Sunday, December 14, 2008

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Human Purpose

As a human being, one's PURPOSE is to ENSURE the survival of the HUMAN RACE.

This is the truth that will unite humanity. My purpose is to bring humanity together as one. I know the truth. What I need to do is spread it.

God's plan is simply to test us. To see if we can survive in a harsh environment. To see if we can come together as one, in his name, and make a positive mark on the UNIVERSE as a whole. To create a utopia on earth, to reach for the heavens. To truly know the earth, and to explore space. To answer the small questions, and then to seek the big questions. Some day there may be a deeper question we are forced to answer: after our survival truly is trivial, as it can and should be. For now, it isn't, and it is our purpose to make it so. Because we can have eternal peace. We can have life be easy for everybody. We can spend our time looking at the stars and wondering how we can reach them.

But these days are in the future, after we know how to provide everything that an entire species of people needs, and how to keep an entire species of people happy.

A disclaimer. I AM NOT RELIGIOUS. I have never written the word God before EXCEPT to question his existence. But I came in contact. I felt the truth so powerfully, so fully, that there was no other explanation. I do not expect you to believe in God. I do not want you to until you feel the truth for yourself. Because to believe something you do not feel to be true is the greatest sin of all: the sin of allowing somebody else to think for you. Your mind is the greatest tool you have. Do NOT let it go to waste. Do not believe a word that is said to you unless you know it is true. If you are not happy, and want happiness, you must start from scratch. There is a lot to learn. And there are those who want to teach you. Be open minded, but do not trust blindly.

What WE as human beings need to do is reach an equilibrium with our environment. This includes other people. Every human being, no matter where they are from or what they believe, starts equal. The culture that raises them pulls them away from each other, until they believe that they are separate from every other person, when they are not. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Treat every man the same. Every man has a blank slate in your eyes. No preconceptions, no judgments.

If he is hateful, pity him. Hate is a very very lonely place to come from. It means that he has lost touch with his oneness, with his connectedness. He thinks he is a seperate entity in a harsh universe. He does not know the truth. He deserves your love as much as somebody who does know the truth. Because when we all know the truth, the human's of the world will be united in our common purpose. Do not meet hatred with hatred. You know the truth. You have no excuse. Live life in alignment with your truth, with your purpose, with love. Do not sway from your path when you meet somebody who blocks it. You are smarter than that. When you know where you need to go, the how will present itself to you. Know that violence does not serve your purpose, and that any act of violence moves you away from where you know you must go.

For the foreseeable future, simply improving the world one day at a time and convincing others to do the same is all you can be expected to do. If you do this, you are living in alignment with your purpose as a human being. Because violence, hatred, envy, war, these things have no place in humanity's future. They provide no answer, they simply bring us farther from our goal. Violent human beings are not happy. They know they are not happy. And they are always seeking happiness. They think that violence will bring them closer, that what they take through violence will make them happy. What they do not know is that NOTHING can make you happy when you are coming from a place of lack. And anything can make you happy when you are coming from a place of abundance. But abundance is not a physical concept. Abundance is knowing your own value. Abundance is knowing your purpose and living in aligment with it. Abundance is allowing love to flow from your being, spreading positivity and joy to everyone you come in contact with. Evil can not survive in the face of love.

Survival is the goal, and love is how to get there. Love is not just sex, is not just attachment to another human being. Living your life with love is KNOWING that your intentions are pure. That you want the absolute best for everybody in the world, for everybody you ever come in contact with. That you do not judge others, that your love is unconditional. Because love is the morality of LIFE.

The Superficial Society

The way I see it, hidden in society is how people are truly supposed to live. There are people living in alignment with their true nature, with their natural purpose. But the media doesn't show you this. The advertising industry doesn't show you this. You have to look beneath the superficial. Because the goal of media and advertising is to sell you shit you don't need. What you DO NEED is to know who you are, why you're here, what your purpose is, and where you want your life to go. Deep down you know this is true. And that new car or that nice appartment feel great when you know who you are, and feel like shit when you don't know who you are and you realize that the things you buy don't tell you who you are.

When society tells you that what you have should make you feel high value, and it doesn't, it hurts. When you look good but don't feel good, have nice things but don't feel good, it hurts. Self esteem comes from knowing who you are, what you are capable of, and that you deserve to be happy. So you allow yourself to be happy. Because all low self esteem really is is a mental cage that keeps you from enjoying the present moment as it is. Low self esteem keeps you from allowing yourself to just BE. And when you internalize that self esteem only depends on the person that you are, not the things that you have, you are free from the commercial bullshit that society fires at you.

