The Law of Attraction- You Get What You Give

The Eighteenth Century Jewish master, Tzemech Tzedek, was once asked to pray for a seriously ill child. He said to the family, “Tracht gut vet zain gut,” a Yiddish phrase which means “Think good, and it will be good.” The child recovered. The Rabbi asked the family when the child began to turn around. They told him it was the minute they began to think positive thoughts. Stories such as this appear in many spiritual traditions. Jesus described it as “your faith has made you well.”

What is the power of the mind? Is it the ability to bend spoons, a la Uri Geller, or is it the presence of mind to reframe thoughts and take a larger perspective? The mind is certainly powerful and I’m sure that we don’t even know the full extent of the mind’s untapped powers if you take into account our subconscious mind. Either way, the ability to frame your experiences and beliefs in a healthy perspective is potentially more powerful than any magic potion or faith healing.

Let me begin with an inspiring story that will help to reframe any skepticism you may be feeling. Toni Bernhard is an author with a chronic illness. She was profiled on NPR last Sunday. Toni’s book is called How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers. It’s a beautiful example of reframing thoughts from a very intelligent and rational person. She became sick in 2001 and never got better. She barely leaves her bed, although for a time she continued lecturing in law while sitting in a chair. After she had been through many of the normal reactions to an illness like denial and blame, she came to some peace with her illness by practicing two Buddhist meditations. The first is called Mudita, which is a way of finding joy in the joy of others. For example, when she couldn’t be at her grandchild’s graduation another family member texted her details as they happened. She felt their joy. The second practice is Tonglen which is a method of breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out joy. She practiced it when she couldn’t attend functions, and she would breathe in the pain of the many people around the world who also can’t be with loved ones. She has a wonderful attitude, very real and honest but also an ability to reframe circumstances. She said this on the NPR interview-

It has taken several years — and many tears — to learn how to thrive in my new life. I still have rough days when I wish I could do whatever I want. But really, who can do that anyway? On the whole, I’m content and at peace with what I can do. Even if it’s from the bed.

Toni Bernhard is practicing the Law of Attraction. What she is achieving is even more powerful than a miracle cure or an unexplained remission. She is in her words “turning straw into gold.” She is taking the raw and harsh elements of human existence and creating alchemy by transforming them into strength of character and joy. The fact that she is sourcing her joy out of a spiritual tradition is an encouragement to those of us who look to the stories and practices of many traditions to live well and fully.

Make no mistake. The Law of Attraction is powerful beyond anything you have ever imagined. Its healing and transformative powers reach back to ancient Egyptian culture. Reframe your skepticism and allow yourself to entertain the possibility that there is at least a kernel of truth to the Law of Attraction. If you’re already there, open your mind to even greater power. If you’re not quite there yet, stretch your perspective just a little to include more power to your thoughts than you previously gave them.

It’s an interesting side note that Norman Vincent Peale, the father of positive thinking in America, was a minister in the Reformed Church in America. His legacy is a fine one. His unfortunate prejudice was his anti Catholic attitude. It led to a lot of criticism from his peers. Adlai Stevenson once said, “As a Christian, I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.” It’s a nice play on words and a cutting criticism of prejudice.

Prejudice aside, where did positive thinking, a la Norman Vincent Peale, originate? Barbara Ehrenreich’s 2009 book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America offers an interesting analysis of positive thinking in America. She says it was a reaction to the gloomy Calvinism that first arrived with the pilgrims. Positive thinking arose out of a new theology where God was no longer controlling and judgmental, but was the all pervasive energy of love and goodness in the world. This seems like a healthy development. But Ehrenreich goes on to describe the shadow side of positive thinking- a new form of guilt and works salvation. Your righteousness is no longer measured by a judgmental God, but is now measured by how positive you are.

As we venture into the exciting and partly mysterious realm of the Law of Attraction, let us avoid both forms of judgment. You don’t need to suffer for God or limit your life with self loathing to appease God’s judgment. Nor should you have any fear that the Law of Attraction is a new rod, to beat you for not being positive enough or not recovering quickly enough. The foundation for the Law of Attraction is grace and kindness. There is no hierarchy of positive thinkers, and there is no punishment for skepticism other than the torment you put yourself through by scrunching up your brain in cranky fear. Life is awesome, and your life can be more incredible than you usually allow yourself to believe.

Begin with grace and kindness, allowing yourself to believe that it’s ok to enjoy life. From this beginning, allow your kind thoughts to stretch beyond yourself. There is more than enough love and grace to go around and the more blessings you seek for others, the more you will experience yourself.

The Essence of The Law of Attraction

As well as reframing your voice of skepticism to allow room for new possibilities, allow your skepticism to speak its mind. How do you explain the situations where you desperately want suffering, your own and others, to end, but it doesn’t? There are times when your attitude is strong, you do everything you can. You visualize health and wellness, you speak positively, you think positive thoughts, and yet you don’t get the healing you are looking for, or the solutions you are looking for. How do you explain this? Does it deny the Law of Attraction?

Maybe it’s a misunderstanding of the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is not about getting what you want. Most of the time, you don’t even know what you really want. You think you want wealth but once you get it, it doesn’t smell as sweet as you imagined. This Scandinavian story illustrates the problem with desire-

A gnome lived in the forest under the root of a tree. He had one big wish: more than anything else in the world he wanted to own a green hunter’s bag. This gnome used to think about his green hunter’s bag by day and dream about it at night. He had visualized it a thousand times. Then, one day, the gnome received a beautiful green hunter’s bag as a gift. His dream had come true; his all-consuming wish had been fulfilled. The gnome owned a green hunter’s bag. Now you would have expected him to be outrageously happy. But instead, he moaned, “It’s a nice hunter’s bag, only it’s not quite as green as I had imagined it!

One of the blocks to the Law of Attraction is the insatiable desire that always thinks the grass is greener on some other side. The grass isn’t greener on the other side. There is no other side. The grass is green where you water it, and you can water your thoughts in every moment, wherever you are, with mindfulness and perspective.

The Law of Attraction is not about getting what you think you want. It’s not even about getting what you have convinced yourself that you need. Desire is so often built around a false understanding of who you are. Do you remember one of the Snicker’s commercials from last year’s Super Bowl? Four young guys are on a road trip. When one gets hungry he turns into Aretha Franklin and another turns into Liza Minnelli. Their friend says, “Eat something. Every time you get hungry, you turn into a diva.” The commercial ends with the slogan, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” It’s a cunning trick of the voice of desire to convince you that unless you get this promotion or some unknown level of wealth, you won’t amount to anything as a person. The Law of Attraction is not about feeding the ego. The Law of Attraction is not about getting what you need. Often, you’re like a hamster on a wheel chasing your tail; and then wondering why you’re coughing up fur balls.

The Law of Attraction is not about want or need. It is about attracting “like” to “like”. The more you grow to understand yourself, the more you understand what you are attracting into your life. It becomes clear what is serving you, and filling your life with joy. You seek more of that by BEING more of that, and it finds you because it IS you. What you want, what you need and who you are become one. When you live with this sort of flow, walls turn into doors, hurdles turn into spring boards and crises turn into opportunities. You are at ease with everything that happens and you turn ordinary moments into occasions for incredible joy.

You may feel that the Law of Attraction is not working, or else you may need to reframe your thoughts or retrain your true awareness of who you are. Remember that the Law of Attraction also partners with a lot of other laws, including surrender of outcomes, patience, action and cause and effect. So beware of using the Law of Attraction as an excuse for inaction or laziness.

