuse the situation with my, like, totally Zen energy (maaan).

Any interesting ways and places that you like to meditate? Tell us all about them in the comments section below, and don’t forget to go here to get your free e-book (by me, it’s quite good).

By Steve Mills

Mystery makes the world go around. The only reason you are reading this article, and not checking your facebook or twitter profiles is that you don’t know how it is going to end. When things get predictable people tend to lose interest and look elsewhere.

When you get down to the fine detail and study life closely, Mystery is the animating force of the world, the reason why every man and woman gets up in the morning, has breakfast and steps out into the wild crazy world.

The search for meaning and answers behind the events of your life is fueled by your innate curiosity. Curiosity is a force so powerful that it sets the direction of our civilization and species, fills the wallets of gossip magazine publishers and drives people to continue to search for answers against great odds.

You only need to look at prime time TV, with its wall-to-wall crime shows and detective dramas to see the popularity of people searching for the unknown. Do people like the blood, the gore, the tales of tragedy? Some do perhaps, but most glue their eyeballs to the screen 4 nights a week because they are addicted to the idea of mystery.

The Seeker

Most spiritual and personal development seekers start out on journeys of self improvement and inner reflection with the best intentions, looking for truth and insight wherever it appears to be available.

It soon becomes apparent that there is a huge amount of people willing to share their answers with you. Some will give them to you for free, other want you to buy it from them, and of course there are others that will give you their version in exchange for the sane, rational part of your brain. There are simple answers, complex answers, mantras that explain the universe in a single Sanskrit sentence, through to multi-layered pantheons and metaphysical systems.

Some people will get sick of the searching, and go for a “quick fix, one answer fits all” approach to life, which could take the form of joining an organized religion, buying the full $30,000 training package from the personal development guru or becoming a strict and unwavering atheist.

Others will become disillusioned with the search altogether and fall back into old patterns, exchanging the path of awakening for a lifetime of being asleep. For them the seeking is a painful experience, something that must be accomplished or they have somehow failed. They are always looking for that missing part of themselves out there in the world.

Some people think that once you become enlightened, suddenly the answers to all of the questions of the universe are revealed. The true wisdom (or at least my version of it) is in fact the exact opposite. It is the idea that the truth may never be found, but it is in the seeking and searching where the realities of life, the universe and the contents of your inner world become visible.

I tend to search and read and meditate without the need to lock down a certain fact as being true. Once you get to the stage where the answers are no longer important, the search becomes pure joy, it is truly the stuff of being alive. You embrace the fact that you don’t know everything, and will never know everything. There is always another perspective to every situation.

A lot of the things that I once considered true have revealed themselves in my life to be false, and vice versa, so that I can safely assume that any of my beliefs could be thrown on their heads in the very next instance.

OPEN AND AWARE MIND

An open but aware mind is the key. With a developed skill of discernment you can separate the wheat from the chaff (or use another less polite euphemism) and take every “answer” and truth provided to you with a grain of salt, knowing that only via the power of direct experience should you take anything for a truth.

By living this way you can use the perpetual mystery to propel you through life. To always seek new experiences and adventures, to truly experience an enlightened state by seeing everything in the world through fresh eyes, like that of a new born child. Once you realize that every experience in life is unique, and that most of your truths are really just preconditioned assumptions then the everydayness of your life takes on a life of its own.

You are not searching for something outside yourself to complete something that is missing, but marveling at the strange place we call our lives, with all its hidden subtleties and whack-you-over-the-head realities.

By keeping your sense of mystery and wonder at the universe, you continue to feel alive inside.

The answers are the boring part; it’s the journey that is the thing of value. The journey to understanding and wisdom is the thing that can’t be bottled, packaged or put into a 10 stage seminar program. That is the true gold of the eternal quest of the spiritual seeker.

… the trick is getting in touch with this truth so that you feel it.

By Seamus Anthony

If you read a lot of Zen stuff, enlightenment stuff, you’ll come across the idea that we are all inherently enlightened, and I believe that this is true.

But also true is that most people don’t usually feel anything like they’re enlightened at all.

In fact most people either don’t even know what enlightenment is or they believe that it’s something “up there” that they cannot hope to achieve. Well, we’re not the first but we at Rebel Zen are here to tell you that it is true – you ARE enlightened but you just don’t know it yet.