Society has no reason to tell you that those cool celebrities you see every day in the media are cool because of who they are, not because of what they do or what they wear or what they own or how much money they make or what they look like. And most of them aren't even that cool. Think of a Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan. Not that I have anything against them, I feel for their situation. Because they allowed society to dictate who they are, but the self is always shining through. They thought that because society TOLD them they should feel good, that they would. And they did, for a while. But it just doesn't stick. Because if you don't feel good about yourself, if you don't FEEL your own value, then no amount of external gratification will ever lead to self esteem. And what happened when the gratification ended? When society turned their back? When they went from being the next big thing to the next joke.

Remember how cool Brittney used to be? How popular, how everybody loved her. Now look at her. Cover story of one of those gossip magazines is "Brittney hates her life." No shit she hates her life. The media built her up, and the media tore her to shreds. Did she ever feel her own value? Did she ever say "Fuck it, I know who I am and what I'm capable of?" Survey says no. What she felt was the intense pressure of performing not for herself but for a nation of onlookers that didn't really give two shits about her, but just wanted to be entertained. But watch the news (actually don't, just allow me to use it as an example) and all you see are celebrities, and the underlying message is these are the people you should be like, the people you should idolize, THIS IS HIGH VALUE, and then they slip up and get torn to shreds and you're left to wonder...so who should I be looking up to? So I am supposed to be famous, with my value being determined by how much attention and admiration I get from other people, all the while fearing that the very thing that gives me value could turn on me at any instant and leave me with nothing?

And that is where having your own standard of value comes into play. Because deep down everybody has this image of who they want to be. And too often this image is obscured, and becomes: this is what I want to look like, this is what I want to have, this is how rich I want to be, this is what I want to show off to the world to prove my worth. When the real image should be: this is who I want to be, this is how I want to act, the expression on my face, the way I interact with people, what I give the world, what I expect in return. That respect is earned not by how much you have and what you can show off, but IN HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE. That unless you know your own value and live in alignment with it, you cannot truly feel good about yourself. Because even if you're rich and have all this cool stuff, you feel the need to IMPRESS people with it. The mark of true value is the knowledge that no matter what the outside world thinks of you, you know who you are.

Personally, I don't know if I'll end up rich, but here is the kicker: I know that I am capable of making a ton of money. I just don't know if I value money enough to put in the time. Right now I don't. Right now I am more than happy making enough to get by and pouring my passion into what I truly care about. For a little while I toyed with the idea of having no income and producing enough to survive with only my brain and my hands. I know I am as capable of surviving like that as I am at running a fortune 500 company. So since I know what I am capable, the real question becomes: what do I want? Where do I want my life to go. Rich and powerful or subsistence farmer. Naturally, it will be somewhere in between. I don't like the idea of depending on others for my own survival, but I have too much to offer society not to at least try to spread what I know to the people who need to hear it.

The future is wide open. The world is my playground. Take life seriously, but not too seriously. It's all just a game, but it's YOUR game, so play to win.

You only live once, so take the time to question things, to look at the depth. Most people seem to go their entire lives without asking "What is my purpose?" I know mine. I just need to live in alignment with it. Because the difference between knowing your purpose and living it is HOW YOU ACT. What you choose to do. How you spend your time. Knowing what you value is one thing. Living what you value is something different.

Another great quote

"The thirst for adventure comes from within ourselves. It is our inner desire to expand our knowledge through firsthand experience, to test the limits of our own strength and endurance, and in doing so, discover our true self."

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent"

The truth of this statement just hit me hard. Because feeling inferior is a very deep process. There is a lot to it, and every step of the way you are accepting a "truth" you need not accept. To feel inferior to somebody you must: know their standard of value. Accept that it is true. Accept that their standard of value is also your own. Accept that based on your accepted standard of value, the other person is "better" than you are, and you in turn are "worse" than the other person. Accept that because of this, you should feel bad about yourself. Here is the most important step: you accept that because of this, you WILL feel bad about yourself, and you do.

This is the importance of having your own standards. When you have your own standards and live in alignment with them, you are the only person who has the power to judge you. You don't even have to qualify yourself. You know the truth. An insult is only as good as the reaction it gets. And if you have your own standard for yourself, how could you possibly give a fuck what anybody else thinks of you? Because if you think about it, any congruence test is just trying to see whether you care about what somebody else thinks more than you care about what YOU think. Whether you feel that you deserve to be judged by the outside world for the actions you take. And the only thing that matters is that in your own mind you refuse to be judged by anybody except yourself.

THAT is being un-reactive. It's simply having your own standards, and only allowing your own standards to measure your value. You don't have an ego because your standards are your own. You are not measuring yourself against society, or against other people, and you do not care what other people think of you. You can think that you are amazing, but that does not make you better or worse than anybody. You live your life. They live theirs. That's it. It's not what does the world want me to be, or what do my parents want me to be, it's WHAT DO I WANT ME TO BE. Good. Be that person.