The Law of Attraction and The Golden Rule

This next point is SO important at this time in history. The Law of Attraction is never a substitute for taking personal responsibility. It’s a partnership AND it’s not all about you and your blessings. The Law of Attraction can easily become narcissistic if it’s not partnered with the Golden Rule. When you are truly living out of your authentic or highest self, you know that your wellbeing is intimately related to the wellbeing of others. The platinum rule goes even further than the Golden Rule. The Platinum Rule says that you should seek more for the other than you do for yourself. The Law of Attraction is about being whole, which is more than the fortunes of any one individual. You may have been blessed with optimum health, but as long as others are suffering there is more to be done. You may have been blessed with great wealth but as long as others are living in poverty there is more to be done. As long as people are suffering and you can do something about it, there is more to do.

One of the great spiritual gurus of the past century is the Indian sage Baba Neem Karoli, better known as Maharaji. People from all over the world travelled to India to visit with Maharaji. They wanted to know the secret to a happy and full life. He said to them, “Feed people.” Surprised, they would question him again. He answered, “Serve people.” He said that the secret to a happy life is to feed people, serve people and help people. Part of the secret to the Law of Attraction is to make sure that you are manifesting for others what you deeply desire for yourself. If you want more friends, then be a friend to others. If you want more money, then give more money to others. If you want more praise, then give more praise to others. The effect of the Law of Attraction is multiplied by the power of many intentions working together for the good of the whole.

The Law of Attraction and Egypt

Apply the Law of Attraction to current world events. We are in the middle of an unprecedented global shift, centered in the Middle East. Where did the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt come from, and where is it all heading? The Law of Attraction invites us to ask two very different questions.

1. What did we, the world community, do to attract this situation? How can we learn from the past?
2. What do we want to attract from this point forward?

1. How did we attract this situation?

Take your mind back to the Hebrew Prophets who had their own way of practicing the Law of Attraction. Listen to these words from Isaiah chapter 19 and see if it doesn’t ring any bells.

I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian—
brother will fight against brother,
neighbor against neighbor,
city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.
The Egyptians will lose heart,
and I will bring their plans to nothing;
they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead,
the mediums and the spiritists.
I will hand the Egyptians over
to the power of a cruel master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,”
declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty. Isaiah 19;2-4

The prophets weren’t predicting anything as specific as what is playing out right now, but they were offering a profound comment on the Law of Attraction. Their prophecy was for the fall of Egypt that was followed by a rebirth. They predicted internal and external conflict and the oppression of a dictator. The incredible thing is that we’re somewhere in the middle of their prophecy, maybe watching a key moment in the ongoing ebb and flow. The amazing truth of the Law of Attraction is that we are ALWAYS in the middle of its manifestation. Who can even say if there is an end or an outcome? Everything is always evolving and changing. We are all in a constant cycle of fall and rebirth. The Law of Attraction is about what inner character we manifest through all the uncertainty.

The prophets weren’t offering Nostradamus style predictions. They were describing the natural state of life and the pendulum swing of human desire. How did we attract the most recent conflict in the Middle East? The chickens may be coming home to roost for the cause and effect cycle of the past forty years, including American support of dictators such as Mubarak. Partly out of fear of fundamentalist Islamic government, America has generally supported the pro West, secular governments even when run by loathsome dictators. The mantra has been ‘better the oppressive secular government you know than the Islamic government you don’t know.” We can’t be surprised that people will eventually rise up against dictators. We need to start looking for the middle ground between fundamentalist religious government and oppressive secular rule. The chickens are coming home to roost. The REaction matches the actions of many years. We are reaping what we sowed for many decades. This is one side of the Law of Attraction.

2. Looking forward, how can we apply the Law of Attraction in a healthy way?

The other side of the Law of Attraction is what we want to manifest moving forward. Take a lead from the protestors in Cairo. People who have never before been active are getting involved in peaceful resistance, refusing to be dictated to any longer and seeking the best future for their country. They are networking, door to door and on Twitter and Facebook, to build their movement. 80 year old Arab feminist, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, who has been fighting injustice for decades and now stands on the front lines in Cairo, said to New York Times Nicholas Kristoff, “I feel I am born again.”

They have broken the barriers of fear, and they are manifesting the possibilities of freedom. Another protestor, Seif Salmawy, said with a smile. “Suddenly we are human beings. We think we can decide and that what we decide has worth and that we have some value as humans. Before there was the president, the police, the army and their money: We the people were just there to serve them.”

Take a cue from Egyptian protestors. Remove some fear and claim your true essence as a person of worth and power. In short get out of your own way. And let those of us in the west get out of the way and create space for Middle Eastern countries to create a democracy that works for them rather than the democracy we want to see. It’s time to trust the people. We have been reminded that under the right circumstances, people can and do claim their destiny.

Get Out of Your Own Way

Let me end with a parable that speaks to the Law of Attraction, both in the Middle East and in every personal situation as well. It’s a parable about a dove that illustrates the danger of looking for manifestation of the Law of Attraction in the wrong places.

Originally doves had no wings. One poor dove was being constantly harassed by a lion. Every day the lion would run after the dove, and the dove would just barely escape. One day the dove prayed for wings and sure enough, she got them. As soon as she saw the lion, she called out to him. The lion charged after the dove, and when he was inches from her, the dove started running away.

But the dove tripped over her new wings. Instead of helping her run faster, the wings got in her way. The lion was on top of her now, and before she could pick herself up…well, you know what happened.

When the dove got to bird heaven, she complained to God, “I prayed for help, and you gave me wings. But instead of the wings helping me to run faster, they interfered with my speed.”

God responded: “I didn’t give you those wings to run with. I gave you the wings to fly with.”

The dove was too fixated on her own perspective to see the possibilities. The Law of Attraction collaborates with possibility when you surrender your expectations and outcomes, forge a powerful intention and take inspired action. Then you will fly. And others will soar alongside you. If you have ears to hear, please hear the message as it relates to your life. The Law of Attraction is powerful. You just need to get out of your own way and approach life with grace and optimism. Today, we stand with Egyptians and claim our destiny as one world community seeking the common good. Namaste.

Swimming in a Sea of Connections

Most of us aspire to be awesome friends, family and community members, but in reality a tiny little word with a massively sinister plot gets in the way – “ego”. Ego tries to convince you that you can get by just fine by yourself. Take care of yourself because you are the only person you can trust. Put up a wall of protection because people may not like the real you. Don’t ask for help because that might compromise your independence.

Speaking as a typical man who will drive for hours on remote roads rather than ask for directions, I can relate to the challenge. There is a beautiful scene in the Pixar movie Finding Nemo that illustrates this point.

Nemo is the little clown fish with a desire to explore the ocean. His Dad Marlin is a fearful, cautious man. When Nemo goes missing in the ocean, Marlin goes out in search with his new friend Dory. Marlin doesn’t want to ask directions, and says to Dory, “It’s a fish we don’t know. If we ask it directions, it could ingest us and spit out our bones.”

Dory says,” What is it with men and asking for directions?”

Marlin replies, “I don’t want to play the gender card right now. If you want to play a card, let’s play the “let’s not die” card.”
The ego works the same way. It convinces us that if we let others too close in our lives; our separate and special identity will be swallowed up and spat out like fish bones. The ego tries to convince us that our very existence is in jeopardy if we get too close to others. Of course this is a very small perspective. In your best moments you know that your life is made larger by including others, serving others, loving others. Don’t believe the ego’s lies. Nemo was right. There is an ocean of possibility to explore. Sure, there will be risks and dangers. But the risk not to set out and explore is far greater.

Ego often works undercover as fear dressed up as rationalization. Fear convinces you that it’s better to play it safe because you have too much to lose. The piece of the puzzle that fear is not telling you is that the risk of loneliness is far greater than the risk of betrayal. As long as your commitment to the joy of connection is greater than your fear, you will keep expanding your circle. As long as your life is run by the large self, you will swim in the depths of the ocean and discover that it’s safe and you have nothing to fear.

