The Secret of Life

My New Year Strategies For Spiritual Development

Well, I seem to be keeping to my New Year's Resolutions so far. This may not seem all that impressive, only a short way into January, but it's good going for me. I've normally forgotten them by lunchtime on New Year's Day.

What I decided this year was to put some of the useful stuff I write about in this blog into action for a change. All too often, I'm all full of bright ideas when I'm writing, but they slip out of sight when I switch off the PC.

This year it's going to be different. I'm going to be different...

There are two main simple strategies I'm putting into practice. Simplicity is important, I think, for actually doing stuff. Anything too complicated tends not to be there in the front of your brain when you need it.

The first thing is to deal with some of this great big well of negative emotions inside me. Goodness knows, I've been writing here about dealing with these emotions for long enough, and I have been acting on some of my advice. But it's a big issue for me - as I think it is for most of us, if we're willing to face up to it - and I really need to start doing more.

The hard bit is remembering what's really going on when those unwanted emotions well up inside you, when you get all annoyed or whatever particular emotion is bugging you today. That's the time when it's easy to lose the plot entirely and start getting all caught up in the drama of the situation. And you feel so unspiritual: 'like I've done all this new agey stuff all these years but I'm still like a bear with a sore head when some idiot does something I don't like. I should not be jumping around shaking my fists with steam coming out of my ears at this stage in my spiritual development! It's not fair!'

But it's a question of remembering that when this happens, it is part of our spiritual development: a very important part. These emotions are coming up to be released. I've written about this in more detail, including the various techniques for release in my recent post Letting Go, but the crucial ingredient of my New Year's Resolution is to remember to make the right connection in my head about what these emotions are all about.

When emotions came welling up, the old Simon used to get sucked into the drama of whatever situation had triggered them off, thereby stoking them up even more. If he thought about spiritual matters at all, he would reflect on the unfortunate contrast between the calm, joyful, advanced being he wished to be and the raging inconsolable madman he actually was. Which made him feel even worse...

But when these emotions well up now, the new Simon makes the all-important connection and thinks 'Ah-ha! There is work to be done! These emotions are coming up to be released!' and starts to put the appropriate techniques into action.

The last few days, since I've been doing this consistently, I've felt some really massive energy begin to shift within me. As a result of this, some emotional blocks to doing stuff are starting to fall away at last.

The second prong of my New Year's Resolution is to be in the moment more, instead of spending so much time in my mind. Once again, this is something I've written about a great deal here at The Secret Of Life - and most recently on Harmony's blog - but actually doing it for any length of time (like for more than a few moments) has proved more difficult.

For some reason, something seems to have shifted now, and I'm managing to close down my unnecessary mental chatter for longer periods of time. Partly I'm doing this by stringing along my ego, working to appease the very part of me that keeps those internal thoughts droning on in the first place. I tell the 'little me' inside what a wonderful achievement it will be if I can only switch off my mind for the next two minutes, or until I get home, or until I reach the next lamp post - or whatever suitable marker is in the offing...

It seems to respond well to these challenges and goes along with me at least some of the time...

It's great when this happens: when the chatter drops away and you feel the power of the moment, when you're really present in the now. There's sometimes peace, sometimes joy, always stillness. If you haven't yet connected with this, you may find it's easiest to experience when you're out in nature: out in the country or in a garden. You can read more about it in Eckhart Tolle's books. I particularly recommend the concise, very practical volume Practicing The Power Of Now.

To help stabilize this state, I'm also using a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) technique called anchoring. I've picked a word that describes best how I feel when I'm like this: 'joy', which I then repeat to myself when I'm in the present moment and also when I want to get back there. After a while, the mind begins to connect the word 'joy' with this state and so in time simply saying - or thinking - the word 'joy' brings me back there.

A bonus effect is that saying the word 'joy' when I'm in the moment is also a good way to keep the mind occupied. Whereas it could easily drift back into its usual internal monologue, it is too busy instead with its allotted task of repeating this word. (The best way to outsmart the mind is to tie it up in one of its own tricks...)

I don't remember to use these two techniques all the time, but by keeping them simple and, I think, moving them up my subconscious list of priorities, I'm putting them into practice more and more. And the more I use them, the more they are becoming a habit.

To summarize, the two strategies are:

1) Realize that emotions coming up are an opportunity, not a setback: use the techniques to feel and so release them.

2) Switch off the mind and be in the moment. Use the NLP anchoring technique to help to stay in this state and return there.

This strategy is already starting to pay off. I've spent the whole of today 'in the zone', the first time this has happened for ages. I don't know how long I'll stay like this - it's not usually more than a day or two - but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Each time I reach this state, it's subtly different. The all-important connection to joy is there if I pay attention to it, but this time the natural focus is much more on a kind of inner stillness and calm fluid action. The internal dialogue is largely silent - naturally silent, I'm not having to force it right now - and the internal critic, in particular, is keeping its trap shut, which is a cause for celebration in itself. There's a kind of quiet confidence about everything I do. It never occurs to me that I won't be able to do whatever I choose - though admittedly I haven't tried sky diving or bungee jumping yet. My actions seem to flow and be easy. When I've done one thing, I move on to the next, and whatever I'm doing, it always seem to be exactly the right thing for me to be doing right now. There's no self-doubt about it.