Getting in Touch with Your Inherent Enlightenment

At the core of your being, underneath all of the emotions, moods, thoughts, opinions, and physical sensations is your True Self or your soul. Your True Self knows that it is one with all of creation, the Universe, God. It exists in a permanent state of peace that cannot be shaken even when you are in the midst of the worst possible crises imaginable. It is NOT the part of you that freaks out because somebody is pointing a gun at your head (or more likely, because the new guy in the office is using your favourite damn coffee mug). This part of you, much more readily accessible, is your ego.

So how can you get in touch with your True Self? Here’s some ideas:

1. Forget All of Your Assumptions About What Enlightenment Actually Is
   The reason I never turn to strangers at the pub and say “Hi, I’m Seamus and I’m enlightened” is because I don’t really want to be branded a complete tosser, such are most people’s assumptions about what it means to be enlightened.

   But the truth is I do consider myself to ‘be enlightened’ and so are you. The difference between me, and some really advanced spiritual practitioner, and your average crack-addict street thug is that I fall in the middle there somewhere in terms of being in touch with my True Self.

   What this means in practical terms is that I spend most of my time being aware of the calm, expansive, connected-to-the-universe part of me and am able to tap into this to be a very calm, confident, disgustingly chirpy individual most of the time.

   And then sometimes I lose touch with that and blow my stack, or become overcome with fear or get the blues. But increasingly less as my ability to walk in the light grows.

   Sorry I know phrases like “walk in the light” are pretty lame but it is sometimes hard to describe such an intangible feeling without resorting to cliches. (And besides, it’s getting late and I wanna watch a DVD, ok?)

2. Learn To Meditate:
   This may not be groundbreaking news for every reader of this blog, but for newbies it is the logical place to start.

   When you meditate you quieten the loud voices of the ego, move out of ‘fight or flight response’ and learn to increase your awareness of a deeper calmer You underneath all that noise and emotion. This chilled-out version of you goes by many names, I prefer True Self. I go into more detail about this ‘most bodacious’ aspect of You later in this list.

   It goes beyond the scope of this post to teach you how to meditate, but there’s plenty of instruction out there. If you don’t already meditate, make a note to investigate this further later because once you know how to meditate then you will be able to …

3. Realise that Existence is Just An Onion …
   
   Okay, I’m being funny, but what I mean here is twofold. The first meaning is that if you want to experience your inherent enlightenment (and believe me you can) then you’ll need to peel back the ‘onion layers’ of your mind to find the still, calm ’space of good feeling’ that lies at the core of your being. This is where your True Self abides. Again, more on the True Self later

   The second level to the onion wisecrack is…

4. Discover That Life Is Just A Zany Dream.
   I know that people feel real pain and hunger and that on a practical level this sort of flippant New Age talk may not do the disadvantaged any immediate good*, but nevertheless, on a philosophical level, we all grow up to believe that we know What Life Is.

   We can see it, right? It’s right in front of us. We read about it. We are animals on a planet in a galaxy in the universe.

   Hello! We DON’T know What Life Is and for all we know we could be little bugs living inside a gigantic onion. And hey! Maybe that enormous onion is about to be sliced up and sprinkled over some kind of unfathomable cosmic pizza and slid into a big, hot quantum oven!

   Ok. Probably not. But still, don’t fall into the trap of assuming that we know what it’s all about. We don’t. And we never will. And enlightenment is about knowing that we don’t know, not suddenly knowing all the secrets to the meaning of life.

   That’s all she wrote about that, dude, so don’t believe the hype. Gurus who tell you that they know all the answers need to read the next point…

5. Keep A Leash On Your Ego:
   Realise that your ego doesn’t need to freak out every time something happens. It is healthy and normal to get upset when you’re in the midst of a car crash, it is not healthy to lose it when somebody else steals the sweet car park nearest the supermarket doors. Your ego is an idiot (so is mine by the way) and needs to be kept on a leash like my big dumb dog does. Otherwise, like my dog, your ego will go and crap in the worst possible spot right when everybody is looking. It’ll go jumping up at strangers and stealing candy bars off children.

   But how to you control your ego?