Friendships, families and communities are great places to learn–about yourself, about your fears and friction points, about what excites and enlivens you. These are your opportunities to see life from new perspectives and expand your vision. Friends are the safest people in your life where you can practice being human together and know that there are always second chances and ways back from the brink of broken trust. Friends show you a mirror of how you show up in the world, and raise the bar on your integrity. In a sense your friends coach you in how to conduct all your relationships with strangers and acquaintances alike.

The most miraculous thing about relationships is that they make you more of you who really are. We tend to mistakenly think that we have to shrink our uniqueness in order to transcend the ego. On the contrary, a true understanding of who you are puts the ego in its rightful perspective. Neal Donald Walsh, author of Conversations with God said, “The larger your understanding of who you really are, the smaller your ego.”

The larger your understanding of who you are, the more beings you feel connected to, the less separation you feel, the less fear and mistrust rules your life. Community is a great place to connect to people who are both similar and different and practice finding the balance between being a free spirited individual and being a responsible collaborator.

Friendships are a gateway to the sacred because they point you to an experience of something larger than yourself. The whole is greater than all the parts and yet present as potential within each part. We all want to believe in, connect to, and serve something larger than ourselves. If you make money or fame your larger goal, you will surely be eaten up by ego. If you make self sufficiency your goal, you will eventually implode in your isolation. If on the other hand you make your desire to show love and compassion to a growing group of people your larger goal, you will live a full and peaceful life. This sense of something larger than yourself goes by many names, including God, Higher Power, Nature, the Whole, and Collective Consciousness. Friendship and community point you to this sacred truth by offering an opportunity to get beyond your partial perspective and plumb the depths of oceanic Love.

Here are two stories about how relationships can help you move beyond your small self. The first is an African cultural practice.

The African Mandinka tribe in Gambia has a beautiful naming ceremony for young babies. On the eighth day of life, a newborn is brought to the village centre. The mother holds the child before the father who whispers the name in the baby’s ear three times. No one else knows the name at this time. The child is the first to hear their name, the first to know who they are. Then the father takes the child out beyond the village gates, holds the child high above his head, facing towards the grandeur of nature and tells the child, “Behold, the only thing greater than yourself.” Community reminds you that you are part of a village which in turn is intimately related to a universal life force.

Maybe this story is even closer to home for you, and makes a similar point. A young boy was taking piano lessons. His mother rewarded him by taking him to hear a concert pianist. On the way to their seats, the boy spotted the piano on stage and slipped away from his mom. The mother sat down and was horrified to see her son sitting at the Steinway Grand Piano on stage. The crowd laughed nervously as he began to play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” When the boy realized there was a huge crowd listening to him he became nervous and started missing notes.

At that moment, the concert pianist entered the stage. He whispered in the boy’s ear, “Keep playing. We will play together.” He reached over and began playing running harmonies on either side of the boy’s one fingered Twinkle Twinkle rendition. Everyone, including the boy, was entranced. The concert pianist had chosen to express a larger aspect of his own nature and in the process had created space for a young boy to thrive.

In this month of love and intimate connections, how are you expanding your circle of love and concern? What are you doing to make another person thrive? What mirror are your relationships holding up to you? How are your relationships connecting you to that which is larger than all and yet present in each?

Take a good look around and see yourself as part of multiple intimate communities. Soak in the connections and know that you are held in the embrace of a web of life that precedes, includes and transcends you. It includes all people, past, present and future. It includes all species, known and unknown and it includes all experience, ordinary and extraordinary. Give some attention to your friendships and communities, your reminder that you are not alone and you are indeed part of something larger than yourself. Behold the only thing greater than you is you in relationship to others and the only thing greater than this is you in relationship to all that is.

Please stop by and sign up as many family, friends and colleagues as you want for a free Soulseeds Valentines Day affirmation of love and appreciation.

Expectations Great and Small

Last year President Obama was at a Town Hall meeting in DC. A woman asked him a question. She said she was a big fan of President Obama’s and had enthusiastically voted for him. She was excited about the change he promised. Two years in, she said was tired- tired of defending him, tired of defending his policies and exhausted from waiting to feel a positive difference in her life. She said that she was now worried for her future. It was a heartfelt statement that ended in a powerful question- “Mr President, please tell me truthfully, is this my new reality?”

It was powerful because she wasn’t necessarily looking for specific answers. She was looking for hope. She was looking for motivation to persevere when times are tough. People all around the world are feeling exhausted- tired of waiting for economies to turn around, tired of waiting for democracy, tired of waiting to be heard. Maybe it’s even true in your personal life. Are you tired of waiting for a break after working hard for years? Are you tired of waiting for the suffering to end? Are you exhausted from a series of setbacks that leave you feeling hopeless? Maybe you can relate to the woman at the Town Hall in DC. In those moments the big question on your mind is, “Is this my new reality?”

You aren’t looking for an easy escape, and you aren’t looking for someone else to solve the problem for you. You are just looking for a little optimism- a little self belief that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, a little outside validation that there is a future waiting for you that is brilliant and abundant.

Great presidents have provided this hope at the most important moments. They have pointed forward to better times. Think back to Ronald Reagan saying, “America’s best days are yet to come.” Obama gave this type of speech in his State of the Union address last week. He said, “We are poised for progress.” And “The future is ours to win.” He did a good job of building optimism at a time when people are looking for a reason to keep believing.

In the shadow of the attempted assassination and shootings in Tucson, we need hope. In the light of massive, violence and protests in Tunisia and Cairo, we need hope. In the aftermath of floods and devastation in Australia and Brazil, we need hope. We need to know that despair and anxiety are NOT our new reality, and begin putting flesh on the vision for a better future. Expect a better future. Anticipate a better future. Yes, it does get better after you lose a loved one. Yes, you will get your groove back after a relationship break-up. Yes you will find your way in life after years of struggle.

My theme today is the Law of Expectation, closely relate to the Law of Attraction that I will write about next week. What better time to focus on the power of attracting the future that you want to see in your life and the world. The Roman philosopher Horace who lived just before the time of Jesus said, “Life is largely a matter of expectation.” You get what you expect because your mind largely creates the reality that manifests in the world. How does this law work? Is it absolutely true? Are there exceptions?

What is the Law of Expectation?

I heard a story about an American minister named Terry Sweetser that illustrates the Law of Expectation. He had just arrived in his first parish. In his first year his sermons were so boring that people were leaving the church in droves. After one service a young boy came up to him and offered him a handful of quarters. The minister asked him why he was being so generous. The boy said, “My parents say you’re the poorest preacher we’ve ever had so I thought I would help.” (Well I added that bit but the rest of the story is true) In his second year people began returning. He wasn’t aware that the governance group had met in his first year. They discussed terminating him because he was SO awful. They chose a different strategy. They agreed to spread a rumor that their pastor was the most promising preacher they had ever heard. They believed that as that message spread, he would begin to live up to the expectation. One day the minister walked into a restaurant and overheard someone saying, “That’s the new preacher. He is one of the most promising preachers this town has seen.” He wondered about this because his confidence was low from some critical feedback he’d received. But he had noticed some improvement and didn’t know why. He decided that if that was what people were saying then he had better work harder and make sure it was true. This is the Law of Expectation in operation. Set yourself and others up to succeed with some positive expectations.

Another name for the Law of Expectation is the Pygmalion Effect. In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was the sculptor who carved a statue of a beautiful woman, then fell in love with it. He believed strongly that it could come to life, and it did! The Pygmalion Effect can be used to sculpt the part of your life that you are least satisfied with, or something about the world that needs changing. The Pygmalion Effect has been used in schools and hospitals and encouraging results have been seen in studies where the people with the higher expectations achieved the better results.