These aren't extraordinary things I'm doing: I've done the ironing, written some letters, repaired my glasses, written this blog... How does that famous saying go?  'Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.' That seems to be how it is shaping up in this latest mini-taster of progress I'm having. 2009 feels great so far. And it's still only January...

(P.S. If you're a blogger you may be interested in The Quote Effect, an interesting new project by Davina of Shades of Crimson. This is your chance to contribute three favorite quotes from your blog for inclusion in Davina's upcoming eBook. There are more details here.)

Being Ourselves

Here's a lovely, empowering quotation I found on Angelbaby's site:

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through me into action because there is only one of me in all time. This expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist in any other medium. The world will not have it. It is not my business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is my business to keep it mine clearly and directly and to keep the channel open."

    Martha Graham
    US choreographer and dancer (1894-1991)

I wish you all a very happy New Year! I shall be keeping this quotation close to my heart. Here's to all of us being ourselves, fearlessly and joyfully, in 2009...

 

These may also be of interest:

To Simply Be

Your Perfect Offering

If It Be Thy Will

For my Christmas post, I've decided to carry on the Leonard Cohen theme from last time. By coincidence, this has proved to be a topical decision, as here in the UK, rival cover versions of his most famous song, Hallelujah, are in the top two positions of the Christmas pop charts: not bad for a 74-year old!

This You Tube video features another of my favorite Cohen songs, 'If It Be Thy Will'. I hope you enjoy it. This particular performance is truly magical, I think, an effect which is only very slightly diminished by the presence in the audience of a man with a marrow on his head...

I always find this song tremendously moving - I think it speaks especially powerfully to those of us who have had a long-term illness: "if it be thy will/to make us well"... Yet at the same time I'm aware that the song doesn't entirely fit in with my current beliefs about our relationship to God. It appears to be very much about us bowing down before an all-powerful being, about us surrendering our will to His. It appears to be dualistic - based in the idea that 'God' is over there and 'we' are over here, whereas what I believe, and write about in this blog, is more about Unity, the understanding that 'the Kingdom of God is within you', that All is One.

It is worth mentioning in passing that I don't use the word 'God' all that much here at The Secret Of Life because some people find it off-putting. I tend to use other words that serve just as well, such as 'presence', 'the universe', 'What Is', even 'the quantum field'... But as far as I am concerned, it is all the same thing. Sometimes, words just get in the way...

Which is what Cohen, and writers in general, are about, I suppose: trying to use words in such a way that they don't get in the way. The difficulty of doing this is highlighted in another of Cohen's songs, 'Love Itself', about a peak experience. To me, this is a marvelous attempt to capture the wonder of such a moment. Others, who it seems to me are not really paying attention, have interpreted this song as a lament for lost love. But the lyrics in the song 'love itself was gone' are not, I believe, a lament at all. They are not about loss. They are a way of stressing that 'love itself' has been experienced.

'Love Itself' is a much more recent song than 'If It Be Thy Will' and seems to be much more rooted in 'Oneness', perhaps representing the current state of Cohen's spiritual understanding rather better. The intervening years he spent in a Zen Buddhist monastery may have influenced this! Yet Cohen still includes 'If It Be Thy Will' in his concert repertoire, so he clearly still believes it to be relevant - as indeed do I.

What it is important to understand is that in surrendering our will, we are not surrendering our power - quite the opposite. What we are surrendering is the little me, the ego, the part of ourselves which stands in the way of getting in touch with our true selves, our true power. For the God to which we bow is greater than ourselves yet not separate from ourselves. And if 'this night' is truly to end, we all have to play our part in making it happen.

Thank you for reading The Secret Of Life. I wish you a wonderful Christmas season and a peaceful New Year for us all!

(P.S. If you'd like to hear an audio version of these Christmas greetings - plus greetings from numerous other bloggers, some of them in song! - have a listen to Robin's 'Blogger's Recording Project'.)

Your Perfect Offering

At this time of year, it's easy to find ourselves rushing around in a mad dash to get everything done before Christmas, so maybe it's a good time to consider if we're being too hard on ourselves. Next time you're struggling to complete some task and make it exactly right, it's worth bearing in mind that the world is an imperfect place. It's meant to be that way. Indeed, if everything was perfect, we wouldn't even be here. Science has proved it.

For the earliest example of this inherent imperfection, we need to go back to the Big Bang, when the universe was created. At that time, scientists now understand, equal amounts of matter and something equal and opposite called antimatter were created. Except that as nothing is perfect in the universe, there is a slight flaw in the statement I just made. It should have read: "almost equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created". In actual fact, it now turns out, there was a tiny deviation of one extra particle of matter for every 10 billion particles. So slightly more matter than antimatter was created. This is an example of something called a 'broken symmetry', and the physicist Yoichiro Nambu has recently won a Nobel prize for his work in this field.

This particular broken symmetry is very important, because what happens when matter meets antimatter is that they cancel each other out. First you have stuff, now you don't. Poof! So just after the Big Bang happened, a lot of this canceling out took place. A lot of matter met antimatter and disappeared. Which means that... if there had really been equal amounts of matter and antimatter, everything would have disappeared. It's only because of the broken symmetry, the imperfection, that any matter remains at all. Otherwise, we - and the universe - wouldn't even exist.