6. Become Aware That Your Ego Is Not All Of You:
   It’s just a part of you, and a bit of a stupid part too. An evolutionary throwback that unfortunately most people in this world still let run the show. Really, on an emotional level, humans as a collective species are pretty much operating at the level of cavemen (albeit cavemen with really impressive toys).

   Become aware that you can observe your ego even when it is going about its usual business. If you practice you can even take a step back into True Self while your ego is throwing a hissy-fit and actually observe “yourself” having a tanty with a sense of wry, detached humour. Which part of you stops you from murdering your husband when you are having a row? Not your ego that’s for sure.

   I put “yourself” in quotes because we often make the mistake of thinking that “I lost my temper”. The whole of you did not lose your temper, only the ego did, it’s just that most of us have been raised to fully identify with that little bit of our minds even though it actually makes no sense to do so.

   Know that there’s a wide, expansive, calm, intelligent part of your mind quietly waiting for you to come home to it and hear what it has to say. Your True self.

   The ego is loud and demanding. It’s impatient. The True Self is quiet and patient. It knows that it makes no difference if the ego gets what it wants or not because in the end your True self is eternal, only the ego faces certain death.

7. Realise that Only the Ego dies, but your True Self is eternal.
   The True Self is eternal because it is a seamless part of the whole and we all know that when ‘we’ die, the Whole goes on. Part of the reason the ego behaves the way it does is because it knows it is going to die and it HATES that idea. You may also feel a bit scared at times about dying, but know that your True Self goes on, just your ego dies when your physical body expires.

   Logic tell me that conscious awareness of myself as an individual therefore ceases then too, but of course my ego likes to believe that I will still ‘be me’ afterwards; that I will be like “Oh, I am still here, my True Self, just off on a nice fuzzy journey somewhere new.”

   Hey – maybe. But then again, maybe not.
   Hell, what do I know?
   We’ll all find out soon enough I guess but meantime…

8. Deliberately Notice How Magical Life Is Again
   I think part of growing older can be that we forget to see this natural world that we live in as it really is: an incredible miracle full of mystery, magic and wonder.

   Just look at your hand! Look at your cat! Look at anything and see again, like you would have when you were a child, what an incredible, amazing, wondrous mystery Life is.

   Part of finding true, deep and lasting happiness is learning to live in the moment as much as you can and when you are living in the present, you cannot fail but to see how incredible it all is. It’s like you develop a kind of mild super-power of the eyes. It actually reminds me of when I was younger and silly enough to drop the odd tab of acid, not that I am recommending that (it’s unhealthy for the body) but anyway, those who have been there will know that I am talking about a Way of Seeing that brings you acute awareness of the pure magic that surrounds us everyday.

   If you are thinking “What is this freakin’ hippy on about? I am looking around me now and all I see is my Dad’s butt-crack as he bends over to get at the last beer in the fridge (and there’s nothing magical about that let me tell you)” then I advise you to learn to meditate and especially try meditating on nature. Just sit there and stare at a beautiful flower for half an hour or as long as it takes before you suddenly get what I mean. Then look around you. Even your Dad’s arse will look better from then on.

   And whether life is feeling magical to you or not at all …

9. Be Grateful for Your Chance At Life
   And be grateful for all the things in your life. Even those things you would sooner live without.

   We’ve all got aspects of our lives that we would rather just disappeared and I don’t know how it works but I have found that if you consciously practice gratitude for everything in your life, even the ‘bad’ stuff, you will more easily and more often connect with your True Self and enjoy the fruits of your inherent enlightenment: peace of mind and deep happiness.

   If you are having trouble with the idea of being grateful for your hemorrhoids then …

10. Practice Non-Judgement
    Every time you judge something as “bad” you disconnect yourself from the flow of the Universe, from your True Self. This can be a very, very hard skill to put into practice and I doubt you or I will ever manage to practice non-judgement 100% of the time. For instance I’d be happy to bet a dollar that if I were to poke you in the eye, you’d judge that as a pretty crap move on my behalf. And this inherent tendency is useful on a level. If you remained impartial about oncoming buses or falling pianos then you wouldn’t be around very long!

    But it is amazing how much angst we put ourselves through by taking such strong stands against minor things. Things like “what she said” or “what he did” or even truly small things like “I don’t like brussel sprouts” (guilty of that one myself).