Out of curiosity, I searched President Obama’s State of the Union speech for the word “expectation”. It showed up three times. The first reference was to the expectations of voters that politicians will work together. I like that idea that when you vote you are participating in democracy by way of the Law of Expectation. You are stating your expectations, whether it’s in your choice of candidate or your preference in a referendum. The other two references to expectations in the State of the Union speech related to education. He said we need to create classrooms with high expectations. Again, especially if you are a parent or a teacher, think about your expectations of children. It makes a difference. If you expect little from them, then they will oblige. Note that it’s not because they need to fulfill your dreams but because you want them to have large dreams and urge them to strive for those dreams.

The Law of Expectation works for others and it works for yourself. By striving to be all that you can be, you find yourself exceeding your own expectations. Whether you are a believer at this point or a skeptic, it’s at least true to some extent. There is room in your life to build a lot more positive momentum through expanding your expectations.

The Law of Expectation and Spiritual Traditions

The whole Hebrew Prophetic tradition is an example of the Law of Expectation. They expected a better time of freedom and prosperity and expressed their expectation without a hint of doubt that it would happen. “Thus says the Lord” was a statement of absolute confidence. Then in the New Testament, Jesus said “Ask and it shall be given to you.” Once again, there is no room for ambiguity in these words. Articulate your expectation and it WILL happen. In terms of positive thinking, the Proverbs pick up the dominant Greek culture of the time and say “Guard your heart for it determines the course of your life.” (Proverbs 4;23)

Buddhism outlined similar ideas. Buddha said, “All that we are is a result of what we think.” Buddhism and Hinduism introduce the idea that the Law of Expectation will be fulfilled, whether it’s in this life or another.

One of the ancient Hindu texts speak of Vaastu Shastra. It is an ancient theory of architecture where you can build a house, a life, and a spirit that is all in alignment. The idea is that the earth is a living organism, and everything in the earth has living energy. All these living energies interact with each other, either creating harmony or disharmony. If you follow the basic ideas behind Vaastu Shastra, a little like Feng Shui, you can expect to manifest abundance in your life.

This science is complete in itself.
Happiness to the whole world it can bring
All the four benefits it bestows on you
Rightful living, money, fulfillment of desires and bliss
Are all available in this world itself
~ Viswakarma in Vaastushastra

Is the Law of Expectation Absolute?

The spiritual traditions seem to reinforce the idea that the Law of Attraction works. But is it absolute? After all, the spiritual traditions also speak about predestination and either the mysterious plan of God or the unpredictable law of Karma. What if your expectations don’t match the larger plan of life?

Don’t expectations get you in trouble at times? Sometimes expectations are a cunning attempt by the ego to avoid living in the moment. You can live in the future where everything is rosy or you can dwell in anxiety because you’re trapped in your imagination. Don’t you sometimes find yourself worn down by other peoples’ unrealistic expectations? Don’t you sometimes even exhaust yourself with your own perfectionist expectations? Do you struggle with guilt when your expectations don’t manifest? Expectations that are unrealistic or guilt laden are like noise in your life.

So how do you discern between expectations that are just noise in your life and expectations that raise you up to your highest potential? How do you distinguish between expectations that squash hope and expectations that inspire confidence? How do you draw a line between your own true path and the expectations of others?

There is a Facebook page called “The TV show Full House gave me unrealistic expectations about family life.” Thankfully it only has 12 members, but it’s a real issue. Sometimes your own fantasies get in the way of enjoying life the way it is. Maybe you grew up with an expectation that once you left home you would be completely content, or once you got married you would be happy, or once the kids left home you would be able to really start living. The expectation in this case just keeps you from living the life that is in front of you.

Then there is the recent publicity around the Chinese Tiger Mother. Some are even drawing a connection between strict Chinese parenting and the growing economy in China. Tiger Mother has two daughters. Her ultra high expectations seemed to work well for her older daughter but her younger daughter rebelled. An expectation that is too high will tip some kids over the edge. An expectation that is too low will create an energy of indifference. Follow the child and match your expectations to their circumstance. As Robert Brault said, “Let your kids be who they are, and your expectations will be in breathless pursuit.”

Clearly the Law of Expectation comes with a very fine line. So how do you find that line? There is likely no absolute answer to this question. This fine line is not a problem that can be solved but is rather a tension that has to be managed. Here are some general discussion points.

Expectations that Inspire

1. Open expectations inspire.

Open expectations inspire. Fixed expectations frustrate. One of the ways that the fine line can be balanced is to distinguish between specific, fixed expectations and open expectations. Open expectations are flexible and bend to fit changing circumstances. President Reagan once again provides a nice illustration of this point. In this week’s Time magazine there is an article about Reagan. The author says that Reagan “was a practical visionary, happy to claim victory if he could get 80% of what he wanted?

Another way of making this point is to shoot for the moon and even if you fail you will still land among the stars. Celebrate the partial victory with your kids or with your health. Leave room for the movement of forces outside of your understanding or control. Take patience and timing into account. If you lock your expectations in too specifically, you could be in for a rude shock. In terms of parenting this will likely mean adjusting your expectations according to the child and the circumstance.

2. Expectations that Motivate

Author Norman Cousins was given little chance of surviving from heart disease. He developed his own recovery program that included massive doses of Vitamin C along with hefty doses of Marx Brothers films. He found that 10 minutes of belly laughing a day gave him many hours of pain free sleep. Cousins said this about health care generally,

Nothing I have learned in the past decade at the medical school seems to me more striking than the need of patients for reassurance. . . . Illness is a terrifying experience. Something is happening that people don’t know how to deal with. They are reaching out not just for medical help but for ways of thinking about catastrophic illness. . . . Reassurance is not a Pollyanna concoction aimed at deception. It is not a verbal tranquilizer for creating a mood of synthetic calm. It is a way of putting the human spirit to work . . . The wise physician . . . instead of dwelling on all the melancholy possibilities, offers a plan of battle in which the patient has an active role. Quoted from Head First, the Biology of Hope, by Norman Cousins, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1989, page 66.

The Law of Expectation is not just wishful thinking. It is about putting the human spirit to work. It is a motivating energy that translates into positive effect when combined with action. To quote Elizabeth Gilbert, “You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.”

3. Know where the expectation is coming from.

You have to search your soul to know why you have certain expectations. If you are running from reality, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. If you are trying to live vicariously through your kids, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. If you are in a fantasy world about your health and aren’t taking appropriate precautions, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. The Law of Expectation only works if it is coming from a pure motivation and has loose attachment to specific outcomes.

The Law of Expectation and Doubt

Taking into account the fine line of expectations, it is still clearly a powerful tool in human fulfillment. I will end with one last thought about doubt. Doubt is the largest hurdle when it comes to the Law of Expectation. Some of the loudest noise in your mind comes from the voice of doubt telling you that you are no good, and should never expect anything good in your life.

This is the theme in the movie The King’s Speech. King George VI was suddenly forced into the spotlight at a time when live radio was the new expectation. He was living with debilitating doubt that manifested as an awful stutter. He worked with a creative speech therapist to prepare to give the famous speech after Britain declared war on Germany. One of the tricks the speech therapist used was to blast loud music through headphones while King George read from a script. While the music drowned out his active voice of doubt, he read flawlessly. Once the music stopped, his stutter resumed.

I resonate very strongly with this story. When I was a teenager I was told by career advisers that whatever I did with my life, and this would probably not be much according to them, it should NOT involve public speaking. I developed my own voice of doubt that was drowning out my self belief. When public speaking became an inevitable part of my life goals, I had to overcome the voice of doubt and set expectations that I COULD speak well and confidently.