But the importance of imperfection doesn't stop there. The human race, and every other race of creatures on this planet - with the possible exception of the amoeba :-) - are also a product of imperfection. Our race hasn't evolved in a smooth, orderly progression, but by throwing up random genetic mutations which occasionally suit the prevailing conditions better than their 'normal' parents and therefore thrive. These successful mutations then pass on their genes to subsequent generations, causing the species to evolve accordingly. People who have physical characteristics which differ from 'the norm' may often suffer ridicule at the hands of their fellows, but the fact is that without such examples of 'imperfection', evolution wouldn't have happened - and we'd still all be one step down from a barnacle.

So maybe we should bear in mind the beautiful imperfections of our world in our daily lives. And maybe we don't need to give ourselves such a hard time by dotting every 'i' and crossing every ''t. Maybe we don't even need to get all our apostrophes in the right place's. We may still want to do our best in life, but that may not require 100% perfection in very task we do.

I recently read an article by Bob Cox which suggested that we should ask ourselves: "have I achieved 90 percent of what I was aiming for with this project?" If the answer is yes, then maybe we'll be wearing ourselves out unnecessarily if we take it the extra ten percent. Maybe our efforts would be better applied elsewhere - or in giving ourselves a well-earned rest.

This idea has to be interpreted with care, of course. I'm not sure how applicable it is to brain surgery, for instance, and if I was working on a murder mystery, I wouldn't want to stop writing when I was 90% of the way through the book. But when I got to the end, I might choose to leave it at two revisions instead of three...

Some might consider the figure of 90% perfection to be too low. They might prefer to go for 95%, or even 98%. But the general principle remains the same. If you're trying to make it perfect, you're probably wasting your time. You're more likely to wear yourself out than achieve perfection - and the chances are that no one else but you will notice the difference anyhow.

So next time you knowingly leave off a task when it's less than perfect, there's no need to give yourself a hard time. Instead, rejoice in the fact that you are perfectly in tune with an imperfect world. As Leonard Cohen puts it in his song: "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

 

These may also be of interest:

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

Being Ourselves

Letting Go

I'm becoming more and more aware of how important it is to really feel - and so release - our suppressed emotions. I've described in a previous post, A Sun-Filled Room, how important this is for spiritual transformation. Put simply, we have a natural connection to joy, to bliss, to our true nature, but this connection is clogged up by all our emotional debris.

We have this debris because over the years, we've learned not to feel our emotions. Events have come along but rather than allow ourselves to fully react, we've pushed it all down inside. We've been taught that we shouldn't cry, or we shouldn't lose our temper - and we have gone along with this.

Yet these emotions are crying out to be released. This is why the same old things keep coming along to annoy us. We're attracting these things to us, begging them to push our buttons so that we can release the great well of emotion within us. But time and time again, we keep pushing it all down again...

Which is why the world is in the state it's in, with domestic violence, road rage, even monks now brawling in church! Small things come along to annoy us, and a lot of the time, the way we react is totally out of proportion to whatever has happened. This is because we're not upset for the reason we think we are. The truth is that this new event has connected with the great reservoir of hurt we hold inside us. It's not really losing our place in the queue today that's annoyed us. It's the buried memory of that ice cream we didn't get when we were five - or of the lover who left us a couple of decades later.

We really need to release all this stuff. But how do we do it?

The bottom line is that we need to allow ourselves to really feel these emotions when they come up, not push them back down again. We need to remember that they are coming up in order to be released.

We also need to realize that when we get all hot and bothered like this, we're not being un-spiritual. Far from it - we need to understand that this is an important part of the process of spiritual transformation. A vital part. But we do need to have techniques we can use whenever these emotions arise. Otherwise, the opportunity to release them is going to be wasted.

My friend Sue Ann of Always Embraces Always teaches a very simple technique to use at such times. She says: "Just breathe and embrace the feelings. If you need something to keep your thoughts entertained and occupied while you do it, then concentrate on the breathing. Just let the feelings come up and out." I think this technique is particularly useful because it's so easy to bring to mind when emotions suddenly surface.

If you find that the feelings stick around, you may like to try another useful technique, which I found on Phil Bolsta's blog. It was developed by Dr Ibrahim Jaffe and it's called Awareness Release Technique. (You may recognise Phil's name in connection with his book, Sixty Seconds, which I posted about recently.)

Previous posts at The Secret Of Life have featured other strategies:

How To Deal With Difficult Emotions features Nick Roach's technique for dissolving emotions.

The Ultimate Truth 3 describes another breathing technique which I call 'the welcome breath'.

Emotional Freedom Technique has links to online tuition on this popular tapping technique.

Ten Words That Can Heal The World deals with Ho'oponopono, which I have also found to be very helpful in dissolving emotions.

The Quantum Light Breath is a very powerful breathing exercise which can help to release emotions.