    Fuck it. Eat the sprouts. Forget what she said. Dismiss what he did. Don’t waste your energy and time getting all pent up over it when you could be experiencing the peace and joy of enlightenment, or, for that matter, a Mars Bar.

    Judgment causes a disconnect between your consciousness and your True Self, who is at peace with all and judges nothing. So next time it rains, catch yourself hunching up and frowning. Truly, be still! What does it matter? Is rain a bad thing? No way! You know that. It’s awesome! It isn’t acid; it’s a life giving miracle! So stand up straight and revel in it until you get to the bus shelter, and you will have proven to yourself that you truly are a fully enlightened soul. Enjoy that feeling, and gratefully share it around

*BTW – Metaphysical discourse, or fluffy New Age talk, may not be much use when you’re starving or in the middle of a war, BUT if the majority of people realised their inherent enlightenment then such problems would disappear because all those overblown egos that cause all of these problems would lose their hold on the puppet strings of power. That’s why we must strive to help people get in touch with their True Selves, because if we eventually reach critical mass, then we finally WILL solve the problems of the world. And maybe the new Age of Connectivity is going to herald that change. Make it so.

By Seamus Anthony Ennis

When I despair of and don’t know what to do about this crazy world we live in then I just try to do something positive. Help someone, give a little money to a cause, or if I feel the urge, just have fun making something cool. I believe it all counts.

It counts because every time you follow your creative urge, you are contributing to the great mission we have been charged with: to create a better world.

Creating cool stuff – be it a work of art, a healing practice, a cake, a blog, or just a nice vibe in a room – helps to add a little pebble of goodness to the slow growing tower of joy that (I believe) is the destiny of life on Earth.

Yes, that’s something I believe. I also believe that we all need to believe in something in order to function successfully – we need a purpose. So although I don’t know if it’s true, I choose to believe that our purpose is to make positive contributions to the evolution of Life and to eventually triumph over the unenlightened condition and become a spiritually advanced, peaceful, happy race living in harmony with all of nature.

I know, I know, that last sentence made you raise a cynical eyebrow right?But I don’t care – I have to believe this or else what’s the fucking point?

I like to think of humanity in the future being like one of those super-hip races of aliens that Captain Kirk and his motley lot used to come across sometimes – all synked-in together and totally chilled, in touch with our inherent enlightenment. Space-aged Buddhas in silver outfits. Perhaps no longer in need of a physical body or maybe just capable of living happily and healthily for a couple of hundred years before moving to a known and welcoming after-life.

We as a collective are, obviously, a long way from this yet. But like I said, I believe that every positive contribution, no matter how small,
helps us get closer to this eventuality.

So get up and do something, help someone or the planet or make something inherently “good” and you will be helping the cause.

It’s like the tortoise and the hare. Evil (the hare) raced ahead, but the slow fire of Love (err, the tortoise) will eventually win out through persistence and resilience. We must be unrelenting in our faith in this.

Anyway, that’s how I cope. I choose to believe that every little good creation or act of kindness helps towards the final positive result. Otherwise how could I get up and get to work? Why would I bother write an article or a song only to die and for all my efforts to mean nothing? That’s a dispiriting concept. We need meaning in order to be happy. I’ve tried believing in Meaningless and it left me cold and depressed, no matter how much I meditated or rationalised that this hypothesis makes the most sense.

Of course I could be wrong. Maybe I just need to get over my egotistical need to contribute. Maybe enlightenment, as I used to believe, means admitting that we are just ’straw dogs’ after all (as the Tao Te Ching tells us), that life is devoid of purpose and meaning. Certainly we risk being ‘trampled underfoot’ every day; so many lives lost early and cruelly…

But I have decided to believe something different: that it is worthwhile creating something good and that it does make a positive difference, however small. I don’t know it for a fact, nobody knows anything for certain in this bizarre and trippy dream we call life, but I choose to believe because it gives me the strength to help others somehow everyday (even if it is just by cracking a few lame jokes, although hopefully in more ways than just that).

So have faith and make something good, be it a masterpiece or a plate of slightly over-cooked muffins. Believe in the positive evolution of Life, help somehow, whether it be by saving a bug from getting washed down the drain, or by flying out to serve as a volunteer in a needy part of the world.

It all counts.