Do you have an issue with doubt? What is the noise in your mind that is drowning out all the possibilities of the Law of Expectation? Is it the precocious voice of skepticism or the winy voice of perfectionism?

Uncover the real blocks to your highest potential, suspend and heal the voices that limit you and set about living the Law of Expectation. After all who are you NOT to be gorgeous, fabulous, talented and abundant in all things? Manifest your highest potential. Raise your expectations, raise your sights, raise your optimism and raise your glass to a life of abundance. You are a child of God, the Universe and the Source of all potential. Namaste.

The Benefits of Risk Taking

Last night I watched a mostly unknown Ukrainian tennis player beat the number four player in the world. I’m glad I’m writing his name because I certainly can’t pronounce Alexandr Dolgopolov. This guy was awesome and so fun to watch. It was extreme tennis, full of improvised shots and nonchalant flair. He played like he had nothing to lose. So he was free to give it his all. It made me think about taking risks. I want to live my life like Alexandr Dolgopolov plays tennis, and take more risks.

Are you a risk taker? Consider these questions-

Do you look for 100% certainty before making decisions?
Do you talk to strangers?
Do you challenge people in authority?
Would you take out a loan for a vacation?
Would you apply for a job you feel under qualified for?
Do you share private thoughts and feelings with new acquaintances?
Would you go sky diving?
Are you willing to be a minority of one on matters of personal opinion?

If you answered “no” to all, you are a safety first kind of person. The world needs people like you. You offer much needed skepticism and caution on issues of change and risk. As long as you feel fully satisfied in your caution, then have at it. Or else maybe you answered “yes” to some. Maybe you are cautious in some areas of life and not others. Maybe you would quit a well paying job to follow your passion, but not jump out of plane in a million years. Or maybe you would climb the steepest ice covered peak but never challenge your boss under any circumstances.

Do your own risk assessment and trust your instincts. Think about taking some risks in new parts of your life to remind yourself to step beyond your comfort zone. As a parent, I want to empower my kids to get to know their own risk boundaries and growth points. However I also want my kids to know that certain things like texting while driving are bad risks. Learning your own boundaries around risk taking is about living with forgiveness. We too often pass up risks for fear of being trapped, because we forget that life offers second chances. Risks are part of life’s inbuilt signposts. Risks either give you momentum to continue or a warning to stop. Either way, you know you’re alive. As Anais Nin said, “I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.”

When it comes to matters of the heart, life calling or personal development, we could all do with a little nudge in the direction of taking greater risks. In order to be all that you can be, and push beyond self limiting boundaries, you will need to take some risks. These inner risks are far more heart stopping than physical risks but the payoff is enormous. I heard an interview with a group of climbers who described the relationship between climbing and risk taking. One said, "I climb so I don't feel like a robot, so I feel like I'm doing something that is motivated by the 'self.'" Another said, "There's a freshness to the climbing experience that clears away the weariness of routine and the complexity of social norms. Climbing brings you back to a primal place, where values are being created and transformed." Risk taking is part of how you discover the boundaries of where you end and others begin. When you push off from the guard rails of society’s norms, you get a clearer sense of who you are at your essence.

Without risk, you would never escape from the prison of who you think you have to be to satisfy the critics into the fullness of your true self that always was. The irony is that you need to take risks in order to move beyond the small self that keeps itself alive by believing there is too much at stake. There isn’t. There is more of substance in a tennis ball than in the small self’s delusions of permanence. It’s all changing, all the time. The greater risk is to mistake a memory or an idea for the way things really are, for then you risk missing the moment. At your essence you know what is true risk and what is ego’s games, and you know that risk is necessary because on the other side of the risk lies freedom.

As you blossom, you realize that there are very few real risks because there are no mistakes. When you are grounded in inner peace, whatever you do is appropriate and if you have to adjust your course, you do that and move on without self blame or judgment.

We live in a world that offers few certainties. The fearful have just as much risk of tragedy as the bold. Put your fears at ease. Remind them that you are whole and lovable, abundant and brilliant to begin with and this essence doesn’t need to be protected. Shine a light on your fear and it will be revealed for what it is. What fear called risk will soon be revealed as opportunity.

As Glenn Close’s character says to a group of acting students in her recent film Heights, “For Christ’s sake, take a risk sometime this weekend.” Its good advice, on stage, on a tennis court and in life. Take a risk, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that you are alive and you are open to the adventure of whatever’s unfolding. Take a risk to remind yourself that the beauty of life is that it offers no certainties. It is open and dynamic. Open your heart to love. End a relationship that has run its course. Make a decisive career move. Initiate a difficult conversation. Ask someone on a date. Book the sky diving adventure. Speak to a stranger.

Be safe by all means. But don’t forget to truly live while you are alive. To end with the words of one of my favorite American philosophers, William James, “It is only by risking that we really ever live at all.”

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The Sweet Sound of Surrender

Do you sometimes feel like you are holding on for dear life? Holding on to people and places, perspectives and plans, as if you’re holding a baby in a shower. You imagine that to loosen your grip even a little would lead to disaster. After all, it’s a baby, delicate and tiny, and it’s slippery. True enough, but the thing is that you’re not holding a baby in the shower. It’s more like you’re holding soap and the tighter you hold it the more likely it is to slip through your fingers and crash to the floor.

What would happen if you stopped holding on for dear life and tried letting go for dear life? Let go of your carefully laid plans and your tightly controlled life in order to claim the dear Life that is waiting to greet you. It’s bigger and better than anything you could dream up with your over protective mind. Your protective mind convinces you that life is too fragile and too serious to leave anything to chance. But what if life is not as serious as you imagine. What if the hokey pokey IS what it’s all about? Practice a little hokey pokey right now. Put your toe in and feel the waters of surrender, then pull it out and compare the feeling- surrender or control, which feels more alive? Put your hand in and feel the temperature of trust, then pull it out and see if you feel anywhere near as alive as you did inside surrender. Practice dipping into surrender, and then in moments of abandon, put your whole self in and feel the freedom. Put your whole self in and shake it all about to fully experience what it is to truly be alive. Put your whole being in and bow before the moment, with all the innocence you can muster, and declare yourself its humble servant.

Once you’ve done the hokey pokey, trust me, you won’t want to go back. It’s like your first time downhill skiing, terrifying and enlivening at the same time. Or the first time you free fall in love, frightening and irresistible in the same breath. In these moments, surrender becomes your new reality. You discover that you enjoy this new dance after all and wonder why it took you so long to give in to surrender’s charm. It’s these real life experiences of new freedom that give you insight into the true self, the one that was always meant to be and has nothing to fear or protect. Surrender is the prelude to transformation. It’s the hokey pokey theory of transformation- put your whole being in surrender’s dance and turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about.

Here is a short list of things that most of us would love to surrender- beliefs that are an affront to your common sense, self limiting beliefs, co-dependent relationships, financial burdens, lingering grief, unsolvable problems. What else would you like to surrender?

Here are some of the benefits in surrender- you feel more spontaneous, less inhibited, your experience more surprise (which is close to wonder), less anxiety, less baggage, better sleep, greater wellness, more peace of mind. And more.

So are you up for a little boogie on the hokey pokey dance floor of surrender?

But I hear your protective mind now. “He doesn’t understand”. It’s saying. “Life is slippery. You’ve got to be careful. In any case, you’ve worked hard to liberate yourself from surrendering to the will of a judgmental God and the snare of a controlling religious system. So what’s all this about surrender? I thought we were done with surrender.”