Releasing emotions can sometimes require forgiveness - of others and often ourselves - so I'd like to draw attention to another recent post on Phil Bolsta's blog, this one featuring Eva Kor, a holocaust survivor who has forgiven her Nazi tormentors. Do take a look. It's the text of a wonderful, moving speech which Eva recently gave. She is proposing an addendum to The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

She explains: "I want every human being to know that they have the human right to live free of emotional pain, and they can accomplish this by taking back control over their lives by forgiving their enemies, and even forgiving themselves for their past mistakes, which is the hardest thing to do."

The Audacity Of Hope

It's been a bit of a frustrating business, watching the US election from the far side of the Atlantic: knowing how important the outcome is but not having a vote! I think many Americans would be surprised to learn how closely the election has been followed by Europeans, but the world is so interconnected these days that our fortunes are very much bound up together. So many of the issues which face us, such as the economic crisis, climate change, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are shared by us all. It could be argued that the result of the US poll has as much impact on life here in Britain as that of our own elections.

But if yesterday was a nervous night for us, I guess it must have been even more stressful for those of you who actually live in the USA. It was interesting, for instance, to watch this video of Neale Donald Walsch (of Conversations With God fame) urging people to vote. He doesn't mention a specific candidate but most of us could take a pretty good guess who he's rooting for. And it seems to me that the Neale in this video sounds not like Neale Donald Walsch at all but like someone who is attached to an outcome! I make that comment with great affection and respect for the man: just to illustrate how much we have all invested in this.

Before I go on, I feel I should acknowledge the fact that, in spite of what I've written above, I'm looking at events in America from a long way away, so I hope that my US readers will indulge me if I write about the way things seem to me.

As you may perhaps expect, I was rooting for Barack Obama, and I woke this morning to hear news of his victory with a sense not of elation but of relief. It would have been just so depressing if he hadn't won - not because John McCain is such a 'bad' man (which I don't think he is) but because it seems to me that a great opportunity for change would have been lost to us.

Watching the faces of those who were gathered in Chicago to hear Obama's victory speech, I found myself being moved by the light in their eyes: full of expectation for that change, full of gratitude and even disbelief at the miracle which has occurred, that a black man has risen to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. This in itself is surely a cause for celebration, sending as it does a message of unity to the world. And better still, the man is Barack Obama, a bridge builder, a healer, and a great orator, whose choice of words is every bit as resonant as the timbre of his voice. As I watched, it seemed to me that this would be viewed as an iconic moment ten, twenty, even fifty years from now. It seemed too good to be true. It was like a movie.

And oh, the weight of expectation in those eyes. Can it really be good to expect so much from any one man? Does Barack Obama really have it in him to make that change, to deliver so much?

To attempt at an answer, I'd like to go back to something which almost derailed Obama's campaign in its early stages: his relationship with the controversial Minister, Jeremiah Wright. It may seem contrary to revisit this now, but I believe it points to an understanding which Obama has, and which is vital not only for him but for all of us.

I probably don't need to remind you that Wright made some very outspoken comments about racism in America, comments which were made in the church which Obama attended.

It seemed to me that Obama knew exactly where Wright was coming from when he made those comments. He understood - and how could he not? - all the long years of genuine grievance and discrimination which fed the roots of the preacher's invective. He understood the reasons for Wright's outspoken anger, which was why he was so slow to distance himself from the preacher. Yet he also understood that the anger was part of the past. If genuine change was to come, it was not to come through bearing grudges. It would be through a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. It was not that everything the preacher said was wrong. It was that he had failed to let go of the past.

As regular readers of The Secret Of Life will know, I believe that we all have to come to a similar realization: to let go of our past grievances, the stored emotions which keep us apart from each other and separated from our true nature. Only in leaving the past behind can we come together as one and solve the many problems our world is facing. This is true on a personal level and also internationally.

Can Obama do this for us?

The answer of course is 'no'. We have to do it ourselves. But it helps to have a leader who is coming from the same place, who shares an understanding of what is needed.

So I don't look to Obama with a heavy weight of expectation, but I do look on with hope.

George Bush thought in terms of 'us' and 'them'. Obama thinks in terms of 'us', of consensus, of coming together. And that is a start.

What will Obama do? What will he deliver? The answer to those questions is uncertain. Which perhaps is for the best, for only from uncertainty can genuine change arise. Perhaps now is a good time for us to facilitate that change, to imagine the kind of world we wish to see. Not to look with expectation at one man, and wait for him to succeed or fail, but to search inside ourselves and bring forth the imagination of hope. Not the usual kind of hope, the kind of hope we pin on this or that and is often disappointed, but enduring hope, resilient hope, audacious hope for the future.

I Like Jonathan Ross

I didn't really want to post about this. I'd intended to write about something entirely different here, but the bizarre furore which has overtaken the British media in the last few days has seeded thoughts which are clamoring to be set down. And until I've got them out of the way, it seems like there's no room here in the front of my brain for anything else. Which is kind of annoying, because it's not really Secret Of Life material - and it's going to take a lot of explaining for most of you reading this who don't even live in the UK.

And yet, if I don't write about it here, where else am I going to put it? I don't have any other blogs. And maybe, now I think about it, it's not so irrelevant to the things I usually talk about here after all, illustrating - as it does - the sheer lunacy of the current state of human consciousness. British consciousness, to be precise - but I'm not sure the rest of the world is so very different.