By Seamus Anthony Ennis

It’s just my opinion, and I have no idea what I am talking about, but you – yes, you – have absolutely no clue what the hell is going on.

Yes, you heard me, and that goes for your guru, coach, expert or teacher also.

You see, sometimes when I am at barbecues, beer comfortably resting on my belly, paper plate piled high on my knee, the subject comes up that I write personal development articles and, for better or worse, I cringe. Why? Because the first thing that happens, at least in my mind, is that people look at me and think “Well, what the hell does he know that I don’t? He’s no guru; look at that blob of mayonnaise on his beard! And isn’t that the guy who drank a couple too many at Jo’s party last fortnight and made a fool of himself? Personal development writer indeed – hmmph!”

And the truth is they are right. I don’t know diddly. But neither do ‘they’ and neither, my friend, do you.

You might have chosen to believe certain things, and these beliefs are most likely an integral part of your sense of personal identity. In fact they are probably very useful in keeping you from just collapsing under the weight of a total existential breakdown, but nevertheless…

You. Don’t. Know. Anything. About. Anything.

Believing something is not the same as knowing something. One is a choice, the other is a certainty, and in this life there are no certainties.

Everything you think you know is all just your own unique perspective and is completely unprovable as ultimate truth.

I once saw that great, mad, rambling comic Billy Connolly expound his view on this. Minus a few expletives, he said:

“We are part of something enormous that’s too big for us too understand. … We’ve been looking through the wrong end of the telescope for God … See those wee things that live in ponds … they don’t have a clue that we exist, because we’re too big for them … Well, there’s something too huge for us. We’re the leg of a chair. We’re a cup of tea. We’re something dead simple.”

In other words we just see this little circle of possibility that just doesn’t give us a particularly insightful view of the big picture whatsoever. We are too big for the little water bugs to comprehend, and that, my little insect friends, is our lot too. If you’ve ever seen that email that goes around comparing the relative size of the planets to each other and then to the sun, and then our sun to the other even bigger suns out there until planet Earth is so little it can’t even be seen on the computer screen anymore, then you’ll know what Billy means. We are so, so tiny in the grand scheme of things that we are conceited to think that we will ever understand our Universe …

… and herein lies our freedom.

(”Everybody! Follow me!” screams Connolly, doing a Nazi salute and marching off, “We’ll come back for your valuables later!”)

But seriously, given that you will soon be dead, and given that you can’t be expected to understand God or the big picture, there is simply no good reason why you shouldn’t dream ‘big’ (which will always be comparatively small) and, to reclaim a corporately-hijacked cliché, just do it.

I Don’t Know What I’m Talking About

I don’t know what I’m talking about of course, but in my opinion our mission is to help to raise the vibration of the universe just a little bit. To make a positive contribution. Now, this contribution, even if you became the single most important human being in the history of the world, will by default always be tiny in the grand scheme of things, but in the earthly context of this and subsequent generations, you can help to make our world a better place, and this can bring you (and others) happiness.

Far be it for me to bark orders, but there’s no point trying to understand the Universe, because that is a waste of time, and there’s no point wasting our lives chasing security, because there simply is no security. Soon, very soon, you will be dead and whatever happens after that is anybody’s guess. So be free. Do what you want. Dream a dream and have a go. Sure you’ll need to consider practicalities, and you’ll need to decide whether or not you really do actually want the pressure and risk that comes with being a working astronaut or high-wire trapeze artist, but don’t let others put you off by telling you what-is-what, because those people, be they priest, parent, spouse, whoever, have absolutely no clue – and neither do you.

If you ponder it long enough, I hope you will see the ultimate freedom that lies in this fact: No matter how hard you peer up above you, you will never really know what the heck is actually going in outside of your little muddy puddle, so you are free do what you feel.

My only sub-clause is this: The one apparently apparent fact in this life is that doing good is infinitely more satisfying for any sane person than doing evil. So please don’t use this article as an excuse to do something horrible. After all, it’s not like I have the foggiest idea what I am on about.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go and find a napkin to wipe the mayonnaise – and forty seven thousand, three hundred and eighty nine tiny doomed critters – off my beard. Good day to you.

This article was first published in print in Living Now Publishing’s DaretoDream magazine (March 2008, Australia)