Two Extremes of Surrender

We are and we aren’t done with surrender. It depends what you mean by surrender. There are two extremes of surrender that we do well to avoid, and instead find a middle path that takes the best from both extremes. Let me illustrate with a visual comparison from New York City. If you visit 5th avenue in Manhattan you find two very different buildings on opposite sides of the street. On the west side at 630 Fifth Avenue you will see the 1920’s art deco building financed personally by John Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Center. It’s a monument to post WW1 optimism and humanism. Standing tall at the front of the building is a massive, seven-ton, 15-foot tall bronze statue of the heroic Greek god of weightlifting, Atlas. Atlas stands strong and tall, his muscles straining, with the world on his shoulders. Atlas was the most powerful God/man of all time, and yet strains to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders, a punishment for his revolt against Zeus.

On the east side of the street stands a building that was completed 50 years earlier, the neo Gothic St Patrick’s Cathedral. Designed to look other worldly with tall spires pointing to God in the heavens, St Patrick’s has a shrine to the boy Jesus behind the high altar. Jesus, maybe 8 or 9 years old, is effortlessly holding an orb in one hand. The point implied is that God came to earth as a child who would hold the weight of the world’s sin in the palm of his hand.

On one side of the street is the symbol of other worldly surrender, and on the other side is the symbol of “no surrender”. On the one hand, many of us have moved beyond the “whole world in his hands” version of God. We refuse to bow down to a God whose “will” is for some people to be saved from eternal punishment in hell. We refuse to surrender our intellect by submitting to pre-scientific ideas about the afterlife and we refuse to give unthinking loyalty to questionable ancient texts. We refuse to surrender our personal responsibility by submitting to the will of God as often presented by churches. Many of us would feel that we have grown up and beyond surrender as a passive white flag, waiting for God to act in the world.

Christopher Hitchens said it well,

“Faith is the surrender of the mind, it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It’s our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me…. Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.”

Or else this fun story shows the dilemma for a modern person to surrender to a supernatural being.

A guy was driving to an important meeting and couldn’t find a parking place. Looking up toward heaven, he said “God, I surrender to your power. Find me a parking place and I will go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life and maybe even give up tequila.” Miraculously, a parking place appeared right in front of him. He looked up again and said, “Never mind. I found one myself.”

While the superstitious view of surrender is problematic to many of us, the alternative presented by Atlas is equally problematic. Considering the weight of the burdens you carry and the weight of the burdens your loved ones carry, burdens that you wish you could step in and ease, if only you COULD carry the whole world on your shoulders. But you know you can’t because you have tried and when you tried, the soap ended up on the shower floor. You are powerless to control your life to your ego’s satisfaction, and you are certainly powerless to save the world around you from suffering. Even the titan John Rockefeller, as successful and generous as he was, couldn’t solve the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the face of the deepest personal demons and society’s gravest challenge, even Rockefeller couldn’t hold that burden on his shoulders.

I’m interested in a third path of surrender that runs straight down fifth avenue taking the best from both the east and the west, well clear of blind submission and somewhere short of vein narcissism. I believe there is a middle path, and I believe it is a truth that is intuited by spiritual traditions of all varieties as it is intuited by self aware people in all times and places.

Surrender as Universal Truth

Whether its surrender to a higher power, submission to a guru, trusting your highest self or accepting reality as it is, surrender is one of the most profound universal truths. Take Islam for example. The word “Islam” is an Arabic part of speech relating to the divine name and means surrender, or maybe more accurately “come peacefully”. It’s interesting that most religions are named after a person, eg Christianity and Buddhism or a group of people, eg Judaism, or a place, eg Hinduism, but Islam is named after its central theme which is surrender. Despite the common misperception of Islam as a religion of blind devotion, many Muslims, and particularly within the Sufi branch of Islam, practice surrender by giving up their own needs so that others’ needs can be met.

There is a story told about a Sufi elder who lived a quiet life. When the woman next door became pregnant everyone wanted to know who the father was. In order to protect the real father, she gave the name of the Sufi elder. The village insisted that the Sufi raise the child. The Sufi made no fuss and said, “Alright. Leave the child.” Years later, the mother got married and finally confessed that the Sufi was not the father. The village apologized to the Sufi and asked for the child back. He gave them the child and said, “Alright. Take the child.” He surrendered his own need to be right to put the needs of others first.

Christianity, like Islam, emphasizes surrender as obedience to a Creator God. However there is a new thought added to the notion of surrender by Paul. He spoke of surrender as “dying to self”. This gets closer to the Buddhist notion of surrender, which is to transcend any one fixed identity. Surrender the fixed idea of who you are and you will find liberation. Stop grasping the you that you were yesterday or the relationship as it was yesterday or the world as it was back then. The present moment is another name for the object of your surrender, with you doing the hokey pokey in the middle of the moment, becoming all you need to be.

This raises the question as to whether there needs to be a God as an object for surrender. It certainly makes it easier. But since when is surrender supposed to be easy. Even without a belief in God, surrender to your highest self, the part of you that holds your highest intentions. Even if there is part of you saying “live for yourself. Just do what feels good. Take care of number one.” there is a higher voice that calls you beyond narcissism. Surrender to this voice.

The Recovery movement also emphasizes surrender in its first three steps. It introduces the idea of rock bottom. When you get to the point where the burden feels too great and you’ve tried everything to solve the problem, including denial, avoidance, self destruction, and sheer will power, but nothing will do it, you hit rock bottom. Rock bottom is a psychological breakthrough point where you admit that you can’t do it alone. You ask for help, whether its help from a higher power, or a support group. The empowering thing about the image of rock bottom is that it’s from this point that you can build a pile of rocks to create something to begin climbing out of despair. Addiction or not, we all get to this point in life when you knock on the door of a friend, a therapist, coach or spiritual guide and say “help”. This is the point of surrender, and it’s not a negative experience. It’s a liberating experience to realize that you can’t do it alone, don’t have to do it alone. You’re better off not doing it alone. Surrender is an expression of humility, a readiness to seek help and a prelude to transformation. The transformation revolves around serenity or acceptance. Stop giving anxious energy to things that you can’t control and begin taking responsibility for things you can control.

Surrender Beyond Submission

A surrendered way of life is anything but passive. It’s more alive and proactive than anything you experience when you think you can control life. Don’t confuse submission and surrender. Submission is passive. Surrender is active. Submission is deadening. Surrender is enlivening. Submission squashes the ego; surrender transcends it. Submission is when you give in. Surrender is when you give up. Submission is something you consciously do and maybe you hold on to resentment as you do it. It is often more superficial and obligation based. Surrender is a point beyond conscious decision where you intrinsically and subconsciously let go. As Blaise Pascal said, “All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling”. The only conscious steps you can take are to remove the barriers to surrender like peeling back the layers of an onion.

How can you tell if you are submitting or surrendering? If you feel guilt or a loss of personal power, you are likely submitting. If you feel more alive and more yourself in an essential way, then you are likely surrendering. If you feel put upon and isolated, you are likely submitting. If you feel liberated and connected, then you are likely surrendering.

Two monks were travelling in the woods when they met a woman who couldn’t cross the river because of the current. One of the monks asked her if he could pick her up and carry her across. She agreed. They crossed the river and let her down. They went their separate ways. After another mile or so, one monk was feeling anxious and troubled and finally told his friend, “You were wrong to carry that woman over the river. It is against our tradition to touch a woman.” The monk who had carried the woman responded, “My friend. I set the woman down miles back. You on the other hand are STILL carrying her.”

In this case, the decision not to carry the woman was based in submission to tradition’s rules. The decision to carry her was based in surrender.