So here goes. What is all this about then?

It involves the following people and two British institutions:

Russell Brand, a young TV and radio presenter and budding movie star, who may be best known in the US for disparaging George Bush while presenting this year's MTV awards.

Jonathan Ross, a middle-aged TV and radio presenter, at £6 million a year the highest-paid presenter at the BBC.

Andrew Sachs, veteran actor, best known for his portrayal of the hapless waiter Manuel in the 70s sitcom Fawlty Towers.

Georgina Baillie, Sachs' granddaughter and member of the burlesque dance troupe, Satanic Sluts Extreme.

The BBC. You've probably heard of this lot: the world's largest broadcasting corporation, with numerous TV and radio channels in the UK and worldwide. It carries no advertising and is funded primarily by the license fee which is paid by all British TV viewers. Non-payment of this fee carries a substantial fine.

The Daily Mail, a 'popular' daily newspaper which thrives on prodding what Eckhart Tolle would describe as the 'pain body' of its readers, favorite topics including such matters as asylum seekers, social security 'scroungers', the trade unions and (as you might have guessed) the BBC and its license fee, with particular reference to highly-paid presenters such as Jonathan Ross ("he's got six million pounds of our money..." etc etc).

So what unfortunate series of events has brought these protagonists together?

The whole affair started about two weeks ago, when a prerecorded BBC radio show was broadcast in which Brand and Ross phoned up Andrew Sachs, who was scheduled to be a guest on the show. When it turned out that Sachs was unavailable, Brand and Ross left a series of lewd messages on his answerphone. The full transcript can be found here but to summarize, the messages contained foul language and allegations that Brand had slept with Sachs' granddaughter.

Understandably, Sachs complained to the BBC and asked that the show should not be broadcast. In a gross error of judgment, the BBC decided that the show should be aired anyway. At the time, two (that's two) listeners lodged a complaint about the show.

Which might have been the end of the matter except that, about a week later, the Mail got hold of the story and ran an article complaining about it, emphasizing the fact that Jonathan Ross was being being paid £6 million pounds worth of license payers' money for such behavior. In the wake of this, and the subsequent publicity, there were 35,000 complaints to the BBC, overwhelmingly from people who had not even heard the original broadcast.

In the days that followed, the 'Sachsgate' affair became the top story all over the country, drawing comments from the prime minister and the leader of the opposition; and driving the world financial crisis, dodgy dealings on yachts by top politicians, and the growing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo out of the headlines. Apparently, those messages left on Andrew Sachs' phone were the most inhumane and outrageous event on the planet.

After several days of trying to shrug the whole thing off, the BBC was finally forced to take action to try to stem the furore. Brand ended up resigning and Ross was suspended without pay for twelve weeks (which amounts to over £1 million pounds worth of suspension). Accepting ultimate responsibility, the boss of the BBC radio station which broadcast the 'outrage' (who was generally highly regarded) also resigned. Brand and Ross apologized to Sachs, who accepted their apologies. They have also apologized to Sachs' granddaughter, but if reports are correct, Georgina Baillie appears to have her own agenda, having negotiated a contract to explain her reaction to the affair in a TV special.

This probably won't be the end of the matter. With The Mail still after his blood, it may be difficult for Ross to carry on at the BBC. He has been told that he is on a final warning. When he returns to the airwaves, his every word will be scrutinized mercilessly. Is it possible to be funny under such circumstances?

I titled this piece 'I Like Jonathan Ross' to make it plain where I stand, but I'm aware that in Britain today this is a controversial statement. When I visited the Guardian web site to offer my opinion that the fuss was all a bit over the top, I found that my words were heavily outnumbered by countless disparaging comments about the presenters. 'Brand and Ross are scum,' would be a representative sample of these. One could have been forgiven for thinking that the two presenters had, say, taken a gun to the local shopping mall and aimed pot shots at passers by. And this is the Guardian web site I'm talking about here, the Guardian being the most left-wing, 'liberal' paper in country.

What really gets to me is the seemingly random nature of the whole thing. Why have 35,000 people chosen this issue - of all things! - to get so worked up about? Why not all the other manifold injustices in the world, petty and otherwise?

No one (not even Brand and Ross in retrospect) are denying that the phone calls were a mistake - and everyone agrees that it was an even worse mistake to actually air them - but the way I see it, it is Brand's and Ross' job to go on air and be spontaneously funny. It's what they're paid for. And part of what makes them funny is that they skate close to the edge of what is acceptable. Their listeners like that and the BBC likes it because it brings in a big audience. Occasionally, by the very nature of things, they are bound to get it wrong. That's what editorial control should be there for: to let them know when they're stepping over the boundary of what is acceptable taste.

The incident happened because (for the first time ever, I think) Brand and Ross were hosting the show together. They normally each broadcast with a straight man to rein them in a bit. But on this occasion they egged each other on, with disastrous consequences.

I can't explain about Russell Brand because I don't usually find him funny. This isn't surprising, because I'm about twenty to thirty years over the age of his target audience. I do, however, find Jonathan Ross very entertaining. He has developed a remarkable larger-than-life persona which radiates a kind of faux naivete. He can get away (usually) with making outrageous remarks because the version of himself he's portraying doesn't realize he's saying anything wrong. The humor comes not from the embarrassment of his guests but from his own (pretended) gulf of understanding.