Even if you realize that you are in the wrong, you realize it through your own eyes and your own standards: you did not allow somebody else's standards to influence how you felt about yourself. You will be judged by the people around you. Do not fear it. Do not let the fact that you are judged cause you to judge yourself. Sometimes somebody will say "you are being unrealistic." And you will know that they are right. No state drop, no feeling bad. You just know that you are wrong. But being wrong should not have any stigma attached to it. Admitting you are wrong is high value behavior: most people can't do it. Too much ego. But you don't feel bad about being wrong: if you never knew you were wrong you would never know you were on the wrong path.

Having somebody with similar standards to your own point out a flaw is how you grow. This is why a bootcamp is so powerful. Because you are looking at a person you admire and respect and all they are saying is "you respect the standards I have for myself and my students. Trust that when I tell you something, it is because I want you to grow." When you have high standards for yourself, you have high standards for the information that you take in as well. You know what you need to grow, you know what will hold you back. Taking advice is not low value unless you believe that you are low value for taking advice.

I have a lot to learn in life. I am not perfect. But I know my purpose, and I am on my path. I can see the person I want to be, and one day at a time I am working towards getting there. I accept something as true when I FEEL its truth. When it reverberates. Truth has no paradox. I know that living by your own standards is the only way to live. Nobody can impose standards upon you. You can adopt standards from others, but you are only living by your own standards, through your own intentions, when you fully see what these standards mean.

You have your own criterion for what it means to be successful. The level of value that you perceive for yourself is based on your own standards of success. Everybody has this idea in their head. Whether they are living up to what society tells them to live up to, or whether they have done the work to find out what it is they themselves value is a different matter. As Manwhore says, most people judge themselves based on where they think society would place them. This is beta. But don't think I'm judging you: you are judging yourself. If you had your own standards, if you knew your own value intuitively without thinking, nothing I say could possibly phase you. I would simply be reinforcing what you already knew.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Great Quote

It is not the goal but the way there that matters, and the harder the way the more worthwhile the journey.

Short and sweet

Use that which helps. Ignore that which hinders. Move your life forward.

Tolle, ego, presence, and self esteem.

The way I see it, self esteem is not simply "lack of ego." There is much more to it than that. I find that Tolle is extremely useful for getting rid of bad emotions and disidentifying with negative thought processes. He teaches you to stop striving, stop thinking that getting more will help you to be more. But I tried to disidentify with good feelings, positive experiences, and realized after a while that there was NO POINT to doing this. Sure, your successes do not define you, but if thinking about them makes you feel good then fucking do it. The nature of a chronological existence is that you learn from the past and project into the future, and it is hard to reconcile these facts with absolute presence at all times. Self esteem is a mental process, and takes time, but when you cultivate it your level of presence will increase because you will not have to worry about negativity pulling you away from the present moment. Presence is allowing yourself to be.

Living in a society with other people, with REAL things you have to deal with, means that you can't always just immerse yourself in the moment and expect life to take care of itself. You gotta handle your shit too. And to put it bluntly, it's a lot easier to feel good when you have tangible things to feel good about. Self trust makes you feel good. Confidence makes you feel good. These things don't just come from being present, and furthermore they make it easier to allow yourself to be present, because when you handle your shit and trust that anything that comes your way, you can handle it, then you have nothing to worry about, and you can relax and enter the moment. In my honest opinion, self esteem leads to presence and NOT the other way around.

Self esteem CAN BE a default state, but it isn't automatic. If you have reasons why you don't think you are deserving of self esteem, then you can't ignore those reasons and then assume that self esteem will just sort of appear. Sorry, it doesn't work like that. Presence will not allow you to escape from the work you know you have to do on yourself, and the growth you know you have to make. Your experiences shape you, you can't deny it and you can't avoid it. I know Tolle has some great intentions, and his lessons should be heard, but he also has the power to create some really fucked up people (absolutely nothing personal to the original poster, just in general).

The difference between self esteem and ego in my mind is that self esteem is having reasons why you are awesome, why you deserve what you want and will get what you want because you are willing and able to put in the work. Ego is having reasons why you are better than the people around you and deserve more than them. Put in the work to be better than you were before, not to be better than the other guy.

Quotes to live by

This is the quote posted on my wall that I look at everyday to make sure I am on the right path:

"Your personal fulfillment is your own to decide. Do not look for it elsewhere. Make your standard. Meet it. Feel what it is to achieve it, that is what your life is about."

When I first read it, when I first got it, I knew that that is how life is meant to be lived. Credit to Jonathon (Manwhore).