Are you carrying people, relationships, ideas, beliefs, plans, that you would be better off surrendering? Prepare yourself for a sweet surrender by peeling the back the layers of self protection. Yes it might hurt. Yes it’s frightening. Yes it will be different. Yes, you might need to give up some cherished idea of who you are, some familiar comfort you find in the grief. But surrender is a prelude to something far greater- a transformation that will leave you feeling so alive that you will wonder why you didn’t try this years ago. You neither have to surrender your highest values nor do you have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Surrender to the moment and all its beauty.

In the words of Elvis, your heart will be on fire, burning with a strange desire to be one with the moment. All the stars will tell the story of surrender’s love and all its glory. Make this a time of magic, and a time of love. Won’t you please surrender? Namaste.

The Pursuit of Happiness

If you were given the choice between a lottery ticket and a set of water skis, which would you take? If you took the lottery ticket and won, you could buy all the water skis you could ever want, travel the world and ski in every lake you find. On the other hand, if you didn’t win the lottery you would be left with nothing. So you may be better off taking the water skis. Of course, if you took the water skis, you would run the risk of suffering an awful accident and becoming a paraplegic, so maybe the lottery ticket would be the safer bet. Dilemmas! Dilemmas!

You live with constant choices like this. What will make you happier? This job or that? This partner or that? This location or that? This amount of money or that? What if happiness doesn’t come as a money back guarantee with these choices?
Recent research questions our assumptions about what brings happiness. It suggests that one year after winning the lottery, people are no happier than they were before they won. So maybe the lottery ticket is not the better choice. Then again, some researchers suggest that one year after becoming a paraplegic, people are no less happy than they were before the event. In other words assuming one person won the lottery and another person became a paraplegic on the same day and at that time they were equally happy, chances are that one year later they would still be equally happy.

Your small sense of self craves external validation. Society and the media play right into this delusion and convince you that events and possessions make you happy or unhappy. Certainly when people move from living at a survival level, where only their basic needs are being met, to having a roof over their heads and a steady income, the increase in happiness grows with the income. But studies show that beyond about $70,000 per year, happiness levels begin to plateau. Multiplying your assets from $70,000 to 70 million dollars does not necessarily multiply your happiness. Money might make misery easier to live with, as Mark Twain said, but it can’t buy happiness.

It’s true in relationships as well. The day your fiancé leaves you at the altar will likely feel like the worst day of your life. Talk to some people who have been through this experience a year later, and they will feel that it was the best thing that could have happened. We tend to magnify the significance of events, when in reality they are unlikely to have a lasting impression on our sense of fulfillment in life.

There is a famous Jewish tale about happiness. King Solomon, who was extremely wealthy, wanted to teach one of his palace officials a lesson in humility. He sent him out on a wild goose chase to find a magical ring. Solomon told the official, “If a happy man looks at the ring, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.”

The official spent months in search of the magical ring. Finally he asked a merchant in Jerusalem, “Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?”
He watched the merchant take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When the official read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. He went back to Solomon

“Well, my friend,” said Solomon, “have you found what I sent you for?” To his surprise, the official held up a small gold ring and declared, “Here it is, your majesty!” As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile left his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor” — “This too shall pass.” At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom, wealth and power were fleeting things, and one day could all be gone.

If only we could take more of a “this too shall pass” approach to life, we would suffer so much less. No event is an end point. No incident is the last word on life. One of the ways you can pursue happiness is to allow life to ebb and flow all around you, and not hold on to any event or possession too tightly. Whatever you are going through right now is not the end of the story. There’s always more. There will be mysterious twists and turns that you can’t even predict.

So what is real happiness? The World Database of Happiness keeps track of how people appreciate life. Their survey asks two questions. The first is, “Are you happy right now?” The second goes a little deeper and asks, “All things considered, are you satisfied in life? Are you content?” It’s this second question that gets at the heart of the issue.

All things considered, taking a broad view of life, are you satisfied? Are you content? I don’t mean in this moment, or even this day, but overall. Even if you feel that money is tight or circumstances are running against you right now, are you content? Jesus said, “Happy are the poor in spirit.” The word in Greek is makarios. Makarios is used in Greek literature to describe the bliss of the gods who were not affected by the changes of life. Another translation of this verse could be, “Oh the unending bliss of the poor in spirit.” The poor in spirit are content because they have come within an inch of losing all hope. Because they know how it feels to be on the edge of spiritual devastation, they hold only loosely to things, and perspectives. Those who trust that all things come and go at the right time are content and at peace

The same applies to those who mourn. Oh the bliss of those who mourn, because they go deep within themselves to embrace and heal the sadness. It’s because they’ve embraced sadness that they know what it is to embrace gladness. Oh the bliss of those who mourn because they know that emotions are fleeting and changeable.

A spiritual teacher was once asked by his students, “Why are you so happy? You are surrounded by suffering and loss, so why are you happy?” The teacher picked up a crystal glass and said, “I love this glass. I love the way it sounds when I touch it. I love the way it glistens in the sun. And yet one day, no doubt, my elbow will knock it off of the table and it will break. I love this glass because I know that it’s already broken.”

All things considered, are you satisfied? Are you content? True happiness is realized in the broken places of life. Your life glistens in the sun and chimes with the sound of acceptance. It’s beautiful even with the cracks. When you have come to terms with your brokenness, you don’t need to pretend you are anything other than you who you are in each moment. When you have accepted that each situation is what it needs to be, you stop resisting reality. As the Tao te Ching says, “If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.” Stop striving to preserve meaningful moments by putting them in a bottle. Stop trying to make your possession immortal by storing them on a shelf. Let life come and go around you with humble curiosity and open ended wonder for this too shall pass.

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The Universal Law of Cause and Effect

The 2004 movie Crash begins with the sound of two cars colliding and a voice-over. Horns are blaring, tires are screeching, metal is crunching, and then with the distant image of out of focus lights flashing, the following voice over is heard:

“It’s the sense of touch. Any real city, you walk, you brush past people, people bump into you. In L. A. nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.”

It’s the voice of one of the drivers. His companion says:

“I think we got rear-ended. I think we spun around twice. And somewhere in there, one of us lost our frame of reference. And I’m gonna go look for it.”

The rest of the movie is a riveting tale of cause and effect bumping into each other as people find and lose their frames of reference, positive outcomes spring from near disaster and vice versa with a brilliant weaving of plotlines leaving the impression that all the players and their fates are ultimately related, mostly unpredictable and rarely fair.

In one of the interrelated plots, two young guys carjack an SUV and accidentally run down an Asian man who is just getting out of his van full of the Cambodian immigrants he is about to deliver as slaves. They dump the Asian man in front of a hospital where he survives and gives his wife the payment check for the slaves. Meanwhile the carjackers take the Asian man’s van unaware that it’s full of Cambodian slaves. They discover the Cambodians as they are in the process of selling the van. The eyes of the guy buying the van light up. He offers them $500 for each slave but they think better of it in a moment of conscience and set the Cambodians free. You’re left wondering who the heroes are, who the villains are and what the moral of the story could possibly be.

The reason I enjoy Crash so much is because its plot is like life. It blindsides your expectations, spins your emotions until you’re giddy and rear ends your assumptions. Sometimes, events that seem to be wholly evil, are used for good. Sometimes, the best intentions and altruistic actions lead to destruction. The beautifully frustrating thing about life is that we are always in the middle of a sequence of interrelated plotlines, bumping into each other. The truth is that we don’t know what the future holds, but we dare to believe that everything we think, do and say has an impact, whether we see and understand it or not.