That's the way I see it, anyway. Of course, a lot of people (particularly Mail readers) don't see it at all - hence the problem. But a lot of people do find Ross funny, which is why the BBC had to pay him so much money to stop him being poached by other organizations.

Even so, I have to admit that there is one element of Ross's act, in common with those of other broadcasters such as Ricky Gervais and George Lamb (who is apparently being drafted in to replace Russell Brand) with which I am less comfortable, and that is a certain bullying quality. Ross treats his radio sidekick Andy abominably. That isn't a problem for Andy, who is no doubt being paid far too much to care, but to what extent does such on air behavior serve to legitimize bullying out in the real world?

I have similar reservations about, say, the quiz show The Weakest Link, which promotes and celebrates petty vindictiveness. When set against such deliberate nastiness, inherent in the very format of the show, the accidental misdemeanor of Brand's and Ross' answerphone messages seems positively innocent. They were trying to be funny and they got it wrong. It seems to me that there are worse crimes.

But such in depth analysis of what is moral and why and its possible effect upon society is unlikely to stem from this affair. All the BBC is going to be worrying about is what upsets Daily Mail readers and what doesn't. The complexities - as so often - are going to be overlooked.

It is worth remembering, though, that humor is always subjective. There is probably no one thing that everyone finds funny, so when humor skates close to the edge, there is always a chance that someone will be offended. I think it is the ultimate irony of this whole business that Andrew Sachs has been portrayed as a much-loved exponent of classic comedy: 'How could this much-loved old man be treated in such a way?'

I do not intend any criticism of Sachs, whose behavior throughout this whole sorry affair has been entirely measured and reasonable, and whose role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers has always had me rolling about on the floor laughing, but even so it is interesting to look a little more closely at what that role actually entailed. What Sachs played in the show was an empty-headed immigrant worker, lampooned for his poor grasp of English and physically abused by his employer, all of this played for laughs.

Can you imagine Brand and Ross trying to explain away that if they'd been involved with it?

And yet everyone is now agreed that it was hilarious. No doubt about it. Very funny. And I seem to remember that the bit where Basil Fawlty was actually hitting Manuel was considered to be especially good.

What makes us laugh is always subjective.

The things we get upset about are also subjective - and often random.

Perhaps when it happens, it is worth asking ourselves if we are really upset for the reason we think we are. Or has someone just been poking our caged emotions?

Don't Worry - Be Happy!

I'm always interested to check my Stats and see what people who come to my blog have been searching for. Sometimes, I'm afraid to say, it's clear that it's all been a terrible waste of time. I can only send apologies to those who were lured to my earlier post on The Taste of Tomatoes in search of gardening tips - and to those who ended up at my recent offering, Between One Moment And The Next, in a futile search for details of camp sites in the north of England. As to those come searching for something closer to what I'm really on about here, I always hope that they find something really useful here at my blog - but I rarely have chance to find out. It's usually my fellow bloggers and a few friends who leave comments - Googlers rarely do, and my Stats don't provide me with any contact details so that I can get in touch with these people to say "Hi!" This is all well and good, of course - from a data control and privacy point of view - but just occasionally I'd really like to know.

The other day, for instance, someone came here after a Google search for "what Eckhart Tolle says about worry" and I really hope they found what they were looking for, because what Eckhart says about worry is one of the most liberating things I've ever learned from him. I did cover the subject in my earlier post Making Plans, but the 'worry' bit wasn't exactly headlined so they may have missed it.

Never mind: better late then never. So - ta da! - here is my official "what Eckhart Tolle says about worry" post, specially for the next person who comes searching for this on Google - and for you, of course, especially if you've been feeling the burden of these uncertain times.

The gist of what Eckhart says - and pay attention here, because this could change your life - is that worry isn't important. Worry seems to be important but it really isn't! Worry serves no purpose whatsoever, so you may as well just forget all about it. Seriously.

Does that make you feel better? It certainly makes me feel better. I've spent my life feeling that when I have a problem looming, I have to worry about it. I have a duty to worry about it. If I don't worry, I am being irresponsible.

In actual fact, the opposite is true. You have a duty not to worry. You have a duty to lift that burden from your shoulders and focus on enjoying your life instead.

So allow that burden to lift right now! Does that feel better? And this is the way you can live your life from now on...

This doesn't mean to say that you don't have to deal with any problem which may come along. You still have to do whatever may be needed. But you don't have to worry yourself sick about it!

All you have to do is to ask yourself if there's anything you can do about the problem. If there's no action you can take, that's it. Put it out of your mind. Worrying won't serve any purpose. And what you have to remember is that you have a responsibility not to worry. Why? Because worrying will sap your energy. When this impending catastrophe happens (which, by the way, it probably won't) you will be far better able to deal with the aftermath if you haven't worn yourself out with worry in the meantime.

On other occasions, there will be something you can do about the problem. If you need to take action right now, that's simple enough. Just get on with it! Then worry won't get a look in, because you'll be too busy doing. You'll be in the moment instead of in your head.