Flooded with Tragedy

Is it just me or do others feel worn out from all the tragedy of the last week? In the week that we honored the memorial of the earthquake that killed over 300,000 people in Haiti and made a million people homeless, we suddenly had to make some sense of the Tucson shootings and horrendous floods in Australia and Brazil. When will it end, all this bumping into each other and innocent suffering? What is the meaning in it all? Maybe most importantly, is there anything we can do that would make a real difference? You want to make a difference, don’t you? You want to believe that your actions have an impact.

One of my favorite 20th century philosophers was Michel Foucault. He expresses well the post modern frustration with any absolute systems of knowledge or certainty. He said of his own writing that “I don’t write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me.” He said of his own personal growth, “I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”

He wrote about the history of power, knowledge, sanity and punishment in order to show the constant evolution of contexts. He said something that relates to our desire to make sense of tragedy. He said, “People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.”

As I relate these words to the idea of cause and effect, we could say that all actions have reactions, but the reactions aren’t necessarily predictable. Or maybe it’s more like a game of chess, where the very next move may be predictable but the moves beyond that become increasingly difficult to predict. While on vacation recently I played chess with my 12 year old nephew. It turns out he is very good, and I am very ordinary at chess. I feel pleased with myself if I make a move where I take into account the very next move in the game. In the meantime, he tells me that no matter what I do, he’s going to beat me in five moves. And he does just that. It’s a demoralizing experience being told that no matter what you do, you will lose. It’s a demoralizing experience to live with integrity and have no idea what benefit it will have 4, 5 or more situations out from where you are now.

The law of cause and effect either requires freakish ability to read the future, or else it requires a lot of patience and trust. In other words, causes may have their effects but the effects might be beyond anything we can know or control. Small causes can even have enormous effect, like the flapping of a butterfly wing that causes a hurricane on the other side of the world. But from our position, always in the middle of the drama, we can’t always plot the moves from butterfly flap to hurricane.

On the one hand this is empowering. Even actions that seem small or start out small may create waves of positive change in the world. On other hand, you may not see any connection or worthwhile outcome. It may even seem like your efforts are counterproductive. And yet there is something resilient in the human spirit that persists. Even though you have no certainty that your best efforts will make the slightest difference, you do them anyway. You do the only thing you can do, the only thing you have any control over, you stir your hand in the pond, see tiny ripples begin to disperse and let go of the outcome.

Cause And Effect in Spiritual Traditions

Most of the spiritual traditions teach some form of the law of cause and effect. Whether it’s a theistic tradition that teaches that the Creator God is the ultimate cause who keeps account of good and evil in the world, or non theistic traditions like Buddhism and Taoism that teach that the law of cause and effect is built into the very nature of life, and the universe itself keeps balance, most traditions encourage some sort of personal responsibility through the teaching of cause and effect.

In the Christian tradition, Jesus’ parables have a fascinating perspective on cause and effect. Luke Chapter 13 tells its own mini Crash story before one of these parables. It’s hard to piece together the details, but with the help of Josephus we can guess that the corrupt Roman official Pilate wanted to build an aqueduct into Jerusalem and he funded it with money he stole from Jews on pilgrimage. The Jews gathered in a crowd around Pilate and demanded their money back so Pilate sent soldiers into the crowd dressed in civvies to send a message to them. Pilate’s soldiers had no idea who the protestors were and indiscriminately killed many in the crowd. They died on the same altars to which they were making sacrifice. Hence the mingling of their blood with sacrificial blood. Later on while building his ill gotten aqueduct, part of the structure collapsed killing 18 people. Before coming to the parable, consider the parallel between these events and events of our time. There is a part of us that would like to see justice done with Pilate killed under the falling structure, but life isn’t like that.

Consider Pilate, and consider Jared Loughner as you listen to this quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn,

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

In Jesus’ world they believed that everything happened for a specific reason, and that God would bring justice to every evil act. Jesus took a radically different approach. He said that all people are equally guilty and suffering bears no relationship to justice. He said that ALL should “repent”. Don’t think of repenting as beating your breasts with guilt. Think of repenting as paying attention to life with greater openness. Stay open to the unfolding of life because you are always in the middle of it, dependent on all that came before you and paving the way for all that comes after you. Your life and actions are that significant even when there are few specific effects and outcomes you can draw from your actions. The parables speak of a reversal of fortunes where the only logic is grace, and call for patience and forgiveness along the way. Without patience and forgiveness, the law of cause and effect can be a harsh and manipulative truth.

While spiritual traditions teach a form of cause and effect, many of them warn against concretizing, forming conclusions for all time. Remember the Taoist story about the farmer whose horse runs away. The neighbors say “That’s awful.” The famer says, “How do you know this is not a good thing?” Sure enough the horse returns the next day with another horse. The neighbors say, “You are lucky.” He says, “How do you know this is not a bad thing?” The next day his son rides the new horse, falls off and breaks his leg. The neighbors say, “You poor man.” He says, “How do you know this is not a good thing?” The army comes through town the next day, taking all able bodied boys with them, leaving the farmer’s boy because of his broken leg. The neighbors gather and say, “We’re so pleased for you.” The farmer says, “We’ll see!” The story could keep going, but you get the point.

We are in the middle, with causes and effect bumping into each other all the time. Or else out of the Sufi tradition, learn from this story about multiple causes.

“What is Fate?” Nasrudin, the wise fool used in Sufi stories, was asked by a Scholar.

“An endless succession of intertwined events, each influencing the other”, Nasrudin replied.

“That is hardly a satisfactory answer. I believe in cause and effect”, said the Scholar.

“Very well,” said Nasrudin, “look at that.” He pointed to a procession passing in the street.”

“That man is being taken to be hanged. Is that because someone gave him a silver piece and enabled him to buy the knife with which he committed the murder; or because someone saw him do it; or because nobody stopped him?”

Do Good Anyway

Relate this last story to the Tucson shootings. There is value in looking for causes. It enables us to learn from the past and break destructive patterns. Just beware of concretizing. Various people have pointed to gun laws, the treatment of mental illness, and the political language of violence as possible causes of the shootings. Did Jared Loughner create mayhem, or did we fail to stop him by seeing all the signs? These are all valid inquiries but may not yield any absolute answers. Maybe causes are always complex and interrelated. While the causes are complex, the effect of the shooting is in our control. As President Obama said at the Memorial on Wednesday night, lack of civil discourse is not the cause of the shooting, but from here on we can make sure that civil discourse is an effect of the shooting.

The one cause that you can trace with some accuracy is your own thought patterns, conscious and subconscious. Where you can trace your tendency to blame and judge back to a critical thought pattern, you can begin to change your mindset and that matters. Begin with awareness. Notice the connection between self limiting and judgmental thoughts and all of this bumping into each other. With this new awareness, start changing the script beginning with healthy thought patterns.

From healthy thoughts, move to life affirming actions. The spiritual principle of the golden rule that transcends any one tradition is the ultimate expression of cause and effect. Do to others what you know you would want yourself. Don’t do to other what you know is harmful. Even if you don’t see the immediate connection between your loving actions and any earth shattering effect, do good anyway and believe that the universe will keep record and bring a balance of love in the world.

Stephen Colbert coined the phrase, “Reality has a well known liberal bias” in his famous roast of President Bush in 2006. Here is a slight variation on the phrase in relation to cause and effect- “The universe has a well known compassionate bias.” This means that you and I can conspire with the universe to spread compassion in the world. As Martin Luther King said “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.” You’ve got to believe this is true and keep going. The path of human kindness is hard, unpredictable and rarely fair. You are in the middle of this path and have no idea how the story ends or even if it ends. So keep at it, do what you can and make sure that the arc of your best intentions bend towards a more decent world.

Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, said,

If you put love where there is no love, you will find love.

If you put peace where there is no peace, you will find peace.

If you put hope where there is no hope, you will find hope.

Namaste.