If however, the problem is less urgent, than the best thing to do is to allocate an appropriate time to decide what action to take. This may be right now, or later today or, if things are less pressing, it may be a week on Tuesday. Until then, you can turn your attention with an easy mind to the other things in your life, whether they be duties or pleasures, all in the safe knowledge that you are not shirking your responsibilities with this worry holiday of yours. Quite the opposite. Because the only thing that worry achieves is to sap your precious energy.

And if you're still not convinced that you don't need to worry, here's something else to consider.

It seems that your subconscious mind has more resources than your conscious one. This means that it will probably arrive at an effortless solution to your problem while you're busy focusing on, say, the gardening or watching a movie. So, when a week on Tuesday finally arrives and you sit down with a pen and paper to think things through, you may discover that the problem is already solved. We're very good at working things out on auto-pilot... as long as we don't allow worry to get in the way.

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A few useful links:

I covered some other aspects of this subject in my earlier post, Making Plans.

You can find various Eckhart Tolle links here

Some recommended books by Eckhart Tolle are:

The Power Of Now
Practicing The Power Of Now
A New Earth

 

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You may also be interested in a guest post I've written for Harmony's excellent blog, Golden Zen. It's called Stop Thinking.

This may also be of interest:

Your Perfect Offering

Global Financial Crisis - A Blueprint For Transformation?

What can we learn from the current precarious state of the world's financial systems?

A lot of us seem to have taken the lesson that greed doesn't pay. It didn't do the banks any good to try to make lots of money by offering their customers loans which they couldn't afford to repay. Nor was it good for those of us who took them up on those offers.

The situation could also be seen as a text book example of the law of attraction in action. While financial mismanagement lies at the heart of the crisis, the resulting loss of confidence is making it so much worse. People are selling shares because they are afraid that their value is falling, and this in turn is driving down the price. People are attracting the very thing which they fear.

But perhaps there is another yet more important lesson to learn.

About a year ago, I wrote on this blog about the importance of us coming to think of ourselves an integral part of the human race, rather than caring mainly about ourselves and our own selfish needs. Only then, I argued, could we work together to find our way out of the mess we're in.

At the time, I was thinking about the environment, war, terrorism, inequality: all the factors we've come to equate with the state of the world. It hadn't occurred to me that the thing which might actually start to bring us together would be a banking crisis. And yet that is what seems to have happened.

It was interesting to watch the rocky passage of the US government's banking rescue package through the House of Representatives. On the first occasion, they threw it out because they wanted to punish the bankers. But the second time, the bill passed because the truth had finally dawned: people couldn't punish the bankers without also punishing themselves. If the banks went down, then so would the whole economy. We were all in this together. Doh!

And perhaps a lot of people also realized that it wasn't just the banks that had caused this mass. They couldn't have done it without the compliance of those of us who took them up on the reckless offers they made. The public wanted to blame the bankers, but the truth was that once again, we were all in this together.

Perhaps the most unusual and abiding image of the crisis has been the sight of Republicans and Democrats sitting down together to try to work things out. It seems that the more serious things get, the more inclined we are to find common ground.

Over here in the UK, where - as in so may other countries - a similar financial drama has played out, there have also been signs of a coming together of opposing political parties, with the opposition pledging support for the government's efforts to stop things falling apart entirely.

Europe-wide, there have also been efforts at unity, though this has been less successful, with governments pledging to work together on Sunday, then going their own separate ways the following day. The resulting uncertainty has had a disastrous effect on the markets, another reminder that we all have to work together on this if we're going to make it through.

In the previous post, I also mentioned 2012, the year when many of us new-agey type people believe that the world will change, when the global shift in consciousness I've mentioned will come into being: when we will all come to think of ourselves as a part of the whole, rather than as individuals battling for survival. Can this really come about? Some people are saying that we're fooling ourselves to think it can happen in only four years time, while others are claiming that it's already begun.

Well, I don't know the truth of it, to be honest, but it seems to me that the financial crisis is providing an example of how it might actually come about. What if the financial systems do fall apart? What then?

On a personal level, it seems that spiritual transformation often occurs when things get so bad that you 'can't stand it any more'. Such transformation comes about through crisis. So could something similar happen on a global level? The more serious things get, the more we pull together... But what would have to happen to really make a difference? Just how bad would it have to get?

I used to joke that the only thing which could unite the human race would be an invasion of extra-terrestrials. But perhaps our salvation when it comes could be something just as unexpected, yet rather more mundane...

 

These may also be of interest:

Earth Doomed! (see page 53)

Philip Pullman - A Process of Evolution

Follow My Leader?

Between One Moment And The Next...

Last time, I was talking about Phil Bolsta's book, Sixty Seconds, in which various people describe brief moments of spiritual awakening, and I asked if any of you have had similar experiences. Thanks to those of you who responded! Now perhaps it's time for me to share an experience of my own...

There have been several occasions when such a thing has happened to me, and I consider myself very lucky to have been granted such revelations. I think it's happened several times because, set in my ways as I am, I've needed a great deal of prodding to grab my attention. The experiences I've had were pretty seismic shifts in consciousness, our everyday world falling away to reveal an altogether deeper truth beneath, but even so my consciousness duly shifted right back again afterwards, a bit like a snail unscathed by a nuclear bomb.

Not entirely 'unscathed' though. I think it was Sue Ann Edwards who described the process of awakening as a bit like a large cargo ship changing direction. It happens only slowly and gradually. Each revelation has made a contribution to this process, but my particular ship has a very large turning circle...

The most profound of the revelations occurred when I was twenty-one. A group of us were on a camping holiday and were staying at a place called the 'lakeside camp site'. This was in Lincoln, UK, which is not noted for its lakes, but I reasoned that the place wouldn't have a name like that if there wasn't a lake somewhere nearby. I fancied a bit of peace and quiet and a short break from my friends, so I went to look for it.

 

I came upon the stretch of water almost at once. It wasn't very far from where we were camping, but the place was extremely quiet, cut off from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the site. I remember spending a pleasant few minutes gazing out across the lake. It was a peaceful location; there were water birds and tall reeds by the shore. It was all very pleasant. But I don't suppose I would remember any of this now except that, as I turned to go and rejoin my friends, something extraordinary happened.

Suddenly, without any warning, my whole perspective was turned on its head. I perceived a unity, a connectedness, in everything: a connectedness which included me, except that I'm not even sure I existed any more, except as a part of the whole. I remember seeing some birds flying overhead and one of them calling out with a hoarse cry. It seemed that those birds and everything else I could see - the lake, the sky, the trees, the reeds - were a part of me: a part of my own vast, limitless being.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come upon me, the revelation disappeared. I was left back in my old perspective, standing alone on the shore of the lake. Yet as I slowly turned and went back to my friends, I was certain that what I had perceived in those few moments was closer to the real truth of things than the ordinary world with which I was so familiar.

So what did I learn from this experience? How did it change me?

To be perfectly honest, I lived the following day in the same sort of way as I had done the day before. In the short term, nothing very much changed. Yet those moments have stayed with me always, and if not for them - and other, similar incidents - I doubt that I would be writing this blog. They have allowed me to understand - or, at any rate, an important part of me to understand - that this unity, this 'oneness' I write about here at The Secret Of Life is real, and not just a theory.

But something about that experience at the campsite has always puzzled me. Why did the revelation come upon me as I turned to go? Why did it not happen earlier, as I was standing there, gazing out across the lake? Surely that is the time when I was at peace, when such a revelation might have been more likely to occur?

I have only recently come to understand what might be the answer to this riddle.

Our minds have a lot of work to do to keep us functioning in this world. This is because the world we see around us doesn't really exist. Nothing we see is solid, not even ourselves. All that exists, science now tells us, is a field of quantum particles, tiny entities smaller than an atom - except that these 'particles' aren't really particles at all. They are waves of probability, which only resolve themselves into particles when they are observed.

Our minds have to interpret this quantum soup which is reality in such a way as to allow us to function, identifying chairs for us to sit on, floors for us to walk on, and even bodies for us to inhabit, every moment of every day, every day of our lives.

But the work doesn't stop here, for our minds have evolved to do more than this. As well as identifying these objects, they have chosen to assign each one an additional significance: a significance which frequently goes way beyond what is really required for us to function. So a piece of paper is not only identified as a piece of paper. It is also attached a significance according to what is written on it. It may remind us of something we have to do a week on Tuesday, for instance - or it may be a goodbye note from a lover. People are also assigned this additional significance. This is my boss. This is my wife. This is the person who looked at me rather strangely as I walked across the street. Frequently, an object is attached a significance which has nothing to do with itself, but because it reminds us of something else which is of significance. So this room is like the one in which my mother scolded me as a child. This rose is like the one which was given to me by that boy who ran off with my best friend the following week. And so it goes on...

Our minds are carrying round this vast weight of information, some of it useful, some of it decidedly unhelpful, all to interpret a physical reality which is really little more than empty space. No wonder we tend to get so tired. No wonder there feels to be such a burden upon our shoulders. We have to work very hard to keep up this illusion...

Which is why it is impossible to anticipate a spiritual experience. If we're expecting it to happen, it doesn't happen. A spiritual experience is a glimpse beneath the woven layer of meaning we call the world. It is a glimpse into the reality which underlies this artificial tapestry. It reveals an aspect of What Really Is: the quantum field itself.

So of course we cannot have such a glimpse when the mind is engaged, when we anticipate, when we expect... At such times, our minds are busy fabricating their own interpretation of reality, poised to assign meanings from a library previously encountered experiences. This is intended for our own convenience, but it can only obscure what is really there.

Only when the mind is quiet, can the truth be revealed. When we look with innocence, like a child, before the layers of meaning have been constructed. Or when we are caught off guard, in mid-breath, our thoughts caught between the last task and the one which lies ahead.

Which is why that experience came upon me when it did, I think. I didn't see the quantum field, but I saw something much closer to that than the world with which we're familiar. Perhaps it was as close to the quantum field as I could get and still have some chance of a glimmer of comprehension. And so it could only come to me when my mind had dropped its own understanding of the lake, and was about to interpret the next object of interest. It could only come as I turned to go. Between one moment and the next.

 

This may also be of interest:

A Sun-Filled Room